The only part I disagree with is CCM. Replace her too.
Arizona isn't any easier of a state but somehow Kelly has kept his head on his shoulders. Georgia isn't any easier too but both Ossoff and Warnock are infinitely better.
CCM is content with being worthless. We should replace her. The risk is real but worth it simply because we cannot afford another admin where so much of our caucus actively collaborates with the destruction. What has she (or Hassan or...) done over the past year to make playing it safe with reelecting her worth it?
Historically I lean towards giving lots of leeway, tolerating a lot of garbage from purple or red seat/state officials. So I definitely get your perspective.
For me there's a point where the garbage goes too far, and this plus the CR at the start of the year are on the other side of that point. CCM voted for both.
Also, zooming out a bit... If CCM was going to lose the general election in 2030, there is a 0.0% chance that this hypothetical loss would be a result of her voting no on the CR and this capitulation. Her votes are not being mandated by electoral needs. Almost anything she does 2025-2027 will have zero or near zero impact on her reelection. I doubt even primary voters will remember or care. She's doing this for her own reasons, not because of worries about being reelected in her state.
Also one of the biggest snapbacks in our favor last week was Latino voters, and our erosion with them was a major component of Nevada's recent shift. Even if she thought this vote would impact her reelection chances, a rational observer in her shoes should know the state will probably look a bit better than it did in 2022-2024.
How am I supposed to have faith in a party that fucking caves every fucking time? I don't. And I'm even happier to have voted for Mamdani. We need militant resistors, happy warriors, who don't cower and don't give in. Fuck anyone else!
I'm sorry, but did you see this ending any other way? What Republicans are putting in the budget is awful, but so is the government not providing services. Keeping the government shutdown for months isn't sustainable, which isn't something that troubles Republicans. It's textbook damned if you do, damned if you don't, and I can't really take issue with Democrats who voted for this.
Absolutely, but the shutdown has real world consequences. Political gain at the expense of people's wellbeing doesn't sit well with me. If that makes me a coward or bootlicker, so be it.
If the Dems blink after all of this, for a deal that all but ensures no ACA subsidies in 2026 anyway, then what was the purpose of letting the shutdown go for 40 days in the first place?
Question: a number of House Dems (and some non-elected centrists like Matt Yglesias) are unhappy about this "deal" per Bluesky, including Ritchie fucking Torres of all people. Is their support needed for the "deal" to go through?
Republicans will know this is a huge win for them. They shouldn't have trouble whipping their house caucus to vote yes without needing any democratic votes.
I'm already pissed if the Democrats don't get an end to Executive rescissions. This is their only chance to have any leverage for a year or more. Fuck conceding!
I don’t get that people seemingly didn't understand that Republicans hold a trifecta and they were NEVER EVER going to agree to extend subsidies for a bill they don't even wish existed in the first place as part of a CR. Let them fail to pass a vote and be the ones voters can blame for the premium hikes. That was always the best they were going to manage on healthcare.
For this entire century, Republicans have always gotten concessions every time they were the minority party in DC. The damage of the shutdown was hurting them more than us, for the mere reason that they were the ones in charge. The elections last week were a huge overperformance for democrats, maybe the most pro-dem electorate we've seen in modern history.
If we had managed to hold out republicans would have caved if only to appease business interests that have their flights disrupted.
You know what? Democratic voters have already shown how livid we are at Democrats not fucking fighting like there will be a dictatorship if they don't show fucking spine. I guess you're sanguine, somehow, but those of us who've been demonstrating in the streets are not. Fuck the Republicans and fuck the so-called "Democratic" collaborators!
So they caved for "provisions" which don't include what they wanted but as long as the house has to pass it too, which they will? Am i missing something?
I guess the question is just why now? Republicans are reeling and Dems gave them a life raft. If they're going to govern like they're unaccountable to half the country they shouldn't get Democratic votes to reopen a government that is violating due process to terrorize immigrants. It's really that simple.
I really have to wonder at the mentality behind those that think this is anything reasonable for us. A guarantee of a *vote* on restoring subsidies is worthless. Are they so craven that they only care to chase material for attack ads and nothing else?
We all know this vote is worthless. Even if they somehow got enough republican yes votes in the senate, and even if there were enough republican yes votes in the house -- neither of which I'd bet on -- all it takes is Johnson refusing to bring it to the floor, or for it to be vetoed. I won't say it has a literally 0% chance of working out, but it's not far off.
It even gives republicans more of what they want, with the military getting three years of funding: if there's another shutdown, republicans are happy because the military is the only part of government they truly want to exist.
It's like Shaheen, Hassan, King, and Kaine saw how unpopular democrats are and asked themselves "How can we be even less popular?"
Yeah, that problem too. It's a good summary. I don't get why the 10-15 or so senators that always show up for this garbage are so insistent on being useless. And if this goes through then Schumer has implicitly blessed it by not forcing them to stay back.
I'm glad I'm trying to leave NH. Won't have to worry about the struggle to bring myself to vote for someone as worthless as Hassan. I would if I'm still in state, but voting for her while she is so consistently pathetic would be frustrating.
I'd rather they just tell us that republicans aren't budging and they want people to start getting paid rather than some lame "vote" that they know damn well is going to be filibustered and won't even be brought up in the house. These centrist's senators really think we're a bunch of mindless bozo's
Politically, this may help those Senate candidates running against the D.C. establishment. Case in point in Michigan, both Mallory McMorrow and Abdul El-Sayed both already came out against this. Crickets from Haley Stevens so far. (I'm going off their Bluesky accounts, but nothing so far on Stevens' X page either).
Mills makes sense to me. She's not a progressive champion and while she's shown a preference for institutionalism via her support for the filibuster, she isn't a centrist or moderate either.
I think the stronger comparison is how house democrats are fucking pissed, and not just the progressives but basically all of them. This is twice now they stuck their necks out and senate centrists responded by handing a sword to republicans.
I'm not sure this will make a big difference this year. Michigan is the most likely place for it to impact a primary. I think Craig is a lot smarter than Stevens and will avoid being dumb on this, even though I prefer Flanagan.
I'm curious about other cycles. Kaine and Hassan are both up in 2028. I don't see anyone really wanting to challenge Hassan. But Goodlander has impressed me (much to my surprise) and is clearly ambitious as she considering jumping into the primary for next year. What's the Virginia field look like? Other than Scott our representatives there are all young enough to do it, but they're also all on their first or second terms in the house. Schumer will probably be challenged, hopefully by AOC.
Kaine may not run for reelection in 2030. If he does, he may get a primary challenge due to the fact that he’ll be 72 in 2030. Governor-elect Abigail Spanberger may want to run for Kaine’s Senate seat, and she’ll be in a good position to do so, since her term as Governor will end in January 2030.
fwiw: attended a weekly gathering of a non-partisan group in OC Calif today;approx. 250 in attendance; about 60% Dems; 30% reps; 10% indie; 90% of those in attendance said the shutdown must end and virtually all of them said the 2 main reasons are the air travel mess which will get much worse very quickly and the SNAP, etc fiasco (starving children is intolerable)...health care issue came in 3rd (likely because most of participants are on medicare and not ACA.) 75% of reps in attendance blame trump more than anyone/thing else.
Sad. I don’t know Julie but we are age contemporaries from the same part of Mesa and I am personal friends from long distant high school days with many folks in her circle. She’s the classic moderate good governance Mormon Republican. She was endorsed by John Giles, Jerry Lewis, Claudia Walters, and Scott Smith as well as many current officeholders. I predict her replacement will be ousted at the next regular election.
I don't think it's a number but more a ratio that should be codified into law. I think somewhere between 20-40x the average workers salary is sufficient.
The issue is not executive salary. But the idea that these dudes have the same marginal tax rates as, say, a mid-level law firm associate? Insane.
Idea I've been kicking around in my head - I am pretty dumb regarding money, but I think this is an understandable concept that would "sell" - every factor of 10 is a marginal rate bump. So, rises at $1M, $10M, $100M, $1B, etc. Even if each bump is just another 2 or 3% (I'd prefer 5%, at least for the $1M and $10M marks), that should be significant money without being so out of whack that "temporarily embarrassed millionaires" find the rates absurd.
Agreed. I don't have a problem with massive salaries for corporate execs - a brass ring isn't a bad thing - although I don't understand why even poorly performing execs get massive packages, but that's a different conversation. The issue, as you point out, is that they wind up paying the same effective tax rate as their secretary...
While I do have opinions on that, I wouldn’t mind the over compensation so much if tax rates (and covering stock options etc at full rates) went up sufficiently with income. If a CEO is going to earn $100m but pay 70% or 80% of that in taxes isn’t as bad.
The tough thing with “salary” as a measure here is so much of CEO compensation at public companies is in the form of stock. Which, if you think about their responsibilities. Makes a certain sense. Packages awarded one year might be worth much more when the shares finally vest. Bezos for instance at Amazon was infamously limited to the same 160k salary cap everybody else at the company had - but in practice he obviously made way way more.
Honestly the issue is more how pliant boards are when approving absurd comp packages that are divorced from actual performance. Tesla being a prime example
Stock compensation makes sense because of the role, but I've long felt that the time tables for it do not. So much of the corporate world right now is hyperfocused on chasing short to medium term results, rather than setting the business up for the longest terms of success.
I'd like to see some method to incentivize the C-suite roles specifically to look at the longer term. There's going to be real world holes in any idea here, but something where the compensation part of the stock is disadvantaged (or disadvantaged after exceeding a certain dollar threshold) for a long time, maybe a decade.
This was made worse by a nominally populist change that Clinton championed. Basically having a high base salary is penalized, but "performance" pay is exempt. This led to boards approving these absurd packages exec get now.
Honestly I think neither should be penalized or exempt but that’s just me. I don’t think it’ll solve the core issue of boards being pliant and a paucity of shareholder activists
Probably about what it was in 1995, adjusted for average wage growth. Nothing in the economy was out of whack then, and corporate governance was no worse than it is now.
I blame Clinton, somewhat counterintuitively, for trying to cap CEO pay, but in a way that left a huge gaping loophole. When compensation was largely base pay then it grew more slowly. Now that's it's largely performance pay, it's much easier for execs to argue that they're "worth" whatever ridiculous amount they can get the compensation committee to green light.
Yeah even just the county maps tell the story (and certainly a more accurate one than exit poll crosstabs). You don't even have to go back to 2008, Spanberger did way worse with rural voters than Tim Kaine 2018 or Ralph Northam 2017, but she did do better than McAuliffe 2021 or Harris 2024. But the biggest movement, areas where Spanberger not only vastly outperformed McAuliffe and Harris but also exceeded Kaine '18, Northam '17, and even Biden '20 was in the suburbs, setting modern records for a VA Dem. NoVA, Stafford to Spotsylvania counties, almost 70% in Henrico and nearly 60% in Chesterfield my goodness...this while Earle-Sears was still over 70% in a ton of rural counties and even cracking 80% in the far southwestern ones.
I'd love to believe there's been a massive snapback in rural America but I'm not seeing it anywhere I look at Tuesday's results. What I am seeing instead is that we'd probably flip VA-01 even if the districts aren't redrawn, but not VA-05, where Spanberger was barely ahead of Harris in some counties. If there are to be shockers next year the evidence from this week points to red suburban seats like CO-05 being the targets.
I think the larger point is that her relative improvement in the rural areas was bigger. (Regardless of how you define rural. What's truly rural is always somewhat subjective.) Of course those baselines were much lower, meaning there were more voter that could flip. But it still belies the argument that those areas are gone forever and that we should just ignore rural voters and their concerns. Every State and district is different, but in many cases lowering the margin of loss in red areas is as important as juicing the blue ones.
Democrats mathematically had to have won around 45% of the white vote. The black vote was at 31.9% statewide. It will be closer in 2026, sure. But these results nonetheless point to solid D wins for Senate and Governor in a full turnout election nonetheless.
They shouldn't really be thought of as partisan political races; it was more a referendum on rising electricity prices than anything. The incumbents really had no argument besides trying to argue all of those price hikes were needed for a reliable grid (which is bullshit). I really wouldn't waste time trying to extrapolate for next year, although I think Ossof is the clear favorite.
Yes, These are partisan contests. And no, nothing suggests this kind of turnout pattern with a 22% rate can be extrapolated to 2026, which may well be another record setting midterm.
The mule rule. One needs to get to the county court and get back on a mule the same night. LOL
The county unit system, a kind of within state electoral college, used by Southern Democrats’ primaries, prevented a lot of possible consolidations. No small counties wanted to give up the units they had there. Until it gets ruled unconstitutional.
A lot of rural counties have no reason to be a separate entity anyway. Just wasting resources on higher administration costs per capita.
Thanks for the history. Didn't know that. When I lived in WV there was discussion about consolidating some counties, because they were set up based on a horse rule. Never happened but should have. That's a lot of tax money going to unnecessary county admin.
Question for people here: do you think Mamdani would have won if Harris was president? I feel like part of his appeal was that he was running against an unpopular democratic establishment. But I don’t think dems would be so down on their own party if Harris had won.
There was a piece in Politico where Mamdani said he didn’t even think he’d do well, and that wasn’t the point of why he ran. He ran so the DSA could expand their base in NYC, which very much appears to have happened — in addition to him winning.
He announced his candidacy before the 2024 election, so he very likely would have still run.
Given RCV and the genuine distaste people had for Cuomo, I think he might have become the nominee, but I don't know if he would have beaten Cuomo in the general as easily.
Seattle Mayor: In a race that was part of the prediction contest -- With more ballots counted, Katie Wilson has reduced Bruce Harrell’s lead to 1.9% (4,300 votes) compared to the 8-point lead Harrell held on Wednesday. More results will be released on Monday.
Hahaha not the first time DDHQ has had to eat shit over their premature, overly aggressive "calls". Outrageous post-2020 to still be doing this stuff, we know the last batches of ballots can be wildly different. They haven't learned their lesson at all after previous retractions they've had to make.
They could theoretically push the filing deadline back. Just the other day, after the deadline passed, Pritzker again expressed interest in redirecting. I don’t see it happening but the chance it does happen is at least above 0
I hope you and Morgan are right that they can. I'm not sure if it creates another legal hurdle or not to create a new filing deadline after the old one passed. As Techno00 said above another benefit would be Chuy Garcia's plans to hand his seat over with no primary would go up in smoke.
I don’t think necessarily. I think they’ll change filing deadlines if they feel the need to change the maps as an equal move to Indiana changing theirs.
I have no idea how they fumbled it so bad. I know the PSC has got to be near the bottom of statewide office prestige, but it's a morale coup for state Dems.
They had no message . . ."vote for us, the guys who raised your rates by 25% over the past 4 years" was just a doomed message. And amidst such price hikes attempted dooming about renewables tanking the grid just fell flat, especially in a state that has a lot of clean energy jobs.
Kemp still spent $4 million on it. It was both poor GOP turnout, but also persuasion, like we saw in other states. Disproportionate black turnout does not account for a margin that massive by itself.
Democrats consistently stuck to affordabilty as an issue and pushed that the incumbent R's had voted six times to raise electricity rates. Dems also ran a strong GOTV operation. And we had help. "The Georgia Conservation Voters and allied groups emerged as major players, spending more than $3 million and contacting nearly 1.8 million voters through mailers, billboards, text programs and a digital campaign built around a blunt refrain: 'They Raised Your Bill.'” https://www.ajc.com/politics/2025/11/how-georgias-psc-races-are-already-changing-the-midterm-landscape/
I think it was messaging as much as anything else. The incumbents were well funded, but that doesn't matter if you can't articulate a reason to vote for you beyond the R next to your name. And the Dems had a very clear message since utility bills in GA have been skyrocketing.
Lots of new special elections coming up in December and the early months of 2026, plus a bunch to be called in states like New York, New Hampshire, Pennsylvania, Minnesota and Connecticut. I am wondering why it is taking so long to call elections to replace 4 GOP state reps in Missouri, one of them has been vacant since January, another in May, and two more in August. Is there concern about blowback from their legislative agenda, gerrymandering, and the general electoral picture?
After this week, the race that I'm most interested in is the Tennessee 7th congressional special election on December 2nd.
It's a long shot for Democrats to flip, but it's a long shot worth pursuing.
The Democratic nominee, Aftyn Behn, is trying her damn hardest. I decided to chip in with a donation to her campaign. If anyone else is able to do so, please consider it:
You're referring to yesterday's digest? I might suggest checking your "Promotions" tab (if you use gmail or the like) or "Spam" to see if it might have been filtered somewhere.
Here's a 9D-2R drawn quickly drawn by one of the more thoughtful/less partisan RRH Elections members, that doesn't baconmander or otherwise cut up the state too outrageously, and doesn't unpack NOVA:
I’ve drawn multiple 10-1 maps of Virginia, so I know it’s doable. It’s possible to draw a map where even Glenn Youngkin only won one district. All you have to do is turn VA-09 into as much of a Republican vote sink as possible.
I want to emphasize what an insanely good night Tuesday was for Onondaga County NY Democrats.
Sharon Owens won 74% of the vote in the open Syracuse mayoral race, which is just ridiculous. In 2013 Steph Minor as an incumbent only won reelection with 64% with no Republican opposition.
And in the county legislature, Democrats flipped five light blue suburban seats that we always contest and never win. And the margins were 10+ in all but the hardest district where Julie Abbott, who the NRCC tried to recruit to run against Mannion for NY-22, lost by four points. That is not normal around here in the land of downballot Republican strength. Democrats haven't had a majority in the county legislature since the 1970s, which is before I was born and before the current county government with an executive was set up in the 80s. We've been voting Democrat for president since 1992.
The Republican County Executive Ryan McMahon (who was not on the ballot) was running an ad running up to the election that felt like a reelection ad (but again, he's not on the ballot) where he urged us to vote for the "people that support him" or some such vague statement, but what he really meant was "vote Republican", but he didn't actually say Republican. When I saw it before the election I just figured he had too much money to throw around, now I think he was actually panicking. His whole electoral career, from city council to county legislature to county executive, is built on winning over downballot ticket splitters.
Flake served in the Biden administration. I could maybe see him switching back if the traditionalists retook control, but not as long as MAGA types are running the party. There isn't much left of the traditionalist wing at this point anyway. Some of them now make up the right end of the Democratic coalition, some are retired or on their way out, and some have gone MAGA.
That's fine - they're Republicans. I appreciate it when they step in and point out the danger Trump and his minions pose to the country. I don't expect them to actually be Democrats and support all of our positions.
Jeff Flake became persona non grata in the Republican Party because of his outspoken criticism of Trump. That’s why he retired from the Senate in 2018. Unless his standing in the GOP has improved since then, his criticism of Trump will not have any sway with the Republican base.
New: James Talarico follows several adult film performers, escorts and OnlyFans models on Instagram, according to an Axios review.
His spokesperson JT Ennis said in a statement that "the social media team — including James — follows back and engages with supporters who have large followings and does not investigate their backgrounds. James has never subscribed to Only Fans or an escort service.”
A big part of Talarico's claim to being a different type of Democrat is his emphasizing his Christian values. He should not win the primary. If he does, of course all Democrats should support him!
Just putting my opinion that I could not give a shit about this “controversy” and I think a lot of Trump leaning voters we need to get back may actually find this appealing: he sounds like a normal heterosexual guy. You can be Christian and still think hot women are hot.
Correct. Not because I have a problem with what he did - I couldn't care less. But because of the political effects. Allred is fine and can win if people don't want to vote Republican.
Do you actually think this is immoral or are you just worried that others will?
There's nothing in Christianity that particularly prohibits this. Even some of the passages like the one about "adultery of the heart" are talking about your internal response, not a behavior.
I don’t disagree about Talarico, but Susanna Gibson really deserved to lose that election, especially since she was just arrested for domestic battery a month ago (she says she’s innocent, but still, I’m glad we now have Democrat May Nivar in that seat instead of her).
Talarico’s spokesperson: "While James was unaware of how these women make money, he does not judge them for it and will not play into an effort to smear them for clickbait articles. That's exactly what his Christian faith calls him to do."
Alex Thompson
@AlexThomp
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2h
Here are some of the accounts:
Alex Thompson
@AlexThomp
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1h
The campaign said Talarico has messaged with only one of the accounts and shared a screenshot of the exchange, which was a simple "thank you" for an Instagram story in 2024 appearing to promote his political work.
Yeah good points from you and others. Axios is beginning to stoop to Politico levels of sad — I’ve seen articles from them with the same “unnamed Democratic staffer” bullshit Politico likes to pull too.
I'm really not sure what type of voter bases their decision based on if a candidate followed a porn star or not, especially when the most likely opponent cheated on his wife.
most people that you reference are not the problem...rural texans who likely are raging hypocrites will still take Talarico to the wood shed over this...they are the problem
I agree with Michael that the Christian aspect combined with this may pose a problem — but I also think this is overblown and I’ll add that Christianity in general has become far too puritanical about sex to begin with (and I am a Christian!)
That history goes back to at least the 16th century. This really cool show about sex in the Middle Ages gives the context: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=R8JPN9tWVPQ&t=579s Things changed as a result of the Reformation and the Counter-Reformation in response to it.
May I recommend a great British TV-series? "Coupling" is a rawer version of "Friends" and, imho, far more interesting and less insipid. A couple of modest examples:
Honestly this just makes him more relatable to male voters.
What makes this different from Christian Coalition types doing the same thing is that Talacio's brand of progressive Christianity doesn't demonize sex or promote policies that do so. Huge nothingburger.
As a Texas voter, I'll say this 1) speaking for myself, it doesn't faze me nor is it disqualifying for me. I haven't spoken with any activists about this, but I know a good number who are supporting Talarico over Allred because they felt Allred's campaign last time wasn't very active or present. 2) I donated to Talarico when he announced, and after finding out the author of this Axios piece is the same guy that co-authored that Biden book with Jake Tapper, I just donated again to Talarico's campaign. 3) I'm still voting for Talarico in the primary and hopefully in the general.
And so followers follow James Talarico and he follows them back.
Only in 2025, just like back in the 2010's, would there be such a "breaking news" story about following and unfollowing behavior. Like this is REALLY going to mean anything.
More evidence social media is distracting Axios and other media outlets who have nothing better to do than waste their time on nonsensical stories.
if this is just a "follow back", without any further engagement from Talarico, like private messages, there is absolutely no story there, and it wont even register with younger people, who know exactly how that works.
Now if there is evidence he is privately engaging with these individuals/getting services, then that's something entirely different.
The only part I disagree with is CCM. Replace her too.
Arizona isn't any easier of a state but somehow Kelly has kept his head on his shoulders. Georgia isn't any easier too but both Ossoff and Warnock are infinitely better.
CCM is content with being worthless. We should replace her. The risk is real but worth it simply because we cannot afford another admin where so much of our caucus actively collaborates with the destruction. What has she (or Hassan or...) done over the past year to make playing it safe with reelecting her worth it?
Historically I lean towards giving lots of leeway, tolerating a lot of garbage from purple or red seat/state officials. So I definitely get your perspective.
For me there's a point where the garbage goes too far, and this plus the CR at the start of the year are on the other side of that point. CCM voted for both.
Also, zooming out a bit... If CCM was going to lose the general election in 2030, there is a 0.0% chance that this hypothetical loss would be a result of her voting no on the CR and this capitulation. Her votes are not being mandated by electoral needs. Almost anything she does 2025-2027 will have zero or near zero impact on her reelection. I doubt even primary voters will remember or care. She's doing this for her own reasons, not because of worries about being reelected in her state.
Also one of the biggest snapbacks in our favor last week was Latino voters, and our erosion with them was a major component of Nevada's recent shift. Even if she thought this vote would impact her reelection chances, a rational observer in her shoes should know the state will probably look a bit better than it did in 2022-2024.
A Republican bill that doesn't pass is one thing; a fucking surrender is another!
Remember ehen Sinema told us only a centrist could win in AZ or that if she ran as an indy Gallego couldn't win?
The mushy moderates and corporate centrists also donlong term damage in terms of enthusiasm and messaging.
But that is for orimaries down the road. Don't lose faith in the entire party when it is only a few. Nor lose sight of the true enemy here.
How am I supposed to have faith in a party that fucking caves every fucking time? I don't. And I'm even happier to have voted for Mamdani. We need militant resistors, happy warriors, who don't cower and don't give in. Fuck anyone else!
I'm sorry, but did you see this ending any other way? What Republicans are putting in the budget is awful, but so is the government not providing services. Keeping the government shutdown for months isn't sustainable, which isn't something that troubles Republicans. It's textbook damned if you do, damned if you don't, and I can't really take issue with Democrats who voted for this.
It was making the Republicans very unpopular, and they were responsible for the lack of government service.
Absolutely, but the shutdown has real world consequences. Political gain at the expense of people's wellbeing doesn't sit well with me. If that makes me a coward or bootlicker, so be it.
To quote from above:
If the Dems blink after all of this, for a deal that all but ensures no ACA subsidies in 2026 anyway, then what was the purpose of letting the shutdown go for 40 days in the first place?
100%. Fuck 'em all!
That was on Friday.
Whoops, didn’t check the date. Will delete
Not including some sort of extension of the ACA credits means it’s not a “deal.”
Question: a number of House Dems (and some non-elected centrists like Matt Yglesias) are unhappy about this "deal" per Bluesky, including Ritchie fucking Torres of all people. Is their support needed for the "deal" to go through?
Not in the senate.
I meant, would the government fully reopen if only the Senate said yes?
Yes, I believe so.
No, of course both Houses have to pass legislation.
Republicans will know this is a huge win for them. They shouldn't have trouble whipping their house caucus to vote yes without needing any democratic votes.
My attitude toward the senators who support this: What a fuckin "deal," assholes!
The shutdown already broke the duration record. Let Rs own insurance hikes.
I'm already pissed if the Democrats don't get an end to Executive rescissions. This is their only chance to have any leverage for a year or more. Fuck conceding!
In my mind, that could only be achieved with a gentleman's agreement, which would be worthless.
I don’t get that people seemingly didn't understand that Republicans hold a trifecta and they were NEVER EVER going to agree to extend subsidies for a bill they don't even wish existed in the first place as part of a CR. Let them fail to pass a vote and be the ones voters can blame for the premium hikes. That was always the best they were going to manage on healthcare.
For this entire century, Republicans have always gotten concessions every time they were the minority party in DC. The damage of the shutdown was hurting them more than us, for the mere reason that they were the ones in charge. The elections last week were a huge overperformance for democrats, maybe the most pro-dem electorate we've seen in modern history.
If we had managed to hold out republicans would have caved if only to appease business interests that have their flights disrupted.
Who cares? We were the ones in the morally right position and it was hurting Republicans politically.
You know what? Democratic voters have already shown how livid we are at Democrats not fucking fighting like there will be a dictatorship if they don't show fucking spine. I guess you're sanguine, somehow, but those of us who've been demonstrating in the streets are not. Fuck the Republicans and fuck the so-called "Democratic" collaborators!
So they caved for "provisions" which don't include what they wanted but as long as the house has to pass it too, which they will? Am i missing something?
Caved? They did what you wanted them to do several months back. Trying a drastic tactic doesn't guarantee full success.
I guess don't try it at all if you're going to cave would be the lesson here.
I guess the question is just why now? Republicans are reeling and Dems gave them a life raft. If they're going to govern like they're unaccountable to half the country they shouldn't get Democratic votes to reopen a government that is violating due process to terrorize immigrants. It's really that simple.
I really have to wonder at the mentality behind those that think this is anything reasonable for us. A guarantee of a *vote* on restoring subsidies is worthless. Are they so craven that they only care to chase material for attack ads and nothing else?
We all know this vote is worthless. Even if they somehow got enough republican yes votes in the senate, and even if there were enough republican yes votes in the house -- neither of which I'd bet on -- all it takes is Johnson refusing to bring it to the floor, or for it to be vetoed. I won't say it has a literally 0% chance of working out, but it's not far off.
It even gives republicans more of what they want, with the military getting three years of funding: if there's another shutdown, republicans are happy because the military is the only part of government they truly want to exist.
It's like Shaheen, Hassan, King, and Kaine saw how unpopular democrats are and asked themselves "How can we be even less popular?"
This sums it up pretty well.
https://bsky.app/profile/noethematt.bsky.social/post/3m5afur4sak2j
Yeah, that problem too. It's a good summary. I don't get why the 10-15 or so senators that always show up for this garbage are so insistent on being useless. And if this goes through then Schumer has implicitly blessed it by not forcing them to stay back.
I'm glad I'm trying to leave NH. Won't have to worry about the struggle to bring myself to vote for someone as worthless as Hassan. I would if I'm still in state, but voting for her while she is so consistently pathetic would be frustrating.
I'd rather they just tell us that republicans aren't budging and they want people to start getting paid rather than some lame "vote" that they know damn well is going to be filibustered and won't even be brought up in the house. These centrist's senators really think we're a bunch of mindless bozo's
Politically, this may help those Senate candidates running against the D.C. establishment. Case in point in Michigan, both Mallory McMorrow and Abdul El-Sayed both already came out against this. Crickets from Haley Stevens so far. (I'm going off their Bluesky accounts, but nothing so far on Stevens' X page either).
https://bsky.app/profile/mallorymcmorrow.bsky.social/post/3m5a3whp6bc2f
https://bsky.app/profile/abdulelsayed.bsky.social/post/3m5a3p6r2zc24
In Maine, both Mills and Platner come out against this.
https://bsky.app/profile/grahamformaine.bsky.social/post/3m5a6eza7os2z
https://bsky.app/profile/janetmillsforme.bsky.social/post/3m5adjtpzps2k
Both Allred and Talarico come out against it.
https://bsky.app/profile/jamestalarico.bsky.social/post/3m5afm3jwc22w
https://x.com/ColinAllredTX/status/1987664120947056696 (Allred's statement on his X account)
In Minnesota, Flanagan comes out against, nothing so far from Craig
https://bsky.app/profile/peggyflanagan.bsky.social/post/3m5abphikgk2f
In Illinois, Krishnamoorthy, Kelly, and Stratton all come out against it.
https://bsky.app/profile/rajaforil.bsky.social/post/3m5ahnev3hc2i
https://bsky.app/profile/robinlynnekelly.bsky.social
https://x.com/JulianaStratton/status/1987641064702775805 (Stratton on her X account)
Mills makes sense to me. She's not a progressive champion and while she's shown a preference for institutionalism via her support for the filibuster, she isn't a centrist or moderate either.
I think the stronger comparison is how house democrats are fucking pissed, and not just the progressives but basically all of them. This is twice now they stuck their necks out and senate centrists responded by handing a sword to republicans.
I'm not sure this will make a big difference this year. Michigan is the most likely place for it to impact a primary. I think Craig is a lot smarter than Stevens and will avoid being dumb on this, even though I prefer Flanagan.
I'm curious about other cycles. Kaine and Hassan are both up in 2028. I don't see anyone really wanting to challenge Hassan. But Goodlander has impressed me (much to my surprise) and is clearly ambitious as she considering jumping into the primary for next year. What's the Virginia field look like? Other than Scott our representatives there are all young enough to do it, but they're also all on their first or second terms in the house. Schumer will probably be challenged, hopefully by AOC.
Kaine is up in 2030, not 2028. I imagine the best challenger is Rep. McClellan
Kaine may not run for reelection in 2030. If he does, he may get a primary challenge due to the fact that he’ll be 72 in 2030. Governor-elect Abigail Spanberger may want to run for Kaine’s Senate seat, and she’ll be in a good position to do so, since her term as Governor will end in January 2030.
fwiw: attended a weekly gathering of a non-partisan group in OC Calif today;approx. 250 in attendance; about 60% Dems; 30% reps; 10% indie; 90% of those in attendance said the shutdown must end and virtually all of them said the 2 main reasons are the air travel mess which will get much worse very quickly and the SNAP, etc fiasco (starving children is intolerable)...health care issue came in 3rd (likely because most of participants are on medicare and not ACA.) 75% of reps in attendance blame trump more than anyone/thing else.
Republicans control the government, it was on them to figure it out. Dems caved and immigrant communities will continue to be brutalized as a result.
I don't disagree; was just relating and anecdote
Kari Lake
Sad. I don’t know Julie but we are age contemporaries from the same part of Mesa and I am personal friends from long distant high school days with many folks in her circle. She’s the classic moderate good governance Mormon Republican. She was endorsed by John Giles, Jerry Lewis, Claudia Walters, and Scott Smith as well as many current officeholders. I predict her replacement will be ousted at the next regular election.
But you’re forcing those CEOs to settle for a mere Joe Manchin-size yacht,
https://i.dailymail.co.uk/1s/2021/10/02/21/48684515-10052853-image-a-97_1633204937625.jpg
…dooming them to never compete with Jeff Bezos. The horror and injustice!
https://i.ytimg.com/vi/MRYEcushHjc/maxresdefault.jpg
I don't think it's a number but more a ratio that should be codified into law. I think somewhere between 20-40x the average workers salary is sufficient.
It was 20-1 in the 1950s. Now it’s 280-1.
Also, relatively high rate of unionization. In terms of economic inequality it was a golden age.
The issue is not executive salary. But the idea that these dudes have the same marginal tax rates as, say, a mid-level law firm associate? Insane.
Idea I've been kicking around in my head - I am pretty dumb regarding money, but I think this is an understandable concept that would "sell" - every factor of 10 is a marginal rate bump. So, rises at $1M, $10M, $100M, $1B, etc. Even if each bump is just another 2 or 3% (I'd prefer 5%, at least for the $1M and $10M marks), that should be significant money without being so out of whack that "temporarily embarrassed millionaires" find the rates absurd.
Agreed. I don't have a problem with massive salaries for corporate execs - a brass ring isn't a bad thing - although I don't understand why even poorly performing execs get massive packages, but that's a different conversation. The issue, as you point out, is that they wind up paying the same effective tax rate as their secretary...
While I do have opinions on that, I wouldn’t mind the over compensation so much if tax rates (and covering stock options etc at full rates) went up sufficiently with income. If a CEO is going to earn $100m but pay 70% or 80% of that in taxes isn’t as bad.
And Social Security tax on every last dime of income – no ceiling.
The tough thing with “salary” as a measure here is so much of CEO compensation at public companies is in the form of stock. Which, if you think about their responsibilities. Makes a certain sense. Packages awarded one year might be worth much more when the shares finally vest. Bezos for instance at Amazon was infamously limited to the same 160k salary cap everybody else at the company had - but in practice he obviously made way way more.
Honestly the issue is more how pliant boards are when approving absurd comp packages that are divorced from actual performance. Tesla being a prime example
Stock compensation makes sense because of the role, but I've long felt that the time tables for it do not. So much of the corporate world right now is hyperfocused on chasing short to medium term results, rather than setting the business up for the longest terms of success.
I'd like to see some method to incentivize the C-suite roles specifically to look at the longer term. There's going to be real world holes in any idea here, but something where the compensation part of the stock is disadvantaged (or disadvantaged after exceeding a certain dollar threshold) for a long time, maybe a decade.
This was made worse by a nominally populist change that Clinton championed. Basically having a high base salary is penalized, but "performance" pay is exempt. This led to boards approving these absurd packages exec get now.
You can argue that any salary is performance based. That was an idiotic loophole.
Honestly I think neither should be penalized or exempt but that’s just me. I don’t think it’ll solve the core issue of boards being pliant and a paucity of shareholder activists
This is a much more eloquent way of saying what I was trying to say above
Probably about what it was in 1995, adjusted for average wage growth. Nothing in the economy was out of whack then, and corporate governance was no worse than it is now.
I blame Clinton, somewhat counterintuitively, for trying to cap CEO pay, but in a way that left a huge gaping loophole. When compensation was largely base pay then it grew more slowly. Now that's it's largely performance pay, it's much easier for execs to argue that they're "worth" whatever ridiculous amount they can get the compensation committee to green light.
Haha he made this stupid exception for pay being “performance based”. Exceptions=loopholes.
Yeah even just the county maps tell the story (and certainly a more accurate one than exit poll crosstabs). You don't even have to go back to 2008, Spanberger did way worse with rural voters than Tim Kaine 2018 or Ralph Northam 2017, but she did do better than McAuliffe 2021 or Harris 2024. But the biggest movement, areas where Spanberger not only vastly outperformed McAuliffe and Harris but also exceeded Kaine '18, Northam '17, and even Biden '20 was in the suburbs, setting modern records for a VA Dem. NoVA, Stafford to Spotsylvania counties, almost 70% in Henrico and nearly 60% in Chesterfield my goodness...this while Earle-Sears was still over 70% in a ton of rural counties and even cracking 80% in the far southwestern ones.
I'd love to believe there's been a massive snapback in rural America but I'm not seeing it anywhere I look at Tuesday's results. What I am seeing instead is that we'd probably flip VA-01 even if the districts aren't redrawn, but not VA-05, where Spanberger was barely ahead of Harris in some counties. If there are to be shockers next year the evidence from this week points to red suburban seats like CO-05 being the targets.
Reverse coattails?
benefits of a coordinated campaign.
I think the larger point is that her relative improvement in the rural areas was bigger. (Regardless of how you define rural. What's truly rural is always somewhat subjective.) Of course those baselines were much lower, meaning there were more voter that could flip. But it still belies the argument that those areas are gone forever and that we should just ignore rural voters and their concerns. Every State and district is different, but in many cases lowering the margin of loss in red areas is as important as juicing the blue ones.
Here's a map comparing her win to Tim Kaine's 17 point win in 2018: https://nitter.poast.org/BruneElections/status/1987659860410765570#m
How big were Tuesday's Democratic wins in Georgia? As Greg Bluestein writes, the Democrats running for the PSC outperformed Harris’s 2024 vote share in 157 of 159 counties and won so big that they would have won even without the votes from the Atlanta area’s five deep-blue counties. https://www.ajc.com/politics/2025/11/how-georgias-psc-races-are-already-changing-the-midterm-landscape/
Republicans didn't show up. Georgia went from R +2 in 2024 to D +25 this year.
Obviously we are not getting anything close to that in 26.
https://x.com/TheMaineWonk/status/1986784720575738355?t=M1e330PXWpZrOlWcZEqimg&s=19
Democrats mathematically had to have won around 45% of the white vote. The black vote was at 31.9% statewide. It will be closer in 2026, sure. But these results nonetheless point to solid D wins for Senate and Governor in a full turnout election nonetheless.
They shouldn't really be thought of as partisan political races; it was more a referendum on rising electricity prices than anything. The incumbents really had no argument besides trying to argue all of those price hikes were needed for a reliable grid (which is bullshit). I really wouldn't waste time trying to extrapolate for next year, although I think Ossof is the clear favorite.
Uh, yes, they should? They were quite clearly partisan races, defined on partisan lights. "Don't Dem the lights" was literally the GOP slogan.
Yes, These are partisan contests. And no, nothing suggests this kind of turnout pattern with a 22% rate can be extrapolated to 2026, which may well be another record setting midterm.
Yeah. And worse, Trump’s margin of victory in GA last year dropped compared to where it was in 2016.
Considering all the recent-ish races that we lost because Dems “didn’t show up,” it’s nice to have the opposite happen for a change.
159 counties is ridiculous.
The mule rule. One needs to get to the county court and get back on a mule the same night. LOL
The county unit system, a kind of within state electoral college, used by Southern Democrats’ primaries, prevented a lot of possible consolidations. No small counties wanted to give up the units they had there. Until it gets ruled unconstitutional.
A lot of rural counties have no reason to be a separate entity anyway. Just wasting resources on higher administration costs per capita.
Thanks for the history. Didn't know that. When I lived in WV there was discussion about consolidating some counties, because they were set up based on a horse rule. Never happened but should have. That's a lot of tax money going to unnecessary county admin.
Question for people here: do you think Mamdani would have won if Harris was president? I feel like part of his appeal was that he was running against an unpopular democratic establishment. But I don’t think dems would be so down on their own party if Harris had won.
Somebody like Mike Gianaris might have hopped in but probably not Mamdani no
There was a piece in Politico where Mamdani said he didn’t even think he’d do well, and that wasn’t the point of why he ran. He ran so the DSA could expand their base in NYC, which very much appears to have happened — in addition to him winning.
He announced his candidacy before the 2024 election, so he very likely would have still run.
Given RCV and the genuine distaste people had for Cuomo, I think he might have become the nominee, but I don't know if he would have beaten Cuomo in the general as easily.
I agree.
I don't think he would have been able to amp the youth vote to the same extent. His primary win was pretty convincing though, so ¯\_(ツ)_/¯.
Seattle Mayor: In a race that was part of the prediction contest -- With more ballots counted, Katie Wilson has reduced Bruce Harrell’s lead to 1.9% (4,300 votes) compared to the 8-point lead Harrell held on Wednesday. More results will be released on Monday.
Decision Desk had called for Harrell — I have a feeling they may regret that decision soon.
Yeah either they know how much else is out there or that was way premature
There are about 46K left to count. If Wilson gets the same percentage of the votes on Monday that she gt today, the race is very, very close.
"The firm Decision Desk HQ has rescinded their projection that incumbent Bruce Harrell would prevail over his challenger Katie Wilson in the Seattle mayor’s race. The firm . . . made the projection Thursday, Nov. 6, based on what they now say was incorrect information on the number of ballots remaining to be counted." https://www.kuow.org/stories/kuow-contractor-decision-desk-HQ-retracts-call-projecting-harrell-s-victory-in-mayor-s-race
Well there you go.
Hahaha not the first time DDHQ has had to eat shit over their premature, overly aggressive "calls". Outrageous post-2020 to still be doing this stuff, we know the last batches of ballots can be wildly different. They haven't learned their lesson at all after previous retractions they've had to make.
I'm not sure its fair to call it a premature call when they were given incorrect information.
Do you have a link to the updated live count for Seattle Mayor?
Just from media. Here is Seattle times: https://www.seattletimes.com/seattle-news/katie-wilson-gains-on-bruce-harrell-as-mayors-race-goes-down-to-the-wire/
Here is a local source: https://westseattleblog.com/2025/11/election-results-fourth-round-cuts-harrells-lead-over-wilson-to-less-than-two-percent/
There is also a link to the NPR station that I included earlier.
I'm assuming any redistrcting this cycle in Illinois is off the table with the filing deadline passing?
Was wondering that myself. (It’d certainly put a dent in Chuy Garcia’s plans otherwise.)
Would appear so.
They could theoretically push the filing deadline back. Just the other day, after the deadline passed, Pritzker again expressed interest in redirecting. I don’t see it happening but the chance it does happen is at least above 0
I hope you and Morgan are right that they can. I'm not sure if it creates another legal hurdle or not to create a new filing deadline after the old one passed. As Techno00 said above another benefit would be Chuy Garcia's plans to hand his seat over with no primary would go up in smoke.
I don’t think necessarily. I think they’ll change filing deadlines if they feel the need to change the maps as an equal move to Indiana changing theirs.
So what's the story with the GA Public Sevices Commission elections that Dems won? Did the state GOP completely snooze on it?
It was D+25 electorate lol. So yes.
I have no idea how they fumbled it so bad. I know the PSC has got to be near the bottom of statewide office prestige, but it's a morale coup for state Dems.
They had no message . . ."vote for us, the guys who raised your rates by 25% over the past 4 years" was just a doomed message. And amidst such price hikes attempted dooming about renewables tanking the grid just fell flat, especially in a state that has a lot of clean energy jobs.
Ah yes, utilities costs. That's a solid reason considering the PSC's role.
Kemp still spent $4 million on it. It was both poor GOP turnout, but also persuasion, like we saw in other states. Disproportionate black turnout does not account for a margin that massive by itself.
Democrats consistently stuck to affordabilty as an issue and pushed that the incumbent R's had voted six times to raise electricity rates. Dems also ran a strong GOTV operation. And we had help. "The Georgia Conservation Voters and allied groups emerged as major players, spending more than $3 million and contacting nearly 1.8 million voters through mailers, billboards, text programs and a digital campaign built around a blunt refrain: 'They Raised Your Bill.'” https://www.ajc.com/politics/2025/11/how-georgias-psc-races-are-already-changing-the-midterm-landscape/
I think Ken Martin being DNC Chair has helped the Democratic Party become consistently on message and not veering off too much from it.
We are going back to the bread and butter topics. And it’s working as the election results are proof of this.
Democrats managed to win the 1st, 10th and 12th districts, with the 1st and 12th going around 57-43 trump and the 10th like 62-38 iirc
I think it was messaging as much as anything else. The incumbents were well funded, but that doesn't matter if you can't articulate a reason to vote for you beyond the R next to your name. And the Dems had a very clear message since utility bills in GA have been skyrocketing.
Lots of new special elections coming up in December and the early months of 2026, plus a bunch to be called in states like New York, New Hampshire, Pennsylvania, Minnesota and Connecticut. I am wondering why it is taking so long to call elections to replace 4 GOP state reps in Missouri, one of them has been vacant since January, another in May, and two more in August. Is there concern about blowback from their legislative agenda, gerrymandering, and the general electoral picture?
After this week, the race that I'm most interested in is the Tennessee 7th congressional special election on December 2nd.
It's a long shot for Democrats to flip, but it's a long shot worth pursuing.
The Democratic nominee, Aftyn Behn, is trying her damn hardest. I decided to chip in with a donation to her campaign. If anyone else is able to do so, please consider it:
https://secure.actblue.com/donate/aftyn-behn-website
And FWIW, the DNC is getting more involved in the race now, too.
https://www.nbcnews.com/politics/elections/dnc-chair-campaign-democrat-running-deep-red-tennessee-house-special-e-rcna242589
Why don't I get the morning feed in my email? I have subscribed.
You're referring to yesterday's digest? I might suggest checking your "Promotions" tab (if you use gmail or the like) or "Spam" to see if it might have been filtered somewhere.
Virginia Dems may only go for 2 seats in redistricting per the Senate Majority Leader
https://x.com/margaretbarthel/status/1986857618648768843?t=wDgKZZaLD9jW4-xmiqNMXA&s=19
Dems are very risk averse and they don't want to offend the political class who would be shocked at dems for "overreaching".
Even in California they played it safe with the districts.
Well, Surovell could reasonably say that not every year is going to be 2025, and a more ambitious map does pose a potential dummymander risk.
But a two seat gain seems too timid. If 10-1 is maybe stretching a bit too thin, then 9-2 (a three seat pickup) seems doable?
Clearly the compromise position.
9-2 is extremely easy to make wave-proof. You can draw 9 seats that even McAuliffe won by close to double digits with two 75%+ Youngkin seats.
Here's a 9D-2R drawn quickly drawn by one of the more thoughtful/less partisan RRH Elections members, that doesn't baconmander or otherwise cut up the state too outrageously, and doesn't unpack NOVA:
https://davesredistricting.org/maps#viewmap::2d3fadd7-0bb1-47cf-a158-2c2b28c11a56
Like...the 2 seats that Spanberger won, perhaps? Why don't they go for the 5th as well?
I’ve drawn multiple 10-1 maps of Virginia, so I know it’s doable. It’s possible to draw a map where even Glenn Youngkin only won one district. All you have to do is turn VA-09 into as much of a Republican vote sink as possible.
I want to emphasize what an insanely good night Tuesday was for Onondaga County NY Democrats.
Sharon Owens won 74% of the vote in the open Syracuse mayoral race, which is just ridiculous. In 2013 Steph Minor as an incumbent only won reelection with 64% with no Republican opposition.
And in the county legislature, Democrats flipped five light blue suburban seats that we always contest and never win. And the margins were 10+ in all but the hardest district where Julie Abbott, who the NRCC tried to recruit to run against Mannion for NY-22, lost by four points. That is not normal around here in the land of downballot Republican strength. Democrats haven't had a majority in the county legislature since the 1970s, which is before I was born and before the current county government with an executive was set up in the 80s. We've been voting Democrat for president since 1992.
The Republican County Executive Ryan McMahon (who was not on the ballot) was running an ad running up to the election that felt like a reelection ad (but again, he's not on the ballot) where he urged us to vote for the "people that support him" or some such vague statement, but what he really meant was "vote Republican", but he didn't actually say Republican. When I saw it before the election I just figured he had too much money to throw around, now I think he was actually panicking. His whole electoral career, from city council to county legislature to county executive, is built on winning over downballot ticket splitters.
Need more of this to happen: repubs turning on trump... https://thehill.com/homenews/administration/5596571-jeff-flake-donald-trump-criticism/?utm_campaign=TheHill-trending-stories&utm_source=ktla.com&utm_medium=thehill-cross-brand
Flake doesn't count. He supported Harris.
Absolutely. But I'm saying that his continued opposition to Trump, while great in itself, is not noteworthy.
Flake served in the Biden administration. I could maybe see him switching back if the traditionalists retook control, but not as long as MAGA types are running the party. There isn't much left of the traditionalist wing at this point anyway. Some of them now make up the right end of the Democratic coalition, some are retired or on their way out, and some have gone MAGA.
I will never forgive him for being the deciding vote for Kavanaugh.
That's fine - they're Republicans. I appreciate it when they step in and point out the danger Trump and his minions pose to the country. I don't expect them to actually be Democrats and support all of our positions.
Jeff Flake became persona non grata in the Republican Party because of his outspoken criticism of Trump. That’s why he retired from the Senate in 2018. Unless his standing in the GOP has improved since then, his criticism of Trump will not have any sway with the Republican base.
New: James Talarico follows several adult film performers, escorts and OnlyFans models on Instagram, according to an Axios review.
His spokesperson JT Ennis said in a statement that "the social media team — including James — follows back and engages with supporters who have large followings and does not investigate their backgrounds. James has never subscribed to Only Fans or an escort service.”
https://x.com/AlexThomp/status/1987178250338983961
By and large, the USA is a rather puritanical country. Just saying.
Puritanical and hypocritical, and that's the way it is.
💯
A big part of Talarico's claim to being a different type of Democrat is his emphasizing his Christian values. He should not win the primary. If he does, of course all Democrats should support him!
Following sexy models on IG isn't against Christian values; the dude isn't even married.
Your brand of Christianity is not at issue. Look, probably none of us personally give a shit about any of this. But that's totally beside the point.
Just putting my opinion that I could not give a shit about this “controversy” and I think a lot of Trump leaning voters we need to get back may actually find this appealing: he sounds like a normal heterosexual guy. You can be Christian and still think hot women are hot.
He shouldn't win the primary? Over this? I mean, I even buy the explanation but wouldn't care if I didn't.
Correct. Not because I have a problem with what he did - I couldn't care less. But because of the political effects. Allred is fine and can win if people don't want to vote Republican.
Do you actually think this is immoral or are you just worried that others will?
There's nothing in Christianity that particularly prohibits this. Even some of the passages like the one about "adultery of the heart" are talking about your internal response, not a behavior.
No, I personally couldn't care less.
say what you will but this will not play well in rural tx
One big difference between Katie Hill/Susannah Gibson and James Talarico is that Katie Hill and Susannah Gibson were woman.
Just sayin'...as far as preachiness goes, puritanical Americans care a lot more about what women do.
I don’t disagree about Talarico, but Susanna Gibson really deserved to lose that election, especially since she was just arrested for domestic battery a month ago (she says she’s innocent, but still, I’m glad we now have Democrat May Nivar in that seat instead of her).
https://nypost.com/2025/10/01/us-news/virginia-democrat-who-live-streamed-herself-having-sex-for-money-arrested-for-domestic-violence/
Not good. Could this theoretically hurt him?
Of course it theoretically could. The question is whether it actually would.
And I sure think it will. He doesn't look so Christian now, does he?
Talarico’s spokesperson: "While James was unaware of how these women make money, he does not judge them for it and will not play into an effort to smear them for clickbait articles. That's exactly what his Christian faith calls him to do."
Alex Thompson
@AlexThomp
·
2h
Here are some of the accounts:
Alex Thompson
@AlexThomp
·
1h
The campaign said Talarico has messaged with only one of the accounts and shared a screenshot of the exchange, which was a simple "thank you" for an Instagram story in 2024 appearing to promote his political work.
In a day and age when the President hooked up with a porn star and sexually assaulted women while his wife was pregnant?
Yeah, no, this ain't hurting Talarico a bit. And Axios is kind of pathetic for doing such a lame "gotchya" piece.
Yeah good points from you and others. Axios is beginning to stoop to Politico levels of sad — I’ve seen articles from them with the same “unnamed Democratic staffer” bullshit Politico likes to pull too.
I'm really not sure what type of voter bases their decision based on if a candidate followed a porn star or not, especially when the most likely opponent cheated on his wife.
Feels pretty "meh" to me
I don't think your vote is at issue. But really, following escorts is meh?
The president is a sexual assaulter. Voters are a lot more open minded nowadays.
Yes, if they are Republican voters judging a Republican.
Most people who are on social media understand that following an account does not necessarily mean endorsing everything about that account.
Only the most deeply partisan conservatives will care, and they'll be pretending to care.
You want Republican attack ads on this?
most people that you reference are not the problem...rural texans who likely are raging hypocrites will still take Talarico to the wood shed over this...they are the problem
Do you really think he has any idea who he is following back most of the time?
He ought to!
yes!
Oh the horror... He looks at sexy pictures on instagram... Pass the smelling salts...
I agree with Michael that the Christian aspect combined with this may pose a problem — but I also think this is overblown and I’ll add that Christianity in general has become far too puritanical about sex to begin with (and I am a Christian!)
That history goes back to at least the 16th century. This really cool show about sex in the Middle Ages gives the context: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=R8JPN9tWVPQ&t=579s Things changed as a result of the Reformation and the Counter-Reformation in response to it.
I don't this is silly and will be even more silly if Paxton is their nominee.
May I recommend a great British TV-series? "Coupling" is a rawer version of "Friends" and, imho, far more interesting and less insipid. A couple of modest examples:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=52771yKS3As
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JpduBS_kNPQ
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hstPHM3R1dY
Honestly this just makes him more relatable to male voters.
What makes this different from Christian Coalition types doing the same thing is that Talacio's brand of progressive Christianity doesn't demonize sex or promote policies that do so. Huge nothingburger.
Good points all around.
For real. No man in America could run for office if hot IG follows was a disqualified
His explanation makes perfect sense, that they follow back accounts that have a lot of followers. Done and done.
Yes, but did he call his cousin his aunt?
As a Texas voter, I'll say this 1) speaking for myself, it doesn't faze me nor is it disqualifying for me. I haven't spoken with any activists about this, but I know a good number who are supporting Talarico over Allred because they felt Allred's campaign last time wasn't very active or present. 2) I donated to Talarico when he announced, and after finding out the author of this Axios piece is the same guy that co-authored that Biden book with Jake Tapper, I just donated again to Talarico's campaign. 3) I'm still voting for Talarico in the primary and hopefully in the general.
And so followers follow James Talarico and he follows them back.
Only in 2025, just like back in the 2010's, would there be such a "breaking news" story about following and unfollowing behavior. Like this is REALLY going to mean anything.
More evidence social media is distracting Axios and other media outlets who have nothing better to do than waste their time on nonsensical stories.
if this is just a "follow back", without any further engagement from Talarico, like private messages, there is absolutely no story there, and it wont even register with younger people, who know exactly how that works.
Now if there is evidence he is privately engaging with these individuals/getting services, then that's something entirely different.
Fair. I get your point.
Any politician’s agenda on social media does need to be scrutinized if it goes beyond the normal acceptable conduct.
Young people are less likely to be at issue, but they're not the majority of the electorate.