At this rate John Duarte will catch up some time in mid-December, lol. Dec. 5 is the deadline for votes to be counted and they are running out of ballots.
In SoCal Michelle Steel has already filed paperwork to raise money for a rematch in 2026, as has Rep.-elect Derek Tran. Will Duarte run again?
In being interviewed by Mika Brzezinski on Morning Joe, Senator-Elect Ruben Gallego stated that when he ran his Senate campaign that he talked to all types of voters on the campaign trail: Democrats, Republicans and Independents. He did this more than 12 months in advance.
Also, Gallego made gains with both Latino men and women in ways Kamala Harris did not in her presidential campaign. He targeted Latino men as a swing vote from day one of the campaign. What he was particularly hearing is that voters, particularly Latino voters, is that they were feeling the effects of the economy (including inflation).
To be fair, Harris had just a few months in her presidential campaign. However, in Gallego's Senate campaign, he was proactive in reaching out to key voters such as Latinos by focusing on the bread and butter issues. This gave him a truly distinctive campaign as a Democrat compared to GOP Senate Candidate Kari Lake, who offered nothing.
Assuming no major pitfalls for him over the next four years I Hope he takes a shot at 2028 but will leave it there to avoid primary talk. Makes winning AZ-GOV in 26 all the more important.
Doesn't AZ have same party appointment requirements? The governor picks from a list of three chosen by the state party. We want to keep the governor's office in 2026 but not in case a senator vacates the seat.
Actually, Gallego won by a similar margin as did Mark Kelly in the 2020 Special Senate Election race. Lake ended up doing better than Blake Masters did in 2022. Both open Senate races in 2020 and 2024 happened while Trump was on the ballot.
Agreed on Lake being a gift but I'd venture to say her margin of loss could have been wider if Trump wasn't on the ballot.
Because the fact that the environment is brutal for Democrats doesn’t translate to it being necessarily good for Republicans not named Donald Trump. The right wing propaganda environment is geared toward helping one man and one man only. Easier to pull off, and they think that’s all they need.
And the fact that Democrats have a Latino Senator who isn't representing a blue state speaks volumes as to how important Ruben Gallego is in the Senate. He can help Democrats get their voice to the Hispanic & Latino community better.
We also have Senator Alex Padilla representing California although he can get elected more comfortably being that it's a blue state.
In a state where the tipping point for the state House in 2020 was our loss of a “safe Dem” Hispanic legislative seat (we ran an unelected Black female appointee in a Hispanic majority district), no less.
What's equally interesting is the littering incident actually happened. Even the several police cars arriving to gather evidence and taking away the toilet seat in the holding cell. Officer Obie, aka Obanhein, later said the overreaction was in order to make an example of Arlo.
I'm sorry but Arizona benefitted more from "the Biden-Harris administration' (i hate that phrasing) than almost any other state when it came to bringing real, forward-looking solid, good paying jobs. The Chips Act brought multiple factories there. Biden has done more for Arizona specifically than any President I can even think of and Harris benefitted not at all.
I'm not trying to hear about a lack of concern about "bread and butter issues" or "kitchen table issues" that the Bernie Sanders crowd and the like keep sobbing about.
That's not the issue. Arizona is a perfect example about how little voters actually cared, and how little credit they give, for real workers issues.
There may well be a perfect storm of other issues including race and gender as well as Biden's popularity, Trump's success at gaslighting, the Border angst, etc that can explain why Harris lost Arizona.
But do not tell me the Democratic Party and "Biden/Harris" ignored workers concerns in Arizona. As a matter of fact, a large reason Harris didn't pick their own Senator, Mark Kelly, who has been elected twice already, for VP is because he had issues with Unions.
Kelly adopted the pro-union position on the PRO act. That’s not why he wasn’t picked.
If you adopt these programs but don’t sell them, do they make a political difference? Not really. Not these days. If you fail to frame things as us versus them you don’t win. Especially when the other side does. That’s the point the “Bernie Sanders crowd,” of which I am one, “keeps sobbing about.”
I'm sorry but Bernie Sanders himself isn't arguing semantics about messaging. He has said verbatim "Democrats have abandoned working people."
Back to my original point, I see only the opposite being true in Arizona. Did voters care? No.
Making a point about messaging failures is one thing. But too many, including some here in comments above, are literally saying Democrats did not run a working-class-oriented campaign which is entirely false.
"Focusing on bread and butter issues." Okay, but besides running ads, what does that MEAN?
You can bring the horse to water but you can't make it drink. The Infrastucture and Chips bills had literal, tangible, and immediate benefits in Arizona and around the country. You can't make voters give you credit for it.
The election was deeper than delivering and showing results. The voting electorate in Arizona and elsewhere was simply obstinate. Democrats have hardly "abandoned the working class". That is just absurd and I'm sick of hearing it.
You need to frame it as us versus them. The rich and powerful dominating the government versus the average citizen. The Democrats stand with the latter, the Republicans the former.
It’s not about people wanting to be rich it’s about power: big money dominating, if not controlling, the government. Those folks will use red herrings like “envy” and “anti-aspirational,” to distract and divert the argument.
This is the thing. Dem primary voters didn't even love the Bernie "it's the oligarchs vs the working masses" rhetoric, let alone non-Dem swing voters. You're low-info working class voter just voted for the guy promising tax cuts for the rich while sitting on his gold toilet. Voters see Shark Tank as the American ideal, not some proletariat revolution.
You miss the point. They voted for the guy who framed the election as us versus them in non-economic terms. Not the party that campaigned with Liz Cheney calling for bipartisanship. And if you think it’s a call for a “proletarian revolution,” you ignore U.S. history. U.S. economic populism predated the Russian Revolution by some three decades.
In "NON-ECONOMIC" terms needs ti be highlighted and underlined in red marker 20 times. Liberals love to throw economic reasons behind all of these bad voter decisions because then they can try to rationalize them away and claim "well if we just get behind this XYZ (insert social welfare wishlist policy item here), we can gain these folks back".
21st century right wing nationalism is predominantly a social and cultural phenomenon, not an economic one. That's why you've seen the movement sprout across varying economic landscapes in the West, including countries with the most generous welfare apparatuses in existence. If we're going to make any inroads, it's going to be via more vibes than platforms.
I completely disagree; it's not 1915. Americans are too rich to be juiced by economic populism. Biden had the most economically populist Administration since Lyndon Johnson and Americans responded by giving him persistently low approvals and voting for Mr. Golden Toilet. And no, it wasn't because Biden wasn't out "selling it". https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=MdlyAF5lUBQ&pp=ygUWQmlkZW4gc3BlZWNoIGVjb25vbWljcw%3D%3D
He wasn’t selling. Period. But you miss the point once again. As I’ve stated, it’s about power. Economic power sufficient to effectively control the government. And which side of that power relationship you are on. It’s not 1994 anymore.
The left must embrace populism, which is merely the name given to the struggle over an alternative to globalism. With globalism collapsing under its own contradictions, all serious politics is now populist in one way or another.
Americans are too rich to be juiced by economic populism?
No, they flat out aren't. Cost of living is far greater than it was in 1915, not to mention the fact that owning a home has become much harder for the average American to obtain. Even while minimum wage, social security and unemployment insurance were important to helping lift the US away from the Great Depression, the corporatization of the US has made greater disparities in the economy with those who have wealth vs. those who don't have it as much.
Also, you're missing context. Biden pushed through a pro-infrastructure agenda while battling the COVID-19 pandemic. If there was no pandemic, Biden's economic populism would have likely affected Americans differently. It was really inflation that was a factor.
What focusing on bread and butter issues means that Democratic Candidates/incumbents need to do the following:
1) Show they have empathy and can understand what voters are facing, especially as it relates to the economy where inflation has been a factor to many Americans for years. Just simply arguing what bills have been passed, signed into law and implemented isn't enough.
2) Are going to be proactive in helping address the concerns voters have.
Messaging is one part of the process but it alone won't do it.
Don’t get too excited just yet, but it appears anti-Assad rebels have just seized Aleppo out of nowhere and much of the Syrian Army is throwing their guns down rather than resist
Biden was the most pro-Labor president we've had in quite a while, though I think Harris did a somewhat poor job capitalizing on it. Trump's appeal was more from broad dissatisfaction with the changes of the last half century, rather than from any Biden-Harris policy.
My partner is in the UAW and they did send her a big spread promoting the pro-labor policies of Biden and Harris and highlighting Trump's anti-labor record, so there was at least some attempt of unions to educate their members on this. To what extent that actually changed anyone's mind, who knows.
Even the most diligent and helpful county elections office, ocvote.gov , is taking the weekend off. The elections workers deserve some days off. They will get their counting done by the deadline (12/5). Even the slowest county in the state, Lake County, will get it done on time. It is a good thing that there are no close federal or state races there...
Why is CA still counting votes? It’s Thanksgiving. They kind of suck and inquiring minds want to know. Mail-in isn’t an excuse bc other states do it. Being more populated shouldn’t be an excuse bc more voters would logically result in a proportionate increase in funding and staffing.
Is it because it’s such a big state with so many Congressional races that are not gerrymandered? It’s not that they suck, it’s the sheer number of swing districts. If CA Dems got to draw the map, this would’ve been over with two weeks ago.
The delay is from the verification process for the mail ballots, same as Arizona. Each ballot needs to be checked by hand to ensure that the signature matches and everything is in working order. It is different from states like Florida and Georgia where everything now is electronic, and the results can be tabulated in seconds.
That said, California seems to be special. The delay depends on the County, and I don’t see any pattern - LA County (the biggest and with the most congressional districts in the state) counted pretty quickly, while some like Alameda and other small counties have been taking forever.
Also, counting is done at the county level; funding, staffing and admin practices vary, which can have timing impacts, and in multiple county districts, the drip, drip, drip results reporting seen in the CA-13 race.
Of course few would notice if the races were all landslides.
Also CA law allows voters until 12/2 to "cure" mailed ballots. The state could be less generous, but the trade-off is a person losing the right to vote due to someone with no expertise in handwriting analysis deciding the handwriting is not the voter's. Still, do voters need four weeks?
One might compare CA's practice to the percentage of legitimate votes thrown out in FL and GA by non-experts due to a voter's poor handwriting.
Yup. Should be noted that in the article, Trump in his 2nd term as POTUS is likely not going to make an impact on inflation, which if true, will likely give Democrats an opening in 2026.
I wonder if perhaps Biden made a mistake of reappointing Jerome Powell for another term as Fed Reserve Chairman. Inflation was a factor during the pandemic but the Fed raising interest rates only contributed to the problem.
The Fed raising interest rates is how we primarily fought inflation, it did not contribute to it. And since inflation has largely been beaten back, expect Trump to take credit for it going forward.
(Excerpt) – "…the Fed itself has become a prime source of inflation. High interest rates increase costs for homebuyers and builders. As people rely on credit card borrowing to sustain living standards in the face of inadequate wages, those costs increase as well. And higher small-business borrowing costs are passed along to consumers in the form of higher prices.
"Second, most price increases in the current economy are not macroeconomic, but the result of market power by monopolistic industries, as the Prospect keeps reporting. Consumers are also paying more for homeowner’s insurance, because insurers are paying out increased claims from catastrophes related to global climate change.
"Third, some price hikes are due to factors that are even more extraneous to U.S. supply and demand, such as the sudden spike in global shipping costs…"
Just to be clear, no-one is disputing that the Fed raising interest rates had a positive impact and helped lower inflation. What I am saying, and Kuttner is arguing, is that past a certain point, high Fed rates and undue delay in lowering rates were counterproductive.
Unless he exacerbates it through tariffs and other policies, which will make higher prices far more directly blameable on him, and by extension the GOP, than anything Biden ever did.
He may have made a mistake in reappointing him, but that didn’t contribute to the inflation problem. Biden made a political mistake in not seeking to blame Trump’s handling of COVID and the bottle necks that eventually resulted as a big contributing factor to the inflation rise. And he failed to nail Trump on this:
Congress should’ve dragged in the CEO’s of Pepsi and Coke and asked them what the hell is up with twelve pack prices. Biden and Dems spent too much time explaining it when we should’ve put on a show and made the companies answer for it themselves.
One thing the GOP is much better at doing than Dems is using all of the tools being in power provides to advance their agenda. Dems just try to pass legislation and that’s mostly it.
It was necessary for the Fed to raise interest rates to curb inflation. Powell has done a great job overall, the only arguable misstep was that he should have cut 25 points in July instead of waiting until September and cutting 50.
Robert Kuttner and many others believe the Fed should have started cutting rates in March. That said, timing of rate changes can be tricky. On the other hand, Powell is certainly to be faulted for certain rather serious lapses of Fed oversight and enforcement.
It seems to have been mostly a red shift at the presidential level. Ironically at the senate and House level, there's only a few Latino heavy districts that Democrats lost or failed to gain ground, notably TX15, CO8, and CA23. At the senate level, Democrats held onto the 2 purple Hispanic heavy states of Nevada and Arizona, you can also toss California and New Mexico into that mix too. Moreover, Democrats won 3 house seats in CA, the 45th, 27th and 13th, all which have at LEAST 30% Hispanic population. If anything, all this seems to suggest the red shift among Hispanics and inflation seemed to be mostly at the presidential level, and had minimal impact elsewhere. There's plenty of room to grow here.
Donald Trump’s pick of fascist Kash Patel to head the FBI to replace fellow Trump appointee Christopher Wray is nothing more than a brazen play for macho authoritarianism, in which suppression of views critical to the regime will be de rigeur.
The Senate should vote to reject the confirmation of this nanny state-loving freedom-hating fascist Patel to head the FBI.
At this point I think any gangster-government move Trump makes starts with Collins, Murky, McConnell, and Curtis in opposition. None of them need him for anything anymore. There may be others who could step in if needed (Tillis, Young, maybe even McCormick?) but who aren't saying anything now because they don't have to.
In 2028, Sen. Richard Blumenthal (D-CT) will be 82 years of age same as term-limited Trump and might well retire.
I think he should retire and Jahana Hayes should definitely go for it as she has proven herself in CT-05 consistently (the least blue of the 5), she had a close call in 2022 against George Logan winning 50.4% - 49.6% but won the 2024 by a much improved 53% - 47% with presidential turnout. Thoughts?! 💙🇺🇲
Only part of Cambridge is in the district. The rest is in the 7th district.
The race I’m most interested in this week is my local Turkey Trot 5K!
…
Okay, I’ll show myself out. Happy Thanksgiving! 🦃
Adam Gray now has a 190 vote lead over John Duarte in CA -13! Things are looking better in this district at least.
unreal that the Democratic party may start the next Congress with an actual GAIN in House seats
If North Carolina had not been heavily gerrymandered, Democrats might well have won the House. At least that is my understanding.
That is a San Joaquin update with 104 votes for Duarte and 100 votes for Gray. 194 (previous margin)-4=190, the current margin.
At this rate John Duarte will catch up some time in mid-December, lol. Dec. 5 is the deadline for votes to be counted and they are running out of ballots.
In SoCal Michelle Steel has already filed paperwork to raise money for a rematch in 2026, as has Rep.-elect Derek Tran. Will Duarte run again?
I would expect him to.
The Florida congressional specials and if Democratic party recruits are actually competitive; meaning the losses are 'respectable'
AZ-SEN:
In being interviewed by Mika Brzezinski on Morning Joe, Senator-Elect Ruben Gallego stated that when he ran his Senate campaign that he talked to all types of voters on the campaign trail: Democrats, Republicans and Independents. He did this more than 12 months in advance.
Also, Gallego made gains with both Latino men and women in ways Kamala Harris did not in her presidential campaign. He targeted Latino men as a swing vote from day one of the campaign. What he was particularly hearing is that voters, particularly Latino voters, is that they were feeling the effects of the economy (including inflation).
To be fair, Harris had just a few months in her presidential campaign. However, in Gallego's Senate campaign, he was proactive in reaching out to key voters such as Latinos by focusing on the bread and butter issues. This gave him a truly distinctive campaign as a Democrat compared to GOP Senate Candidate Kari Lake, who offered nothing.
https://www.msnbc.com/morning-joe/watch/i-talked-to-everyone-democratic-senator-on-his-strategy-for-winning-in-arizona-224745541636
A good role model for Dems to follow, in communicating with Latinos and others who are reachable but we can't assume we've got in hand.
Assuming no major pitfalls for him over the next four years I Hope he takes a shot at 2028 but will leave it there to avoid primary talk. Makes winning AZ-GOV in 26 all the more important.
Doesn't AZ have same party appointment requirements? The governor picks from a list of three chosen by the state party. We want to keep the governor's office in 2026 but not in case a senator vacates the seat.
You're right my bad.
They have same party requirement, but for replacing US senator, it's the governor's choice. The party doesn't pick the replacement.
Being a Latino gave him a advantage that Harris didn’t have.
As did being a man.
no disrespect to Gallego, but he was given a gift in the form of Lake (can't believe we'll be seeing her again; maybe Trump will give her a gig ??)
Actually, Gallego won by a similar margin as did Mark Kelly in the 2020 Special Senate Election race. Lake ended up doing better than Blake Masters did in 2022. Both open Senate races in 2020 and 2024 happened while Trump was on the ballot.
Agreed on Lake being a gift but I'd venture to say her margin of loss could have been wider if Trump wasn't on the ballot.
anyone but Lake most likely wins is my main point; this environment is brutal for the Democratic party yet we did relatively well in it
Because the fact that the environment is brutal for Democrats doesn’t translate to it being necessarily good for Republicans not named Donald Trump. The right wing propaganda environment is geared toward helping one man and one man only. Easier to pull off, and they think that’s all they need.
which tells me that 2026 will be an especially good midterm for Democrats
For starters, I'm looking forward to seeing how many House seats Democrats will be able to pick up in 2026.
The Senate seats are another matter all together.
That is true!
And the fact that Democrats have a Latino Senator who isn't representing a blue state speaks volumes as to how important Ruben Gallego is in the Senate. He can help Democrats get their voice to the Hispanic & Latino community better.
We also have Senator Alex Padilla representing California although he can get elected more comfortably being that it's a blue state.
Ehh his last name guaranteed he'd do better than Harris with latinos and especially latino men.
It's just so hard to believe that a Latino man would do better with Latino voters than an African American woman.
In a state where the tipping point for the state House in 2020 was our loss of a “safe Dem” Hispanic legislative seat (we ran an unelected Black female appointee in a Hispanic majority district), no less.
Today is Thanksgiving, which means the staple song of Arlo Guthrie's Alice's Restaurant Massacree is played on lots of classic rock and AAA stations.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WaKIX6oaSLs
Alice May Brock died last week at 83. RIP.
What's equally interesting is the littering incident actually happened. Even the several police cars arriving to gather evidence and taking away the toilet seat in the holding cell. Officer Obie, aka Obanhein, later said the overreaction was in order to make an example of Arlo.
I'm sorry but Arizona benefitted more from "the Biden-Harris administration' (i hate that phrasing) than almost any other state when it came to bringing real, forward-looking solid, good paying jobs. The Chips Act brought multiple factories there. Biden has done more for Arizona specifically than any President I can even think of and Harris benefitted not at all.
I'm not trying to hear about a lack of concern about "bread and butter issues" or "kitchen table issues" that the Bernie Sanders crowd and the like keep sobbing about.
That's not the issue. Arizona is a perfect example about how little voters actually cared, and how little credit they give, for real workers issues.
There may well be a perfect storm of other issues including race and gender as well as Biden's popularity, Trump's success at gaslighting, the Border angst, etc that can explain why Harris lost Arizona.
But do not tell me the Democratic Party and "Biden/Harris" ignored workers concerns in Arizona. As a matter of fact, a large reason Harris didn't pick their own Senator, Mark Kelly, who has been elected twice already, for VP is because he had issues with Unions.
Kelly adopted the pro-union position on the PRO act. That’s not why he wasn’t picked.
If you adopt these programs but don’t sell them, do they make a political difference? Not really. Not these days. If you fail to frame things as us versus them you don’t win. Especially when the other side does. That’s the point the “Bernie Sanders crowd,” of which I am one, “keeps sobbing about.”
I'm sorry but Bernie Sanders himself isn't arguing semantics about messaging. He has said verbatim "Democrats have abandoned working people."
Back to my original point, I see only the opposite being true in Arizona. Did voters care? No.
Making a point about messaging failures is one thing. But too many, including some here in comments above, are literally saying Democrats did not run a working-class-oriented campaign which is entirely false.
"Focusing on bread and butter issues." Okay, but besides running ads, what does that MEAN?
You can bring the horse to water but you can't make it drink. The Infrastucture and Chips bills had literal, tangible, and immediate benefits in Arizona and around the country. You can't make voters give you credit for it.
The election was deeper than delivering and showing results. The voting electorate in Arizona and elsewhere was simply obstinate. Democrats have hardly "abandoned the working class". That is just absurd and I'm sick of hearing it.
A messaging argument is different.
You need to frame it as us versus them. The rich and powerful dominating the government versus the average citizen. The Democrats stand with the latter, the Republicans the former.
What if people want to be rich and don't dislike/hate them unless they are visibly interfering with their lives?
It’s not about people wanting to be rich it’s about power: big money dominating, if not controlling, the government. Those folks will use red herrings like “envy” and “anti-aspirational,” to distract and divert the argument.
This is the thing. Dem primary voters didn't even love the Bernie "it's the oligarchs vs the working masses" rhetoric, let alone non-Dem swing voters. You're low-info working class voter just voted for the guy promising tax cuts for the rich while sitting on his gold toilet. Voters see Shark Tank as the American ideal, not some proletariat revolution.
You miss the point. They voted for the guy who framed the election as us versus them in non-economic terms. Not the party that campaigned with Liz Cheney calling for bipartisanship. And if you think it’s a call for a “proletarian revolution,” you ignore U.S. history. U.S. economic populism predated the Russian Revolution by some three decades.
In "NON-ECONOMIC" terms needs ti be highlighted and underlined in red marker 20 times. Liberals love to throw economic reasons behind all of these bad voter decisions because then they can try to rationalize them away and claim "well if we just get behind this XYZ (insert social welfare wishlist policy item here), we can gain these folks back".
21st century right wing nationalism is predominantly a social and cultural phenomenon, not an economic one. That's why you've seen the movement sprout across varying economic landscapes in the West, including countries with the most generous welfare apparatuses in existence. If we're going to make any inroads, it's going to be via more vibes than platforms.
The way you fight it is by economic populism.
I completely disagree; it's not 1915. Americans are too rich to be juiced by economic populism. Biden had the most economically populist Administration since Lyndon Johnson and Americans responded by giving him persistently low approvals and voting for Mr. Golden Toilet. And no, it wasn't because Biden wasn't out "selling it". https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=MdlyAF5lUBQ&pp=ygUWQmlkZW4gc3BlZWNoIGVjb25vbWljcw%3D%3D
He wasn’t selling. Period. But you miss the point once again. As I’ve stated, it’s about power. Economic power sufficient to effectively control the government. And which side of that power relationship you are on. It’s not 1994 anymore.
The left must embrace populism, which is merely the name given to the struggle over an alternative to globalism. With globalism collapsing under its own contradictions, all serious politics is now populist in one way or another.
https://www.nytimes.com/2024/11/28/opinion/wolfgang-streeck-populism.html
Americans are too rich to be juiced by economic populism?
No, they flat out aren't. Cost of living is far greater than it was in 1915, not to mention the fact that owning a home has become much harder for the average American to obtain. Even while minimum wage, social security and unemployment insurance were important to helping lift the US away from the Great Depression, the corporatization of the US has made greater disparities in the economy with those who have wealth vs. those who don't have it as much.
Also, you're missing context. Biden pushed through a pro-infrastructure agenda while battling the COVID-19 pandemic. If there was no pandemic, Biden's economic populism would have likely affected Americans differently. It was really inflation that was a factor.
What focusing on bread and butter issues means that Democratic Candidates/incumbents need to do the following:
1) Show they have empathy and can understand what voters are facing, especially as it relates to the economy where inflation has been a factor to many Americans for years. Just simply arguing what bills have been passed, signed into law and implemented isn't enough.
2) Are going to be proactive in helping address the concerns voters have.
Messaging is one part of the process but it alone won't do it.
Phoenix had the fastest growing rental prices in the country coming out of the pandemic.
Don’t get too excited just yet, but it appears anti-Assad rebels have just seized Aleppo out of nowhere and much of the Syrian Army is throwing their guns down rather than resist
more of this please. !
Hezbollah got decapitated and crippled and is out of the game as Assad's plausible deniability murder squad.
Very good point
Tulsi won't like this.
Biden was the most pro-Labor president we've had in quite a while, though I think Harris did a somewhat poor job capitalizing on it. Trump's appeal was more from broad dissatisfaction with the changes of the last half century, rather than from any Biden-Harris policy.
you are way overanalyzing here (imo); voters used a 'perceived inflation' metric and voted their pocketbook
And "perceived inflation" was strongly rooted in 3.5 years of Trump and Republicans non-stop shit-talking the economy and President Biden’s policies.
And the news media as well, which is probably a redundancy here....
That is what happened in every country in the world that has had elections this year.
Exactly
Knowledge of Biden’s mildly pro-Labor stances was largely limited to business executives, HR departments, and labor/political activists.
My partner is in the UAW and they did send her a big spread promoting the pro-labor policies of Biden and Harris and highlighting Trump's anti-labor record, so there was at least some attempt of unions to educate their members on this. To what extent that actually changed anyone's mind, who knows.
What does this have to do with elections?
Assad is often the jokey reference when someone wins by a ridiculous margin.
The big question: Is this good for John McCain *and* Tulsi Gabbard?
Tangentially it could if Trump does something really stupid in the region
Should we expect any updates out of CA-13 today?
doubtful; holiday
Even the most diligent and helpful county elections office, ocvote.gov , is taking the weekend off. The elections workers deserve some days off. They will get their counting done by the deadline (12/5). Even the slowest county in the state, Lake County, will get it done on time. It is a good thing that there are no close federal or state races there...
New from San Joaquin. Grey picks up 37 votes https://x.com/catargetbot0001/status/1862710011849281568?s=61&t=5copDbz1aPl7ASsRCUclLg
Those net 37 votes moves Grey's lead to 227 votes from 190 votes. Can you say ... landslide?
At some point, these small increases for Gray ought to be enough for Duarte to drop any thoughts of paying for a recount, and just concede.
(Remember: no free automatic recounts in California. You request it and pay the recount costs in advance.)
Why is CA still counting votes? It’s Thanksgiving. They kind of suck and inquiring minds want to know. Mail-in isn’t an excuse bc other states do it. Being more populated shouldn’t be an excuse bc more voters would logically result in a proportionate increase in funding and staffing.
Is it because it’s such a big state with so many Congressional races that are not gerrymandered? It’s not that they suck, it’s the sheer number of swing districts. If CA Dems got to draw the map, this would’ve been over with two weeks ago.
The delay is from the verification process for the mail ballots, same as Arizona. Each ballot needs to be checked by hand to ensure that the signature matches and everything is in working order. It is different from states like Florida and Georgia where everything now is electronic, and the results can be tabulated in seconds.
That said, California seems to be special. The delay depends on the County, and I don’t see any pattern - LA County (the biggest and with the most congressional districts in the state) counted pretty quickly, while some like Alameda and other small counties have been taking forever.
Agree.
Also, counting is done at the county level; funding, staffing and admin practices vary, which can have timing impacts, and in multiple county districts, the drip, drip, drip results reporting seen in the CA-13 race.
Of course few would notice if the races were all landslides.
Also CA law allows voters until 12/2 to "cure" mailed ballots. The state could be less generous, but the trade-off is a person losing the right to vote due to someone with no expertise in handwriting analysis deciding the handwriting is not the voter's. Still, do voters need four weeks?
One might compare CA's practice to the percentage of legitimate votes thrown out in FL and GA by non-experts due to a voter's poor handwriting.
More anecdata on the red shift among Latinos suggesting that it was basically inflation. https://www.cnn.com/2024/11/30/business/democrats-latino-voters-trump/index.html
Yup. Should be noted that in the article, Trump in his 2nd term as POTUS is likely not going to make an impact on inflation, which if true, will likely give Democrats an opening in 2026.
I wonder if perhaps Biden made a mistake of reappointing Jerome Powell for another term as Fed Reserve Chairman. Inflation was a factor during the pandemic but the Fed raising interest rates only contributed to the problem.
The Fed raising interest rates is how we primarily fought inflation, it did not contribute to it. And since inflation has largely been beaten back, expect Trump to take credit for it going forward.
Actually, Robert Kuttner has documented that keeping Fed rates high overly long was inflationary.
I disagree with him. If you look at a graph, the second they started raising the interest rates the inflation rate started dropping.
"Powell’s Perverse Policies Persist"
(Excerpt) – "…the Fed itself has become a prime source of inflation. High interest rates increase costs for homebuyers and builders. As people rely on credit card borrowing to sustain living standards in the face of inadequate wages, those costs increase as well. And higher small-business borrowing costs are passed along to consumers in the form of higher prices.
"Second, most price increases in the current economy are not macroeconomic, but the result of market power by monopolistic industries, as the Prospect keeps reporting. Consumers are also paying more for homeowner’s insurance, because insurers are paying out increased claims from catastrophes related to global climate change.
"Third, some price hikes are due to factors that are even more extraneous to U.S. supply and demand, such as the sudden spike in global shipping costs…"
https://prospect.org/blogs-and-newsletters/tap/2024-07-31-powells-perverse-policies-persist/
Just to be clear, no-one is disputing that the Fed raising interest rates had a positive impact and helped lower inflation. What I am saying, and Kuttner is arguing, is that past a certain point, high Fed rates and undue delay in lowering rates were counterproductive.
Unless he exacerbates it through tariffs and other policies, which will make higher prices far more directly blameable on him, and by extension the GOP, than anything Biden ever did.
He may have made a mistake in reappointing him, but that didn’t contribute to the inflation problem. Biden made a political mistake in not seeking to blame Trump’s handling of COVID and the bottle necks that eventually resulted as a big contributing factor to the inflation rise. And he failed to nail Trump on this:
https://x.com/TheTNHoller/status/1862866015488466986
Likewise Biden should have very loudly blamed Trump for the crazy deal he negotiated with the Taliban – and the even-crazier timeline Trump agreed to.
Congress should’ve dragged in the CEO’s of Pepsi and Coke and asked them what the hell is up with twelve pack prices. Biden and Dems spent too much time explaining it when we should’ve put on a show and made the companies answer for it themselves.
One thing the GOP is much better at doing than Dems is using all of the tools being in power provides to advance their agenda. Dems just try to pass legislation and that’s mostly it.
It was necessary for the Fed to raise interest rates to curb inflation. Powell has done a great job overall, the only arguable misstep was that he should have cut 25 points in July instead of waiting until September and cutting 50.
Robert Kuttner and many others believe the Fed should have started cutting rates in March. That said, timing of rate changes can be tricky. On the other hand, Powell is certainly to be faulted for certain rather serious lapses of Fed oversight and enforcement.
It seems to have been mostly a red shift at the presidential level. Ironically at the senate and House level, there's only a few Latino heavy districts that Democrats lost or failed to gain ground, notably TX15, CO8, and CA23. At the senate level, Democrats held onto the 2 purple Hispanic heavy states of Nevada and Arizona, you can also toss California and New Mexico into that mix too. Moreover, Democrats won 3 house seats in CA, the 45th, 27th and 13th, all which have at LEAST 30% Hispanic population. If anything, all this seems to suggest the red shift among Hispanics and inflation seemed to be mostly at the presidential level, and had minimal impact elsewhere. There's plenty of room to grow here.
Do you mean CA-22 held by David Valadao, as CA-23 is the interior San Bernardino seat held by Jay Obernolte?
Yea I meant CA-22
BREAKING
Ann Selzer says Assad is +3 in Aleppo
Agent Orange reports that, come 20 January, Vlad Putin will be +9 in Ukraine.
Donald Trump’s pick of fascist Kash Patel to head the FBI to replace fellow Trump appointee Christopher Wray is nothing more than a brazen play for macho authoritarianism, in which suppression of views critical to the regime will be de rigeur.
The Senate should vote to reject the confirmation of this nanny state-loving freedom-hating fascist Patel to head the FBI.
https://olgalautman.substack.com/p/the-fbi-kash-patel-and-the-authoritarian
By far the worst pick announced so far, even more so than Gabbard
They just might. Could be 4 willing to vote no just as there were with Gaetz
At this point I think any gangster-government move Trump makes starts with Collins, Murky, McConnell, and Curtis in opposition. None of them need him for anything anymore. There may be others who could step in if needed (Tillis, Young, maybe even McCormick?) but who aren't saying anything now because they don't have to.
Why Curtis specifically?
I do wonder if Rounds votes against some of his national security picks as well based on recent comments.
He's a Romney type and vocally opposed Gaetz. He ran more than 9 points ahead of Trump, who is not well liked among Mormons.
Ben Wikler is officially running for DNC Chair.
He is my choice to lead it.
Just had a thought on Connecticut.
In 2028, Sen. Richard Blumenthal (D-CT) will be 82 years of age same as term-limited Trump and might well retire.
I think he should retire and Jahana Hayes should definitely go for it as she has proven herself in CT-05 consistently (the least blue of the 5), she had a close call in 2022 against George Logan winning 50.4% - 49.6% but won the 2024 by a much improved 53% - 47% with presidential turnout. Thoughts?! 💙🇺🇲
Would be worried about an R upset in CT-05 but if she wants to run for Senate that is her choice.