“Despite having served as the county’s health director, el Sayed lost the county to Rep. Haley Stevens (D-MI), 51.3% to 45.4%, a deficit of roughly 17,300 votes.”
It’s funny, in the lead up to the primary they were pushing this narrative that El-Sayed was going to perform so terribly with black voters and lose the county by a large amount. Instead he performed better than expected, in spite of Haley Stevens being backed by several black political leaders and pretending to be endorsed by Obama, but the narrative is still that because he didn’t win the county he wasn’t expected to win, he’s DOOMED! The goalposts are always moved for Democrats, whether moderate, liberal, or progressive, nothing’s ever good enough.
Agreed. Keep in mind that when Democrats lost the Senate in 2018, it set up a clear roadblock from impeaching Trump for unlawfully investigating opponents and the insurrection on January 6. In the same vein, if we lose the Senate now, he can't be impeached for usurpations of power in every sense of the word, government-mandated surveillance and ICE action, and a baseless, criminal war.
Maybe it's wishful thinking but I don't see why a couple Republicans can't have some balls for once. It's not determined whether he will have any staying power in the party after 2028, especially if the party gets a terrible performance in November. Maybe his influence and endorsement doesn't mean as much anymore, and more Republicans will be willing to criticize him.
He’s never going to be impeached and/or convicted. We need to put that wish to bed. We need to win the Senate to block any SCOTUS nominee until a Dem prez is in office. Period.
The GOP not being able to pass any legislation without Dem leadership is worth something. Controlling every House committee and being able to direct oversight via that channel is worth something. But flipping the Senate too is worth so much more, and we badly need it.
We need the ability to check republican power in DC. Any realistic outcome that accomplishes that is good by default, in my view. Taking the senate on top would be a great night, but it's important to remember how badly the playing fielded is tilted against us for the senate. Both this cycle specifically but also in the long term.
The only realistic pathway to us winning the senate this cycle requires us to win two states that are still decently red, on top of NC and ME.
All four of AK, TX, OH, and IA are difficult. We require at least two! It's even worse in 2028, where we have two pickups of similar status as NC+ME (NC+WI), and only one stretch seat in the form of Iowa again. Then 2030 only has PA and TX.
The senate is a huge slog for us, the realistic pathway is doing well two cycles in a row. That the year looks to have such a strong wave is the only reason the senate seems on the table at all. All this is another reason why we desperately need to make DC and PR into states.
Trump is just going to ignore the House entirely like he did in the first term. He needs the Senate to get his ghouls onto courts and into his cabinet. That’s the only real game in town as far as checking his power in my view. I am well aware the map is tough for us. It’d still be disappointing if we did not win the Senate. That means more Blanches and Aileen Cannons.
The senate is much more impactful than the house, but the house is still critical. At it's most basic, they cannot do anything without the budget for it.
I don't think we're that far apart, except maybe you're more pessimistic than I am about what we might be able to block with only the house.
They can raise a lot of money corruptly without House approval and move a lot of money the House didn't appropriate. I believe this Supreme Court would have found the Iran-Contra Scandal to be legal and constitutional.
We should prepared to be exclusively in a defensive situation in 2030 assuming a Dem is president. I don’t think TX would even be on the table then and even PA would be a long shot if it isn’t an open seat (I don’t see McCormick retiring after just one term).
I agree, but anything beyond the current election cycle I'm going to treat as neutral for surface level assessments. Too much can change, and 2030 is a full three cycles from today.
Your reply illustrates.the point well about why we really need to building up opposition to the Rs in currently light red states. No sense wasting time on Wyoming, but we need to make the reach seats more competitive in a neutral environment, like NC and GA have become, whether that's thru branded Dems like Cooper and Troy Jackson, or Independents that may be merely centrist like out west. Heck, wouldn't it be fantastic if we had John Fettermans in KS, ND, MT, OK, and MO? We might not have the policy we really want across the board, but we'd have better policy, and we'd have our own appointees. And we could move states toward the left like AZ has. As much as I disliked Sinema screwing Bidens policy, I don't think we'd have someone as reliable as Gallego without her first.
I don't disagree in principle, but I feel this is way, way, way harder than it sounds on paper.
If we have a good strategy to do it, I'm all for it. But I'm wary of us investing much money or hope into difficult states. States like Montana or South Carolina or Florida or Missouri need more than steady party investment and the right candidate.
We need to have credible candidates wherever we can, but that's just about the only part that is firmly under the party's control.
But I think it starts with building support for places where Rs have over reached. Like in Michigan the Dems went after districting first to get fairer districts and after that they were able to get more Ds elected statewide and then push policies that people wanted. Missouri, in some ways, is similar, with the constant efforts of the state Rs to roll back what the voters have chosen through referenda. It's a long game for sure.
Living in SC now, I'm not sure what the wedge would be, best I can come up with is corruption, because the good old boy network is strong, corrupt, and entrenched. Alec Murdaugh is just the tip of the iceberg. But that's not an issue that sways many voters, and in some ways just puts people off ("they're all corrupt, so why vote").
The concern is that folks will vote only for the other Dem and not rank anyone else, including Peltolta. So the Dem ballot would be exhausted. A good education campaign and more experience with the system will make that less of an issue. But in close elections, every exhausted minor D candidate ballot counts....against.
Not every voter ranks beyond their first vote. If Peltola is the only democrat on the ballot then she doesn't have to worry about democratic voters failing to rank her: anyone that turns up to vote with the intention of voting democratic will vote for her by default. If she's not the only democrat on the ballot she now has to worry about what percentage of the voters for the other democrat(s) will exhaust their vote rather than rank her second.
In most elections it's not a big deal. But it could cost her 0.5-1% of the vote, which is all it takes in a close race -- which is what we should expect out of Alaska.
Eric Hafner, a rando perennial candidate with a (D) after his name, got 3600 votes. When reallocated, 1300 of them listed no second choice (called "ballot exhaustion"), 1300 picked Peltola, 660 went to the third place independent candidate, and 270 of them actually went to Begich. So Peltola's margin only grew by just over a thousand ballots, out of 3600 for the 4th place Dem. In percentage terms, Hafner got 1.1% of the vote, but when removed only helped Peltola by 0.3%.
To be fair, even if the 4th candidate was a Republican, we don't necessarily know what those Hafner-exhaust, Begich, or AIP voters would have done, or how many of the 660 were Hafner-AIP-Peltola voters. Some voters are just plain weird.
This is the calculation in the gubernatorial race too. It’d be nice if we could rely on the Democratic voters to rank all the Democrats, but in reality, many won’t. Alaska Democrats know this. There will probably be a consolidation effort in that race so a single Democrat can enter the first round with a vote somewhere in the mid 40s. That person probably wins against a splintered field of Republicans.
The Senate race is a little less concerning with vote splitting since Mary Peltola is already getting 97% of Dems voters. I don’t think the non-entity 4th place Dem would matter unless the race went to a recount where the margin is within a few hundred votes.
In this electoral environment, RCV might not matter. Given that the general election often has a more Dem-leaning electorate than the primary, it's conceivable to me that Peltola might get over 50% in the first round. She already got 48% in the primary.
That said, it will make things simpler if there is only one Democrat on the ballot this November.
The fact that these machinations are happening is a point against the top 4 system. It might be better to introduce some sort of threshold. Such as, you need at least 5% of the first round vote to make it to the second round, even if you're in the top 4.
Definitely these scenarios of 2 real candidates facing a bunch of nobodies jockeying to get into (or out of) the top 4 is going to sour voters on it at some point. The incentives happening here are actually for parties to field as many candidates as possible to make it more likely 3rd and 4th place go to the other party, and to do so with loyal partisans who will drop out should they still happen to get into 3rd or 4th, rather than people like Hafner.
There is no political incentive to create a specific, detailed legislative plan in advance of an election. Voters do not reward it. In fact, there are strong disincentives to doing so. People will start to pick apart the details, the negative numbers come out first ("10% tax on XYZ!") while the benefits are more nebulous to voters. Going into the weeds at this level invites criticism without comparable reward.
They're smart to not make a detailed, specific proposal now. I know that's frustrating but it's the reality of American politics. It's made worse by the state of our media coverage.
Almost no one voted against Trump for his "concepts of a plan" gaff. Lack of a plan, even when he was making vague promises of just "something much better" didn't phase anyone. The idea that Dems need to ultra-specific when the Republicans just say they have a plan for "Day 1" when they clearly have no such thing is yet another media double standard.
Covering everyone's medical expenses is widely popular. The mechanisms to make that a reality are significantly less popular, ranging from a scoff to toxic in the electorate. If there were a universally popular way to get the math done, it would have been done years or decades ago.
Hey all, sorry I haven't been as active on the substack comments these days. Cleaned up a couple obvious ones. Please feel free to use the Report option on bots coming in here to spam links. Thanks!
My initial quibbles are I wouldn’t put OH-Gov at Lean R or GA-AG and GA-SOS as tilting or leaning Republican. KS-AG is probably our best win opportunity in that whole state, and I wouldn’t put it at Likely R when there’s a rematch of a race that Kobach won by less than 2 points. First glance at the other top of ticket races seem reasonable even if I’d have different ratings.
Depending on your reasoning for the Senate predictions, these make sense. It gives Democrats anywhere from 3-6 seats to pick up as long as Abdul El-Sayed wins the Senate seat.
I did see Chuck Schumer mention the Cook Political Report that control of the Senate in general is a tossup right now, meaning there is a possibility Democrats will win control over the Senate.
Also, good call on IN-SOS. I go back and forth between thinking that is a tossup or Lean R. Bayh will benefit a lot from a lack of Senate and gubernatorial race and from the former Republican Indianapolis Mayor splitting the vote.
In which stretch Senate race would you most like to see an upset?
These are seats where the polls haven't been close, but there's an ever so slight chance of an upset in a blue wave night.
It can be one where you really want to get rid of the incumbent, or one where you really like the Dem, or one where we need a win to build the party. (Or, really, any reason you choose).
AR
FL
KS
KY
MS
MT
NE
SC
You can chip in with "you missed [X-STATE]." I'm not wedded to this list. Just starting the ball rolling.
FL. I think it would be really funny to see the reactions of just about everyone in the country if a democratic socialist won statewide in Florida.
NE is a close second because I think we need more people like Osborn running in states that aren't competitive for Democrats, and he makes a good example of the "tough rural guy sticking it to the man" that so many people yearn for right now.
Polling has shown Dan Osborne very slightly ahead in Nebraska, so I don’t know if it belongs in this list.
I would most appreciate Mississippi flipping, as it is a state with many Black Democratic voters who might lose their only Democratic representative after the state does some additional redistricting. Scott Colom would be able to still advocate for their interests.
Besides the obvious choice (for me), I would say Florida. Angie Nixon seems cool and I think she'd make a great senator, and the Republican meltdown over a black democratic socialist woman winning in *Florida* would be glorious.
I'll go against the grain here and say Kansas, I think it'd be interesting to see three different flavors of pastor - a Black church man, a mainstream Presbyterian, and a Methodist - serve as senators at the same time on the Democratic side.
Fun question. I like Joe's and the Arkansan's answers, but I'll be a homer and say SC. If Annie could win it would inspire a lot of closet Dems to show up for future elections and begrudging Rs to recognize an alternative exists. Plus, as the fastest growing state in the country, it might convince some Ds from Up North to move here instead of stopping in NC. Plus plus, eking another Southern state leftward would be good for America and future elections, like GA and NC. Hopefully MS would follow.
Whichever has the biggest down ballot/infrastruture boost for the party long term, which feels like FL. Unlike Doug Jones's special election win, we can expect that if Angie Nixon wins, there will be real long-term benefits for the FL Democratic Party.
Definitely either Nebraska or Kansas, because we need to be putting more states on the board and those are our best long-term options. If we flipped a statewide office at the federal level, it would make people believe we can compete there. You could arguably make that case for any state on that list, but I think Nebraska and Kansas have the most potential. It would be wild if we somehow flipped the KS senate seat while holding the governor's mansion.
Since there was no Monday Digest, I'm treating today (Monday) as part of a long weekend. ;) Checking 270toWin, there hasn't been *any* general election polling for the Senate election here in KY this year, either before or since the primary, though there were some polls _for_ the primary.
While I would, of course, *love* to see Charles Booker win, and not just for the sake of the pickup, I'll say again to watch the margin. He pulled 38% in 2022. If he can overperform that and push into the mid-40s, it should be a long night for the Rs. If he can win outside of Louisville, Lexington, and Franklin County (a fair chunk of which is outside of Frankfort), it may be a long night for the Rs.
With the Alaska primary giving us a better read of the race than any poll can give, how would we rank the seats we need to win the Senate? I’d rank them:
46. GA (Likely D)
47. NC (Likely D)
48. AK (Tilt D)
49. ME (Tilt D)
50. MI (Tossup)
51. OH (Tossup)
52. TX (Tossup)
53. IA (Tilt R)
54. KS (Lean R)
55. NE (Lean R)
Everything else I’d have as safe for either party.
In my predictions listed above I have ME and MI at Lean D, OH and TX and Tilt R, IA at Lean R, and KS and NE at Likely R. The others are the same. In other words, 50-50 + JD Vance.
I also have NH and MN at Likely D and SC at Likely R.
I think about a month from now Michigan is going to be looking noticeably better for us than TX and OH. I'd put Maine ahead of Alaska and Texas ahead of Ohio, but those are quibbles. The overall order looks good. I'm more pessimistic about Kansas and Nebraska. Maybe about Iowa too.
Guessing NH would place at 45, either Safe D or Very Likely D?
That seems quite optimistic in the middle of your rankings. Putting TX or OH anything to the left of true tossup ia wishcasting IMO. And IA has as shown zero polls tied, so a toss-up simply isnt backed up by data. I wish the races looked like that, but it sadly doesnt match reality as ot exists today.
AK Sen: The count was just updated but, unbelievably, only 41 more votes were counted since the last posting. Slow mail or perhaps another update coming.
FL-Gov: Just like with Vivek Ramaswamy in Ohio, do you think James Fishback voters will hold their nose and vote for David Jolly because he's white and anti-Trump? Went down a Fishback supporter rabbit hole on social media and that may be the case.
Fishback almost got 200,000 votes in the primary, and if enough of his supporters went behind Jolly it could make a difference.
That’s an intriguing possibility but I can only envision this would be a sign of a protest vote against Byron Donalds more than it is genuinely a vote for David Jolly.
I'm interested in the race to get a trade deal in place between us, a story that is dominating the airwaves and social media here in Canada, but doesn't even seem to register for much of the American press. There is fear that we might be sacrificing too much too quickly. We may know in the next hour or two as the Trump-imposed midnight deadline approaches. Will he get a win he can tout for the midterms?
The thing is none of the other “deals,” a word I think is far too generous, have moved the needle much for Trump either way. Nobody really cares. That cuts both ways, of course, in that people aren’t that outraged by an outrageous foreign policy, but that also means that anything he claims as a “win” never really moves the public
Well, there was no deal, the talks have fallen apart, and new round of retaliation is gearing up. I expect this will boost Carney's standing among those Canadians who believe any attempt to negotiate with Trump is a fool's errand, and might be reflected in the by-elections coming up on August 31 and beyond.
"U.S. President Donald Trump says Canada "wants the benefits" of being a U.S. state "without being one."
Trump's comments, in a brief post on his Truth Social platform early Sunday, are his first since trade talks between the two countries broke down and come after a slate of new U.S. tariffs came into effect.
Trump also accused Canada of imposing "massive amounts of Tariffs" on American farmers for years. "No more!!!" he wrote in the post."
Awww little fella, believe me, as bad as the midterm results are gonna be for you right now, you would not want Canadians voting on your performance as well.
DOJ says the Postal Service rule on mail-in balloting will be formally put on the books next week — but emphasizes that two court orders prevent it from actually having any effect and USPS won’t act to implement it.
The fact that they implemented it at all shows how much nominally independent agencies are now under Dear Leader's thumb. Between Trump's "norm breaking", the GOP's obsequiousness, and the SCOTUS's embracing of a completely ahistorical, unprecedented understanding of executive power, we're back to the spoils system of the 19th century, but with a more authoritarian and vindictive bent.
A few days ago, Abbott called a special election for Senate District 22 to be held on Election Day (https://www.texastribune.org/2026/05/18/texas-brian-birdwell-assistant-secretary-defense-department/). The deadline to file was on Thursday. Well apparently at the same time Abbott also called a special election for House District 93 to also be held on Election Day but only told a few Republicans, like the current Republican candidate for that seat. The deadline to file was also on Thursday. Abbott never made an announcement or or proclamation for that house seat as is standard. A game of telephone happened that allowed Democrats to get a candidate for the special election, apparently with minutes to spare.
When I posted the story a few days ago about the special for SD22, it was discussed as to why? And in passing I mentioned the only benefit to serving between the November election and Jan (when we have our regular session) would be if there was a special session. Like Lone Star Left, I am now convinced that if November doesn't go well for Republicans, Abbott is intending to call a special session before the regular session convenes in January. Republicans must be seeing some bad numbers if they're trying to hide special elections. HD93 is in Tarrant County and it's fully within SD9, the district Democrats flipped early this year.
I think we’re firmly at a point where the Texas governor’s race can no longer be considered safe for Abbot. And while I get erring on the side of caution, given the closeness of some high quality polls I’d even go as far to say the race is only Lean R, not Likely R
That’s fair and I think either category work. What makes it “Lean” for me is even though Abbot’s hovering around 50% as you said, he hasn’t really gained any ground. He’s hovered around that number since the beginning of June compared to Hinojosa who’s made some gains. Even Paxton has grown somewhat consistently with Talarico whereas Abbot is stuck at 50%. I think Abbot is more likely to win on the whole, but it’s going to be something around 51-52 against 47-48.
Obituaries: Former Sen. Nancy Kassebaum (R-KS) has died at 94.
Kassebaum hailed from a prominent political family. Her father, Alf Landon, was governor of Kansas and ran for President in 1936, losing in a landslide to Franklin Delano Roosevelt. In her early career, Kassebaum was a staffer to Sen. Jim Pearson, who she succeeded. When she was elected to the Senate in 1978, she was the only woman in the chamber. She was chair of the Senate Labor Committee as well as a subcommittee on Africa, where she made a push to end apartheid. After retiring in 1996, fellow Republicans Pat Roberts and Roger Marshall have held the seat.
She married former Senate Majority Leader Howard Baker (R-TN) in 1996, and between then and his death in 2014, they split time between his home in Huntsville, TN and hers in Burdick, KS. After leaving office, Kassebaum was an outspoken opponent of the rightward shift of the Republican Party, endorsing Democrats for local offices.
RIP. Would be great to get Republicans like her and the late Baker (not a Rockefeller Repub by any means but a principled and cordial conservative) back
To be fair, they both had previous marriages. Kassebaum was married to art collector J. Philip Kassebaum (hence the common surname she used for the rest of her life) at 23, and they had 4 children. Baker was married to Danice Dirksen, the daughter of former Sen. Everett Dirksen, at 25, and they had 2 children.
In addition to Kassebaum being 64 when she married Baker, he was 70.
Just one data point, but I was going back and forth here with someone earlier this week about how primary turnout is related to November performance. Someone mapped it, and it indicates a ~10% Dem lead on the generic ballot:
D+10 isn’t too off of what some generic ballot polling is showing. Emerson college just had a poll that showed a D+8 generic ballot, and 2018 was a D+7/8 year. I think it’s entirely possible that current generic ballot polls aren’t accurately capturing the electorate, perhaps out of caution or maybe they’re not accurately capturing low propensity or first time voters in an inverse of 2024… and 2020… and 2016… etc. Could also be a lot of undecideds who might be marking themselves as such because of neither party being very popular right now, but might break heavily for the Democrats come Election Day. I just think we’re seeing too many instances of Democrats heavily outpacing Republican voters in primaries for it to mean absolutely nothing. One instance is an interesting statistic. Multiple is a pattern.
“Despite having served as the county’s health director, el Sayed lost the county to Rep. Haley Stevens (D-MI), 51.3% to 45.4%, a deficit of roughly 17,300 votes.”
It’s funny, in the lead up to the primary they were pushing this narrative that El-Sayed was going to perform so terribly with black voters and lose the county by a large amount. Instead he performed better than expected, in spite of Haley Stevens being backed by several black political leaders and pretending to be endorsed by Obama, but the narrative is still that because he didn’t win the county he wasn’t expected to win, he’s DOOMED! The goalposts are always moved for Democrats, whether moderate, liberal, or progressive, nothing’s ever good enough.
That's some insane cope.
Agreed. Keep in mind that when Democrats lost the Senate in 2018, it set up a clear roadblock from impeaching Trump for unlawfully investigating opponents and the insurrection on January 6. In the same vein, if we lose the Senate now, he can't be impeached for usurpations of power in every sense of the word, government-mandated surveillance and ICE action, and a baseless, criminal war.
Maybe it's wishful thinking but I don't see why a couple Republicans can't have some balls for once. It's not determined whether he will have any staying power in the party after 2028, especially if the party gets a terrible performance in November. Maybe his influence and endorsement doesn't mean as much anymore, and more Republicans will be willing to criticize him.
It's wishful thinking and also wouldn't be nearly enough votes.
2/3rds of members present, so 67 if all 100 are present.
67 to convict.
They lost the senate in 2014
He’s never going to be impeached and/or convicted. We need to put that wish to bed. We need to win the Senate to block any SCOTUS nominee until a Dem prez is in office. Period.
He was already convicted by a court. He won't be convicted by the Senate, no.
Maybe I’ve set my expectations too high, but a good night for me means winning the Senate. The House means next to nothing to me by itself.
Winning one chamber would be way better than flipping neither one!
For me an OK night:
1) Flip the House
2) Hold 25 Gov mansions
3) State level progress
A good night:
1-3 plus:
4) Flip the Senate
5) 26+ Govs
6) 225+ House seats
A VERY good night:
1-6 plus:
7) 230+ House seats
8) 53 Senate Seats. Hold everything plus flipping NC, ME, OH, AK, TX, IA.
Blue Wavy Gravy
9) 235+ House seats
10) More than 53 Senate seats. Hold everything + 6 flips + at least 1 more.
# 8 for sure #10 after Dan Osborn comes out on top after multiple recounts and lawsuits filed by the losers.
Still would be a shitty consolation prize if that was all we flipped. The Senate is a million times more important.
It would be a disaster, but still far better than nothing.
The GOP not being able to pass any legislation without Dem leadership is worth something. Controlling every House committee and being able to direct oversight via that channel is worth something. But flipping the Senate too is worth so much more, and we badly need it.
We need the ability to check republican power in DC. Any realistic outcome that accomplishes that is good by default, in my view. Taking the senate on top would be a great night, but it's important to remember how badly the playing fielded is tilted against us for the senate. Both this cycle specifically but also in the long term.
The only realistic pathway to us winning the senate this cycle requires us to win two states that are still decently red, on top of NC and ME.
All four of AK, TX, OH, and IA are difficult. We require at least two! It's even worse in 2028, where we have two pickups of similar status as NC+ME (NC+WI), and only one stretch seat in the form of Iowa again. Then 2030 only has PA and TX.
The senate is a huge slog for us, the realistic pathway is doing well two cycles in a row. That the year looks to have such a strong wave is the only reason the senate seems on the table at all. All this is another reason why we desperately need to make DC and PR into states.
Trump is just going to ignore the House entirely like he did in the first term. He needs the Senate to get his ghouls onto courts and into his cabinet. That’s the only real game in town as far as checking his power in my view. I am well aware the map is tough for us. It’d still be disappointing if we did not win the Senate. That means more Blanches and Aileen Cannons.
The senate is much more impactful than the house, but the house is still critical. At it's most basic, they cannot do anything without the budget for it.
I don't think we're that far apart, except maybe you're more pessimistic than I am about what we might be able to block with only the house.
They can raise a lot of money corruptly without House approval and move a lot of money the House didn't appropriate. I believe this Supreme Court would have found the Iran-Contra Scandal to be legal and constitutional.
We should prepared to be exclusively in a defensive situation in 2030 assuming a Dem is president. I don’t think TX would even be on the table then and even PA would be a long shot if it isn’t an open seat (I don’t see McCormick retiring after just one term).
I agree, but anything beyond the current election cycle I'm going to treat as neutral for surface level assessments. Too much can change, and 2030 is a full three cycles from today.
Your reply illustrates.the point well about why we really need to building up opposition to the Rs in currently light red states. No sense wasting time on Wyoming, but we need to make the reach seats more competitive in a neutral environment, like NC and GA have become, whether that's thru branded Dems like Cooper and Troy Jackson, or Independents that may be merely centrist like out west. Heck, wouldn't it be fantastic if we had John Fettermans in KS, ND, MT, OK, and MO? We might not have the policy we really want across the board, but we'd have better policy, and we'd have our own appointees. And we could move states toward the left like AZ has. As much as I disliked Sinema screwing Bidens policy, I don't think we'd have someone as reliable as Gallego without her first.
I don't disagree in principle, but I feel this is way, way, way harder than it sounds on paper.
If we have a good strategy to do it, I'm all for it. But I'm wary of us investing much money or hope into difficult states. States like Montana or South Carolina or Florida or Missouri need more than steady party investment and the right candidate.
We need to have credible candidates wherever we can, but that's just about the only part that is firmly under the party's control.
💯. If I had the answer, I'd change jobs!
But I think it starts with building support for places where Rs have over reached. Like in Michigan the Dems went after districting first to get fairer districts and after that they were able to get more Ds elected statewide and then push policies that people wanted. Missouri, in some ways, is similar, with the constant efforts of the state Rs to roll back what the voters have chosen through referenda. It's a long game for sure.
Living in SC now, I'm not sure what the wedge would be, best I can come up with is corruption, because the good old boy network is strong, corrupt, and entrenched. Alec Murdaugh is just the tip of the iceberg. But that's not an issue that sways many voters, and in some ways just puts people off ("they're all corrupt, so why vote").
And that only works if we hold MI, which is by no means a guarantee...
Pointless to engage with these bots, even if they say "not a bot". Report.
lol
I keep reporting them. It’s beginning to be an issue though. So annoying.
The concern is that folks will vote only for the other Dem and not rank anyone else, including Peltolta. So the Dem ballot would be exhausted. A good education campaign and more experience with the system will make that less of an issue. But in close elections, every exhausted minor D candidate ballot counts....against.
Not every voter ranks beyond their first vote. If Peltola is the only democrat on the ballot then she doesn't have to worry about democratic voters failing to rank her: anyone that turns up to vote with the intention of voting democratic will vote for her by default. If she's not the only democrat on the ballot she now has to worry about what percentage of the voters for the other democrat(s) will exhaust their vote rather than rank her second.
In most elections it's not a big deal. But it could cost her 0.5-1% of the vote, which is all it takes in a close race -- which is what we should expect out of Alaska.
What others said. You can see the actual reallocation results from 2024 here: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2024_United_States_House_of_Representatives_election_in_Alaska#Results_2
Eric Hafner, a rando perennial candidate with a (D) after his name, got 3600 votes. When reallocated, 1300 of them listed no second choice (called "ballot exhaustion"), 1300 picked Peltola, 660 went to the third place independent candidate, and 270 of them actually went to Begich. So Peltola's margin only grew by just over a thousand ballots, out of 3600 for the 4th place Dem. In percentage terms, Hafner got 1.1% of the vote, but when removed only helped Peltola by 0.3%.
Back in 2022 (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2022_United_States_House_of_Representatives_election_in_Alaska#Results_2) when Begich got eliminated his 64,500 votes split 43,000 to Palin, 14,000 exhausted, and 7,500 to Peltola. 64.5K GOP votes only helped Palin close the gap by 35.5K.
To be fair, even if the 4th candidate was a Republican, we don't necessarily know what those Hafner-exhaust, Begich, or AIP voters would have done, or how many of the 660 were Hafner-AIP-Peltola voters. Some voters are just plain weird.
This is the calculation in the gubernatorial race too. It’d be nice if we could rely on the Democratic voters to rank all the Democrats, but in reality, many won’t. Alaska Democrats know this. There will probably be a consolidation effort in that race so a single Democrat can enter the first round with a vote somewhere in the mid 40s. That person probably wins against a splintered field of Republicans.
The Senate race is a little less concerning with vote splitting since Mary Peltola is already getting 97% of Dems voters. I don’t think the non-entity 4th place Dem would matter unless the race went to a recount where the margin is within a few hundred votes.
In this electoral environment, RCV might not matter. Given that the general election often has a more Dem-leaning electorate than the primary, it's conceivable to me that Peltola might get over 50% in the first round. She already got 48% in the primary.
That said, it will make things simpler if there is only one Democrat on the ballot this November.
The fact that these machinations are happening is a point against the top 4 system. It might be better to introduce some sort of threshold. Such as, you need at least 5% of the first round vote to make it to the second round, even if you're in the top 4.
Definitely these scenarios of 2 real candidates facing a bunch of nobodies jockeying to get into (or out of) the top 4 is going to sour voters on it at some point. The incentives happening here are actually for parties to field as many candidates as possible to make it more likely 3rd and 4th place go to the other party, and to do so with loyal partisans who will drop out should they still happen to get into 3rd or 4th, rather than people like Hafner.
There is no political incentive to create a specific, detailed legislative plan in advance of an election. Voters do not reward it. In fact, there are strong disincentives to doing so. People will start to pick apart the details, the negative numbers come out first ("10% tax on XYZ!") while the benefits are more nebulous to voters. Going into the weeds at this level invites criticism without comparable reward.
They're smart to not make a detailed, specific proposal now. I know that's frustrating but it's the reality of American politics. It's made worse by the state of our media coverage.
Almost no one voted against Trump for his "concepts of a plan" gaff. Lack of a plan, even when he was making vague promises of just "something much better" didn't phase anyone. The idea that Dems need to ultra-specific when the Republicans just say they have a plan for "Day 1" when they clearly have no such thing is yet another media double standard.
Covering everyone's medical expenses is widely popular. The mechanisms to make that a reality are significantly less popular, ranging from a scoff to toxic in the electorate. If there were a universally popular way to get the math done, it would have been done years or decades ago.
We need to figure out a way to get rid of these bots
It’s really gotten out of control.
Calling any moderator. Help.
The only way I see truly getting rid of bots for good is to have Substack add more security measures to prevent easy sign-ups from happening.
It’s a major pain on LinkedIn as well, which is the primary social media platform I use these days.
Hey all, sorry I haven't been as active on the substack comments these days. Cleaned up a couple obvious ones. Please feel free to use the Report option on bots coming in here to spam links. Thanks!
https://docs.google.com/document/d/1MRwkZOJx0OHAj91srxeibeWHtXOizS6mbx-cEN4obqQ/edit?tab=t.0
I did ones in January, March and May if I remember correctly: this is my penultimate midterm prediction and will do a final one in October.
This time I expanded it from Congress and governorships to include other big statewide offices up this year (think LG, AG, SoS, etc.)
As always, feel free to comment on/critique my choices.
My initial quibbles are I wouldn’t put OH-Gov at Lean R or GA-AG and GA-SOS as tilting or leaning Republican. KS-AG is probably our best win opportunity in that whole state, and I wouldn’t put it at Likely R when there’s a rematch of a race that Kobach won by less than 2 points. First glance at the other top of ticket races seem reasonable even if I’d have different ratings.
Depending on your reasoning for the Senate predictions, these make sense. It gives Democrats anywhere from 3-6 seats to pick up as long as Abdul El-Sayed wins the Senate seat.
I did see Chuck Schumer mention the Cook Political Report that control of the Senate in general is a tossup right now, meaning there is a possibility Democrats will win control over the Senate.
Also, good call on IN-SOS. I go back and forth between thinking that is a tossup or Lean R. Bayh will benefit a lot from a lack of Senate and gubernatorial race and from the former Republican Indianapolis Mayor splitting the vote.
As time goes by I think I'm more worried about Ballard taking votes from Bayh rather than Engling
OK, TBDers, let's see where ya at:
In which stretch Senate race would you most like to see an upset?
These are seats where the polls haven't been close, but there's an ever so slight chance of an upset in a blue wave night.
It can be one where you really want to get rid of the incumbent, or one where you really like the Dem, or one where we need a win to build the party. (Or, really, any reason you choose).
AR
FL
KS
KY
MS
MT
NE
SC
You can chip in with "you missed [X-STATE]." I'm not wedded to this list. Just starting the ball rolling.
Go.
FL. I think it would be really funny to see the reactions of just about everyone in the country if a democratic socialist won statewide in Florida.
NE is a close second because I think we need more people like Osborn running in states that aren't competitive for Democrats, and he makes a good example of the "tough rural guy sticking it to the man" that so many people yearn for right now.
Florida.
I actually think she will do a lot better than the CW believes. But come up short.
Polling has shown Dan Osborne very slightly ahead in Nebraska, so I don’t know if it belongs in this list.
I would most appreciate Mississippi flipping, as it is a state with many Black Democratic voters who might lose their only Democratic representative after the state does some additional redistricting. Scott Colom would be able to still advocate for their interests.
Well I'm biased as an Arkansan so... Arkansas
Besides the obvious choice (for me), I would say Florida. Angie Nixon seems cool and I think she'd make a great senator, and the Republican meltdown over a black democratic socialist woman winning in *Florida* would be glorious.
I'll go against the grain here and say Kansas, I think it'd be interesting to see three different flavors of pastor - a Black church man, a mainstream Presbyterian, and a Methodist - serve as senators at the same time on the Democratic side.
Anywhere but Florida, as that will only last for two years.
Fun question. I like Joe's and the Arkansan's answers, but I'll be a homer and say SC. If Annie could win it would inspire a lot of closet Dems to show up for future elections and begrudging Rs to recognize an alternative exists. Plus, as the fastest growing state in the country, it might convince some Ds from Up North to move here instead of stopping in NC. Plus plus, eking another Southern state leftward would be good for America and future elections, like GA and NC. Hopefully MS would follow.
Whichever has the biggest down ballot/infrastruture boost for the party long term, which feels like FL. Unlike Doug Jones's special election win, we can expect that if Angie Nixon wins, there will be real long-term benefits for the FL Democratic Party.
Definitely either Nebraska or Kansas, because we need to be putting more states on the board and those are our best long-term options. If we flipped a statewide office at the federal level, it would make people believe we can compete there. You could arguably make that case for any state on that list, but I think Nebraska and Kansas have the most potential. It would be wild if we somehow flipped the KS senate seat while holding the governor's mansion.
SC - Darlene Graham's been getting bad press over her debate performance and Annie Andrews as a Democratic Senate Candidate can capitalize on this.
Since there was no Monday Digest, I'm treating today (Monday) as part of a long weekend. ;) Checking 270toWin, there hasn't been *any* general election polling for the Senate election here in KY this year, either before or since the primary, though there were some polls _for_ the primary.
While I would, of course, *love* to see Charles Booker win, and not just for the sake of the pickup, I'll say again to watch the margin. He pulled 38% in 2022. If he can overperform that and push into the mid-40s, it should be a long night for the Rs. If he can win outside of Louisville, Lexington, and Franklin County (a fair chunk of which is outside of Frankfort), it may be a long night for the Rs.
With the Alaska primary giving us a better read of the race than any poll can give, how would we rank the seats we need to win the Senate? I’d rank them:
46. GA (Likely D)
47. NC (Likely D)
48. AK (Tilt D)
49. ME (Tilt D)
50. MI (Tossup)
51. OH (Tossup)
52. TX (Tossup)
53. IA (Tilt R)
54. KS (Lean R)
55. NE (Lean R)
Everything else I’d have as safe for either party.
In my predictions listed above I have ME and MI at Lean D, OH and TX and Tilt R, IA at Lean R, and KS and NE at Likely R. The others are the same. In other words, 50-50 + JD Vance.
I also have NH and MN at Likely D and SC at Likely R.
I think about a month from now Michigan is going to be looking noticeably better for us than TX and OH. I'd put Maine ahead of Alaska and Texas ahead of Ohio, but those are quibbles. The overall order looks good. I'm more pessimistic about Kansas and Nebraska. Maybe about Iowa too.
Guessing NH would place at 45, either Safe D or Very Likely D?
Honestly NH might be slightly closer than GA, nobody on the right seems to be taking that race particularly seriously.
As for the rest of the list:
I suspect MI and ME will see slightly larger margins than AK, not sure how'd I rank the two against each other margin-wise.
My guess is NE will be a fair bit closer than KS, and possibly IA.
SC may be slightly competitive, although probably not within 5 points.
Good list. I sm slightly more optimistic. Mostly.
44. MN Likely D
45. NH Likely D
46. GA Likely D
47. NC Likely D
48. MI Lean D
49. ME Tilt D
50. OH Tilt D
51. TX Tilt D
52. AK Tossup
53. IA Tossup
54. NE Lean R
55. KS Likely R
As for the upset I'd most like to see: Florida. Easily. Something else in the South 2nd, MS or SC.
That seems quite optimistic in the middle of your rankings. Putting TX or OH anything to the left of true tossup ia wishcasting IMO. And IA has as shown zero polls tied, so a toss-up simply isnt backed up by data. I wish the races looked like that, but it sadly doesnt match reality as ot exists today.
I think we're close on our ratings. I'd call AK a tossup and TX Tilt R, but generally on board here.
AK Sen: The count was just updated but, unbelievably, only 41 more votes were counted since the last posting. Slow mail or perhaps another update coming.
STOP THE COUNT!
FL-Gov: Just like with Vivek Ramaswamy in Ohio, do you think James Fishback voters will hold their nose and vote for David Jolly because he's white and anti-Trump? Went down a Fishback supporter rabbit hole on social media and that may be the case.
Fishback almost got 200,000 votes in the primary, and if enough of his supporters went behind Jolly it could make a difference.
That’s an intriguing possibility but I can only envision this would be a sign of a protest vote against Byron Donalds more than it is genuinely a vote for David Jolly.
No question! And if I had my druthers, I'd rather the racists don't vote.
That would help get Angie Nixon over the line for FL-SEN too. It's going to be a BIGGER lift for her.
Well, Richard Spencer voted for Biden in 2020 and Harris in 2024 so anything can happen.
As long as the racist protest vote puts Jolly over 50%, that’s a-okay with me
Votes are votes are votes!
I'm interested in the race to get a trade deal in place between us, a story that is dominating the airwaves and social media here in Canada, but doesn't even seem to register for much of the American press. There is fear that we might be sacrificing too much too quickly. We may know in the next hour or two as the Trump-imposed midnight deadline approaches. Will he get a win he can tout for the midterms?
The thing is none of the other “deals,” a word I think is far too generous, have moved the needle much for Trump either way. Nobody really cares. That cuts both ways, of course, in that people aren’t that outraged by an outrageous foreign policy, but that also means that anything he claims as a “win” never really moves the public
Well, there was no deal, the talks have fallen apart, and new round of retaliation is gearing up. I expect this will boost Carney's standing among those Canadians who believe any attempt to negotiate with Trump is a fool's errand, and might be reflected in the by-elections coming up on August 31 and beyond.
No deal with him is worth the paper it’s written on. If it even gets that far.
https://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/trump-canada-trade-dispute-9.7317333
"U.S. President Donald Trump says Canada "wants the benefits" of being a U.S. state "without being one."
Trump's comments, in a brief post on his Truth Social platform early Sunday, are his first since trade talks between the two countries broke down and come after a slate of new U.S. tariffs came into effect.
Trump also accused Canada of imposing "massive amounts of Tariffs" on American farmers for years. "No more!!!" he wrote in the post."
Awww little fella, believe me, as bad as the midterm results are gonna be for you right now, you would not want Canadians voting on your performance as well.
I think at this point most people view any trade policy story as 'more stupid tariff s**t that's probably going to change in a month or two anyway'.
Agreed. It also at this point doesn’t really appear to help Trump look tough either like it might have 18 mos ago
Trump will TACO as always. It's all hot air coming from his ugly face hole anyway since SCOTUS ruled his retaliatory tariffs illegal.
Under one particular statute.
The deal is torched
DOJ says the Postal Service rule on mail-in balloting will be formally put on the books next week — but emphasizes that two court orders prevent it from actually having any effect and USPS won’t act to implement it.
https://x.com/kyledcheney/status/2090972874899083307?s=46&t=sbdQQeYBqp0h_Zql717iTw
The fact that they implemented it at all shows how much nominally independent agencies are now under Dear Leader's thumb. Between Trump's "norm breaking", the GOP's obsequiousness, and the SCOTUS's embracing of a completely ahistorical, unprecedented understanding of executive power, we're back to the spoils system of the 19th century, but with a more authoritarian and vindictive bent.
TX- Lege: So this story broke late yesterday on social media. It's so buried, that not even the Texas Tribune has taken notice. Lone Star Left has the story: https://www.lonestarleft.com/p/a-county-judge-a-secret-election
A few days ago, Abbott called a special election for Senate District 22 to be held on Election Day (https://www.texastribune.org/2026/05/18/texas-brian-birdwell-assistant-secretary-defense-department/). The deadline to file was on Thursday. Well apparently at the same time Abbott also called a special election for House District 93 to also be held on Election Day but only told a few Republicans, like the current Republican candidate for that seat. The deadline to file was also on Thursday. Abbott never made an announcement or or proclamation for that house seat as is standard. A game of telephone happened that allowed Democrats to get a candidate for the special election, apparently with minutes to spare.
When I posted the story a few days ago about the special for SD22, it was discussed as to why? And in passing I mentioned the only benefit to serving between the November election and Jan (when we have our regular session) would be if there was a special session. Like Lone Star Left, I am now convinced that if November doesn't go well for Republicans, Abbott is intending to call a special session before the regular session convenes in January. Republicans must be seeing some bad numbers if they're trying to hide special elections. HD93 is in Tarrant County and it's fully within SD9, the district Democrats flipped early this year.
HD-93 would be unlikely to flip on a more balanced midterm electorate, but good to see someone try. God I hope Hinojosa pulls off the upset.
I think we’re firmly at a point where the Texas governor’s race can no longer be considered safe for Abbot. And while I get erring on the side of caution, given the closeness of some high quality polls I’d even go as far to say the race is only Lean R, not Likely R
I'm split between lean and likely R here, as while polls are close, Abbot is pretty consistently close to or just over 50%.
Cook has moved it to Lean R
That’s fair and I think either category work. What makes it “Lean” for me is even though Abbot’s hovering around 50% as you said, he hasn’t really gained any ground. He’s hovered around that number since the beginning of June compared to Hinojosa who’s made some gains. Even Paxton has grown somewhat consistently with Talarico whereas Abbot is stuck at 50%. I think Abbot is more likely to win on the whole, but it’s going to be something around 51-52 against 47-48.
So far, it looks Likely to me.
https://www.ksnt.com/news/kansas/former-u-s-senator-from-topeka-nancy-landon-kassebaum-baker-dies-at-94/
Obituaries: Former Sen. Nancy Kassebaum (R-KS) has died at 94.
Kassebaum hailed from a prominent political family. Her father, Alf Landon, was governor of Kansas and ran for President in 1936, losing in a landslide to Franklin Delano Roosevelt. In her early career, Kassebaum was a staffer to Sen. Jim Pearson, who she succeeded. When she was elected to the Senate in 1978, she was the only woman in the chamber. She was chair of the Senate Labor Committee as well as a subcommittee on Africa, where she made a push to end apartheid. After retiring in 1996, fellow Republicans Pat Roberts and Roger Marshall have held the seat.
She married former Senate Majority Leader Howard Baker (R-TN) in 1996, and between then and his death in 2014, they split time between his home in Huntsville, TN and hers in Burdick, KS. After leaving office, Kassebaum was an outspoken opponent of the rightward shift of the Republican Party, endorsing Democrats for local offices.
RIP. Would be great to get Republicans like her and the late Baker (not a Rockefeller Repub by any means but a principled and cordial conservative) back
Most the Kansas Republicans like her are now Democrats.
I.e. all of Johnson County
RIP. Good person.
Married at 64? There is still hope for some of us!
To be fair, they both had previous marriages. Kassebaum was married to art collector J. Philip Kassebaum (hence the common surname she used for the rest of her life) at 23, and they had 4 children. Baker was married to Danice Dirksen, the daughter of former Sen. Everett Dirksen, at 25, and they had 2 children.
In addition to Kassebaum being 64 when she married Baker, he was 70.
Just one data point, but I was going back and forth here with someone earlier this week about how primary turnout is related to November performance. Someone mapped it, and it indicates a ~10% Dem lead on the generic ballot:
https://x.com/ecaliberseven/status/2091195401370005551?s=46&t=7xRqBTYVuGcO1a0AbRhrFQ
Oh hell yes. It’s not even September yet and the D+10 lead could stay even or increase due to the disastrous Trump regime.
Vote in numbers too big to rig!
D+10 isn’t too off of what some generic ballot polling is showing. Emerson college just had a poll that showed a D+8 generic ballot, and 2018 was a D+7/8 year. I think it’s entirely possible that current generic ballot polls aren’t accurately capturing the electorate, perhaps out of caution or maybe they’re not accurately capturing low propensity or first time voters in an inverse of 2024… and 2020… and 2016… etc. Could also be a lot of undecideds who might be marking themselves as such because of neither party being very popular right now, but might break heavily for the Democrats come Election Day. I just think we’re seeing too many instances of Democrats heavily outpacing Republican voters in primaries for it to mean absolutely nothing. One instance is an interesting statistic. Multiple is a pattern.