Will be giving an update on my predictions every few months. This is an update from December - it was made somewhat hastily, so tell me if I'm missing anything or suggest anything new.
Georgia is one of the states where we've seen the strongest Democratic overperformance in special elections. And Sen. Ossoff being on a glide path to re-election will help any gubernatorial nominee.
Unfortunately it seems he’s been written off and it doesn’t help Duncan is drawing establishment support from him. Geoff Duncan’s candidacy is such a waste of time, he has no chance in a runoff against KLB with his past views. He was gleefully standing with Kemp as he signed a total abortion ban so the idea he had a chance in the primary was always far fetched to me.
I’ll be contrarian and say only Duncan has a shot in the general (and I don’t think he’ll actually get the nom). He has a good narrative to sell on GOP excess/craziness and Bottoms’ tenure as mayor is too controversial for a statewide victory.
Georgia is a purple state. This is shaping up to be a blue wave year. The default expectation would be a generic Democrat beating a generic Republican. Neither of Rick Jackson or Burt Jones seem stronger than generic Republican.
I disagree. Dems have done well in a handful of elections there since 2020, but also not well in an equal number. The default position, all things being equal, is a slight Republican win. It’s not quite of the swingy variety of, say, NV or MI, where an open seat in a Dem wave year typically means a Dem victory. Candidate quality still matters more here.
If Dems can’t win the GA governorship with all this positive demographic change since 2018 (which they also nearly won), I’m gonna have serious doubts about the state becoming a blue state anytime soon rather than being stuck in the spot that AZ is (R tilting with occasional D wins due to bad R candidates).
Gubernatorial races are a lot less partisan and not as susceptible to waves. Kemp is also popular so voters may be keen to stick with the GOP down ballot than KLB who was a so-so Mayor.
Interesting document! I always love hearing people's predictions for seats.
I personally do think there will be more successful primary challengers though, than are listed. In particular, I don't think David Scott or John Larson are particularly safe where they are.
Question for both you and the other posters here -- if Sharice Davids does go for Senate, who might try for her House seat, either Dem or GOP?
I doubt the GOP will get a formidable recruit, considering they botched the nearby NE-2 race, which is more Republican than KS-3. State Sens. Ethan Corson or Cindy Holscher may switch to succeed Davids to avoid a competitive primary for governor. Maybe state Sen. Dinah Sykes, who wanted to run for governor, can challenge Corson or Holscher for governor or this seat.
On Larson and Scott, I think Scott may be vulnerable in a runoff, but I also think 2/3 of Larson's challengers need to drop out if one of them wants to have a chance.
On the horizon, I’m interested in the WISC race in a couple weeks. Beyond that, the Georgia primaries in May and Iowa and Maine in early June.
Separately, I wanted to ask people who is the biggest, most beatable Republican running this year with a national reach that many view as a villain? I ask because I showed my wife the Ohio poll last night and she was ecstatic to see Ramaswamy losing big. I imagine it has to be Ramaswamy, right? People like Ken Paxton and Andy Biggs are odious villains, but they don’t really have a big national audience among laypeople. Elise Stefanik would have been a contender for that title before she dropped out, but she never had a chance of winning to begin with.
Susan Collins probably fits this bill lol. There are some particularly odious thugs who I think are at risk, but not the most powerful to compare to Ramaswamy running for OH gov. Cory Mills and Derrick Van Orden are the main incumbents that come to mind, maybe Andy Ogles. Rob Bresnahan has made himself into such a clown over stocks. Fascist candidates like Madison Sheahan and Brandon Herrera could lose. Hopefully tougher races for Cindy Hyde-Smith, Lindsey Graham and maybe Roger Marshall (if Davids runs). I'm pipe dreaming that Greg Abbott loses and also would be sweet if Doug Jones could beat Tommy Tuberville for AL gov, but I'm not betting on it lol.
Does she have much of a national audience though? I’m talking levels of notoriety where the villain would be somewhat of a recognizable household name like Ted Cruz, RFK, Kristi Noem, or Dr. Oz. Ramaswamy seems like the only statewide candidate with that notoriety this year.
I think Collins is extremely well known among normies, yes. Maybe different normies than Ramaswamy, but I'd bet that she probably has higher name ID and negative emotions from Dems overall than him. Albeit, his would probably have a higher portion at "STRONGLY disapprove" than her lol.
Yeah, I think most normies see her as inoffensive and wish more Republicans were like her. She mostly bothers (1) highly engaged Democrats who see her as holding a seat that should be theirs and (2) MAGA militants who see her as insufficiently loyal to the Dear Leader.
"Some names on Stitt’s shortlist that he pitched to people for the open Senate appointment while in DC, per sources familiar with his DC meetings:
Harold Hamm [oil tycoon/founder and board chair of Continental Resources]
Dustin Hilliary [co-CEO of Hilliary Communications and senior advisor/"chief negotiator with state legislators and elected official" to Stitt, former member of the state board of regents for higher ed]
Robert Cox [founder, president and CEO of Aviation Training Consulting]
Alan Armstrong [executive board chair of Williams Companies]"
Among the various names that have been floated for the appointment and campaign, I think the only one missed is Alex Gray, who was the chief of staff at the NSC at the end of Trump I and now co-founder and CEO of "American Global Strategies".
The Politico article says Armstrong is the compromise, outsider option. Stitt wants Hilliary and Trump wants Hamm. Usually, governors have appointed allies, though, so my guess is Hilliary.
NV-1: Perennial candidate Jim Marchant is no longer challenging Rep. Dina Titus. State Sen. Carrie Buck is the only major Republican running.
NV-2: Despite the district being open for the first time in 15 years, the only major Republicans running here are former Assemblyman James Settelmeyer and businessman David Flippo.
NV-3: Jeff Gunter, Aury Nagy, Tera Anderson and Marty O'Donnell are the major Republicans challenging Rep. Susie Lee. Another one, Chris Brandlin, withdrew.
NV-2 - Wow! That's less big candidates then Democrats for the same seat (former Majority Leader and current COS to the AG Teresa Benitez-Thompson, former Nevada Dems Executive Director Matthew Fonken, and businessman and 2024 Ind. candidate for this seat Greg Kidd)
The other Republicans closest to being considered "major" are Dr. Fred Simon, who lost in a landslide by primarying Amodei in 2024, and two former elected officials in California: former South Lake Tahoe councilman Bruce Grego and Modesto councilman Bill Conrad.
I am way more curious how the races in Florida will shape up in November, esp after the special election wins.
FL has let me down before but with the perfect electoral storm brewing this year, I think Rs will lose their gerrymandered supermajority in the legislature and Jolly wins by a very slim margin. I’m a bit iffy on Vindman winning against Moody, but if he wins too, I’ll be happy.
If Donalds is the R nominee for the FL governor's race, I think Jolly has a 50-50 shot of an upset. Probably better if the FL Rs are as allergic to brown people as Ohio Rs seem to be.
Not really, the bigots of MAGA FL may just feel less inclined to vote for a black man when they realize that fact…but this is still Florida, he will probably win by 5-10. Donalds is just a MAGA mascot for them to feel less racist…remember them putting his name out for Speaker seemingly just to contrast with Hakeem Jeffries? “We have a black too!?”
For the record, if Latinos turn against the Republicans hard enough, statewide offices could be flipped in FL, but I doubt it will be because the Republican candidates are particularly shocking for Floridian Republicans.
I think you are correct, I’m being pretty cynical here regarding Donalds…I do hope for the best in FL, hopefully enough voters even there realize they’ve been lied to and taken advantage of to make some gains electorally.
Donalds was once convicted of felony bribery before getting his record expunged. He lied about this when he first ran for Congress. He also had an affair during his first marriage.
I see Texas as like Georgia and Arizona: it's fool's gold right until it isn't. Those two states were moving towards us slowly and surely for a while. Many people insisted they were a waste of time for years due to our consistent defeats even after getting our hopes up with solid candidates. Then they became unambiguously purple states as they moved close enough to us to be competitive.
Texas is exactly like that, it just was starting from a point of us losing by 20+ points. There was -- and remains still -- ground to cover to bring it to competitive.
Florida is the opposite. It started as a purple state and has been steadily moving away from us for 10-15 years.
And Republicans would have said the same about MI, WI and PA on the presidential level and at how OH, MO and FL (and somewhat IA) went from feather-touch bellweathers to overwhelming Repub states by 2022. Do they stay that way, do they snap back? It requires work and pushback to help decide.
How much of Florida moving away from us is due to the lackluster – or should I say dysfunctional – state Democratic Party? On the positive side, we’re hardly seeing unchallenged races anymore.
I think her tenure has been a mixed bag. That’s what I see from the Palm Beach County DEC. I’m hoping Fried rises to the occasion this year and we halt the drift to the GOP.
It’s the voters. There’s only so much a state party can do. The Seinfeld snowbirds of the 90s have all passed on and have been replaced with MAGA Boomers from the Midwest.
Definitely the state party is to blame for losing many winnable races in 2014 and 2018. But now even the best run party still can't really fight the massive wave of blood red R retirees.
A massive snapback in the Cuban/Latino vote is realistically the only thing that might make the state competitive this year, but that didn't even save us in 2018, and it won't hold up much longer unless migration patterns change.
State parties matter, but that's at the margins. If I remember right a study ~15 years ago found the difference between a well run campaign and a poorly run one was worth about 3 points in an election. A state party is going to have a smaller impact than that.
Even if the difference is larger than that, it's not upper single digits let alone double digits in impact. A better run state party would have gotten us the gov and senate races in 2018, maybe held onto a few more house seats here and there in various cycles. Important, powerful differences! But not enough to reverse the long term trends against us in Florida.
Dems are winning specials in Trump seats at the state level in TX.
I think the Latino anger and reset to D is real. As it is with young voters.
IDK if they pull it off at the statewide level, but there are gonna be gains and flips. And a real race. GOP will have to defend TX. That is a huge strategic win.
Should blue and swing state Democratic officials/ organizers try some type of ratfucking to encourage MAGA populations to move to Florida to make that the ultimate MAGA vote-sink? I would be willing to write-off that state where reason goes to die in order to make sure PA, MI, WI or even the New England states more secure for the Democratic Party up and down the the ballot.
I think the media and demographics have already done that. Same with Idaho, Wyoming and probably Montana being a vote sink as West Coast righties move out.
I've got a question for you all. I'm a member of a public employee union, and I'm part of their Political Education Committee, which, among other things, interviews candidates who want the union's endorsement. Recently, we were discussing the fact that negotiations with the Governor's office hadn't been going well for us, and the chair of the committee mentioned that we were not allowed to strike (meaning that we don't have a lot of leverage in the negotiations). When I asked him why not, he said that apparently the agreement with the state, that created the union in the first place, specifically forbid it from striking.
That evening, I pondered how this could be changed. One possibility would be to elect an extremely pro-union Governor, however this seems unlikely considering that even NH's recent Democratic Governors (Shaheen, Lynch, and Hassan) were not pro-union enough for this. But there's another possibility I'd briefly wondered about even before this conversation. It seems to me a fairly straightforward argument that striking is a form of protected speech under the First Amendment, and that therefore, all no-strike clauses are unconstitutional. And before you say that SCOTUS would never make a ruling like that, the no-strike agreement in question is part of state law, meaning that it would be the New Hampshire Supreme Court that would rule on it. And the New Hampshire Supreme Court is generally considered to be more moderate and less ideological than SCOTUS.
Now, I'm not an expert in constitutional law, so my question is, has either SCOTUS or any state Supreme Court ruled on the constitutionality of no-strike clauses against the First Amendment's freedom of speech?
Apparently previous court rulings at both the state and federal levels have treated no-strike clauses as ordinary labor-law provisions that don't raise constitutional issues. That was just from a quick search, though.
IL-Sen (D): Stratton has the momentum, but will it be enough to win? Krishnamoorthi has long had the edge, but in the last few weeks or so, it's anybody's game. Kelly will be a distant 3rd, and Ryan has the best odds of being the highest-performing non-Big 3 candidate.
IL-Gov (R): Bailey's the favorite to advance to be the cannon fodder to Pritzker in the General, but Dabrowski could surprisingly make it respectably close.
IL-Comp (D): This race is legitimately too close to call between Villa (Sanders-backed), Croke (Pritzker-backed), and Kim (Mendoza-backed).
IL-02 (D): Jackson Jr, Miller, and Peters have the best odds to win the nomination. Peters is the progressive favorite, but Jackson Jr. has the association of the late Jesse Jackson (and scandals).
IL-07 (D): Ford, Conyears-Ervin, and Collins have the best odds to win, but Ford is the narrow favorite.
IL-08 (D): Bean, Ahmed, Bankole, and Morrison all have good chances to win, but realistically, it's down to Ahmed or Bean to win.
IL-09 (D): Biss and Abughazaleh have the best chances to advance, but Fine and Simmons could make it interesting.
IL-13 (D): Budzinski is very likely to win another term, but Blaha could make the race decently close despite being vastly outspent.
IL-15 (D): Mary Miller is heavily favored to win the GOP nomination and the general. As for the Democrats positioned to be the nominee, it's a genuine 4-way between Davis, Todd, Nudo, and Raley.
I think Collins in 07 is deeply overrated - i keep hearing about a strong base in Oak Park, but she is likely a non factor in the rest of the district, she has little money and few significant endorsements. Name rec can only carry you so far.
Desperately need some polling out of Virginia. I suspect Yes is ahead because the GOP is still not committing serious $$ to this and not even Youngkin wants to put his money towards the effort. To have no polling two weeks into early voting is pretty frustrating, we should be seeing as much as there were with the Texas primary.
I live in Northern Virginia and the "No" movement is way ahead in ads, commentaries, and yard signs. It is hard to even find the "Yes" voices. The "No" movement has cleverly hijacked an old quote from Governor Spanberger voicing opposition to redistricting. That may work as she is very popular though her current stand is to support "Yes". The "Yes" movement has to wake up here. I am pitching the message left and right but we need a strong push from the Democrats.
I'm in NOVA and even very active Dems here are concerned abt this amendment and unsure about it. However, the airstreams have been blanketed with ads (including one featuring Obama) saying Vote YES, so hopefully that helps
can a Colorado person explain what happened at the state convention/caucuses where Hickenlooper apparently dropped out rather than run? this is that strange CO system where candidates can get on the ballot either in March at caucuses or in June at primary???
I believe you can either get on the ballot by getting at least 30% support at caucus or by turning in signatures. I think it’s 1,500 signatures for each congressional district. The rumors are that Hickenlooper won’t hit the 30% at caucus. Hick has also already turned in signatures, so he'll be on the ballot.
OK, from your first comment it sounded as if he abruptly ended his reelection bid altogether. (Not that we would have had to worry much about his seat flipping red this year even if open.)
I really don't understand why the caucus/convention process is needed when there is also a primary which likely turns out a larger and more representative electorate.
Trump, Lankford and Club for Growth endorsed Hern with Bice and Stitt not running. My silver lining is that he's 16yrs older than Mullin and can't be there as long lol
Been ruminating lately on left v. right populism. So much attention has been paid to their similarities, points of agreement, possible alliances. But to me the differences are far more telling, and irreconcilable in the long term. I think one of the biggest differences is that, while both left and right populists are distrusting of the rich, right populists *don't want to be*.
Right populism's grievances with the wealthy are more based on the specific character they perceive of many of the wealthy in modern society, but not per se with wealth and inequality itself. It's almost like the way they think about guns, the only way to fight a bad billionaire is with a good billionaire. It's why the guy who poops in a solid gold toilet can be considered a man of the people by some. They have no qualms being lorded over by someone who they think is at heart just like them. Left populism is much more skeptical of wealth and inequality in and of itself, regardless of who is wielding it.
Fully agree, which is why I find the people relentlessly pushing "common causes" between the two groups are whistling past the graveyard. The right populists feel threatened by specific astoundingly rich people, not the concept of astoundingly rich people.
When Bill Gates and Warren Buffett were dominating the top 5 richest people in the world for a long time before Silicon Valley exploded with the likes of Elon Musk, many founders and multiple investors, I was never against the concept of them being billionaires.
Gates and the Melinda Gates Foundation have contributed significantly to research on climate change, medicine and science. Buffett has been consistent on favoring higher taxes on the wealthy and going back to a pre-Glass Steagall Act repeal environment. Mackenzie Scott has become one of the most effective philanthropists in the world as far as her donations and impact they make on marginalized communities. Marc Benioff showed serious balls when he called for the Ellis Act to be repealed and also helped finance renovation of a low rent motel for the disadvantaged. Taylor Swift donated generously to the NAACP as a result of the George Floyd controversy. Patagonia founder Yvon Chouinard is donating most of his billions in wealth to fight climate change.
But right wing populists I’d say are not going against the system that produces these abundance of billionaires. I as a liberal am.
I think that willingness to tolerate the 1% and even laud and lionize them, among the populist right is directly related to many lower income people being successfully deluded into thinking that they're simply "temporarily embarrassed millionaires", and that their own promised wealth is just one tax cut away...
A Democratic lieutenant governors group spent $1.7 million to boost
@TaheshaWay
in last month’s NJ-11 primary.
Around the same time, the group received more than $1.5 million from donors who have also given substantial sums to AIPAC or its super PAC.
https://x.com/joeymdfox/status/2032493191379706050
https://docs.google.com/document/d/1MRwkZOJx0OHAj91srxeibeWHtXOizS6mbx-cEN4obqQ/edit?tab=t.0
Will be giving an update on my predictions every few months. This is an update from December - it was made somewhat hastily, so tell me if I'm missing anything or suggest anything new.
Really not optimistic on GA Gov if Bottoms is the nominee, tbh
Georgia is one of the states where we've seen the strongest Democratic overperformance in special elections. And Sen. Ossoff being on a glide path to re-election will help any gubernatorial nominee.
Esteves needs to start taking off.
Unfortunately it seems he’s been written off and it doesn’t help Duncan is drawing establishment support from him. Geoff Duncan’s candidacy is such a waste of time, he has no chance in a runoff against KLB with his past views. He was gleefully standing with Kemp as he signed a total abortion ban so the idea he had a chance in the primary was always far fetched to me.
I’ll be contrarian and say only Duncan has a shot in the general (and I don’t think he’ll actually get the nom). He has a good narrative to sell on GOP excess/craziness and Bottoms’ tenure as mayor is too controversial for a statewide victory.
Georgia is a purple state. This is shaping up to be a blue wave year. The default expectation would be a generic Democrat beating a generic Republican. Neither of Rick Jackson or Burt Jones seem stronger than generic Republican.
I disagree. Dems have done well in a handful of elections there since 2020, but also not well in an equal number. The default position, all things being equal, is a slight Republican win. It’s not quite of the swingy variety of, say, NV or MI, where an open seat in a Dem wave year typically means a Dem victory. Candidate quality still matters more here.
If Dems can’t win the GA governorship with all this positive demographic change since 2018 (which they also nearly won), I’m gonna have serious doubts about the state becoming a blue state anytime soon rather than being stuck in the spot that AZ is (R tilting with occasional D wins due to bad R candidates).
I think she'll still win if the environment is a blue wave.
The Republican nominee will matter as well. If said person has little to offer other than "I luvs Trump" it will make any Democrat's job easier.
Gubernatorial races are a lot less partisan and not as susceptible to waves. Kemp is also popular so voters may be keen to stick with the GOP down ballot than KLB who was a so-so Mayor.
That’s usually more the case if there is an incumbent governor running. Open seat races usually are susceptible to waves.
She's a terrible campaigner with a lot of baggage. You'd need like a D+10 environment to even have a fighting chance of a wave pushing her through.
Interesting document! I always love hearing people's predictions for seats.
I personally do think there will be more successful primary challengers though, than are listed. In particular, I don't think David Scott or John Larson are particularly safe where they are.
Question for both you and the other posters here -- if Sharice Davids does go for Senate, who might try for her House seat, either Dem or GOP?
I doubt the GOP will get a formidable recruit, considering they botched the nearby NE-2 race, which is more Republican than KS-3. State Sens. Ethan Corson or Cindy Holscher may switch to succeed Davids to avoid a competitive primary for governor. Maybe state Sen. Dinah Sykes, who wanted to run for governor, can challenge Corson or Holscher for governor or this seat.
On Larson and Scott, I think Scott may be vulnerable in a runoff, but I also think 2/3 of Larson's challengers need to drop out if one of them wants to have a chance.
On the horizon, I’m interested in the WISC race in a couple weeks. Beyond that, the Georgia primaries in May and Iowa and Maine in early June.
Separately, I wanted to ask people who is the biggest, most beatable Republican running this year with a national reach that many view as a villain? I ask because I showed my wife the Ohio poll last night and she was ecstatic to see Ramaswamy losing big. I imagine it has to be Ramaswamy, right? People like Ken Paxton and Andy Biggs are odious villains, but they don’t really have a big national audience among laypeople. Elise Stefanik would have been a contender for that title before she dropped out, but she never had a chance of winning to begin with.
Susan Collins probably fits this bill lol. There are some particularly odious thugs who I think are at risk, but not the most powerful to compare to Ramaswamy running for OH gov. Cory Mills and Derrick Van Orden are the main incumbents that come to mind, maybe Andy Ogles. Rob Bresnahan has made himself into such a clown over stocks. Fascist candidates like Madison Sheahan and Brandon Herrera could lose. Hopefully tougher races for Cindy Hyde-Smith, Lindsey Graham and maybe Roger Marshall (if Davids runs). I'm pipe dreaming that Greg Abbott loses and also would be sweet if Doug Jones could beat Tommy Tuberville for AL gov, but I'm not betting on it lol.
Does she have much of a national audience though? I’m talking levels of notoriety where the villain would be somewhat of a recognizable household name like Ted Cruz, RFK, Kristi Noem, or Dr. Oz. Ramaswamy seems like the only statewide candidate with that notoriety this year.
I think Collins is extremely well known among normies, yes. Maybe different normies than Ramaswamy, but I'd bet that she probably has higher name ID and negative emotions from Dems overall than him. Albeit, his would probably have a higher portion at "STRONGLY disapprove" than her lol.
I don't see Collins as villain being a national theme. Even in Maine, she may lose but won't be seen as a villain.
Yeah, I think most normies see her as inoffensive and wish more Republicans were like her. She mostly bothers (1) highly engaged Democrats who see her as holding a seat that should be theirs and (2) MAGA militants who see her as insufficiently loyal to the Dear Leader.
Lindsey Graham
Agree. His over the top hawkishness and his low standing in SC make a loss conceivable, moreso in primary than general though, I think.
"Some names on Stitt’s shortlist that he pitched to people for the open Senate appointment while in DC, per sources familiar with his DC meetings:
Harold Hamm [oil tycoon/founder and board chair of Continental Resources]
Dustin Hilliary [co-CEO of Hilliary Communications and senior advisor/"chief negotiator with state legislators and elected official" to Stitt, former member of the state board of regents for higher ed]
Robert Cox [founder, president and CEO of Aviation Training Consulting]
Alan Armstrong [executive board chair of Williams Companies]"
https://x.com/reesejgorman/status/2032565571477266708
https://www.politico.com/news/2026/03/13/stitt-and-trump-patch-things-up-00828775
Among the various names that have been floated for the appointment and campaign, I think the only one missed is Alex Gray, who was the chief of staff at the NSC at the end of Trump I and now co-founder and CEO of "American Global Strategies".
https://x.com/reesejgorman/status/2029930212587110642
The Politico article says Armstrong is the compromise, outsider option. Stitt wants Hilliary and Trump wants Hamm. Usually, governors have appointed allies, though, so my guess is Hilliary.
Also Stitt isn't going to run for the full term.
https://www.newson6.com/oklahoma-politics/gov-kevin-stitt-plans-to-finish-governors-term-says-he-will-not-run-for-u-s-senate
https://www.nvsos.gov/SOSCandidateServices/AnonymousAccess/CEFDSearchUU/CertCandList.aspx
NV candidate filing:
NV-1: Perennial candidate Jim Marchant is no longer challenging Rep. Dina Titus. State Sen. Carrie Buck is the only major Republican running.
NV-2: Despite the district being open for the first time in 15 years, the only major Republicans running here are former Assemblyman James Settelmeyer and businessman David Flippo.
NV-3: Jeff Gunter, Aury Nagy, Tera Anderson and Marty O'Donnell are the major Republicans challenging Rep. Susie Lee. Another one, Chris Brandlin, withdrew.
NV-2 - Wow! That's less big candidates then Democrats for the same seat (former Majority Leader and current COS to the AG Teresa Benitez-Thompson, former Nevada Dems Executive Director Matthew Fonken, and businessman and 2024 Ind. candidate for this seat Greg Kidd)
The other Republicans closest to being considered "major" are Dr. Fred Simon, who lost in a landslide by primarying Amodei in 2024, and two former elected officials in California: former South Lake Tahoe councilman Bruce Grego and Modesto councilman Bill Conrad.
I am way more curious how the races in Florida will shape up in November, esp after the special election wins.
FL has let me down before but with the perfect electoral storm brewing this year, I think Rs will lose their gerrymandered supermajority in the legislature and Jolly wins by a very slim margin. I’m a bit iffy on Vindman winning against Moody, but if he wins too, I’ll be happy.
Florida and Texas are fool's gold. I have a bit more confidence in James Talarico but that's pretty much it.
If Donalds is the R nominee for the FL governor's race, I think Jolly has a 50-50 shot of an upset. Probably better if the FL Rs are as allergic to brown people as Ohio Rs seem to be.
Is Donalds otherwise particularly controversial in some way in the state that elected DeSantis twice?
Not really, the bigots of MAGA FL may just feel less inclined to vote for a black man when they realize that fact…but this is still Florida, he will probably win by 5-10. Donalds is just a MAGA mascot for them to feel less racist…remember them putting his name out for Speaker seemingly just to contrast with Hakeem Jeffries? “We have a black too!?”
For the record, if Latinos turn against the Republicans hard enough, statewide offices could be flipped in FL, but I doubt it will be because the Republican candidates are particularly shocking for Floridian Republicans.
I think you are correct, I’m being pretty cynical here regarding Donalds…I do hope for the best in FL, hopefully enough voters even there realize they’ve been lied to and taken advantage of to make some gains electorally.
Donalds was once convicted of felony bribery before getting his record expunged. He lied about this when he first ran for Congress. He also had an affair during his first marriage.
I see Texas as like Georgia and Arizona: it's fool's gold right until it isn't. Those two states were moving towards us slowly and surely for a while. Many people insisted they were a waste of time for years due to our consistent defeats even after getting our hopes up with solid candidates. Then they became unambiguously purple states as they moved close enough to us to be competitive.
Texas is exactly like that, it just was starting from a point of us losing by 20+ points. There was -- and remains still -- ground to cover to bring it to competitive.
Florida is the opposite. It started as a purple state and has been steadily moving away from us for 10-15 years.
And Republicans would have said the same about MI, WI and PA on the presidential level and at how OH, MO and FL (and somewhat IA) went from feather-touch bellweathers to overwhelming Repub states by 2022. Do they stay that way, do they snap back? It requires work and pushback to help decide.
How much of Florida moving away from us is due to the lackluster – or should I say dysfunctional – state Democratic Party? On the positive side, we’re hardly seeing unchallenged races anymore.
Lackluster, dysfunctional and incompetent. If anyone can seize defeat from the jaws of victory it’s the FDP.
Hopefully *was* – hopefully past tense. I do have the impression that there has been a very positive development under the leadership of Nikki Fried.
I think her tenure has been a mixed bag. That’s what I see from the Palm Beach County DEC. I’m hoping Fried rises to the occasion this year and we halt the drift to the GOP.
It’s the voters. There’s only so much a state party can do. The Seinfeld snowbirds of the 90s have all passed on and have been replaced with MAGA Boomers from the Midwest.
Florida also had a large number of right wingers move there during Covid because DeSantis opposed lockdowns and vaccine mandates.
Definitely the state party is to blame for losing many winnable races in 2014 and 2018. But now even the best run party still can't really fight the massive wave of blood red R retirees.
A massive snapback in the Cuban/Latino vote is realistically the only thing that might make the state competitive this year, but that didn't even save us in 2018, and it won't hold up much longer unless migration patterns change.
Well, it is delightful that Andy Thomson will be the new Mayor of Boca Rota. The Democrat won by five votes on the recount!
https://cbs12.com/news/election/recount-begins-for-boca-raton-mayors-race-lake-worth-beach-ballot-question
State parties matter, but that's at the margins. If I remember right a study ~15 years ago found the difference between a well run campaign and a poorly run one was worth about 3 points in an election. A state party is going to have a smaller impact than that.
Even if the difference is larger than that, it's not upper single digits let alone double digits in impact. A better run state party would have gotten us the gov and senate races in 2018, maybe held onto a few more house seats here and there in various cycles. Important, powerful differences! But not enough to reverse the long term trends against us in Florida.
Dems are winning specials in Trump seats at the state level in TX.
I think the Latino anger and reset to D is real. As it is with young voters.
IDK if they pull it off at the statewide level, but there are gonna be gains and flips. And a real race. GOP will have to defend TX. That is a huge strategic win.
Agreed. I'll believe even in Ohio before I do Texas or Florida.
Could be wrong/surprised about Texas, but very sure Florida is just culturally gone. It has the combined worst traits of both the North and the South.
Should blue and swing state Democratic officials/ organizers try some type of ratfucking to encourage MAGA populations to move to Florida to make that the ultimate MAGA vote-sink? I would be willing to write-off that state where reason goes to die in order to make sure PA, MI, WI or even the New England states more secure for the Democratic Party up and down the the ballot.
No, and I can't see how it could work, anyway.
I think the media and demographics have already done that. Same with Idaho, Wyoming and probably Montana being a vote sink as West Coast righties move out.
I've got a question for you all. I'm a member of a public employee union, and I'm part of their Political Education Committee, which, among other things, interviews candidates who want the union's endorsement. Recently, we were discussing the fact that negotiations with the Governor's office hadn't been going well for us, and the chair of the committee mentioned that we were not allowed to strike (meaning that we don't have a lot of leverage in the negotiations). When I asked him why not, he said that apparently the agreement with the state, that created the union in the first place, specifically forbid it from striking.
That evening, I pondered how this could be changed. One possibility would be to elect an extremely pro-union Governor, however this seems unlikely considering that even NH's recent Democratic Governors (Shaheen, Lynch, and Hassan) were not pro-union enough for this. But there's another possibility I'd briefly wondered about even before this conversation. It seems to me a fairly straightforward argument that striking is a form of protected speech under the First Amendment, and that therefore, all no-strike clauses are unconstitutional. And before you say that SCOTUS would never make a ruling like that, the no-strike agreement in question is part of state law, meaning that it would be the New Hampshire Supreme Court that would rule on it. And the New Hampshire Supreme Court is generally considered to be more moderate and less ideological than SCOTUS.
Now, I'm not an expert in constitutional law, so my question is, has either SCOTUS or any state Supreme Court ruled on the constitutionality of no-strike clauses against the First Amendment's freedom of speech?
Apparently previous court rulings at both the state and federal levels have treated no-strike clauses as ordinary labor-law provisions that don't raise constitutional issues. That was just from a quick search, though.
And I would consider picketing speech but striking an action.
Yes, strikes are an action not protected speech.
The Illinois Primary is coming up on Tuesday.
Key races to watch, and my observations:
IL-Sen (D): Stratton has the momentum, but will it be enough to win? Krishnamoorthi has long had the edge, but in the last few weeks or so, it's anybody's game. Kelly will be a distant 3rd, and Ryan has the best odds of being the highest-performing non-Big 3 candidate.
IL-Gov (R): Bailey's the favorite to advance to be the cannon fodder to Pritzker in the General, but Dabrowski could surprisingly make it respectably close.
IL-Comp (D): This race is legitimately too close to call between Villa (Sanders-backed), Croke (Pritzker-backed), and Kim (Mendoza-backed).
IL-02 (D): Jackson Jr, Miller, and Peters have the best odds to win the nomination. Peters is the progressive favorite, but Jackson Jr. has the association of the late Jesse Jackson (and scandals).
IL-07 (D): Ford, Conyears-Ervin, and Collins have the best odds to win, but Ford is the narrow favorite.
IL-08 (D): Bean, Ahmed, Bankole, and Morrison all have good chances to win, but realistically, it's down to Ahmed or Bean to win.
IL-09 (D): Biss and Abughazaleh have the best chances to advance, but Fine and Simmons could make it interesting.
IL-13 (D): Budzinski is very likely to win another term, but Blaha could make the race decently close despite being vastly outspent.
IL-15 (D): Mary Miller is heavily favored to win the GOP nomination and the general. As for the Democrats positioned to be the nominee, it's a genuine 4-way between Davis, Todd, Nudo, and Raley.
No Casten-Ruzevich or Schneider-Coghill?
IL-06 (D): Casten is favored, but Ruzevich can make this race close.
IL-10 (D): Schneider is favored, but Coghill could give the incumbent a scare.
I think Collins in 07 is deeply overrated - i keep hearing about a strong base in Oak Park, but she is likely a non factor in the rest of the district, she has little money and few significant endorsements. Name rec can only carry you so far.
For the full gists of my endorsements, here is my Substack post: https://jgibsondem.substack.com/p/my-2026-election-endorsements-ilprimary
Desperately need some polling out of Virginia. I suspect Yes is ahead because the GOP is still not committing serious $$ to this and not even Youngkin wants to put his money towards the effort. To have no polling two weeks into early voting is pretty frustrating, we should be seeing as much as there were with the Texas primary.
I live in Northern Virginia and the "No" movement is way ahead in ads, commentaries, and yard signs. It is hard to even find the "Yes" voices. The "No" movement has cleverly hijacked an old quote from Governor Spanberger voicing opposition to redistricting. That may work as she is very popular though her current stand is to support "Yes". The "Yes" movement has to wake up here. I am pitching the message left and right but we need a strong push from the Democrats.
Well the Yes side has raised $22 million to the No sides $3 million. They may just not be targeting the media your watching.
Maybe they take Northern Virginia for granted but that is a bet. The "fake" Spanberger mailing could cost votes for lower info voters.
A lot of low-info donors are likely not turning out for this.
I'm in NOVA and even very active Dems here are concerned abt this amendment and unsure about it. However, the airstreams have been blanketed with ads (including one featuring Obama) saying Vote YES, so hopefully that helps
Verasight (Chaz Nuttycombe’s polling outfit) is planning to do a poll on it, not sure when they’ll release it though.
"AIPAC's plan to sink progressives: Slam them from the left"
https://www.axios.com/2026/03/13/aipac-illinois-abughazaleh-ahmed-bean-biss-israel
I saw only the beginning of that article, but this seems like a good way for AIPAC to sabotage itself.
AIPAC is definitely winning the award for most self-sabotaging ad campaigns this year.
People like to joke the GREEN stands for Getting Republicans Elected Every November. I would like to propose that AIPAC is
Always Increasing Progressive Activists in Congress
That AIPAC label sounds fine to me!
Thank you AIPAC for your service in helping elect better Democrats.
Better is in the eye of the beholder
Ahh yes but if it’s AIPAC shooting itself in the foot and electing Democrats who are better after being elected, who can complain about that?
Anti-progressives.
"Convicted of "material support for terrorism" for the clothes they wore to a protest. This is a serious threat to the First Amendment."
https://t.co/NgIRoeGLTj
https://x.com/NathanPGoodman/status/2032575028575748202
It looks like the jurors were crazy MAGAs.
I assume this verdict will be appealed, but nothing was mentioned about that at the links.
can a Colorado person explain what happened at the state convention/caucuses where Hickenlooper apparently dropped out rather than run? this is that strange CO system where candidates can get on the ballot either in March at caucuses or in June at primary???
I believe you can either get on the ballot by getting at least 30% support at caucus or by turning in signatures. I think it’s 1,500 signatures for each congressional district. The rumors are that Hickenlooper won’t hit the 30% at caucus. Hick has also already turned in signatures, so he'll be on the ballot.
he withdrew from the caucus process
OK, from your first comment it sounded as if he abruptly ended his reelection bid altogether. (Not that we would have had to worry much about his seat flipping red this year even if open.)
I really don't understand why the caucus/convention process is needed when there is also a primary which likely turns out a larger and more representative electorate.
IL-09: Bushra Amiwala is supported in a new digital ad from AIPAC-backed super PAC Chicago Progressive Partnership. First aired on YouTube yesterday.
The PAC has previously attacked Abughazaleh. (Appears to be an attempt to further divide the progressive vote.)
https://x.com/RyanInEvanston/status/2032746768278937605
Trump, Lankford and Club for Growth endorsed Hern with Bice and Stitt not running. My silver lining is that he's 16yrs older than Mullin and can't be there as long lol
https://x.com/reesejgorman/status/2032613371212705821
Been ruminating lately on left v. right populism. So much attention has been paid to their similarities, points of agreement, possible alliances. But to me the differences are far more telling, and irreconcilable in the long term. I think one of the biggest differences is that, while both left and right populists are distrusting of the rich, right populists *don't want to be*.
Right populism's grievances with the wealthy are more based on the specific character they perceive of many of the wealthy in modern society, but not per se with wealth and inequality itself. It's almost like the way they think about guns, the only way to fight a bad billionaire is with a good billionaire. It's why the guy who poops in a solid gold toilet can be considered a man of the people by some. They have no qualms being lorded over by someone who they think is at heart just like them. Left populism is much more skeptical of wealth and inequality in and of itself, regardless of who is wielding it.
Interesting thoughts.
It's about culture not class. They bemoan "elitists" when they're culturally liberal but cheer on Musk and Trump.
Fully agree, which is why I find the people relentlessly pushing "common causes" between the two groups are whistling past the graveyard. The right populists feel threatened by specific astoundingly rich people, not the concept of astoundingly rich people.
When Bill Gates and Warren Buffett were dominating the top 5 richest people in the world for a long time before Silicon Valley exploded with the likes of Elon Musk, many founders and multiple investors, I was never against the concept of them being billionaires.
Gates and the Melinda Gates Foundation have contributed significantly to research on climate change, medicine and science. Buffett has been consistent on favoring higher taxes on the wealthy and going back to a pre-Glass Steagall Act repeal environment. Mackenzie Scott has become one of the most effective philanthropists in the world as far as her donations and impact they make on marginalized communities. Marc Benioff showed serious balls when he called for the Ellis Act to be repealed and also helped finance renovation of a low rent motel for the disadvantaged. Taylor Swift donated generously to the NAACP as a result of the George Floyd controversy. Patagonia founder Yvon Chouinard is donating most of his billions in wealth to fight climate change.
But right wing populists I’d say are not going against the system that produces these abundance of billionaires. I as a liberal am.
I think that willingness to tolerate the 1% and even laud and lionize them, among the populist right is directly related to many lower income people being successfully deluded into thinking that they're simply "temporarily embarrassed millionaires", and that their own promised wealth is just one tax cut away...
Iowa candidates so far, though parties "may fill empty slots on their side of the aisle by nominating candidates at convention after the primary."
https://archive.ph/I6dpC
https://iowacapitaldispatch.com/2026/03/13/iowa-candidates-hit-deadline-to-qualify-for-2026-primary-ballot/