Per Politico, Dusty Johnson is jumping in for SD-Gov. I wonder if A) that means Rhoden isn’t going for a full term of his own and B) who would get in for the open at large seat
In the wake of the Mamdani shocker primary win + progressive victories elsewhere in NYC, I’m interested in numerous congressional and state legislative races that progressives may target. Who may progressives target? And with who? And are there other seats held by less progressive incumbents that progressives may be looking at outside of NYC? With who?
On the flip side, are there any progressive-held seats nationwide that centrist groups may target? With who? I know Omar is one, with Ryan Winkler considering a bid.
Finally, are there older or less effective Dems in general who may be facing grassroots primary challenges? Not asking who as so far most challenges have been relatively unknown.
The author of the Primary School newsletter (formerly known as Nick Tagliaferro) mentioned on Bluesky that State Sen. Gustavo Rivera was a possible pick for that seat. I’ve heard Bowman isn’t interested in NY-15, and given his baggage I’m not sure he’s the best pick for it.
I've actually soured a bunch on Jamaal Bowman and think we could probably do better. He has a bunch of baggage that would make the race about him, rather than about Torres and how much he sucks.
Agreed re Bowman. We don't need to relitigate Mr. Fire Alarm's record and views, with the added baggage of district-hopping (ask Mondaire Jones how that can have an impact, though unlike NY-17 the general election in 15 is unlikely to be competitive.)
I actually prefer Torres over Bowman. The latter totally screwed up his political career, and it was all his own bizarre doing. That said, I definitely do not want to see Torres run for governor of New York!
I very much do not, although that’s my progressive bias speaking. Torres is awful — I remember him threatening to run for governor and saying he’d rip up environmental regulations if he did.
Bowman did himself no favors but his voting record was mostly pretty good. Torres’ record is pretty awful, on the other hand, from what I’ve seen.
Bowman was shitty at constituent services and seemed to care more about garnering headlines than actual legislating. Exactly the type of progressive you DON'T want in Congress.
You wrote exactly what I had in mind. No to lousy progressives, Yes to charismatic and smart ones. I would have Deluzio, Raskin, AOC types than Bowman or Bush.
Precisely. In my perfect world, neither Torres nor Bowman would be in Congress. Workhorses - not show horses. AOC, in particular, has impressed me with her ability to work within the structure of congress. I've gone from wishing she wasn't an avatar of the Dem party to hoping for future statewide runs from her.
I think it would be wise not to over-interpret the NYC elections. NYC (and SF and Seattle) isn't a very good bell weather for the US as a whole, in ways somewhat analogous tonthe argument as to why Iowa isn't a good bell weather either. Neither are representative of the vast majority of districts but from opposite sides of the demographic and political spectra.
The actual vote in NYC has the caveats you mention. Although it is worth adding a caveat to the caveat that a lot of America lives in or adjacent to major cities. Those people in turn make up a substantial portion of our base. So it is not without meaning.
The second part is how people are reacting to the NYC primary. I can only speak anecdotally but in many corners of the internet I observe people are very happy with Mamdani's win. These are places with (mostly younger) people who are largely ignorant of the specifics of politics but follow the broader events. They know who is in charge and they are pissed off.
That second group of people is ecstatic right this. Obviously they are a bubble within the party but it's worth paying attention to how wings of the party are feeling. Generally we want to give every portion of the party something to be happy about with us. Something big enough to break through.
Yes, one of Mamdani's big wins, like AOC, is to energize young voters. I'm glad they're ecstatic and engaged. I hope they become a big voting bloc.
Urban voting across the US is mostly Dem, even in SC where I live, except Greenville. But it's not as left as NYC, SF, Seattle. I don't think Mamdani-flavored candidate would have had a chance in Detroit, Columbus, Denver, Atlanta, Texan cities, Florida cities, etc. Thus my caution.
I think Lean D is a fair rating given that (1.) the district has only been won by a Democrat once this century, and (2.) we don't know who either party will nominate yet.
I could easily see it shifting to Likely D well before the election, though.
When I read this, all I can think about is The Joker gif “And Here We Go “, in terms of Republicans leaving instead of losing to a Democrat in a Trump midterm. I bet he won’t be the last.
Normally I'd agree with a Lean characterization in these type of districts, but 2026 will almost certainly be a wave year. Thus these type of districts should almost certainly swing our way, especially considering Harris won here. I'd also keep an eye on the 1st district in Nebraska. Big sleeper Trump only slightly overperformed there by a single point. Also Osborn won that district too.
Michael, i agree with you, based on experience and disappointment over the years. I suspect you and I (and a few others here) get to play the GenX experience card that others haven't been beaten with yet. Hopefully they won't be.
Who would be the worst and most uncharismatic Democratic candidate for President in your opinion that you've voted for. Would it be Dukakis or Gore or McGovern?
McGovern was the nominee in 1972. My mother went to the polls with a 103-degree fever to make sure to vote against Nixon, but I was 7 years old. Gore was not close to the worst, as he probably would have won if every vote in FL had been counted. Mondale was the one that was beaten the most severely, so maybe him, but Dukakis was the most frustrating, because Mondale said exactly what he meant and in my opinion could be proud of losing an honest campaign, whereas Dukakis refused to defend himself.
If you're counting people I voted for in presidential primaries, that would be harder, and I'd have to remember them all, which might be difficult.
I was shocked there were no riots in the streets of Florida. It showed just how non-violent Black people are when their votes are taken away. There were over 50,000 Black votes that weren't tallied because they had names like John Johnson that some felon in Mississippi or something had.
Even without those votes, scientists say that with a uniform voting counting standard, Gore would have won. According to a biography, Scalia privately said that the reasoning was "as we say in Brooklyn, a POS."
Dukakis for me, followed by Hillary and then John Kerry. But if we include primaries then probably Bruce Babbitt, whose policies I quite liked, but personality wise he was quite dull.
As a middle of the road millennial I've seen my fair share of disappointments too.
I wasn't old enough to care about politics during Clinton's two wins. I was just old enough to see all the craziness of the 2000 recount even if I had been too young to care about or really understand the election itself still.
Spanning ~2000-2024 there's been scant few years that I found encouraging. Obama's win in 2008 was the only unmitigated win. His 2012 win saw us fail to retake the house, and Biden's 2020 win was on the narrowest of grounds combined with a 50-50 senate. A relieving outcome but not one build up any kind of future looking confidence.
Now's the time, if any, to be optimistic and even bullish. We can't rely on the courts to bail us out nor the administration and it's allies to acts responsibly. In terms of the near and foreseeable future this is by far our best chance to make (potentially) major gains. Playing it too safe in the past has gotten us into trouble and even lost races we could have won like with Mandela Barnes in Wisconsin. I see very little detriment in investing now and being more aggressive when circumstances are more than likely shaping up in our favor.
To that I would say that we must always be vigilant of threats and be realistic. However that does not mean pretending the status quo is fine, let alone sustainable. Our leadership is failing us, including when they choose to support very corrupt and odious figures like Andrew Cuomo.
Yes, but the Democratic leadership is not the main threat, just falling down on the job of fighting the main threat as effectively and powerfully as possible. (And no, NSA, I don't mean with violence.)
So I agree here too. We should be optimistic and cautious. In other words, we should go into this mid-term with the belief it should be be a massive swing like Newt Gingritch's contract with America in 94. And we should fight like crazy to make that happen. ActBlue, Howard Dean contest every race, etc etc. But we should steel ourselves with the very real possibility that despite the best efforts, we might not see the swing we want. Why? Because the discouragement afterward can be paralyzing.
Of course, we need an architect of an Economic and Social Contract FOR America, and NY Congressional Leaders are sitting on their hands. I thought Jeffries would be better. I'm disappointed.
NJ Assembly: Given what seems like assured continued south jersey bleeding of support, it's more important for NJ Democrats to maintain a healthy majority unreliant on the South Jersey remnant. Andrew Macurdy is a former AUSA and mental health advocacy attorney in the AG of NJ's office, young, charismatic, and has raised at least 8 times more so far than previous nominee did entire time. The distirct voted Harris by 14 and Biden by 20, but has entrenched republican incumbents that keep holding on because Union County Dems have never really targeted this district. Suffice to say with the signature overperformance and uncontested primary win where he outpolled the republican nominees in raw votes (nj has two assemblypeople per district).
Worth a donation or if you're in the district a vote. linked article is from when he was only in the race a month.
Halfway through 2025, here's an analysis of Democratic performance in special elections so far and what it does and doesn't mean for 2026. (Oh, and look where they got their 2024 presidential data from.)
Democrats' showing in mostly special elections so far looks very promising for 2026. But specials may be losing their predictive power, so no reason for overconfidence.
Thanks very much! Why do they think they could be losing predictive power? I think what we've clearly seen is that results depend on who shows up. In 2022, a lot of voters angry about abortion bans showed up, and that blunted the Republican midterm edge quite a bit, whereas in 2024, all the once-every-4-years Trump voters showed up and quite a few normally Democratic voters finked out. Chances are, a larger number of infrequent Republican voters will show up for a midterm than for special elections on odd days, but we really don't know how many. Is that about predictive power, though? Do they have something more complex to say about that?
They say of 2024, "For example, the 2024 cycle doesn’t quite fit the pattern we described. Before the 2024 general election, Democrats were outperforming their 2020 results in special elections by about two points. But Republicans won the House popular vote by roughly the same margin as they had in 2022. What gives?"
The conclusion is, "Put simply, Democrats have become much better at showing up in special elections. This is both because of their newfound advantage with reliable voters, but also because a party’s base is often most fired up when the party is in the opposition.
So, yes, history and the data both suggest that Democrats are well-positioned heading into 2026. Midterm elections tend to have lower turnout than elections in presidential years, which could benefit Democrats, given their growing advantage among high-propensity voters.
But there’s a big difference between winning on a sleepy Tuesday in March and winning when tens of millions of voters head to the polls in 2026."
I think there's been too much recasting of 2024 as the "new normal" or predictive of the future, but we'll see. It is apparently true that Democrats' coalition for now seems to be well-suited for off years and specials, but one can wonder why swing or Independent leaning voters aren't showing up for Republicans. Maybe they don't like what they're seeing, or their shift to the right was only temporary and even last year wasn't as deep or potentially lasting as some pundits have said?
The cynic in me says that these special election results wouldn't be dismissed so readily by the pundit class if Republicans were outperforming Democrats rather than the reverse being the case.
That said, I do think that special elections are more likely to be predictive of midterm results rather than presidential ones—especially when one of the major parties is headed by a cult leader with a proven track record of being able to turn out low-propensity voting blocs.
Maine Senate race is Texas in reverse. Gillibrand is in charge of recruiting candidates and the only good thing she's done till now is that she didn't encourage Golden to jump in which was obliquely referenced in two reports like he wasn't able to gather support from the party apparatus because they dislike him. Dude hasn't even attended a Dem caucus meeting since 2020.
Jared Golden once worked for Susan Collins, so he’s never going to challenge her. Besides, ME-02 and Golden himself are significantly to the right of the state as a whole, which explains the tepid support from the state party. Dems can find a far better Senate candidate.
Maine has Janet Mills – she is definitely A-list. But to your larger point, yes, I definitely do wish the Dems’ Maine bench was deeper. It’s a complex purple state and more than a bit insular.
However, I doubt that Collins has really become that unpopular, and if her favourability is low it may be at least in part due to MAGA voters complaining she isn't conservative or pro-Trump enough. But will they really ultimately refuse to vote for her? (RCV means that we can't hope for a right wing third party candidate to allow the Dem to win with a plurality.)
There's breakdown in the pdf, it's very bad among Democrats. My only concern are the 14 percent idiots in our party who are "neutral" about her. They really think that she brings loads of earmarks to Maine and practices pragmatism. The bad news is that her snap medicaid cuts won't hit rural Maine until 2027.
First, Susan Collins has time and again proved that she is a survivor, beating predictions and the polls. (I think Mike’s comments in that regard are spot on.)
Second, the challenger I want, Janet Mills, is busy being an excellent governor, and she is in no hurry. Moreover, at 77 Mills is no spring chicken.
Just wanted to mention here, for DRA users: some of the datasets for the 2004 election that users have uploaded are missing a lot of votes. The North Carolina 2004 dataset is missing literally hundreds of thousands of votes, and the Virginia 2004 dataset is also missing a lot of votes as well. So those results should be taken with a large grain of salt.
Note: This is messing up a side project that I've been working on.
DRA is using 2022 precinct geography, right? It might be needed to map 2004 precincts to 2000 census blocks, to use the relationship file to approximate 2020 blocks, and then to aggregate back to 2022 precincts.
I bet many users just loaded 2004 precinct ids as if they were 2022. Hence many will be mis-located or outright missing. Also some new 2022 precinct ids would be blank.
That's possible. I think another part of the issue might be that users aren't assigning absentee/mail-in votes to precincts. Many states have a hard time with this - Virginia still doesn't do it even now (meaning that more recent election results in DRA were made by people using formulas to assign them), and I know Ohio's largest counties didn't assign absentee votes to precincts in 2004 (they do now). North Carolina might have had that problem back then as well.
Yup, I just checked North Carolina. Their precinct results from 2004 didn't assign absentee votes to precincts, and their files that assign absentees to precincts only go back to 2016.
So DRA users would've had to use a formula to assign those absentee votes to precincts in the 2004 election, and it's clear they didn't do that.
I see. The inability of assigning an absentee/early vote to a given precinct, seems really weird to me. Don’t the election authorities have to know which precinct ballot you would be voting on, when you go early voting or request a mail ballot?
Here in Georgia, the early in-person votes are handled the same way as the Election Day, once you check in, the ballot will be pulled according to your home precinct, even you could cast the early vote any EV location within county. (EDay vote would have to be cast in the home precinct). And as for mail votes, the ballot will be printed according to the home precinct. Actually the home precinct number is also printed and barcoded on the paper ballot. The post election reconciliation also lists out how many ballots were cast each type, supposedly matching how many voters checked in, or returned mail ballots, exactly for each precinct.
This is basics not that hard to implement. Thus the inability to allocate to precinct don’t look good for confidence in election security.
So there's the centrist lawyer running for NYC mayor as an independent (whose name I forgot), might he now get a second look from Cuomo (and Sliwa) voters hoping to stave off Mamdani?
Quite possibly, and not just from Cuomo or Sliwa voters. If I lived in NYC, he'd certainly get a second look from me, and I would've ranked Lander first (I wouldn't have ranked either Cuomo or Mamdani at all).
Do you have any affirmative reason to consider him in particular? I'm not seeing why I would want to vote for him and increase the risk for any of the remaining non-Mamdani candidates, who are noxious, could win.
I would argue that we can't afford to elect Republicans. If we nominate candidates that are far enough out of the mainstream that centrist Ds won't vote for them, either by staying home or voting R, then we lose.
Viable independents that can gather winning support, or at least more support than a D, are a bulwark against more R control. I don't know if that's Weldon, I was just wondering. I (happily) don't live in NYC. It's too congested for me. But it's fun to visit every 5-10 years.
I suspect Mamdani can win in NYC and if he does I hope he's extremely effective and he laser focuses on things that NYC needs: affordability, safety, infrastructure. If some of his left-most ideas pan out, then it'll be a good model for others. After all, states and locals are the source of a lot of good policy experiments. If he fails, we get a lot of "I told you so" both from Rs and Clinton Ds.
I'll note Osborne in NE, Angus King in ME, etc as over performing Ds. Here in my adopted home of SC, running as an I locally is more viable than as a D, because most Rs won't even bother to consider a D out of hand.
One concern I have is vote-splitting. If someone like a Walden gets votes, what’s stopping him from potentially leading to an Adams second term or even a Sliwa mayorship via costing D votes?
Lander was my #1. Had Cuomo become the Democratic nominee, I'm not sure whether I would have voted (probably, because I consider it a responsibility), and I don't know who I would have voted for. Not Adams and not Sliwa. I'm glad I don't have to make that decision.
Since Zohran Mamdani won the Democratic Primary this past Tuesday, this video may be the most important one to pay attention to with respect to 2026.
Mamdani explains why Trump voters in NYC and even NY State voted for Trump: It was because their economic issues were not being listened to. He listened to such voters concerns and he was laser focused on economics more than other issues.
While Mamdani’s candidacy and political views may be suitable for NYC, the focus on economics in his campaign is worth Democratic candidates and incumbents across their country paying attention to depending on overall political views of the voters.
OK, well, these voters are idiots, but if Mamdani has found the way to convince them the Democrats are better for working people than the Republican are - which they are, every fucking time since FDR - then, yeah, the rest of the party's candidates need to pay attention to this and emulate it, if it isn't too late now.
Chris Murphy and Ro Khanna have also been screaming the same thing. Talk about economics and don't move to the right on it like the re-awakened neoliberal class wants to while deemphasizing social issues. I immediately lose interest whenever a centrist pundit tries to blame Biden's tariffs or CHIPS or IRA for inflation. I don't believe that Biden had the capability to cause higher inflation and lesser growth in every other first world country. We had the best economy among our peers and I'll die on this hill. State subsidized industrial policy works and stops the hollowing of our industries.
No, and due to his work and the work of the Federal Reserve, this country had the strongest economy in the world. Whoever those centrist "pundits" are, they should go fuck themselves with a long, sharp implement!
Disagree. And let's leave it at that, because there's no way we can prove that if Biden had made the media the enemy, the voters still wouldn't have voted Trump because inflation.
I'm talking about his communication on economic issues not the media. He had to be making a lot more public appearances talking about the economy and explaining it(which would've worked if he was 5 years younger maybe).
I maintain that it wouldn't have worked because inflation. There's no way to make American voters smarter, and that's on top of a very strong everpresent floor of bigots.
It's never too late for the next election, but it's always too late for the last one.
To me this would refute the answer a lot of officials have opted for one "culture war" issues. It's not uncommon to hear person XYZ say that we lost because of shifting away from economic issues, and then they follow it up by spending an inordinate amount of time and focus on those exact social issues anyway. The only difference being that they're trying to adopt a stance that is closer to (but not the same as) republicans on it.
The answer isn't to moderate on social issues. The answer is to shut up about them and talk about economic issues instead. Relentlessly shift the topic whenever possible.
To the extent social issues are spoken of they should be linked into economics as much as possible. Looking back a decade ago, I think the political success of pushing for same-sex marriage equality was based on two factors, one of which was the economic factors related to marriage. (The other being to "keep government out of bedrooms.")
Don't moderate: change the topic to economic issues!
Yes, but as much as that is a legitimate concern it is one that is outside the scope of my ability to meaningfully influence. As such I don't make much accounting for it in my assessments here, even if it is a thing that merits worry.
I don't know if it will be outside the scope of the American people's power collectively to meaningfully influence. There are precedents in other countries.
The National Guard when federalized and the U.S. Military are not run by the states, nor is the Supreme Court, which is getting more and more supportive of unaccountable, unconstitutional authoritarianism while Trump is in office.
I'm skeptical that someone preaching socialism can win over someone who looked at Trump and thought that was the message they were looking for. Problem for the DSA types is that not every "working people" see socialism as the answer. Sure were there some low info voters who bought Trumps spiel about inflation, maybe those voters are gettable but for the most part i think we lost people on cultural issues.
I tend to disagree with your last phrase. I think the difference was voters who were punishing Democrats for worldwide inflation, most of whom were so stupid they believed Trump's con that he would end inflation.
There was a slide among Latino voters from 2016 to 2020, at least in Texas and Florida, also. I think cultural issues including immigration played a big role.
Is immigration a "cultural issue"? I mean, sure, if we take that literally, but I thought the "culture wars" were ostensibly over issues of religion and related values. But if we really interpret them as being over prejudice, anti-trans obsession and opposition to immigration fits in well for most Americans. The thing is, though, in the case of Latinos who are against more immigration from other Latinos who come from the same countries as they or their parents did, it's likely not to be a cultural issue, but instead a desire to pull up the ladder out of selfishness and/or a perceived economic threat to them.
I'm really tempted to say if people want to vote for dictatorship because they're so furious at trans people, they can go fuck themselves. But in other words, there was no difference, except that somehow, the Republicans got through more on it or emphasized it more than other types of bigotry. What a totally fucked country!
I'm going to be controversial and say that elected Democrats seem fairly disengaged from quality primary education as well. Our defining educational position now is basically college loan relief. We've probably moved away from that though since we discovered "shockingly" that it wasn't exactly a political winner.
Universal PreK/head start, school lunches and breakfast, anti-voucher, science taught aa science not myth, all D positions. But they did aeem to forget about most of them last time, probably to try to buy the younger vote.
Most "working people" don't see socialism as the answer. The fact that Mamdani lost "working class" voters to Cuomo says it all. It was middle and upper income voters who put him over the top.
How are you sure middle and upper income voters are the reason why Mamdani got over the top?
As far as I am aware, when I saw videos of voters in NYC being asked by reporters (including those on MSNBC), they were talking about having to be concerned about paying rent per month. Middle and upper income residents of cities like NYC, San Francisco, etc. are also defined differently and have been this way since the tech boom in the 2010's. What used to be middle and upper income back in the 90's is no longer the case today.
Meanwhile, a billionaire investor who donated to Cuomo has just announced he'll donate to Mamdani.
James is probably referring to Cuomo doing better than Mamdani+Lander among <$30k incomes, but it's a little reductive to say "middle and upper incomes put Mamdani over the top" when Cuomo also won the most wealthy. You can't tell from this graph, but my guess from other exit polls would be there are confounding factors of age, race, and education that shape this distribution. This also, IMO, means it's a mistake to ascribe ideological aversion to socialism as a reason for this breakdown, when there are so many other effects at play.
Not saying this is the reason, but just as an example of what I mean, Cuomo did better among Black voters. Black Democratic primary voters are probably more Christian and religious than average, and might have been less inclined to vote for a Muslim. Or Mamdani had particular appeals to East and South Asian voters, who are more likely to be educated professionals. Ideology is important, but context, timing, and rhetorical focus are too.
That whole article is interesting, and I think we should discuss the last paragraph because it's core subject matter for this site:
"The problem with the polling and all the emphasis on data in contemporary politics is that it does not take into account that the electorate doesn’t really exist until election day, and the politician and his or her campaign are actively creating that electorate. All political errors, from the level of action to analysis, are based on reifying the situation, believing in a static, factual reality that cannot be changed. And all great political successes are based on the opposite: the art of the impossible; believing in a chance for something new."
If I'm not mistaken, the NYC Mayoral General Election doesn't use RCV (not the case in Berkeley's Mayoral Election with RCV last year). Given this, the biggest challenge will see how Cuomo primary voters are going to evolve in their views heading to the general election.
Plenty such to my understanding were not warming up to Mamdani and may not think his platform is realistic. I see a possibility where some % of Cuomo voters could vote for Mamdani whereas others could split into voting for Eric Adams in what they think as "the lesser of two evils." Or another political candidate running.
If Cuomo enters in the general election, that will complicate things for Mamdani to build a large enough coalition.
Agreed. We have that system in Berkeley and San Francisco although specifically for mayoral elections. Now both are held during presidential election years.
I can’t comment on NYC but I know I’m Berkeley we have not to date in all of the years I’ve grown up here ever elected a Democratic socialist. And my recollection goes all the way back to when Shirley Dean was Mayor back in the mid 90’s.
Same with San Francisco, San Jose and other cities in the Bay Area. Richmond elected Gayle McLaughlin, a Green Party member, as Mayor years ago twice in 2006 and 2010 so it may be the only city in the Bay Area I can think of where Democratic Socialist could possibly get elected.
That said, I think the point I should emphasize is that Democrats need to be focused on the economy at all levels and how they are impacted while at the same time beating the GOP at the messaging game. Culture wars are a problem but competency and attention to detail on the job is also a bigger problem as well that needs to be paid attention to.
It's the idea that if the Democrats talked more about economic issues (as if we didn't talk about them a ton already) they would automatically win. I know Trump voters on NY state by the way, the idea that economic concerns are top of their list is ludacris. They want their guns. They don't like gays. They don't like blacks. They don't like Hispanic. They don't like trans people. They don't like the government. They don't like regulations. Mamdani and his ilk are deep in a blue bubble and would walk into a buzz saw if they stepped out of it.
Of course I'm not suggesting that. I'm just saying that it's easy to lie to ourselves to think that all we have to do to win elections is talk about economic issues.
Irrespective of what they need to do with messaging and providing a counter defense towards the GOP, they cannot be complacent or assume all will be going well when they grow the economy (even if there are numbers of jobs added per month).
What matters is if people can live and thrive without dealing with the pain in costs.
How so? How Democratic socialism applies in an agenda towards economic issues or just focusing on economic issues in general?
We are in a complicated picture here but I have seen videos of NYCers in the younger generation who believe the Democratic Party is aloof to their problems. They are arguing rent is too high and wages aren’t keeping up with the cost of living. That’s a problem Democrats need to address head on.
Why the hell do we still insist on using there term democratic "socialism" if we have any intent on winning elections. That aside, our politicians talk about that all the time. They act on it all the time. They don't want elections all the time. Did Senator Brown not speak to these concerns? Of course not, he did. It doesn't matter. You know who spent a lot of time attacking high rent and freezing it? Mayor Bill Deblasio. He was deeply unpopular.
1) Democrats speak to economic issues.
2) we are the only party that actually provides real economic solutions for working people.
3) Republicans kick the ever living shit out of working people
4) the voters elect Republicans
5) I am not saying we should stop speaking on economic issues or that we shouldn't speak even more
6) I am saying it borders on delusion to think that it will solve our problem
7) this proposal is more or less that we should keep doing what we've been doing, for it will surely work this time even though it didn't in 2010, 2016, 2022, and 2024.
That was a big issue, but though I give him some credit for dealing with the housing affordability crisis, and a big part of the problem was and is nimbyism from City Council members, he certainly didn't ultimately make a dent in that problem, either.
You mean DeBlasio didn't make a dent on addressing the affordability crisis?
Far stark contrast in Berkeley where when State Senator Jesse Arreguin was major, he was able to with the help of the City Council get more varieties of housing built (affordable and even homeless housing). I remember back in the 90's Berkeley was known as Berzerkeley.
Yes, that's what I mean. And homelessness has remained unaddressed since the mid to late 70s. I wish Mamdani great success, assuming he can win, and he'll get my vote unless he says or does something really horrible or some really terrible things come out about him from sources I trust. He really seems to care.
It seems NYC has been riddled with too much politics for a long time that seem to get in the way of building housing. Mamdani seems to have interesting ideas regarding housing but he does at the same time have to deal with the forces in the city.
He absolutely does, and I think he will have trouble with the City Council, but if he has a vociferous movement behind him, maybe we can successfully pressure the City Council to make a real dent in the problem.
I am not arguing against what you are saying about using the term "Democratic socialism." Yes, what you are saying about Mamdani does seem to mirror a bit with what Bill DeBlasio did when he was running for Mayor back in 2013. He ended up being unpopular in the end.
However, I am mainly referring to the economic issues that Mamdani focused on in the primary, not his actual policy points and stances on the issues. Those need to be paid attention to.
We have a serious affordability crisis with rent being too high in cities like NYC as well as an inflation and economic stability problem (ex: tech layoffs). How it affects everyone per state may vary.
I would like to see the term "Democratic socialism" declared dead and buried. It’s a serious handicap, and to huge swathes of American voters, the term "socialism" is toxic.
I think I agree with you that on a nationwide basis, it's better to act like a socialist and not use the term, but the term is clearly not toxic everywhere.
The main thing I am trying to understand is, why are Democrats in the national party “freaking out” about Mamdani?
AOC unseated Joe Crowley back in 2018 as a Democratic Socialist, which was the second year Trump was POTUS in his first term. Democrats were not going crazy then and AOC’s candidacy in the general election did not drag Democrats at the down ballot level in NY and elsewhere.
Besides, for a city like NYC, it would be incredibly difficult for Mamdani to coast to the general election, especially considering many cities nationwide have not elected a Democratic Socialist. Bernie Sanders did serve as Mayor of Burlington, VT decades ago but the city fit him. I doubt he would have gotten elected as Mayor of NY back in the day if he still lived in Brooklyn, especially considering he grew up there.
So those Democrats may be freaking out about his being a socialist, but my suggestion is that Islamophobia and disagreement on foreign policy issues we won't discuss here in that order are more relevant to bigots who vote Republican.
Yesterday, this Tweet message by Stella Pekarsky on the DownBallot’s Discord, calling for unity behind Walkinshaw, received two downvotes:
"Congratulations to @JamesWalkinshaw for his victory tonight. He ran a great campaign and I hope all Democrats will get behind him for the special election in September so we can send Donald Trump the biggest possible message from Fairfax."
Anyone have any idea what that’s about? Is there anything wrong with Walkinshaw as a candidate or with his campaign?
There were some hard feelings toward his candidacy because while Walkinshaw is an elected official - he serves on the Fairfax County Board of Supervisor (our local legislature) - he repeatedly emphasized the fact that he was at one point Gerry Connolly's Chief of Staff and most of the local "establishment" backed him.
This genuinely feels like one of those instances where people just hate for the sake of hating. The man is a pretty average/normal Democrat. Crypto is a reality whether people like it or not, and as a lobby, it's certainly better than the gun, tobacco, and war lobbies that no one seems to criticize much these days even though they're each wreaking havoc in their own ways.
Murkowski agreed to the bill after she got work requirement exemptions and a lot of pork for Alaska. We are dreaming if we think she chooses Democrats in a 50-50 scenario. That was 100% a power play to pressure Thune. This is the cornhusker kickback on steroids.
Although Collins might be concerned about some portions and vote "no" if it will pass without her vote. What happened to these two who, along with McCain, saved to ACA?
This happens with every major bill; I'm sorry but Alaska is just a huge welfare state and there's really no good reason that it should be a state at all.
I know Alaska is a welfare and earmarking state but this is another level of deal making. Alaska is excluded from almost every negative effect and also gets tax breaks in return.
It's geographic isolation and environment/topography mean it's in constant need of very heavy subsidizing to survive and it has a tiny and declining population. It's an important piece of land for geo-political purposes but so is Guam.
It makes sense population wise and should always remain a state but it's always been heavily subsidized mostly through federal spending and earmarks, more than Mississippi and West Virginia percentage wise.
Which is why the "conventional wisdom" during the 1950s that it would be a hardcore Democratic state while Hawaii would be a hardcore Republican state.
She's always going to make more sense as a republican than not.
As I said prior I was skeptical and remain skeptical she'd caucus with us. Although I am much less skeptical now than before.
Biggest takeaway in our favor for the future is that threats are only useful if the other party thinks you could follow through on it. If Thune thought there was a 0% chance Murkowski would ever leave his caucus, he'd have little reason to give her any serious concessions. That doesn't mean it has to be high. A policy exemption and a bunch of state focused pork should be "cheap" to a republican to give away, so the evaluation could easily be that it's a single digit percent chance of her leaving in the future.
Senate Republicans are refusing the Democrats’ request for a bipartisan meeting with the Senate Parliamentarian on using current policy baseline to pay for tax cuts.
“There is no need to have a parliamentarian meeting with respect to the current policy baseline because Section 312 of the Congressional Budget Act gives [Lindsey] Graham — as Chairman of the Budget Committee — the authority to set the baseline.
“There is nothing to debate and we consider this matter settled.”
“As many of my colleagues have noticed over the last year, and at times even joked about, I haven't exactly been excited about running for another term. That is true since the choice is between spending another six years navigating the political theatre and partisan gridlock in Washington or spending that time with the love of my life Susan, our two children, three beautiful grandchildren, and the rest of our extended family back home. It's not a hard choice, and I will not be seeking re-election."
NOTE: I just wish Senator Tillis would first show spine by voting against this horrible budget bill. Better to be remembered standing up for principles!
Is Cooper more likely or less likely to jump in now?
On one hand it should be an easier election to win. On the other hand because of that it's less necessary to have him be our candidate in order to win. If he was on the fence it could lead him to conclude he can safely let someone else be our candidate.
I hope this encourages him to get off the fence and declare his candidacy. Because whoever is the GOP nominee will be even Trumpier than Ted Budd.
And if Cooper wins the open seat (and Anita Earls wins her race), us NC Dems are going to be pumped to show Budd and the SCONC GOP majority the door in 2028.
Less likely-with Tillis not running Cooper might (justifiably) think that he no longer needs to be running for Senate-I'd expect an imminent Presidential announcement and possibly an endorsement of Wiley Nickel from Cooper (unless Jeff Jackson or Rachel Hunt decides to jump in-Cooper would likely endorse one of them instead),
It depends on who Republicans nominate in 2026. If they nominate Mark Robinson or Michele Morrow, then I'm all for Cooper passing on 2026 and having him run for Senate in 2028 when Republicans have a less toxic nominee.
Unless someone in the GOP Congressional delegation gets in and clears the field, whoever the Republicans nominate likely will be the underdog, even if Cooper doesn't run.
In otherwords, even before Tillis's retirement, North Carolina was the inverse Maine-weak incumbent, and deep and ambitious Democratic bench-it was unlikely the field was clearing for Cooper to begin with.
I think it's a tossup with anyone but Cooper. I don't really see much of a bench in NC these days, except for Cooper, who absolutely would have cleared the field. We know that because he is currently keeping the field clear simply by not declaring his plans. Even Nickel has said he'd defer to him.
Also, I'm not sure Tillis is weak and Collins is so strong. Tillis would be weak in a primary but not the general. And Collins now has a hugely negative approval rating, per recent polling.
I am delighted to see this. If the race goes like it did with AZ and GA, Trump basically flipped a GOP seat because of his tantrums over the Big Bad Bill.
Regarding North Carolina, there's a very good chance NC is the tipping-point state for the 2028 presidential election, so we'll get a potential preview of the 2028 presidential election in the NC-Sen race next year, except it's exceedingly unlikely that either major-party presidential nominee will be from North Carolina.
If we should have any takeaway from 2018/2022 vs. 2020/2024, it's that extrapolating from midterm elections to presidential elections is foolish. Besides, why do you think there's such a high chance that NC would be the tipping point, rather than WI or PA or even GA or AZ?
Of course caution needs to be taken, but one can see general trends extend from midterms to POTUS years e.g. Iowa's conservative shift when Ernst won in 2014, or Arizona's D shift when Sinema won in 2018 (and Georgia's when Kemp barely won that same year).
Also Florida. DeSantis and Scott winning in 2018 basically told us that Florida was about to undergo a clear red shift, and DeSantis/Rubio landslides meant that it would be off the table entirely.
Democrats lost Florida by the same margin 0.5 points in 2010 and Obama won it two years later. 2022 midterms in Florida predicted 2024 not the 2018 one.
2024 the education alignment is almost perfect. All states and DC with adults Bac+% higher than Maine (35.3%) voted for Harris, except Utah; All below that voted for Trump, except New Mexico.
Of course most swing states are quite close to the cutoff. It is conceivable that the ones higher could swing back more, and the ones further below, Wisconsin, Arizona, Michigan, Nevada, in that order, swing less. Nevada and New Mexico may even swing right.
Hence this map. It doesn’t mean to be the final outcome, just cutoff at right crossing 270.
Per Politico, Dusty Johnson is jumping in for SD-Gov. I wonder if A) that means Rhoden isn’t going for a full term of his own and B) who would get in for the open at large seat
In the wake of the Mamdani shocker primary win + progressive victories elsewhere in NYC, I’m interested in numerous congressional and state legislative races that progressives may target. Who may progressives target? And with who? And are there other seats held by less progressive incumbents that progressives may be looking at outside of NYC? With who?
On the flip side, are there any progressive-held seats nationwide that centrist groups may target? With who? I know Omar is one, with Ryan Winkler considering a bid.
Finally, are there older or less effective Dems in general who may be facing grassroots primary challenges? Not asking who as so far most challenges have been relatively unknown.
I would love to see Jamaal Bowman challenge Ritchie Torres.
The author of the Primary School newsletter (formerly known as Nick Tagliaferro) mentioned on Bluesky that State Sen. Gustavo Rivera was a possible pick for that seat. I’ve heard Bowman isn’t interested in NY-15, and given his baggage I’m not sure he’s the best pick for it.
I've actually soured a bunch on Jamaal Bowman and think we could probably do better. He has a bunch of baggage that would make the race about him, rather than about Torres and how much he sucks.
Agreed re Bowman. We don't need to relitigate Mr. Fire Alarm's record and views, with the added baggage of district-hopping (ask Mondaire Jones how that can have an impact, though unlike NY-17 the general election in 15 is unlikely to be competitive.)
Okay - just need someone good so Ritchie can go on to his next gig at Fox “News.”
I don't like Torres, but would he really do something like that? If he did, he would end his future viability for any race as a Democrat.
I actually prefer Torres over Bowman. The latter totally screwed up his political career, and it was all his own bizarre doing. That said, I definitely do not want to see Torres run for governor of New York!
I very much do not, although that’s my progressive bias speaking. Torres is awful — I remember him threatening to run for governor and saying he’d rip up environmental regulations if he did.
Bowman did himself no favors but his voting record was mostly pretty good. Torres’ record is pretty awful, on the other hand, from what I’ve seen.
Bowman was shitty at constituent services and seemed to care more about garnering headlines than actual legislating. Exactly the type of progressive you DON'T want in Congress.
I was speaking voting record alone, but I did hear his constituent services were lousy. I concede on that point.
You wrote exactly what I had in mind. No to lousy progressives, Yes to charismatic and smart ones. I would have Deluzio, Raskin, AOC types than Bowman or Bush.
Precisely. In my perfect world, neither Torres nor Bowman would be in Congress. Workhorses - not show horses. AOC, in particular, has impressed me with her ability to work within the structure of congress. I've gone from wishing she wasn't an avatar of the Dem party to hoping for future statewide runs from her.
She also does a lot for her constituents.
I think it would be wise not to over-interpret the NYC elections. NYC (and SF and Seattle) isn't a very good bell weather for the US as a whole, in ways somewhat analogous tonthe argument as to why Iowa isn't a good bell weather either. Neither are representative of the vast majority of districts but from opposite sides of the demographic and political spectra.
I'd separate it into two details.
The actual vote in NYC has the caveats you mention. Although it is worth adding a caveat to the caveat that a lot of America lives in or adjacent to major cities. Those people in turn make up a substantial portion of our base. So it is not without meaning.
The second part is how people are reacting to the NYC primary. I can only speak anecdotally but in many corners of the internet I observe people are very happy with Mamdani's win. These are places with (mostly younger) people who are largely ignorant of the specifics of politics but follow the broader events. They know who is in charge and they are pissed off.
That second group of people is ecstatic right this. Obviously they are a bubble within the party but it's worth paying attention to how wings of the party are feeling. Generally we want to give every portion of the party something to be happy about with us. Something big enough to break through.
Yes, one of Mamdani's big wins, like AOC, is to energize young voters. I'm glad they're ecstatic and engaged. I hope they become a big voting bloc.
Urban voting across the US is mostly Dem, even in SC where I live, except Greenville. But it's not as left as NYC, SF, Seattle. I don't think Mamdani-flavored candidate would have had a chance in Detroit, Columbus, Denver, Atlanta, Texan cities, Florida cities, etc. Thus my caution.
Don Bacon (NE- Omaha) is expected to announce his retirement from the House as early as Monday.
https://www.politico.com/live-updates/2025/06/27/congress/don-bacon-wont-seek-reelection-00430545
Likely D if he truly retires.
Lean D. It's only about Harris +4.
Brett Lindstrom could make this tough if he runs but we’ll see
I don't think Reps will nominate a "moderate" if they even exist
It's Likely D in a Trump midterm. It was about +4.5D last year.
I think Lean D is a fair rating given that (1.) the district has only been won by a Democrat once this century, and (2.) we don't know who either party will nominate yet.
I could easily see it shifting to Likely D well before the election, though.
In a midterm with a Republican president, Harris +4 is enough for Likely D IMO.
One of only three Republicans who represent a Congressional district in the House won by Harris last year, if I recall correctly.
Yep; the others are Brian Fitzpatrick (the Susan Collins of the House), and the insufferable Mike Lawler.
Eh, Fitzpatrick's district isn't as blue as Maine is. It voted for Harris by only 1%, compared to her 7% victory in Maine.
And if Fitzpatrick's district was actually as blue as Maine, then he would've lost in 2018, since he only won by 2.6% that year.
Yeah, I know it's an overstatement. The resilience of both annoys me, though.
Pretty terrible stat for the state of our democractic republic.
When I read this, all I can think about is The Joker gif “And Here We Go “, in terms of Republicans leaving instead of losing to a Democrat in a Trump midterm. I bet he won’t be the last.
Normally I'd agree with a Lean characterization in these type of districts, but 2026 will almost certainly be a wave year. Thus these type of districts should almost certainly swing our way, especially considering Harris won here. I'd also keep an eye on the 1st district in Nebraska. Big sleeper Trump only slightly overperformed there by a single point. Also Osborn won that district too.
Let's be cautious. I don't think we can assume a big wave.
Michael, i agree with you, based on experience and disappointment over the years. I suspect you and I (and a few others here) get to play the GenX experience card that others haven't been beaten with yet. Hopefully they won't be.
Yeah, lots of scars. I've voted for Democrats for President every 4 years since 1984. Most of them lost.
Who would be the worst and most uncharismatic Democratic candidate for President in your opinion that you've voted for. Would it be Dukakis or Gore or McGovern?
McGovern was the nominee in 1972. My mother went to the polls with a 103-degree fever to make sure to vote against Nixon, but I was 7 years old. Gore was not close to the worst, as he probably would have won if every vote in FL had been counted. Mondale was the one that was beaten the most severely, so maybe him, but Dukakis was the most frustrating, because Mondale said exactly what he meant and in my opinion could be proud of losing an honest campaign, whereas Dukakis refused to defend himself.
If you're counting people I voted for in presidential primaries, that would be harder, and I'd have to remember them all, which might be difficult.
No only the presidential candidates. I think that if Gore v. Bush happened today, there would be a very high probability of civil war.
I was shocked there were no riots in the streets of Florida. It showed just how non-violent Black people are when their votes are taken away. There were over 50,000 Black votes that weren't tallied because they had names like John Johnson that some felon in Mississippi or something had.
Even without those votes, scientists say that with a uniform voting counting standard, Gore would have won. According to a biography, Scalia privately said that the reasoning was "as we say in Brooklyn, a POS."
Dukakis for me, followed by Hillary and then John Kerry. But if we include primaries then probably Bruce Babbitt, whose policies I quite liked, but personality wise he was quite dull.
As a middle of the road millennial I've seen my fair share of disappointments too.
I wasn't old enough to care about politics during Clinton's two wins. I was just old enough to see all the craziness of the 2000 recount even if I had been too young to care about or really understand the election itself still.
Spanning ~2000-2024 there's been scant few years that I found encouraging. Obama's win in 2008 was the only unmitigated win. His 2012 win saw us fail to retake the house, and Biden's 2020 win was on the narrowest of grounds combined with a 50-50 senate. A relieving outcome but not one build up any kind of future looking confidence.
Fair tho I doubt the situation right now will be worse than 2024. At the very least I am expecting numbers near or around 2018.
That is way too optimistic. Sure, it's possible, but we can't assume it.
Now's the time, if any, to be optimistic and even bullish. We can't rely on the courts to bail us out nor the administration and it's allies to acts responsibly. In terms of the near and foreseeable future this is by far our best chance to make (potentially) major gains. Playing it too safe in the past has gotten us into trouble and even lost races we could have won like with Mandela Barnes in Wisconsin. I see very little detriment in investing now and being more aggressive when circumstances are more than likely shaping up in our favor.
I would counter that now is the time to be most aware of reality and threats.
To that I would say that we must always be vigilant of threats and be realistic. However that does not mean pretending the status quo is fine, let alone sustainable. Our leadership is failing us, including when they choose to support very corrupt and odious figures like Andrew Cuomo.
Yes, but the Democratic leadership is not the main threat, just falling down on the job of fighting the main threat as effectively and powerfully as possible. (And no, NSA, I don't mean with violence.)
So I agree here too. We should be optimistic and cautious. In other words, we should go into this mid-term with the belief it should be be a massive swing like Newt Gingritch's contract with America in 94. And we should fight like crazy to make that happen. ActBlue, Howard Dean contest every race, etc etc. But we should steel ourselves with the very real possibility that despite the best efforts, we might not see the swing we want. Why? Because the discouragement afterward can be paralyzing.
Of course, we need an architect of an Economic and Social Contract FOR America, and NY Congressional Leaders are sitting on their hands. I thought Jeffries would be better. I'm disappointed.
https://www.nbcnews.com/politics/congress/nebraska-republican-don-bacon-will-not-seek-re-election-congress-rcna215668
Don Bacon will not seek reelection.
NJ Assembly: Given what seems like assured continued south jersey bleeding of support, it's more important for NJ Democrats to maintain a healthy majority unreliant on the South Jersey remnant. Andrew Macurdy is a former AUSA and mental health advocacy attorney in the AG of NJ's office, young, charismatic, and has raised at least 8 times more so far than previous nominee did entire time. The distirct voted Harris by 14 and Biden by 20, but has entrenched republican incumbents that keep holding on because Union County Dems have never really targeted this district. Suffice to say with the signature overperformance and uncontested primary win where he outpolled the republican nominees in raw votes (nj has two assemblypeople per district).
Worth a donation or if you're in the district a vote. linked article is from when he was only in the race a month.
https://www.andrewmacurdy.com
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/New_Jersey%27s_21st_legislative_district
https://newjerseyglobe.com/campaigns/macurdy-has-enormous-94000-fundraising-haul-for-assembly-bid-against-munoz-and-matsikoudis/
Some of the wealthiest towns in the country in this district, in Somerset and Morris counties. Where moderate Republicanism still lives.
Halfway through 2025, here's an analysis of Democratic performance in special elections so far and what it does and doesn't mean for 2026. (Oh, and look where they got their 2024 presidential data from.)
https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/2025/06/27/democratic-special-election-gains/
Paywalled, of course. Could you summarize?
Democrats' showing in mostly special elections so far looks very promising for 2026. But specials may be losing their predictive power, so no reason for overconfidence.
Thanks very much! Why do they think they could be losing predictive power? I think what we've clearly seen is that results depend on who shows up. In 2022, a lot of voters angry about abortion bans showed up, and that blunted the Republican midterm edge quite a bit, whereas in 2024, all the once-every-4-years Trump voters showed up and quite a few normally Democratic voters finked out. Chances are, a larger number of infrequent Republican voters will show up for a midterm than for special elections on odd days, but we really don't know how many. Is that about predictive power, though? Do they have something more complex to say about that?
They say of 2024, "For example, the 2024 cycle doesn’t quite fit the pattern we described. Before the 2024 general election, Democrats were outperforming their 2020 results in special elections by about two points. But Republicans won the House popular vote by roughly the same margin as they had in 2022. What gives?"
The conclusion is, "Put simply, Democrats have become much better at showing up in special elections. This is both because of their newfound advantage with reliable voters, but also because a party’s base is often most fired up when the party is in the opposition.
So, yes, history and the data both suggest that Democrats are well-positioned heading into 2026. Midterm elections tend to have lower turnout than elections in presidential years, which could benefit Democrats, given their growing advantage among high-propensity voters.
But there’s a big difference between winning on a sleepy Tuesday in March and winning when tens of millions of voters head to the polls in 2026."
I think there's been too much recasting of 2024 as the "new normal" or predictive of the future, but we'll see. It is apparently true that Democrats' coalition for now seems to be well-suited for off years and specials, but one can wonder why swing or Independent leaning voters aren't showing up for Republicans. Maybe they don't like what they're seeing, or their shift to the right was only temporary and even last year wasn't as deep or potentially lasting as some pundits have said?
The reliable Suburban voters defeated us thoroughly in 2010 and 2014 but many are now Democrats.
The cynic in me says that these special election results wouldn't be dismissed so readily by the pundit class if Republicans were outperforming Democrats rather than the reverse being the case.
That said, I do think that special elections are more likely to be predictive of midterm results rather than presidential ones—especially when one of the major parties is headed by a cult leader with a proven track record of being able to turn out low-propensity voting blocs.
We were crushing it in special elections heading into November 2024.
Which was a presidential election.
Worth mentioning that the story cites to the Downballot with a link to it.
Our democracy may literally depend on defeating Susan Collins and we have C-list candidates. This has to change. Just wanted to vent.
Maine Senate race is Texas in reverse. Gillibrand is in charge of recruiting candidates and the only good thing she's done till now is that she didn't encourage Golden to jump in which was obliquely referenced in two reports like he wasn't able to gather support from the party apparatus because they dislike him. Dude hasn't even attended a Dem caucus meeting since 2020.
Jared Golden once worked for Susan Collins, so he’s never going to challenge her. Besides, ME-02 and Golden himself are significantly to the right of the state as a whole, which explains the tepid support from the state party. Dems can find a far better Senate candidate.
But he had expressed interest in the Senate race and was hyped by pundits before he abruptly took himself out of contention.
I think Golden might run if Collins retired, but I stand by my prediction that he will never challenge her.
Maine has Janet Mills – she is definitely A-list. But to your larger point, yes, I definitely do wish the Dems’ Maine bench was deeper. It’s a complex purple state and more than a bit insular.
Is she running?
No indication yet.
Makes me worried about what folks are seeing in internals if no-one steps up.
Such internals may not reflect some of the public polling which show Collins' favourability declining to the point that a nobody could plausibly beat an incumbent somebody. Newest one here: https://scholars.unh.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=1878&context=survey_center_polls
However, I doubt that Collins has really become that unpopular, and if her favourability is low it may be at least in part due to MAGA voters complaining she isn't conservative or pro-Trump enough. But will they really ultimately refuse to vote for her? (RCV means that we can't hope for a right wing third party candidate to allow the Dem to win with a plurality.)
There's breakdown in the pdf, it's very bad among Democrats. My only concern are the 14 percent idiots in our party who are "neutral" about her. They really think that she brings loads of earmarks to Maine and practices pragmatism. The bad news is that her snap medicaid cuts won't hit rural Maine until 2027.
First, Susan Collins has time and again proved that she is a survivor, beating predictions and the polls. (I think Mike’s comments in that regard are spot on.)
Second, the challenger I want, Janet Mills, is busy being an excellent governor, and she is in no hurry. Moreover, at 77 Mills is no spring chicken.
I think Collins is this cycle’s Tester in 2024…
From your keyboard to God's eyes or something, but Maine is not nearly as Democratic as Montana is Republican.
That is true! But I think it’s just democratic enough to wipe her away. 🤞🏼
Reports say she will run if no one else steps up. My only concern is her age. A younger Democrat would straight up get a boost due to their age.
It's very possible that if Mills runs, she would lose a primary precisely because of her age.
That seems very unlikely to me.
I think Mills would defeat Collins if she runs. I hope she does - even if it’s just one or two cycles.
Bench is fairly deep. But they’re all running for governor
My guess is that one of the serious candidates will switch over from the governor race.
Just wanted to mention here, for DRA users: some of the datasets for the 2004 election that users have uploaded are missing a lot of votes. The North Carolina 2004 dataset is missing literally hundreds of thousands of votes, and the Virginia 2004 dataset is also missing a lot of votes as well. So those results should be taken with a large grain of salt.
Note: This is messing up a side project that I've been working on.
DRA is using 2022 precinct geography, right? It might be needed to map 2004 precincts to 2000 census blocks, to use the relationship file to approximate 2020 blocks, and then to aggregate back to 2022 precincts.
I bet many users just loaded 2004 precinct ids as if they were 2022. Hence many will be mis-located or outright missing. Also some new 2022 precinct ids would be blank.
That's possible. I think another part of the issue might be that users aren't assigning absentee/mail-in votes to precincts. Many states have a hard time with this - Virginia still doesn't do it even now (meaning that more recent election results in DRA were made by people using formulas to assign them), and I know Ohio's largest counties didn't assign absentee votes to precincts in 2004 (they do now). North Carolina might have had that problem back then as well.
Yup, I just checked North Carolina. Their precinct results from 2004 didn't assign absentee votes to precincts, and their files that assign absentees to precincts only go back to 2016.
So DRA users would've had to use a formula to assign those absentee votes to precincts in the 2004 election, and it's clear they didn't do that.
I see. The inability of assigning an absentee/early vote to a given precinct, seems really weird to me. Don’t the election authorities have to know which precinct ballot you would be voting on, when you go early voting or request a mail ballot?
Here in Georgia, the early in-person votes are handled the same way as the Election Day, once you check in, the ballot will be pulled according to your home precinct, even you could cast the early vote any EV location within county. (EDay vote would have to be cast in the home precinct). And as for mail votes, the ballot will be printed according to the home precinct. Actually the home precinct number is also printed and barcoded on the paper ballot. The post election reconciliation also lists out how many ballots were cast each type, supposedly matching how many voters checked in, or returned mail ballots, exactly for each precinct.
This is basics not that hard to implement. Thus the inability to allocate to precinct don’t look good for confidence in election security.
Agreed completely.
So there's the centrist lawyer running for NYC mayor as an independent (whose name I forgot), might he now get a second look from Cuomo (and Sliwa) voters hoping to stave off Mamdani?
His name is Jim Walden.
Quite possibly, and not just from Cuomo or Sliwa voters. If I lived in NYC, he'd certainly get a second look from me, and I would've ranked Lander first (I wouldn't have ranked either Cuomo or Mamdani at all).
Do you have any affirmative reason to consider him in particular? I'm not seeing why I would want to vote for him and increase the risk for any of the remaining non-Mamdani candidates, who are noxious, could win.
So much for party unity, huh. I guess unity only matters when certain ideologies are the winners.
Vote blue no matter who only applies for Blue Dogs.
I suspect a lot of Mamdani voters wouldn't have voted for Cuomo, though not sure who they'd vote for. Maybe Walden. Cuomo is pretty awful after all.
That doesn’t make it right the other way around though. We can’t afford not to elect Dems in this climate.
I additionally highly doubt Mamdani voters would have gone for Walden. Walden would be too centrist for the type that only vote progressive.
I would argue that we can't afford to elect Republicans. If we nominate candidates that are far enough out of the mainstream that centrist Ds won't vote for them, either by staying home or voting R, then we lose.
Viable independents that can gather winning support, or at least more support than a D, are a bulwark against more R control. I don't know if that's Weldon, I was just wondering. I (happily) don't live in NYC. It's too congested for me. But it's fun to visit every 5-10 years.
I suspect Mamdani can win in NYC and if he does I hope he's extremely effective and he laser focuses on things that NYC needs: affordability, safety, infrastructure. If some of his left-most ideas pan out, then it'll be a good model for others. After all, states and locals are the source of a lot of good policy experiments. If he fails, we get a lot of "I told you so" both from Rs and Clinton Ds.
I'll note Osborne in NE, Angus King in ME, etc as over performing Ds. Here in my adopted home of SC, running as an I locally is more viable than as a D, because most Rs won't even bother to consider a D out of hand.
One concern I have is vote-splitting. If someone like a Walden gets votes, what’s stopping him from potentially leading to an Adams second term or even a Sliwa mayorship via costing D votes?
Lander was my #1. Had Cuomo become the Democratic nominee, I'm not sure whether I would have voted (probably, because I consider it a responsibility), and I don't know who I would have voted for. Not Adams and not Sliwa. I'm glad I don't have to make that decision.
That's possible. Does he have enough personal money or support to advertise much?
I would guess that he doesn't have a prayer.
NYC Mayoral Race And Trump Voters
Since Zohran Mamdani won the Democratic Primary this past Tuesday, this video may be the most important one to pay attention to with respect to 2026.
Mamdani explains why Trump voters in NYC and even NY State voted for Trump: It was because their economic issues were not being listened to. He listened to such voters concerns and he was laser focused on economics more than other issues.
While Mamdani’s candidacy and political views may be suitable for NYC, the focus on economics in his campaign is worth Democratic candidates and incumbents across their country paying attention to depending on overall political views of the voters.
https://youtube.com/shorts/lQM4A8HiJcg?feature=shared
OK, well, these voters are idiots, but if Mamdani has found the way to convince them the Democrats are better for working people than the Republican are - which they are, every fucking time since FDR - then, yeah, the rest of the party's candidates need to pay attention to this and emulate it, if it isn't too late now.
Chris Murphy and Ro Khanna have also been screaming the same thing. Talk about economics and don't move to the right on it like the re-awakened neoliberal class wants to while deemphasizing social issues. I immediately lose interest whenever a centrist pundit tries to blame Biden's tariffs or CHIPS or IRA for inflation. I don't believe that Biden had the capability to cause higher inflation and lesser growth in every other first world country. We had the best economy among our peers and I'll die on this hill. State subsidized industrial policy works and stops the hollowing of our industries.
No, and due to his work and the work of the Federal Reserve, this country had the strongest economy in the world. Whoever those centrist "pundits" are, they should go fuck themselves with a long, sharp implement!
Biden had a huge charisma and communication issue. Fix that and the border so Trump would have had no one to scapegoat and he would have lost badly.
Disagree. And let's leave it at that, because there's no way we can prove that if Biden had made the media the enemy, the voters still wouldn't have voted Trump because inflation.
I'm talking about his communication on economic issues not the media. He had to be making a lot more public appearances talking about the economy and explaining it(which would've worked if he was 5 years younger maybe).
I maintain that it wouldn't have worked because inflation. There's no way to make American voters smarter, and that's on top of a very strong everpresent floor of bigots.
Inflation plus the fact that the majority of Americans chose to pretend that COVID never happened.
For whatever reason, Biden was invisible. He governed as if it were the 1920s not the 2020s.
It's never too late for the next election, but it's always too late for the last one.
To me this would refute the answer a lot of officials have opted for one "culture war" issues. It's not uncommon to hear person XYZ say that we lost because of shifting away from economic issues, and then they follow it up by spending an inordinate amount of time and focus on those exact social issues anyway. The only difference being that they're trying to adopt a stance that is closer to (but not the same as) republicans on it.
The answer isn't to moderate on social issues. The answer is to shut up about them and talk about economic issues instead. Relentlessly shift the topic whenever possible.
To the extent social issues are spoken of they should be linked into economics as much as possible. Looking back a decade ago, I think the political success of pushing for same-sex marriage equality was based on two factors, one of which was the economic factors related to marriage. (The other being to "keep government out of bedrooms.")
Don't moderate: change the topic to economic issues!
It's never too late for the next election when there are reasonably free and fair elections.
Yes, but as much as that is a legitimate concern it is one that is outside the scope of my ability to meaningfully influence. As such I don't make much accounting for it in my assessments here, even if it is a thing that merits worry.
I don't know if it will be outside the scope of the American people's power collectively to meaningfully influence. There are precedents in other countries.
As I’ve said countless times, elections are run by the states.
The National Guard when federalized and the U.S. Military are not run by the states, nor is the Supreme Court, which is getting more and more supportive of unaccountable, unconstitutional authoritarianism while Trump is in office.
I'm skeptical that someone preaching socialism can win over someone who looked at Trump and thought that was the message they were looking for. Problem for the DSA types is that not every "working people" see socialism as the answer. Sure were there some low info voters who bought Trumps spiel about inflation, maybe those voters are gettable but for the most part i think we lost people on cultural issues.
I tend to disagree with your last phrase. I think the difference was voters who were punishing Democrats for worldwide inflation, most of whom were so stupid they believed Trump's con that he would end inflation.
There's some of that of course but i think our slide with Hispanics and folks of color has a lot to do with cultural issues.
Because what was so different from previous elections?
There was a slide among Latino voters from 2016 to 2020, at least in Texas and Florida, also. I think cultural issues including immigration played a big role.
Is immigration a "cultural issue"? I mean, sure, if we take that literally, but I thought the "culture wars" were ostensibly over issues of religion and related values. But if we really interpret them as being over prejudice, anti-trans obsession and opposition to immigration fits in well for most Americans. The thing is, though, in the case of Latinos who are against more immigration from other Latinos who come from the same countries as they or their parents did, it's likely not to be a cultural issue, but instead a desire to pull up the ladder out of selfishness and/or a perceived economic threat to them.
The Republicans and the media managed to emphasize trans issues this election more than in past ones.
I'm really tempted to say if people want to vote for dictatorship because they're so furious at trans people, they can go fuck themselves. But in other words, there was no difference, except that somehow, the Republicans got through more on it or emphasized it more than other types of bigotry. What a totally fucked country!
The average voter is an idiot.
Highly ignorant at least, and that's largely by design, considering how education is treated by Republicans in this country.
I'm going to be controversial and say that elected Democrats seem fairly disengaged from quality primary education as well. Our defining educational position now is basically college loan relief. We've probably moved away from that though since we discovered "shockingly" that it wasn't exactly a political winner.
You'll have to clarify what you mean. Aren't most politicians rather highly educated, at least in terms of paper credentials?
Universal PreK/head start, school lunches and breakfast, anti-voucher, science taught aa science not myth, all D positions. But they did aeem to forget about most of them last time, probably to try to buy the younger vote.
Most "working people" don't see socialism as the answer. The fact that Mamdani lost "working class" voters to Cuomo says it all. It was middle and upper income voters who put him over the top.
What income categories are you talking about, and where are the figures coming from?
How are you sure middle and upper income voters are the reason why Mamdani got over the top?
As far as I am aware, when I saw videos of voters in NYC being asked by reporters (including those on MSNBC), they were talking about having to be concerned about paying rent per month. Middle and upper income residents of cities like NYC, San Francisco, etc. are also defined differently and have been this way since the tech boom in the 2010's. What used to be middle and upper income back in the 90's is no longer the case today.
Meanwhile, a billionaire investor who donated to Cuomo has just announced he'll donate to Mamdani.
There's a graph from The Times going around breaking down vote share by median income, you can see it here: https://www.unpopularfront.news/p/what-it-took-to-win
James is probably referring to Cuomo doing better than Mamdani+Lander among <$30k incomes, but it's a little reductive to say "middle and upper incomes put Mamdani over the top" when Cuomo also won the most wealthy. You can't tell from this graph, but my guess from other exit polls would be there are confounding factors of age, race, and education that shape this distribution. This also, IMO, means it's a mistake to ascribe ideological aversion to socialism as a reason for this breakdown, when there are so many other effects at play.
Not saying this is the reason, but just as an example of what I mean, Cuomo did better among Black voters. Black Democratic primary voters are probably more Christian and religious than average, and might have been less inclined to vote for a Muslim. Or Mamdani had particular appeals to East and South Asian voters, who are more likely to be educated professionals. Ideology is important, but context, timing, and rhetorical focus are too.
Thanks. That's a really interesting chart.
That whole article is interesting, and I think we should discuss the last paragraph because it's core subject matter for this site:
"The problem with the polling and all the emphasis on data in contemporary politics is that it does not take into account that the electorate doesn’t really exist until election day, and the politician and his or her campaign are actively creating that electorate. All political errors, from the level of action to analysis, are based on reifying the situation, believing in a static, factual reality that cannot be changed. And all great political successes are based on the opposite: the art of the impossible; believing in a chance for something new."
Your thoughts, everyone?
By the way, the discussion thread for that article also has interesting, intelligent comments.
Thanks for sharing more insight into the primary election voter breakdown.
It seems that there’s a real divide with NYC residents in the race.
It will be interesting to see how the ranked choice breaks down, might be able to get a clearer picture of the coalitions than usual.
Yeah, that would be helpful to pay attention to.
If I'm not mistaken, the NYC Mayoral General Election doesn't use RCV (not the case in Berkeley's Mayoral Election with RCV last year). Given this, the biggest challenge will see how Cuomo primary voters are going to evolve in their views heading to the general election.
Plenty such to my understanding were not warming up to Mamdani and may not think his platform is realistic. I see a possibility where some % of Cuomo voters could vote for Mamdani whereas others could split into voting for Eric Adams in what they think as "the lesser of two evils." Or another political candidate running.
If Cuomo enters in the general election, that will complicate things for Mamdani to build a large enough coalition.
Cuomo's name will be on the general election ballot.
Wait, how? Has he officially filed as an Independent?
He created his own party.
Makes no sense to me to use rcv in primary and not in general
Agreed. We have that system in Berkeley and San Francisco although specifically for mayoral elections. Now both are held during presidential election years.
I can’t comment on NYC but I know I’m Berkeley we have not to date in all of the years I’ve grown up here ever elected a Democratic socialist. And my recollection goes all the way back to when Shirley Dean was Mayor back in the mid 90’s.
Same with San Francisco, San Jose and other cities in the Bay Area. Richmond elected Gayle McLaughlin, a Green Party member, as Mayor years ago twice in 2006 and 2010 so it may be the only city in the Bay Area I can think of where Democratic Socialist could possibly get elected.
That said, I think the point I should emphasize is that Democrats need to be focused on the economy at all levels and how they are impacted while at the same time beating the GOP at the messaging game. Culture wars are a problem but competency and attention to detail on the job is also a bigger problem as well that needs to be paid attention to.
Yeah, that's wishful thinking and self aggrandizing.
Why?
It's the idea that if the Democrats talked more about economic issues (as if we didn't talk about them a ton already) they would automatically win. I know Trump voters on NY state by the way, the idea that economic concerns are top of their list is ludacris. They want their guns. They don't like gays. They don't like blacks. They don't like Hispanic. They don't like trans people. They don't like the government. They don't like regulations. Mamdani and his ilk are deep in a blue bubble and would walk into a buzz saw if they stepped out of it.
That makes intuitive sense to me.
Are you suggesting these are positions we should adopt? Were these people really going to vote for us anyway?
And if we do adopt these positions, how exactly are we different from the GOP? Why would they vote for us when they have the real deal?
I could be misunderstanding this. I just want to be clear here.
Of course I'm not suggesting that. I'm just saying that it's easy to lie to ourselves to think that all we have to do to win elections is talk about economic issues.
Got it.
I do think economic issues are still important though, even if they aren't the only issue that is.
Bottom line is:
Irrespective of what they need to do with messaging and providing a counter defense towards the GOP, they cannot be complacent or assume all will be going well when they grow the economy (even if there are numbers of jobs added per month).
What matters is if people can live and thrive without dealing with the pain in costs.
But there was nothing better Biden could have done. We have to accept that.
I agree.
How so? How Democratic socialism applies in an agenda towards economic issues or just focusing on economic issues in general?
We are in a complicated picture here but I have seen videos of NYCers in the younger generation who believe the Democratic Party is aloof to their problems. They are arguing rent is too high and wages aren’t keeping up with the cost of living. That’s a problem Democrats need to address head on.
Why the hell do we still insist on using there term democratic "socialism" if we have any intent on winning elections. That aside, our politicians talk about that all the time. They act on it all the time. They don't want elections all the time. Did Senator Brown not speak to these concerns? Of course not, he did. It doesn't matter. You know who spent a lot of time attacking high rent and freezing it? Mayor Bill Deblasio. He was deeply unpopular.
1) Democrats speak to economic issues.
2) we are the only party that actually provides real economic solutions for working people.
3) Republicans kick the ever living shit out of working people
4) the voters elect Republicans
5) I am not saying we should stop speaking on economic issues or that we shouldn't speak even more
6) I am saying it borders on delusion to think that it will solve our problem
7) this proposal is more or less that we should keep doing what we've been doing, for it will surely work this time even though it didn't in 2010, 2016, 2022, and 2024.
DeBlasio was popular at first. He lost popularity because he became or was shown to be ineffective.
What was one of the first issues that triggered DeBlasio's ineffectiveness? Was it in his strained relations with the NYPD or another matter?
That was a big issue, but though I give him some credit for dealing with the housing affordability crisis, and a big part of the problem was and is nimbyism from City Council members, he certainly didn't ultimately make a dent in that problem, either.
You mean DeBlasio didn't make a dent on addressing the affordability crisis?
Far stark contrast in Berkeley where when State Senator Jesse Arreguin was major, he was able to with the help of the City Council get more varieties of housing built (affordable and even homeless housing). I remember back in the 90's Berkeley was known as Berzerkeley.
Not anymore these days.
Yes, that's what I mean. And homelessness has remained unaddressed since the mid to late 70s. I wish Mamdani great success, assuming he can win, and he'll get my vote unless he says or does something really horrible or some really terrible things come out about him from sources I trust. He really seems to care.
It seems NYC has been riddled with too much politics for a long time that seem to get in the way of building housing. Mamdani seems to have interesting ideas regarding housing but he does at the same time have to deal with the forces in the city.
He absolutely does, and I think he will have trouble with the City Council, but if he has a vociferous movement behind him, maybe we can successfully pressure the City Council to make a real dent in the problem.
Wealthy real estate investors are usually self interested NIMBY's
I am not arguing against what you are saying about using the term "Democratic socialism." Yes, what you are saying about Mamdani does seem to mirror a bit with what Bill DeBlasio did when he was running for Mayor back in 2013. He ended up being unpopular in the end.
However, I am mainly referring to the economic issues that Mamdani focused on in the primary, not his actual policy points and stances on the issues. Those need to be paid attention to.
We have a serious affordability crisis with rent being too high in cities like NYC as well as an inflation and economic stability problem (ex: tech layoffs). How it affects everyone per state may vary.
I would like to see the term "Democratic socialism" declared dead and buried. It’s a serious handicap, and to huge swathes of American voters, the term "socialism" is toxic.
It’s not needed to say the term “socialism” when Democrsts are talking about liberal viewpoints and proposals as a political candidate
I think I agree with you that on a nationwide basis, it's better to act like a socialist and not use the term, but the term is clearly not toxic everywhere.
On that we agree. But words used in New York do not stay in New York.
If people outside of New York would vote Republican because New York has a Mayor Mamdani, I don't think it would be because he's a socialist...
The main thing I am trying to understand is, why are Democrats in the national party “freaking out” about Mamdani?
AOC unseated Joe Crowley back in 2018 as a Democratic Socialist, which was the second year Trump was POTUS in his first term. Democrats were not going crazy then and AOC’s candidacy in the general election did not drag Democrats at the down ballot level in NY and elsewhere.
Besides, for a city like NYC, it would be incredibly difficult for Mamdani to coast to the general election, especially considering many cities nationwide have not elected a Democratic Socialist. Bernie Sanders did serve as Mayor of Burlington, VT decades ago but the city fit him. I doubt he would have gotten elected as Mayor of NY back in the day if he still lived in Brooklyn, especially considering he grew up there.
So those Democrats may be freaking out about his being a socialist, but my suggestion is that Islamophobia and disagreement on foreign policy issues we won't discuss here in that order are more relevant to bigots who vote Republican.
James Walkinshaw has won the Democratic nomination for VA-11!
Is that a surprise?
I'm not an expert on VA but I don't think so
Not really. He had a huge lead in the one straw poll that was done before the primary.
Cryptocurrency buys another Dem seat, sad to see
Didn’t know that. Wish one of the others had won then.
Yesterday, this Tweet message by Stella Pekarsky on the DownBallot’s Discord, calling for unity behind Walkinshaw, received two downvotes:
"Congratulations to @JamesWalkinshaw for his victory tonight. He ran a great campaign and I hope all Democrats will get behind him for the special election in September so we can send Donald Trump the biggest possible message from Fairfax."
Anyone have any idea what that’s about? Is there anything wrong with Walkinshaw as a candidate or with his campaign?
Firehouse insider primary decided by machine bosses is what I've heard. If it's true, he should face a competitive primary next year.
Thanks for replying. I don’t know the district. Are you saying that Walkinshaw was the choice of the local Democratic machine bosses?
There were some hard feelings toward his candidacy because while Walkinshaw is an elected official - he serves on the Fairfax County Board of Supervisor (our local legislature) - he repeatedly emphasized the fact that he was at one point Gerry Connolly's Chief of Staff and most of the local "establishment" backed him.
Thank you for the insights.
Why was there hard feelings over that?
This genuinely feels like one of those instances where people just hate for the sake of hating. The man is a pretty average/normal Democrat. Crypto is a reality whether people like it or not, and as a lobby, it's certainly better than the gun, tobacco, and war lobbies that no one seems to criticize much these days even though they're each wreaking havoc in their own ways.
https://x.com/whstancil/status/1939166651053695245
https://x.com/TheTNHoller/status/1939304190238478520
Murkowski agreed to the bill after she got work requirement exemptions and a lot of pork for Alaska. We are dreaming if we think she chooses Democrats in a 50-50 scenario. That was 100% a power play to pressure Thune. This is the cornhusker kickback on steroids.
Anyone who believes Murkowski or Collins will come through at crunch time is deluding themselves.
Although Collins might be concerned about some portions and vote "no" if it will pass without her vote. What happened to these two who, along with McCain, saved to ACA?
She might want to get similar carveouts from a Democratic majority.
Trump would be President.
Understood. Which would make it less likely for her to change parties, rather than bargaining with Democratic Leadership as a Republican.
This happens with every major bill; I'm sorry but Alaska is just a huge welfare state and there's really no good reason that it should be a state at all.
I know Alaska is a welfare and earmarking state but this is another level of deal making. Alaska is excluded from almost every negative effect and also gets tax breaks in return.
Why is there no good reason that it should be a state?
It's geographic isolation and environment/topography mean it's in constant need of very heavy subsidizing to survive and it has a tiny and declining population. It's an important piece of land for geo-political purposes but so is Guam.
It doesn't have a declining population: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Demographics_of_Alaska
Historical population Census Pop. Note %±
1880 33,426 —
1890 32,052 −4.1%
1900 63,592 98.4%
1910 64,356 1.2%
1920 55,036 −14.5%
1930 59,278 7.7%
1940 72,524 22.3%
1950 128,643 77.4%
1960 226,167 75.8%
1970 300,382 32.8%
1980 401,851 33.8%
1990 550,043 36.9%
2000 626,932 14.0%
2010 710,231 13.3%
2020 733,391 3.3%
And if we think DC's taxation without representation is wrong, it would be wrong for Alaska, too.
It makes sense population wise and should always remain a state but it's always been heavily subsidized mostly through federal spending and earmarks, more than Mississippi and West Virginia percentage wise.
Which is why the "conventional wisdom" during the 1950s that it would be a hardcore Democratic state while Hawaii would be a hardcore Republican state.
Was Alaska added to balance out Hawaii's seats in the Senate because Hawaii population was 500k from 1950-1955 compared to 150k for Alaska.
Yes. It was a package deal.
The thought was that it would be dominated by blue collar union Democrats in mining and timber industries.
You mean more per capita?
Yes.
So like Puerto Rico? Except that PR has a bigger and actually declining population?
She's always going to make more sense as a republican than not.
As I said prior I was skeptical and remain skeptical she'd caucus with us. Although I am much less skeptical now than before.
Biggest takeaway in our favor for the future is that threats are only useful if the other party thinks you could follow through on it. If Thune thought there was a 0% chance Murkowski would ever leave his caucus, he'd have little reason to give her any serious concessions. That doesn't mean it has to be high. A policy exemption and a bunch of state focused pork should be "cheap" to a republican to give away, so the evaluation could easily be that it's a single digit percent chance of her leaving in the future.
18-24 year olds were the LARGEST group in the NYC Mayoral Primary, followed by 25-29 year olds, followed by 30-34 year olds
https://x.com/umichvoter/status/1939316564777730387
Mhm, the city attracts more working age adults, so each age cohort 25-29, and onwards till 60, would have much more people than 18-24 yr olds.
18-24 may be just 500k in total population.
Given citizenship rate, lower registration rate, and only ~ 60% would be registered as Democrats, this seems to be some extraordinary turnout
HARDBALL BUDGET BS FROM SENATE REPUBLICANS
Senate Republicans are refusing the Democrats’ request for a bipartisan meeting with the Senate Parliamentarian on using current policy baseline to pay for tax cuts.
“There is no need to have a parliamentarian meeting with respect to the current policy baseline because Section 312 of the Congressional Budget Act gives [Lindsey] Graham — as Chairman of the Budget Committee — the authority to set the baseline.
“There is nothing to debate and we consider this matter settled.”
https://nitter.poast.org/AndrewDesiderio/status/1939343859319726226#m
BUDGET CLAIMS FIRST CASUALTY: Thom Tillis
“As many of my colleagues have noticed over the last year, and at times even joked about, I haven't exactly been excited about running for another term. That is true since the choice is between spending another six years navigating the political theatre and partisan gridlock in Washington or spending that time with the love of my life Susan, our two children, three beautiful grandchildren, and the rest of our extended family back home. It's not a hard choice, and I will not be seeking re-election."
https://nitter.poast.org/igorbobic/status/1939375330277642587#m
NOTE: I just wish Senator Tillis would first show spine by voting against this horrible budget bill. Better to be remembered standing up for principles!
Per CNN, Tillis voted against the bill and announced he was not running for re-election a day later.
https://amp.cnn.com/cnn/2025/06/29/politics/thom-tillis-not-seeking-reelection
Thom Tillis is retiring from politics!! He will not seek reelection.
Super!
Makes that race much easier in that case
LETS FUCKING GOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
Mark Robinson! Rebulicans need you.
Michele Morrow would also be fantastic.
Lara Trump?
Only if she stands. Her. Ground. And does not. Back. Down.
Oh please! Robinson’s service to the Democratic Party is needed once again in 2026.
Is Cooper more likely or less likely to jump in now?
On one hand it should be an easier election to win. On the other hand because of that it's less necessary to have him be our candidate in order to win. If he was on the fence it could lead him to conclude he can safely let someone else be our candidate.
I hope this encourages him to get off the fence and declare his candidacy. Because whoever is the GOP nominee will be even Trumpier than Ted Budd.
And if Cooper wins the open seat (and Anita Earls wins her race), us NC Dems are going to be pumped to show Budd and the SCONC GOP majority the door in 2028.
Don’t forget the state’s 16 EVs.
Yes, I am 🙏 that we get those too.
Less likely-with Tillis not running Cooper might (justifiably) think that he no longer needs to be running for Senate-I'd expect an imminent Presidential announcement and possibly an endorsement of Wiley Nickel from Cooper (unless Jeff Jackson or Rachel Hunt decides to jump in-Cooper would likely endorse one of them instead),
Presidential?! Very unlikely, he would be 71 or 72 when 2028 kicks off.
That's seven years younger than Biden was in 2020.
Nah, not that route.
It depends on who Republicans nominate in 2026. If they nominate Mark Robinson or Michele Morrow, then I'm all for Cooper passing on 2026 and having him run for Senate in 2028 when Republicans have a less toxic nominee.
Unless someone in the GOP Congressional delegation gets in and clears the field, whoever the Republicans nominate likely will be the underdog, even if Cooper doesn't run.
In otherwords, even before Tillis's retirement, North Carolina was the inverse Maine-weak incumbent, and deep and ambitious Democratic bench-it was unlikely the field was clearing for Cooper to begin with.
I'm not convinced of that. The NC Senate race will start out as Lean D if Cooper runs and Tossup with any other Democrat.
I think it's a tossup with anyone but Cooper. I don't really see much of a bench in NC these days, except for Cooper, who absolutely would have cleared the field. We know that because he is currently keeping the field clear simply by not declaring his plans. Even Nickel has said he'd defer to him.
Also, I'm not sure Tillis is weak and Collins is so strong. Tillis would be weak in a primary but not the general. And Collins now has a hugely negative approval rating, per recent polling.
I am delighted to see this. If the race goes like it did with AZ and GA, Trump basically flipped a GOP seat because of his tantrums over the Big Bad Bill.
I’ll give Tillis credit: He ended up serving just two terms in the Senate and didn’t stay institutionalized like Chuck Grassley.
Still amazes me that Chuck Grassley was first elected to the Senate on the night that *Ronald Friggin Reagan* was elected POTUS...
He can still do push ups though. /s
Regarding North Carolina, there's a very good chance NC is the tipping-point state for the 2028 presidential election, so we'll get a potential preview of the 2028 presidential election in the NC-Sen race next year, except it's exceedingly unlikely that either major-party presidential nominee will be from North Carolina.
That's the downsize of North Carolinian Gubernatorial Elections being held in Presidential Election years.
If we should have any takeaway from 2018/2022 vs. 2020/2024, it's that extrapolating from midterm elections to presidential elections is foolish. Besides, why do you think there's such a high chance that NC would be the tipping point, rather than WI or PA or even GA or AZ?
Of course caution needs to be taken, but one can see general trends extend from midterms to POTUS years e.g. Iowa's conservative shift when Ernst won in 2014, or Arizona's D shift when Sinema won in 2018 (and Georgia's when Kemp barely won that same year).
It would be better to compare to other midterm years, though.
Also Florida. DeSantis and Scott winning in 2018 basically told us that Florida was about to undergo a clear red shift, and DeSantis/Rubio landslides meant that it would be off the table entirely.
And NY in 2022.
Not really, Florida was the closest state that Biden lost and Texas was the 2nd closest.
Rewriting history again.
Democrats lost Florida by the same margin 0.5 points in 2010 and Obama won it two years later. 2022 midterms in Florida predicted 2024 not the 2018 one.
I think it's a contender for tipping point next time but who the hell really knows this far out.
It seems like a fairly unlikely one.
In this map. I will explain why it is possible.
2024 the education alignment is almost perfect. All states and DC with adults Bac+% higher than Maine (35.3%) voted for Harris, except Utah; All below that voted for Trump, except New Mexico.
Of course most swing states are quite close to the cutoff. It is conceivable that the ones higher could swing back more, and the ones further below, Wisconsin, Arizona, Michigan, Nevada, in that order, swing less. Nevada and New Mexico may even swing right.
Hence this map. It doesn’t mean to be the final outcome, just cutoff at right crossing 270.
https://www.270towin.com/maps/7Vdly.png