NY-17. John Sullivan III seems like an interesting entrant into the (now five-way) primary to take on Mike Lawler. And of course, there's the possibility that Lawler runs for governor instead.
You know, there might be somewhat of a stampede of retirements in easily flippable seats in a Trump midterm, especially so if they’re without an incumbent. Imagine Bacon retires, Lawler runs for Governor. That might be the spark needed for GOP incumbents in swing seats to leave up or down, but leave in order to avoid being defeated in 2026.
Paul Ryan retired because his agenda of libertarian economics with free trade, privatizing social security, cutting welfare while pursuing moderate social policies like immigration reform was dead. His district is still republican.
I'm not sure that's really the issue as to why Ryan retired although I have no doubt he was limited in what he could do as House Speaker as far as his original agenda.
I recall Ryan was very much turned off by Trump, his antics and influence on the GOP to the degree where it was all about loyalty and not about governing. He had no future as House Speaker or at all in Congress whether it be his original agenda or anything else. Ryan also did not want the job as House Speaker and was pushed to do that under pressure.
Canadian election on Monday. Still looking like a Liberal majority although perhaps not as robust as it did a couple of weeks ago. A 3 or 4 point win. 180-190 seats (172) is majority.
I think the NDP has a more fundamental crisis of purpose. They were still retaining 20 percent of the vote because of Trudeau's unpopularity. As soon as he resigned, their vote share started to collapse. Canadian Liberals have also shifted to the left over the last decade, are overall centre-left and Canadian Conservatives are now preferred by working class voters who previously voted NDP and are much more moderate than Republicans. Canadians also already have what we consider progressive here like paid family leave, progressive taxation universal healthcare, points based immigration system etc.
Unless there is a reform of the FPTP electoral system which the two dominant parties would never agree to, I don't see them regaining electoral relevance anytime soon.
"Canadians also already have what we consider progressive here like paid family leave, progressive taxation universal healthcare…"
Which is why I think it’s far more likely that several American states would love to become the 11th, 12th and 13th Canadian province – than Canada wanting to become the 51state.
The current incarnation of the Conservative Party is not much more moderate than the Republican. Under Poilievre’s leadership, they’re largely imitative of the Republicans.
Nor is Canada’s taxation more progressive in than the U.S. They have a national sales tax and no inheritance tax.
They are against climate tax but accept climate change and subsidies to tackle it, support abortion and lgb rights, don't discuss trans rights, support UHC and the welfare state, are pro immigration but limited to the levels of housebuilding in the country. The similarity with Republicans is in defunding public broadcasting, cutting taxes and regulations along with some limited welfare cuts but even they believe in balancing the budget. The overton window in Canada is left to USA.
Fortunately, in a parliamentary system the head of state and head of government are separate. So you don’t have, when the president does it, it’s not illegal.
They are against climate tax but accept climate change and subsidies to tackle it, support abortion and lgb rights, don't discuss trans rights, support UHC and the welfare state, are pro immigration but limited to the levels of housebuilding in the country. The similarity with Republicans is in defunding public broadcasting, cutting taxes and regulations along with some limited welfare cuts but even they believe in balancing the budget. The overton window in Canada is way left.
The idea of an inheritance tax in Canada has never gained steam because it would encourage more wealthy Canadians to emigrate to the USA. Red States in America are the worst offenders of sales taxes.
Could it? Yes, absolutely, Americanizing politics is definitely happening (though not nearly to the degree of the US clusterfuck). Will it? Depends on a lot of things. Parties collapse, splinter, reform and shift fairly regularly in Canada at the provincial and federal level.
The Wild Rose was a party in Alberta that had 25% of the seats provincially in 2015, but now it doesn’t exist. The centre-right party BC Liberals, changed their name to BC United in 2023 and BC Conservatives in 2024. Federally the PPC party didn’t exist in 2015, formed in 2018 (think MAGA) and got 5% of the vote (but 0 seats) in 2019. It’s way more fluid in Canada than any set partisan loyalty.
But the main reason the other left party vote (NDP, Green, BQ) vote has collapsed this election is to stop Poilievre from becoming prime minister and to give Carney a strong mandate to take on the bully in the White House. Strategic voting is extremely common and those voters change their preferences from election to election.
Yeah, the Liberals are still ahead in the polls. Any polling lead for them is a very good sign for a Liberal victory, since the Conservatives actually won the popular vote in both the 2019 and 2021 elections but the Liberals still won more seats both times. The Conservative vote is inefficiently distributed (it's heavily concentrated in Alberta and Saskatchewan), while Liberals have a strong presence in the all-important Toronto suburbs and their concentration in cities is prevented by the NDP and Greens picking up some progressive voters there (but not enough to prevent the Liberals from winning most urban seats).
There’s been a lot of panic/fear from Conservatives this last week or two from the data they’ve been getting that they’ve shifted resources away from offensive opportunities and towards defensive seats they should absolutely be holding. There’s even whispers Poilievre could lose his seat in Carleton, which he won 52-32 in 2021 and has been held by the Conservatives every election since 1867 except for 1962 when Liberals held it for 2 years.
Now whether this is actually really happening or not TBD, but polling in Ontario is a bloodbath for Conservatives right now as well as Quebec and they’re both by far the biggest prizes with the most seats to win. If polling of those two provinces winds up anywhere close to reality after the votes are tallied, Conservatives have no path to power.
A late breaking news item making the rounds is Bloc Québécois leader Blanchet saying Canada is an artificial country, drawing condemnation from all political party leaders and many provincial ones. The BQ is 10 points behind Liberals in that province, so if their support craters or gains (hard to tell what will happen honestly, could see it go either way), it would have a massive effect on the number of seats Liberals win.
I mean, Blanchet isn't really wrong-most countries are artificial, Canada included, but the leader of a major political party shouldn't say that publicly-unless Blanchet is willing to unilaterally declare Quebec Independence, of course.
All countries are artificial, but some are more artificial than others...
Pretty much every country is a "mixed multitude" as the bible describes the Exodus from Egypt, but some have a unfiying national story, like the Exodus from Egypt, while others are just some lines drawn in a smoked-filled room at a 19th century peace conference.
He couldn't. The PQ would be the ones to call a new referendum, which I don't think is something they're campaigning on, and they would have to win the provincial elections next year first.
Bloc Québécois (BQ) is the organization that contests federal elections while Parti Québécois (PQ) contests provincial elections. Politicians will move between the two, including Blanchet, but they are nominally separate orgs.
Hmmm, was the reception buffet catered by McDonald's?
Anyway, the news reported that Trump talked with Zelenskyy (first time since the infamous Oval Office ambush with Vance) at the funeral. Following which Trump blasts Putin and doesn't think Putin wants to end the Ukraine war.
Man, Trump's views switch to basically whatever he last heard.
That was the MO his first term, which is why his access has been very strictly controlled this time around; everyone knows he's 30 minutes of kiss-ass flattery and schmoozing away from doing a policy shift.
Yes, I think "my Chuck" was a thing for about 8 weeks.
The thing is, Trump could've EASILY achieved his inner-dream of being a beloved New York figure as President by basically being a Giuliani circa-1998 Republican; socially liberal but tougher on crime/immigration, generic R on everything else, making cameos on SNL . .that Trump would have probably 60% approval.
The Atlantic once again hit the nail on its head. Trump rebuffs tax raises on the 1 percent in the TIME interview (which was schizophrenic btw) to pay for no taxes on tips because it was tearing apart the Republican populist natcon/MAGA (paleocon) and neocon coalition.
What's happening with Florida next year? Are Dems gonna try and contest races there? I'm mainly curious about Governor, Senator, and House, but I'd be interested to hear about other races too.
On one hand I recognize that Florida is no longer a swing/purple state anymore. But also that hasn't stopped Dems in the past few cycles from trying, and it seems like 2026 could be the most effective year to try and contest races? DeSantis can't run for a third term so the governorship is open, and Ashley Moody has never been elected to the senate seat and doesn't have the tenure Rubio would have had.
Sure but what are Dems doing? I just find it odd that we’ve had some high profile candidates in the past few cycles — especially for senate in Demings and Mucarsel Powell — as well as spent a bunch of money on a house special, but now I haven’t heard really any talk about the state for 2026
Admittedly, no. A fairer take would be that people are in "wait and see" mode, and will ramp up depending on how bad the national environment gets (and whether it also spreads to "Cletus" areas).
What are the Dems in Florida doing? Idk about the rest of Florida but here in Palm Beach County the Democratic Executive Committee could be imploding next week. There is a resolution proposing to split the DEC in two and purge all committee men and women over 69 from their positions. If this passes you can kiss PBC goodbye and Florida with it.
It's very early right now and the actual gubernatorial primary won't be held until August 18th of next year. No doubt there will be multiple candidates running although it's pretty obvious Charlie Crist won't be one of them as Democrats aren't going to want a gubernatorial candidate. Crist lost two such elections, including one back in 2014 where Crist narrowly lost to Rick Scott when he was Governor and the other with facing Ron DeSantis back in 2022, a much harder opponent than Scott.
Yes, Ashley Moody is considerably less known that Marco Rubio was before he became Secretary of State. She's likely still going to win the Senate special election although it's a question of how much. Noting that both Debbie Mucarsel-Powell and Val Demmings (two high profile Democrats) have not been able to narrow down the voting percentage margins in their respective races, it's going to be a challenge for any respective Democratic Senate Candidate next year.
The biggest problem Democrats face in Florida is turning out the base. Independents and moderates they can be more creative with as far as outreach but Democrats have seen low turnout in key races.
I'm inclined to disagree-if only because I think Sears can separate herself from everyone else on her ticket-that said Spanberger is a stronger candidate than people give her credit for-I would be shocked if she lost.
Sears can probably separate herself from personal issues regarding her ticket mates. I don't think that what's causing controversy about Reid really should be a big deal, at least from what we know, even assuming the Instagram and possible online accounts in question are his, which he denies.
But she probably can't entirely distance herself from Trump and other national Republicans, try as she might, which will make it difficult though not impossible for her to win. Youngkin won by only 3 in what was a much more pro-GOP environment than is likely to exist this year, and Spanberger is probably a considerably better candidate than McAuliffe was even with a decently regarded previous term under his belt. McAuliffe wasn't that great in 2013 either, but Ken Cuccinelli was just too loudly right wing, especially on social issues, for modern day Virginia.
Yes. That and the fact that Virginia generally elects Governors from the party NOT in the White House. From 1977 onward, only Terry McAuliffe in 2013 has that not been true for. And even then, he failed to obtain a majority of the vote.
The last time before 2013 when the party in the WH won VA-Gov was 1973. And that was a really unique situation: the Republican, Mills Godwin, had previously served as a Democrat, in which he broke from the state's conservative Harry Byrd-era establishment on several fiscal and social issues, including civil rights. Godwin narrowly defeated Henry Howell, a populist Democrat who ran as an independent (so technically there was no Dem candidate) bashing the state's business and political establishment.
Godwin managed to defeat Howell by criticizing him on fiscal and social issues including busing and the state budget, overcoming the drag of the national GOP and Nixon administration that by then was drowning in Watergate and economic problems.
That and the fact that she has said critical things about Trump in the past. This could lead to her alienating both moderates and Trump supporters like Jeff Flake did in the first half of Trump’s first term.
At this point I think Sears can win only if Spanberger implodes. Generically VA is lean D at the state level. The party that holds the White House almost always loses the governor race there, and Trump is already unpopular. Sears also has less crossover appeal than Spanberger.
Fair argument although that's contingent on how distinctive of a gubernatorial candidate Sears ends up being.
Problem is, the federal worker economy and sector is mainly situated in NoVa. If such workers and the overall NoVa turnout is high, Sears is going to be at a disadvantage. With Trump being POTUS, it's going to be a liability against her. Besides, her main problem is having no disagreements with Trump. Not going to work in her favor in the general election as long as Sears is blindly defending what Trump and Musk do.
I didn't see this story. Dear god, Earle-Sears is really out of touch with NoVa residents. We don't even need the VA GOP infighting in order to win the gubernatorial election.
Traditionally, federal employment up until when Trump and Musk came in was one of the most stable forms of work anyone could find.
The VA fed worker and military communities are going to put Assad-margins for Dems; VA-Gov is Likely D and I'll literally film myself eating a hat and post it if I'm wrong.
The IL-Sen race to succeed Dick Durbin is what interests me. Juliana Stratton has officially entered into the ring, but others are also potentially considering or expected to enter, such as Lauren Underwood, Robin Kelly, Raja Krishnamoorthi, Mike Frerichs, and Alexi Giannoulias.
Gov. Pritzker immediately endorsed Lt Gov. Stratton. Which will point all the fundraising she needs towards her campaign.
Another thought: assuming Pritzker runs for re-election, he has a carrot (the Lt Gov. running mate slot) he could dangle in front of whomever he deems Stratton's strongest opponent to be (if he chooses to do that).
I just did the math. There are 9 Dems who won within 5 % in US senate compared to only 3 Rs. There are 4 Dems who won between 5-10% compared to 5 Rs. This gives Republicans a good/outside chance to win a total of 13 democratic seats, while Democrats only have that in 8 Republican seats. Why is that? Fixing this to be more even 11-10 would go a long way.
Good writeup in Politico about how there’s really two political groups when it comes to Gen Z - those who were in high school or college before COVID, and those after. With pandemic-era restrictions a thing of the past for several years now it’ll be interesting to see how the 14-17 cohort ages into 2028
GenZ is going to be a problem like their parents are (GenX). Per recent research they are the most susceptible to misinformation online while simultaneously the most online generation. They trust TikToks over exhaustive expert reports. Just sitting ducks for foreign OPs.
I think misinformation and issue salience is part of it (tik Tok jacked up coverage of Gaza in part because it was bad for Biden), but I think their values are just different in some fundamental ways that are poorly suited for the contemporary Dem coalition. The hyper-online stuff they're being fed is super materialistic and misogynistic. Those aren't inherently right wing worldviews, but they're really poorly suited to a party that had an old President and a woman VP running against a billionaire with a playboy history. I'm not sure how long it holds, especially if 2028 is like Wes Moore against Elise Stefanik or whatever.
Maybe it depends on perspective but in growing up in Berkeley, many of us by default were non-systematic and not always social media nuts.
Then again, the problem is that the internet and social media in general both have lax regulation. Also, as new technology continues to get introduced, so do the risks of cyber security and hacking.
There's a case for optimism here, as the newest voters will have Trump as their most relevant political experience, and while it's too soon to tell, early indicators are that it will probably not be a very positive one--just as his first term didn't exactly convert most youth of the time to his cause, and the economic and other impacts of his second could be even worse. The same happened under Biden which caused a rightward shift among the youngest voters, if perhaps not as sharp as some post election analysis said. Whether that's still relevant to them in 2028 and later will be interesting to see; it's possible that those who started voting in 2022-24 shift left.
And the newest voters won't have COVID as a particularly fresh or relevant memory, and the same is probably true for the gripes mentioned about excessive "progressive" censoriousness ("wokeism", cancel culture)' I actually agree with some of those complaints, though I hardly think they're a good reason to vote for Trump or any Republican. Biden-era inflation will likely also be a dim memory, especially if tariffs or other policies under Trump raise the cost of living even higher--something that younger voters may be especially hammered by.
And honestly, we have no idea how things will shake out once Trump is out of politics. A lot of his support is either soft (voters who swung his way in 2024 because of inflation) or cult (the folks who build shrines to him in their yards), and neither of those groups seem particularly wedded to the Republican Party en masse.
Perhaps I'm smoking hopium again, but I could easily see a big chunk of the former group swinging back toward Democrats as Trump inevitably crashes and burns, and a big chunk of the latter group withdrawing from politics.
I doubt it will be a large chunk that does either, but we don't need that.
Since 2000, all but one of our presidential elections has been relatively close. The sole exception is 2008 when Obama won in a modern landslide. Even that pales in comparison to the grand wins of years past.
The marginal house seat in 2024 was PA-07, which we lost by 1.01%. In 2022 in was IA-03, which we lost by 0.69%. In 2020 it was VA-07, which we won by 1.82%.
In the past three senate elections, to cover the entire body, the four closest seats needed to get us to 51 seats:
PA 2024, lost by 0.2%
WI 2022, 1%
NC 2020, 1.7%
NC 2022, 3%
Hopefully I didn't miss anything closer there; I did that one by eyeball.
For presidential elections the tipping point states were:
2000: FL, R+0.009
2004: OH, R+2.1
2008: CO, D+9
2012: CO, D+5.3
2016: WI, R+0.8
2020: WI, D+0.6
2024: PA, R+1.7
It would only require a relatively minimal drop off in republican support in the post-Trump era for things to swing back to our favor. If republicans lose 5% of their voters while we retain all of ours (or e.g. we lose 5% and they lose 10%), that's enough. That level of swing would take away every republican presidential win since HW Bush in 1988. It would have us in control of the house and senate and presidency today if it had occurred in 2020 and held true since then, although the senate would require a tie breaking VP — they would still have won NC's senate election in 2022 narrowly with a 5% loss in their voter base (a rough net loss of 2.5 points).
I also strongly suspect that a large part of Trump's support is turning out infrequent voters who don't show up when he is not on the ballot. We see this with the over performance of the Democrats the last two midterms and in the special and off year elections. However, I suspect that the high education suburban Never-Trump voters are going to stay with us.
It's just very difficult to see the "Trump coalition" (especially its most recent iteration) staying together post-Trump.
The next GOP nominee will almost certainly be a cosplay Trump, but those types of candidates have a tendency to go down like Lauren Boebert at the movies. Whatever animal magnetism Trump has does not appear to be easily transferrable.
Cena's politics probably wouldn't go over too well in the GOP. While he's generally avoided explicit endorsements, he's supported causes such as Black Lives Matter and Love Has No Labels.
He stated that he was "surprised" by Trump's 2024 victory. Whether he was surprised in a good, bad, or neutral way is unclear, but he ain't Hulk Hogan, Jake Paul, or Dana White.
I think it depends on who you meet but I meet plenty of Gen Z people at UC Berkeley, namely those who are undergraduates at the Haas School of Business, and they're quite open-minded and intelligent.
The best way to tackle the problem with Gen Z is to show empathy and understanding with what they deal with.
Agreed although UC Berkeley as a campus (including the student body) doesn't necessarily represent the City of Berkeley as a whole. Most students who attend UCB aren't from the city.
Oh sure. I just don’t assume by default that anyone who attends UC Berkeley, especially those in the more business-oriented Haas School of Business, are by default liberal. That’s not how I start conversations with any such students.
Anyone who goes to UC Berkeley can be liberal, moderate or even conservative in the end. However, the liberal-minded education they get certainly makes them well-informed and socially conscious.
I went to high school and college during covid, most people my age I know aren’t die hard conservatives but are tired of modern progressive/“inclusive” messaging. But I think that’s because gen z is so cynical. Hopeful, progressive rhetoric comes across as hollow when no real action is being taken on big issues like climate change. I have noticed though that my friends will repeat things they saw on social media as facts without really thinking about it, which is concerning.
The reason little action is being taken on climate change is, mainly, that the country keeps electing Republicans. Though obviously Democrats could do better.
Climate change activists also could be a bit more practical or effective. In recent years they've often stumbled by advocating impractical and politically unworkable solutions. Demanding an end to beef consumption, air conditioning, or air travel is not going to get results. (And personally I am not going to part with any of those, so don't ask me to.)
And then there are groups like the "Sunrise Movement", purportedly devoted to addressing climate change, which has seemingly devolved into advocating whatever the leftist complaint of the moment is--i.e. last year they jumped on the bandwagon of declaring Gaza to be the most important issue on earth.
Climate change activists also don't know a whole lot about technological advances, particularly with carbon capturing technology, as well as scientific research that has been evolving for the last 10+ years on climate change.
As an example, Greta Thunberg means well but she's not exactly showing she's versed with such technological innovation, particularly with sustainable design. She trolled John Kerry when he was climate change czar during President Biden's presidency on him saying technology would save the world. Apparently she has failed to understand that Kerry, a long-time staunch pro-environment politician, has in climate change czar responsibilities worked proactively with nations to deal with this practically.
Also, we have had annual COP conferences for years now, most of which have set up agreements that all countries involved (including the U.S.) make these big leaps in combating climate change. All such agreements have packed in more gains than anything the Paris Agreement ever did.
After one such agreement at the COP26 conference was met, UN Secretary General António Guterres made a fool of himself on Twitter by saying to followers, "There's still time to act." I shook my head when he tweeted this because it sends the message that COP agreements are really symbolic when they actually aren't. The COP26 agreement was the most landmark environmental agreement since the Montreal Protocol.
Arnold Schwarzenegger has the best ideas on beating climate change and focuses on raising awareness on practically tackling it instead of scare tactics. He's said environmentalists are doing a terrible job at their agenda. He's focused on one goal, "Terminate pollution."
This is a broader issue than merely just climate change but the “professionalization” of activism and its dovetailing with social media has been disastrous for coherent strategies to actually combat the issues at hand rather than build TikTok clout
Yeah. In the case of UN Secretary António Guterres, his involvement in social media is validating what you're arguing.
Quite honestly, I stay clear of anything climate change related that is posted on social media because it only discusses the problems, not actual solutions. More fear mongering doesn't exactly help, especially when the goal of posts/videos on platforms like TikTok don't do anything more than getting likes and subscribes.
Climate change also consistently ranks low on voter priority list . . like sub 5%, sadly. The shift that appeared to be happening on the issue in the late 20teens has completely evaporated, thanks to slews of mis-info and the graduality of most CC effects resulting in shifting baseline syndrome as opposed to what should be collective alarm.
I think the main reason is because when it comes to voter concerns, they are looking at what is more immediately going to impact them:
-Inflation
-Cost of Living
-Healthcare
-And other directly related issues
Younger voters in their teens and 20's believe in climate change but they also need to pay off their student loans in college and also get gainful employment.
It would be low on mine, because my "COVID lesson" is that society can't even bind together to tolerate a sustained period of mild inconvenience to thwart an existential threat.
Society is never going to get the buy-in to do anything, because humanity is in sharp decline (and ultimately doomed).
No messaging would work as long as Democrats were perceived rightly or wrongly to be responsible for post Covid lockdowns, inflation, economy and the border crisis with a geriatric President who regularly went viral on Tiktok and reels due to his gaffes. Hopefully, the same happens to Trump now.
I think the write-up is good but it's based on a single poll which specifically only takes the opinion of "registered" Gen Z voters, most of whom did it for 2024, while Trump's approval among overall Gen Z has crashed more than Millennials and there are not many voters identifying lean R within those approval polls those don't differentiate between registered or unregistered. I feel that there was a huge Gen Z and hispanic swing against the status quo in this election but a lot of these post mortems are narrative based journalism.
Would she have been able to appeal to center right Alabamians though? BTW considering Sonny Perdue cruised to reelection as Governor of Georgia in 2006, there were just some parts of the USA that the blue wave simply didn't hit.
Speaking of running statewide in Alabama, Democrats in Alabama need to run judge Sue Bell Cobb for Governor in 2026 against Tommy Tuberville, she's superb. Ran in 2018, unfortunately lost primary to Walt Maddox!! 😢🇺🇲
How do we think the terrorist attack at the Filipino Festival in Vancouver will affect the Canadian election tomorrow? IMO, every Liberal in Canada needs to spend today saying that these sorts of racist, MAGA-esque terrorist attacks will become much more common if Poilievre and the Conservatives take power.
I also saw that NDP leader Jagmeet Singh had attended the festival before the attack. Might this have been an attempt to kill him?
This question shows the difference between most on the left and most on the right. 99% of Republican campaign operatives don't care if the statements they make are "fair" (if there's even such thing as a fair statement), and would just go ahead and make the statement anyway. And guess what - as we saw last year, their method works.
A lot of immoral things no-one should do work, up to and including genocide. Becoming the same as the party that's destroying the country is not the right way, or in other words, the ends don't justify the means when the means is to become inveterate liars.
I know most of us Democrats reflectively hate conservatives but this guy, Poilievre isn't a racist like the MAGAs in America. Canada hasn't lost it's sanity yet.
He specifically tried to kill Filipino- and Filipina-Canadians? I must confess I’ve avoided reading the detailed reports. Whatever the details, this is beyond monstrous.
The reports on WINS stated that this is not a terrorist attack although the suspect who was arrested in connection with the incident is known to police.
Does anyone here know the reputation of the Vancouver Police? Do they actually do their jobs well, or are they just a group of racists who enjoy murdering unarmed Black and Asian people?
He's now firmly in the low 40s and in double digit disapproval, after enjoying record-high approvals (usually above 50%) as recently as early February. Don't think there's ever been a head of state who has blown so much political capital so quickly.
Record high for him. Not compared to any other president that early in his term. Now he's probably at the lowest point for any president at the 100 day mark during the existence of scientific polling, with the possible exception of himself eight years ago.
His approval is about the same, but his disapproval numbers are higher than in 2017.
Yes all other Presidents started out stronger, but the fact he was even at 50% let alone above it after January 6th, after all his numerous stumbles and scandals, and after running an extremely nasty partisan campaign last year, was pretty amazing and concurrently disconcerting.
Are Sherrod Brown & Tim Ryan still considering in Ohio?
Not sure about Montana, but Jon Tester should run for the other seat in a comeback attempt against Steve Daines. Or Steve Bullock should seriously consider a rematch, given the likely national environment and run HARD on National Parks and public land the Trump administration is heavily targeting, while the single-party Republican delegation does nothing, Daines being the main problem!! 💙🇺🇲
Montana will not be blue again atleast for the foreseeable future. It's been trending redder and redder unlike say, Texas or Alaska. A Dan Osborn type could be competitive though.
Why not, Dems should try. It is more secular than Texas where 2A , public lands and a housing focused campaign should be able to make serious inroads. Dems should go full in on the 2A community which is largely a secular group.
Thats why we need to start getting it bk by going all in fir secular things like 2A and health. Moms Demand Action type gun control groups are a huge albatross around the necks. Parkland, Florida is a Trump stronghold.
I don't have any problem with not pursuing an assault rifles ban but some of these folks are so protective that they hate red flag laws, a national registry and universal background checks which will "take away their guns". John Cornyn of Texas is about to be discarded because of his participation in a common sense bipartisan gun safety bill. Furthermore, these regular mass shootings have polarized the Democratic base in the favor of gun control.
Also, Jon Tester was pro 2A.
How would you define secular, many secular people from red states don't believe in organised religion but still believe in conservative values like life starts at conception, there are only two genders, are skeptical of vaccines and don't like even legal immigration.
I'm curious whether hitting Rs on DOGE and firing veterans from their jobs at the VA will push R-leaning voters in MT and OH away from Republicans. Don't name check FDJT or focus on gun control or other culture war topics MAGA craves (like banning trans kids from sports). Focusing on how DOGE is hurting farms and name drop Elon Musk FREQUENTLY. Trump voters love FDJT but they despise Musk.
Get Trump voters to vote against Rs by making Musk the punching bag.
I think we could potentially win the Ohio gubernatorial election against far right Vivek with a strong candidate, maybe Sherrod Brown but not the Senate. Jon Husted is a good candidate and Ohio is a red state now which you can't win without white working class voters.
I'm not hopeful about Ohio, and sure, there could be a strong Democratic candidate in Montana, but they're very unlikely to win for the reasons stated.
The post was removed by the Reddit mods.
Classic reddit. I somewhat like Reddit but it's actually the anti free speech dystopia conservatives warn us about.
Not that I spend any time on Reddit, but why was the post removed?
NY-17. John Sullivan III seems like an interesting entrant into the (now five-way) primary to take on Mike Lawler. And of course, there's the possibility that Lawler runs for governor instead.
You know, there might be somewhat of a stampede of retirements in easily flippable seats in a Trump midterm, especially so if they’re without an incumbent. Imagine Bacon retires, Lawler runs for Governor. That might be the spark needed for GOP incumbents in swing seats to leave up or down, but leave in order to avoid being defeated in 2026.
That's been a big factor in past waves.
Yep. The Paul Ryan retirement was a *big* harbinger.
Paul Ryan retired because his agenda of libertarian economics with free trade, privatizing social security, cutting welfare while pursuing moderate social policies like immigration reform was dead. His district is still republican.
Yeah. He knew he reached his peak and got out while he could before having to sacrifice his morals in order to stay Speaker.
I'm not sure that's really the issue as to why Ryan retired although I have no doubt he was limited in what he could do as House Speaker as far as his original agenda.
I recall Ryan was very much turned off by Trump, his antics and influence on the GOP to the degree where it was all about loyalty and not about governing. He had no future as House Speaker or at all in Congress whether it be his original agenda or anything else. Ryan also did not want the job as House Speaker and was pushed to do that under pressure.
Bacon is looking to retire as per the news.
Could make NE-02 easier for Democrats to pick up if this is the case.
Canadian election on Monday. Still looking like a Liberal majority although perhaps not as robust as it did a couple of weeks ago. A 3 or 4 point win. 180-190 seats (172) is majority.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Opinion_polling_for_the_2025_Canadian_federal_election
https://bsky.app/profile/canadianpolling.bsky.social/post/3lnnwccc3a22x
The Canadian third party NDP is finished in the polls. Canada is going to become a two party state lol.
For this election. Things can change very quickly in Canadian politics. As we saw in . . . this election.
Fortunately their politics are less ossified than ours.
I think the NDP has a more fundamental crisis of purpose. They were still retaining 20 percent of the vote because of Trudeau's unpopularity. As soon as he resigned, their vote share started to collapse. Canadian Liberals have also shifted to the left over the last decade, are overall centre-left and Canadian Conservatives are now preferred by working class voters who previously voted NDP and are much more moderate than Republicans. Canadians also already have what we consider progressive here like paid family leave, progressive taxation universal healthcare, points based immigration system etc.
Unless there is a reform of the FPTP electoral system which the two dominant parties would never agree to, I don't see them regaining electoral relevance anytime soon.
"Canadians also already have what we consider progressive here like paid family leave, progressive taxation universal healthcare…"
Which is why I think it’s far more likely that several American states would love to become the 11th, 12th and 13th Canadian province – than Canada wanting to become the 51state.
I would love for New York to be a province of Canada!
The current incarnation of the Conservative Party is not much more moderate than the Republican. Under Poilievre’s leadership, they’re largely imitative of the Republicans.
Nor is Canada’s taxation more progressive in than the U.S. They have a national sales tax and no inheritance tax.
Define "more moderate." Does that include not being dictatorial or Nazi-adjacent?
They are against climate tax but accept climate change and subsidies to tackle it, support abortion and lgb rights, don't discuss trans rights, support UHC and the welfare state, are pro immigration but limited to the levels of housebuilding in the country. The similarity with Republicans is in defunding public broadcasting, cutting taxes and regulations along with some limited welfare cuts but even they believe in balancing the budget. The overton window in Canada is left to USA.
An article for reference:
https://www.vox.com/politics/24140480/canada-pierre-poilievre-conservative-party-populism-democracy
Fortunately, in a parliamentary system the head of state and head of government are separate. So you don’t have, when the president does it, it’s not illegal.
They are against climate tax but accept climate change and subsidies to tackle it, support abortion and lgb rights, don't discuss trans rights, support UHC and the welfare state, are pro immigration but limited to the levels of housebuilding in the country. The similarity with Republicans is in defunding public broadcasting, cutting taxes and regulations along with some limited welfare cuts but even they believe in balancing the budget. The overton window in Canada is way left.
The idea of an inheritance tax in Canada has never gained steam because it would encourage more wealthy Canadians to emigrate to the USA. Red States in America are the worst offenders of sales taxes.
An article for reference: https://www.vox.com/politics/24140480/canada-pierre-poilievre-conservative-party-populism-democracy
I doubt it, progressives are migrating to liberals to prevent bend the knee PP. Next election will probably be different.
Could it? Yes, absolutely, Americanizing politics is definitely happening (though not nearly to the degree of the US clusterfuck). Will it? Depends on a lot of things. Parties collapse, splinter, reform and shift fairly regularly in Canada at the provincial and federal level.
The Wild Rose was a party in Alberta that had 25% of the seats provincially in 2015, but now it doesn’t exist. The centre-right party BC Liberals, changed their name to BC United in 2023 and BC Conservatives in 2024. Federally the PPC party didn’t exist in 2015, formed in 2018 (think MAGA) and got 5% of the vote (but 0 seats) in 2019. It’s way more fluid in Canada than any set partisan loyalty.
But the main reason the other left party vote (NDP, Green, BQ) vote has collapsed this election is to stop Poilievre from becoming prime minister and to give Carney a strong mandate to take on the bully in the White House. Strategic voting is extremely common and those voters change their preferences from election to election.
Yeah, the Liberals are still ahead in the polls. Any polling lead for them is a very good sign for a Liberal victory, since the Conservatives actually won the popular vote in both the 2019 and 2021 elections but the Liberals still won more seats both times. The Conservative vote is inefficiently distributed (it's heavily concentrated in Alberta and Saskatchewan), while Liberals have a strong presence in the all-important Toronto suburbs and their concentration in cities is prevented by the NDP and Greens picking up some progressive voters there (but not enough to prevent the Liberals from winning most urban seats).
I have not seen a single constructive Green party other than those in Germany and Australia.
Sadly, some people like to vote for unconstructive parties. We've seen this here in America at times as well.
There’s been a lot of panic/fear from Conservatives this last week or two from the data they’ve been getting that they’ve shifted resources away from offensive opportunities and towards defensive seats they should absolutely be holding. There’s even whispers Poilievre could lose his seat in Carleton, which he won 52-32 in 2021 and has been held by the Conservatives every election since 1867 except for 1962 when Liberals held it for 2 years.
Now whether this is actually really happening or not TBD, but polling in Ontario is a bloodbath for Conservatives right now as well as Quebec and they’re both by far the biggest prizes with the most seats to win. If polling of those two provinces winds up anywhere close to reality after the votes are tallied, Conservatives have no path to power.
A late breaking news item making the rounds is Bloc Québécois leader Blanchet saying Canada is an artificial country, drawing condemnation from all political party leaders and many provincial ones. The BQ is 10 points behind Liberals in that province, so if their support craters or gains (hard to tell what will happen honestly, could see it go either way), it would have a massive effect on the number of seats Liberals win.
PP losing in Carleton would be an absolutely hilarious outcome.
I doubt he will, but it would still be hilarious
I mean, Blanchet isn't really wrong-most countries are artificial, Canada included, but the leader of a major political party shouldn't say that publicly-unless Blanchet is willing to unilaterally declare Quebec Independence, of course.
I mean, all countries are artificial, but I don't think that's the point Blanchet meant to make.
All countries are artificial, but some are more artificial than others...
Pretty much every country is a "mixed multitude" as the bible describes the Exodus from Egypt, but some have a unfiying national story, like the Exodus from Egypt, while others are just some lines drawn in a smoked-filled room at a 19th century peace conference.
How a country starts its existence doesn't necessarily make it more or less real afterwards.
Considering what party he’s from he might want to. Though that “dream” more or less died with Jacques Parizeau
He couldn't. The PQ would be the ones to call a new referendum, which I don't think is something they're campaigning on, and they would have to win the provincial elections next year first.
Bloc Québécois (BQ) is the organization that contests federal elections while Parti Québécois (PQ) contests provincial elections. Politicians will move between the two, including Blanchet, but they are nominally separate orgs.
hope this works: https://www.the-independent.com/news/world/europe/trump-pope-francis-funeral-blue-suit-b2740006.html
He did say he was looking forward to being there, so he never viewed it as a solemn event. Probably just there for the buffet at the reception.
Hmmm, was the reception buffet catered by McDonald's?
Anyway, the news reported that Trump talked with Zelenskyy (first time since the infamous Oval Office ambush with Vance) at the funeral. Following which Trump blasts Putin and doesn't think Putin wants to end the Ukraine war.
Man, Trump's views switch to basically whatever he last heard.
That was the MO his first term, which is why his access has been very strictly controlled this time around; everyone knows he's 30 minutes of kiss-ass flattery and schmoozing away from doing a policy shift.
Remember when he was buds with Pelosi and Schumer for, like, five hot minutes?
Yes, I think "my Chuck" was a thing for about 8 weeks.
The thing is, Trump could've EASILY achieved his inner-dream of being a beloved New York figure as President by basically being a Giuliani circa-1998 Republican; socially liberal but tougher on crime/immigration, generic R on everything else, making cameos on SNL . .that Trump would have probably 60% approval.
That Trump would probably have trouble winning a GOP primary, though. (Naked racism and misogyny are...pretty essential elements of his brand.)
https://x.com/CGasparino/status/1916133684727501121
https://www.theatlantic.com/politics/archive/2025/04/trump-gop-tax-rich/682533/
The Atlantic once again hit the nail on its head. Trump rebuffs tax raises on the 1 percent in the TIME interview (which was schizophrenic btw) to pay for no taxes on tips because it was tearing apart the Republican populist natcon/MAGA (paleocon) and neocon coalition.
What do you mean by schizophrenic? Insane?
Just read it, you'll know.
The Atlantic article looks interesting, but it’s paywalled. Do you have a gift link?
What's happening with Florida next year? Are Dems gonna try and contest races there? I'm mainly curious about Governor, Senator, and House, but I'd be interested to hear about other races too.
On one hand I recognize that Florida is no longer a swing/purple state anymore. But also that hasn't stopped Dems in the past few cycles from trying, and it seems like 2026 could be the most effective year to try and contest races? DeSantis can't run for a third term so the governorship is open, and Ashley Moody has never been elected to the senate seat and doesn't have the tenure Rubio would have had.
my guess is Jason Pizzo left the party to run for Governor or Senate as an independent.
Sure but what are Dems doing? I just find it odd that we’ve had some high profile candidates in the past few cycles — especially for senate in Demings and Mucarsel Powell — as well as spent a bunch of money on a house special, but now I haven’t heard really any talk about the state for 2026
My uneducated guess is that people eventually get tired of lighting money on fire.
Is there much evidence to support that guess?
Admittedly, no. A fairer take would be that people are in "wait and see" mode, and will ramp up depending on how bad the national environment gets (and whether it also spreads to "Cletus" areas).
What are the Dems in Florida doing? Idk about the rest of Florida but here in Palm Beach County the Democratic Executive Committee could be imploding next week. There is a resolution proposing to split the DEC in two and purge all committee men and women over 69 from their positions. If this passes you can kiss PBC goodbye and Florida with it.
It's very early right now and the actual gubernatorial primary won't be held until August 18th of next year. No doubt there will be multiple candidates running although it's pretty obvious Charlie Crist won't be one of them as Democrats aren't going to want a gubernatorial candidate. Crist lost two such elections, including one back in 2014 where Crist narrowly lost to Rick Scott when he was Governor and the other with facing Ron DeSantis back in 2022, a much harder opponent than Scott.
Yes, Ashley Moody is considerably less known that Marco Rubio was before he became Secretary of State. She's likely still going to win the Senate special election although it's a question of how much. Noting that both Debbie Mucarsel-Powell and Val Demmings (two high profile Democrats) have not been able to narrow down the voting percentage margins in their respective races, it's going to be a challenge for any respective Democratic Senate Candidate next year.
The biggest problem Democrats face in Florida is turning out the base. Independents and moderates they can be more creative with as far as outreach but Democrats have seen low turnout in key races.
Not a good look for the Trump Party here in Virginia: https://www.virginiascope.com/youngkins-event-with-the-gop-statewide-ticket-next-week-is-no-longer-happening/
Abigail Spanberger’s probability in winning the gubernatorial election continues to increase with the GOP imploding.
I'm inclined to disagree-if only because I think Sears can separate herself from everyone else on her ticket-that said Spanberger is a stronger candidate than people give her credit for-I would be shocked if she lost.
Sears can probably separate herself from personal issues regarding her ticket mates. I don't think that what's causing controversy about Reid really should be a big deal, at least from what we know, even assuming the Instagram and possible online accounts in question are his, which he denies.
But she probably can't entirely distance herself from Trump and other national Republicans, try as she might, which will make it difficult though not impossible for her to win. Youngkin won by only 3 in what was a much more pro-GOP environment than is likely to exist this year, and Spanberger is probably a considerably better candidate than McAuliffe was even with a decently regarded previous term under his belt. McAuliffe wasn't that great in 2013 either, but Ken Cuccinelli was just too loudly right wing, especially on social issues, for modern day Virginia.
FWIW, Youngkin won by less than 2.
Isn't Sears's own penchant for right-wing lunacy her biggest challenge?
Yes. That and the fact that Virginia generally elects Governors from the party NOT in the White House. From 1977 onward, only Terry McAuliffe in 2013 has that not been true for. And even then, he failed to obtain a majority of the vote.
The last time before 2013 when the party in the WH won VA-Gov was 1973. And that was a really unique situation: the Republican, Mills Godwin, had previously served as a Democrat, in which he broke from the state's conservative Harry Byrd-era establishment on several fiscal and social issues, including civil rights. Godwin narrowly defeated Henry Howell, a populist Democrat who ran as an independent (so technically there was no Dem candidate) bashing the state's business and political establishment.
Godwin managed to defeat Howell by criticizing him on fiscal and social issues including busing and the state budget, overcoming the drag of the national GOP and Nixon administration that by then was drowning in Watergate and economic problems.
That and the fact that she has said critical things about Trump in the past. This could lead to her alienating both moderates and Trump supporters like Jeff Flake did in the first half of Trump’s first term.
What has Earle-Sears said that has been critical of Trump in the past?
At this point I think Sears can win only if Spanberger implodes. Generically VA is lean D at the state level. The party that holds the White House almost always loses the governor race there, and Trump is already unpopular. Sears also has less crossover appeal than Spanberger.
Fair argument although that's contingent on how distinctive of a gubernatorial candidate Sears ends up being.
Problem is, the federal worker economy and sector is mainly situated in NoVa. If such workers and the overall NoVa turnout is high, Sears is going to be at a disadvantage. With Trump being POTUS, it's going to be a liability against her. Besides, her main problem is having no disagreements with Trump. Not going to work in her favor in the general election as long as Sears is blindly defending what Trump and Musk do.
She's made at best insensitive comments about people losing their jobs with the feds. That will NOT endear her to Northern Virginia. Just saying. https://virginiamercury.com/2025/04/04/earle-sears-comments-on-federal-layoffs-spark-outcry-from-unions-veterans/
I didn't see this story. Dear god, Earle-Sears is really out of touch with NoVa residents. We don't even need the VA GOP infighting in order to win the gubernatorial election.
Traditionally, federal employment up until when Trump and Musk came in was one of the most stable forms of work anyone could find.
It sure seems like a lot of supposedly "anti-government" conservatives seem to love getting cushy long-term government jobs...
The VA fed worker and military communities are going to put Assad-margins for Dems; VA-Gov is Likely D and I'll literally film myself eating a hat and post it if I'm wrong.
who would have thought that, in a million years, republicans and naked men would be a trending topic...omfg!
This kind of stuff is hardly unprecedented.
The IL-Sen race to succeed Dick Durbin is what interests me. Juliana Stratton has officially entered into the ring, but others are also potentially considering or expected to enter, such as Lauren Underwood, Robin Kelly, Raja Krishnamoorthi, Mike Frerichs, and Alexi Giannoulias.
Gov. Pritzker immediately endorsed Lt Gov. Stratton. Which will point all the fundraising she needs towards her campaign.
Another thought: assuming Pritzker runs for re-election, he has a carrot (the Lt Gov. running mate slot) he could dangle in front of whomever he deems Stratton's strongest opponent to be (if he chooses to do that).
I just did the math. There are 9 Dems who won within 5 % in US senate compared to only 3 Rs. There are 4 Dems who won between 5-10% compared to 5 Rs. This gives Republicans a good/outside chance to win a total of 13 democratic seats, while Democrats only have that in 8 Republican seats. Why is that? Fixing this to be more even 11-10 would go a long way.
Good writeup in Politico about how there’s really two political groups when it comes to Gen Z - those who were in high school or college before COVID, and those after. With pandemic-era restrictions a thing of the past for several years now it’ll be interesting to see how the 14-17 cohort ages into 2028
https://www.politico.com/news/magazine/2025/04/26/two-gen-zs-young-conservative-polling-00307375
GenZ is going to be a problem like their parents are (GenX). Per recent research they are the most susceptible to misinformation online while simultaneously the most online generation. They trust TikToks over exhaustive expert reports. Just sitting ducks for foreign OPs.
I think misinformation and issue salience is part of it (tik Tok jacked up coverage of Gaza in part because it was bad for Biden), but I think their values are just different in some fundamental ways that are poorly suited for the contemporary Dem coalition. The hyper-online stuff they're being fed is super materialistic and misogynistic. Those aren't inherently right wing worldviews, but they're really poorly suited to a party that had an old President and a woman VP running against a billionaire with a playboy history. I'm not sure how long it holds, especially if 2028 is like Wes Moore against Elise Stefanik or whatever.
Maybe it depends on perspective but in growing up in Berkeley, many of us by default were non-systematic and not always social media nuts.
Then again, the problem is that the internet and social media in general both have lax regulation. Also, as new technology continues to get introduced, so do the risks of cyber security and hacking.
There's a case for optimism here, as the newest voters will have Trump as their most relevant political experience, and while it's too soon to tell, early indicators are that it will probably not be a very positive one--just as his first term didn't exactly convert most youth of the time to his cause, and the economic and other impacts of his second could be even worse. The same happened under Biden which caused a rightward shift among the youngest voters, if perhaps not as sharp as some post election analysis said. Whether that's still relevant to them in 2028 and later will be interesting to see; it's possible that those who started voting in 2022-24 shift left.
And the newest voters won't have COVID as a particularly fresh or relevant memory, and the same is probably true for the gripes mentioned about excessive "progressive" censoriousness ("wokeism", cancel culture)' I actually agree with some of those complaints, though I hardly think they're a good reason to vote for Trump or any Republican. Biden-era inflation will likely also be a dim memory, especially if tariffs or other policies under Trump raise the cost of living even higher--something that younger voters may be especially hammered by.
And honestly, we have no idea how things will shake out once Trump is out of politics. A lot of his support is either soft (voters who swung his way in 2024 because of inflation) or cult (the folks who build shrines to him in their yards), and neither of those groups seem particularly wedded to the Republican Party en masse.
Perhaps I'm smoking hopium again, but I could easily see a big chunk of the former group swinging back toward Democrats as Trump inevitably crashes and burns, and a big chunk of the latter group withdrawing from politics.
I doubt it will be a large chunk that does either, but we don't need that.
Since 2000, all but one of our presidential elections has been relatively close. The sole exception is 2008 when Obama won in a modern landslide. Even that pales in comparison to the grand wins of years past.
The marginal house seat in 2024 was PA-07, which we lost by 1.01%. In 2022 in was IA-03, which we lost by 0.69%. In 2020 it was VA-07, which we won by 1.82%.
In the past three senate elections, to cover the entire body, the four closest seats needed to get us to 51 seats:
PA 2024, lost by 0.2%
WI 2022, 1%
NC 2020, 1.7%
NC 2022, 3%
Hopefully I didn't miss anything closer there; I did that one by eyeball.
For presidential elections the tipping point states were:
2000: FL, R+0.009
2004: OH, R+2.1
2008: CO, D+9
2012: CO, D+5.3
2016: WI, R+0.8
2020: WI, D+0.6
2024: PA, R+1.7
It would only require a relatively minimal drop off in republican support in the post-Trump era for things to swing back to our favor. If republicans lose 5% of their voters while we retain all of ours (or e.g. we lose 5% and they lose 10%), that's enough. That level of swing would take away every republican presidential win since HW Bush in 1988. It would have us in control of the house and senate and presidency today if it had occurred in 2020 and held true since then, although the senate would require a tie breaking VP — they would still have won NC's senate election in 2022 narrowly with a 5% loss in their voter base (a rough net loss of 2.5 points).
I also strongly suspect that a large part of Trump's support is turning out infrequent voters who don't show up when he is not on the ballot. We see this with the over performance of the Democrats the last two midterms and in the special and off year elections. However, I suspect that the high education suburban Never-Trump voters are going to stay with us.
It's just very difficult to see the "Trump coalition" (especially its most recent iteration) staying together post-Trump.
The next GOP nominee will almost certainly be a cosplay Trump, but those types of candidates have a tendency to go down like Lauren Boebert at the movies. Whatever animal magnetism Trump has does not appear to be easily transferrable.
Maybe their next ticket will be John Cena/Pat McAfee?
(excuse me while I go and vomit profusely)
Cena's politics probably wouldn't go over too well in the GOP. While he's generally avoided explicit endorsements, he's supported causes such as Black Lives Matter and Love Has No Labels.
He stated that he was "surprised" by Trump's 2024 victory. Whether he was surprised in a good, bad, or neutral way is unclear, but he ain't Hulk Hogan, Jake Paul, or Dana White.
Regarding Gen Z:
I think it depends on who you meet but I meet plenty of Gen Z people at UC Berkeley, namely those who are undergraduates at the Haas School of Business, and they're quite open-minded and intelligent.
The best way to tackle the problem with Gen Z is to show empathy and understanding with what they deal with.
I mean... Berkeley is one of the most liberal places in the country.
Agreed although UC Berkeley as a campus (including the student body) doesn't necessarily represent the City of Berkeley as a whole. Most students who attend UCB aren't from the city.
But the whole culture of the university is traditionally liberal if not leftist, and no-one has said that's changed.
Oh sure. I just don’t assume by default that anyone who attends UC Berkeley, especially those in the more business-oriented Haas School of Business, are by default liberal. That’s not how I start conversations with any such students.
Anyone who goes to UC Berkeley can be liberal, moderate or even conservative in the end. However, the liberal-minded education they get certainly makes them well-informed and socially conscious.
Right. But isn't there also some self-selection? I would think so.
I went to high school and college during covid, most people my age I know aren’t die hard conservatives but are tired of modern progressive/“inclusive” messaging. But I think that’s because gen z is so cynical. Hopeful, progressive rhetoric comes across as hollow when no real action is being taken on big issues like climate change. I have noticed though that my friends will repeat things they saw on social media as facts without really thinking about it, which is concerning.
The reason little action is being taken on climate change is, mainly, that the country keeps electing Republicans. Though obviously Democrats could do better.
Climate change activists also could be a bit more practical or effective. In recent years they've often stumbled by advocating impractical and politically unworkable solutions. Demanding an end to beef consumption, air conditioning, or air travel is not going to get results. (And personally I am not going to part with any of those, so don't ask me to.)
And then there are groups like the "Sunrise Movement", purportedly devoted to addressing climate change, which has seemingly devolved into advocating whatever the leftist complaint of the moment is--i.e. last year they jumped on the bandwagon of declaring Gaza to be the most important issue on earth.
Climate change activists also don't know a whole lot about technological advances, particularly with carbon capturing technology, as well as scientific research that has been evolving for the last 10+ years on climate change.
As an example, Greta Thunberg means well but she's not exactly showing she's versed with such technological innovation, particularly with sustainable design. She trolled John Kerry when he was climate change czar during President Biden's presidency on him saying technology would save the world. Apparently she has failed to understand that Kerry, a long-time staunch pro-environment politician, has in climate change czar responsibilities worked proactively with nations to deal with this practically.
Also, we have had annual COP conferences for years now, most of which have set up agreements that all countries involved (including the U.S.) make these big leaps in combating climate change. All such agreements have packed in more gains than anything the Paris Agreement ever did.
After one such agreement at the COP26 conference was met, UN Secretary General António Guterres made a fool of himself on Twitter by saying to followers, "There's still time to act." I shook my head when he tweeted this because it sends the message that COP agreements are really symbolic when they actually aren't. The COP26 agreement was the most landmark environmental agreement since the Montreal Protocol.
Arnold Schwarzenegger has the best ideas on beating climate change and focuses on raising awareness on practically tackling it instead of scare tactics. He's said environmentalists are doing a terrible job at their agenda. He's focused on one goal, "Terminate pollution."
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Wpy4xBftFuY
This is a broader issue than merely just climate change but the “professionalization” of activism and its dovetailing with social media has been disastrous for coherent strategies to actually combat the issues at hand rather than build TikTok clout
100% agreed. The ecosystem has created a perverse incentive to be "bolder" than the pack, to get Very Online support.
Which in turn can make normies tune out, decide nothing can really be done.
Yeah. In the case of UN Secretary António Guterres, his involvement in social media is validating what you're arguing.
Quite honestly, I stay clear of anything climate change related that is posted on social media because it only discusses the problems, not actual solutions. More fear mongering doesn't exactly help, especially when the goal of posts/videos on platforms like TikTok don't do anything more than getting likes and subscribes.
Climate change also consistently ranks low on voter priority list . . like sub 5%, sadly. The shift that appeared to be happening on the issue in the late 20teens has completely evaporated, thanks to slews of mis-info and the graduality of most CC effects resulting in shifting baseline syndrome as opposed to what should be collective alarm.
COVID dominating everything for two years bandwidth wise, then Ukraine/Gaza, did not help
I think the main reason is because when it comes to voter concerns, they are looking at what is more immediately going to impact them:
-Inflation
-Cost of Living
-Healthcare
-And other directly related issues
Younger voters in their teens and 20's believe in climate change but they also need to pay off their student loans in college and also get gainful employment.
It would be low on mine, because my "COVID lesson" is that society can't even bind together to tolerate a sustained period of mild inconvenience to thwart an existential threat.
Society is never going to get the buy-in to do anything, because humanity is in sharp decline (and ultimately doomed).
No messaging would work as long as Democrats were perceived rightly or wrongly to be responsible for post Covid lockdowns, inflation, economy and the border crisis with a geriatric President who regularly went viral on Tiktok and reels due to his gaffes. Hopefully, the same happens to Trump now.
I think the write-up is good but it's based on a single poll which specifically only takes the opinion of "registered" Gen Z voters, most of whom did it for 2024, while Trump's approval among overall Gen Z has crashed more than Millennials and there are not many voters identifying lean R within those approval polls those don't differentiate between registered or unregistered. I feel that there was a huge Gen Z and hispanic swing against the status quo in this election but a lot of these post mortems are narrative based journalism.
https://www.npr.org/2025/04/26/nx-s1-5378150/alexis-herman-first-black-secretary-of-labor-dies
Former Secretary of Labor Alexis Herman dead at 77.
I feel like her not running statewide in Alabama was a missed opportunity (say 2006-I think she would have beaten Bob Riley in the Governor's race).
Would she have been able to appeal to center right Alabamians though? BTW considering Sonny Perdue cruised to reelection as Governor of Georgia in 2006, there were just some parts of the USA that the blue wave simply didn't hit.
Speaking of running statewide in Alabama, Democrats in Alabama need to run judge Sue Bell Cobb for Governor in 2026 against Tommy Tuberville, she's superb. Ran in 2018, unfortunately lost primary to Walt Maddox!! 😢🇺🇲
I thought Maddox was a decent candidate too. It's just that Alabama is too damn red.
Minnesota State Senate 6 special election next Tuesday. It fills the vacancy after Justin Eichorn (R-perv) resigned. In 2022 he won it 64% to 36%.
Do we have a shot at flipping this? If not, the Dem majority returns back to 34-33
I doubt we flip it, but as always, the margin will be interesting.
There tends to be a "scandal penalty" in these types of elections too.
How do we think the terrorist attack at the Filipino Festival in Vancouver will affect the Canadian election tomorrow? IMO, every Liberal in Canada needs to spend today saying that these sorts of racist, MAGA-esque terrorist attacks will become much more common if Poilievre and the Conservatives take power.
I also saw that NDP leader Jagmeet Singh had attended the festival before the attack. Might this have been an attempt to kill him?
Would that be a fair statement? Has Poilievre race-baited a lot?
This question shows the difference between most on the left and most on the right. 99% of Republican campaign operatives don't care if the statements they make are "fair" (if there's even such thing as a fair statement), and would just go ahead and make the statement anyway. And guess what - as we saw last year, their method works.
A lot of immoral things no-one should do work, up to and including genocide. Becoming the same as the party that's destroying the country is not the right way, or in other words, the ends don't justify the means when the means is to become inveterate liars.
No, he hasn't race baited.
In which case, the Liberals would probably lose the election if they tried this crap.
I know most of us Democrats reflectively hate conservatives but this guy, Poilievre isn't a racist like the MAGAs in America. Canada hasn't lost it's sanity yet.
What, if anything, is known about the suspect?
He tried to kill a lot of Filipino-Canadians, and succeeded in killing 11 of them. That's really all I need to know.
He specifically tried to kill Filipino- and Filipina-Canadians? I must confess I’ve avoided reading the detailed reports. Whatever the details, this is beyond monstrous.
What's the evidence that that was intentional or the intent? People lose control of cars or become psychotic.
Wasn’t there a similar attack on the eve of the German election?
There was a similar incident, yes, in that someone drove a car into people at a Christmas market.
Yes, he was a Saudi far right ex muslim.
Correct.
The reports on WINS stated that this is not a terrorist attack although the suspect who was arrested in connection with the incident is known to police.
I'm a bit skeptical of that.
Does anyone here know the reputation of the Vancouver Police? Do they actually do their jobs well, or are they just a group of racists who enjoy murdering unarmed Black and Asian people?
I certainly don't, just passing along what I heard.
The Vancouver police is generally regarded as fairly capable, at least by the low bar set stateside
Trump approval numbers:
ABC 42-54 RVs
CBS 45-55 RVs
AP-NORC 39-58 adults
I guess it's more than just Fox's pollster who is going to have to be fired. ;-)
And another one: CNN 43-57 RVs
He's now firmly in the low 40s and in double digit disapproval, after enjoying record-high approvals (usually above 50%) as recently as early February. Don't think there's ever been a head of state who has blown so much political capital so quickly.
Record high for him. Not compared to any other president that early in his term. Now he's probably at the lowest point for any president at the 100 day mark during the existence of scientific polling, with the possible exception of himself eight years ago.
His approval is about the same, but his disapproval numbers are higher than in 2017.
Yes all other Presidents started out stronger, but the fact he was even at 50% let alone above it after January 6th, after all his numerous stumbles and scandals, and after running an extremely nasty partisan campaign last year, was pretty amazing and concurrently disconcerting.
What do you all think about Ohio Senate 2026? Also can democrats put a strong candidate vs Steve Daines in Montana?
Are Sherrod Brown & Tim Ryan still considering in Ohio?
Not sure about Montana, but Jon Tester should run for the other seat in a comeback attempt against Steve Daines. Or Steve Bullock should seriously consider a rematch, given the likely national environment and run HARD on National Parks and public land the Trump administration is heavily targeting, while the single-party Republican delegation does nothing, Daines being the main problem!! 💙🇺🇲
Montana will not be blue again atleast for the foreseeable future. It's been trending redder and redder unlike say, Texas or Alaska. A Dan Osborn type could be competitive though.
https://www.270towin.com/states/montana
Why not, Dems should try. It is more secular than Texas where 2A , public lands and a housing focused campaign should be able to make serious inroads. Dems should go full in on the 2A community which is largely a secular group.
Our brand is toxic among the white working class.
Thats why we need to start getting it bk by going all in fir secular things like 2A and health. Moms Demand Action type gun control groups are a huge albatross around the necks. Parkland, Florida is a Trump stronghold.
I don't have any problem with not pursuing an assault rifles ban but some of these folks are so protective that they hate red flag laws, a national registry and universal background checks which will "take away their guns". John Cornyn of Texas is about to be discarded because of his participation in a common sense bipartisan gun safety bill. Furthermore, these regular mass shootings have polarized the Democratic base in the favor of gun control.
Also, Jon Tester was pro 2A.
How would you define secular, many secular people from red states don't believe in organised religion but still believe in conservative values like life starts at conception, there are only two genders, are skeptical of vaccines and don't like even legal immigration.
I'm curious whether hitting Rs on DOGE and firing veterans from their jobs at the VA will push R-leaning voters in MT and OH away from Republicans. Don't name check FDJT or focus on gun control or other culture war topics MAGA craves (like banning trans kids from sports). Focusing on how DOGE is hurting farms and name drop Elon Musk FREQUENTLY. Trump voters love FDJT but they despise Musk.
Get Trump voters to vote against Rs by making Musk the punching bag.
I dont think Sherrod is considering Senate right now. Probably governor. Tim Ryan should def give it a shot
I think we could potentially win the Ohio gubernatorial election against far right Vivek with a strong candidate, maybe Sherrod Brown but not the Senate. Jon Husted is a good candidate and Ohio is a red state now which you can't win without white working class voters.
I'm not hopeful about Ohio, and sure, there could be a strong Democratic candidate in Montana, but they're very unlikely to win for the reasons stated.