36 Comments

While we were all following daily updates of Adam Gray overtaking Duarte, were there state leg/other races that were resting on late arriving ballots and cures too? Aside from NC Supreme Ct? I wasn't paying a ton of attention that far downballot.

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A couple state house races in CO.

"Recounts confirm that Democrats have lost their Colorado House supermajority

Republican Rebecca Keltie beat Democratic state Rep. Stephanie Vigil by three votes, while former state Rep. Dan Woog, a Republican, beat Democrat Jillaire McMillan by 110 votes."

"The three flipped seats will reduce the Democratic edge in the House to 43-22 from 46-19."

https://coloradosun.com/2024/12/05/colorado-house-recall-stephanie-vigil/

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MN state house has one seat where the DFLer won by 15 votes but there are 20 absentee votes missing, likely thrown in the garbage. The GOP is suing and wants to hold another election. The seat going to the DFL makes the chamber while a new election gives the GOP an opportunity to win the chamber.

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Do you mean the DFL hold for the seat results in a tied chamber?

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Rick Caruso ran for mayor of Los Angeles as a Democrat, but he was a Republican and transitioned to Democrat because he knew he couldn't get elected as a Republican or independent. His policy positions are Republican, so he's basically a DINO.

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This is a BFD! MURDOCH LOSES COURT BID to leave son Lachlan media empire.

"Rupert Murdoch has faced a setback in his bid to cement his son Lachlan’s future control of his media empire… Lachlan is ideologically aligned with his father and would be expected to continue the editorial positioning…

"There was concern that his three siblings could choose to reorient the company in a more moderate direction after their father’s passing. James, in particular, has become a vocal supporter of liberal causes since he formally exited his father’s media company in 2020, citing “disagreements over certain editorial content published by the Company’s news outlets and certain other strategic decisions.”

https://wapo.st/4fXagUx

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I’ll take good news where I can get it!

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The possibility of James Murdoch and his sane siblings overriding Lachlan and forcing Fox News and the rest of News Corp to become an actual news organization is a delicious thought to savor. A potentially radical development!

(Hopefully Rupert’s appeal will fail.)

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They'd be wise not to completely overturn the applecart but introduce some dissenting voices, get those old people some diverse viewpoints.

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I feel like y'all are baiting me into making a comment here regarding CA-Gov. There are several interesting candidates, depending on who actually runs. You have misidentified the former office of one of them. Betty Yee is the former Controller of the Golden State. We do not have a CoMPtroller in California, so there is nobody to comptrol the payments made by the state. Please make a note of it...

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We shall comport ourselves accordingly.

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Hopefully they are all improvements over Newsom.

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The impression I get from Democratic comments on here and similar sites is that anyone who doesn't have an R after their name on the ballot would be better than Newsom.

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Well mostly better. We don't have any Tulsi Gabbards or RFK Jr. types in CA among the Democrats. At least not that I'm aware of....

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All the current leading Democratic Candidates from Eleni Kounalakis to Betty Yee to Toni Akins are as far removed from Newsom's persona as you can get. For starters, they don't clamour for attention like he does.

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You could credibly argue that Newsom is responsible for the GOP House majorities in both the outgoing and incoming Congress.

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I am curious, in what concrete ways and on what specific issues would you like the new governor to be different from Newsom? What are your primary objections to the current governor?

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Disgraced former Congressman Matt Gaetz has been hired by far-right propaganda outlet OANN to host a new show called The Matt Gaetz Show.

https://www.huffpost.com/entry/matt-gaetz-new-gig-report_n_67580e9fe4b05d8c06f5d442

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I wonder if that was in the works before he withdrew, which was just under three weeks ago?

In any case OANN ("One America News Network") makes Fox News look like MSNBC. (Speaking of which, "Morning Joe" Scarborough also used to represent FL-01.)

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I wonder if Matt Gaetz is going to be focus on, uhm, the "youth" vote?

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Reposted from Monday: Donald Trump taps right-wing culture warrior Harmeet Dhillon for the head of the DOJ’s Civil Rights Division.

https://www.thedailybeast.com/trump-gives-anti-woke-warrior-key-civil-rights-role/

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I wouldn't underestimate Dhillon's legal credentials. While she's definitely on the conservative side of the political spectrum, she does in fact have a certain degree of credibility on civil rights depending on the cases she takes on.

There was a case of a CSU East Bay student running for student body president who hired Dhillon as his attorney to file a lawsuit against the university over the Election Code being violated. The NAACP got involved.

https://www.mercurynews.com/2020/09/09/student-sues-csu-east-bay-for-election-fraud-with-backing-of-naacp-harmeet-dhillon/

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HAYWARD — A Cal State East Bay student who ran for student body president and got the most votes, is suing the university, claiming he was not awarded his rightful title.

Student Mahdi Fugfugosh, a senior, filed the lawsuit Wednesday with the Alameda County Superior Court, with the support of his attorney, former chair of the California Republican Party and free speech attorney Harmeet Dhillon, and the support of the NAACP.

Fugfugosh ran for student body president of the California State University, East Bay Associated Students Incorporated (ASI), the student government system. He was one of three candidates but even though he was the highest vote-getter in March with 43.28% of the vote, the Election Committee called a run-off because he did not win a majority of the

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I was wondering what was wrong with Cornyn that led him to say positive things he obviously doesn't believe about Kash Patel. Not wanting to get primaried, especially when his vote isn't actually going to matter, fits the bill. Probably the same issue for Joni Ernst and Hegseth, although I wonder if Ernst expects Hegseth to be rejected but wants to stay on Trump's good side so he might consider her as a replacement. (I'd be ok with Ernst at DoD, she isn't crazy and generally takes governing seriously.)

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Any republican that votes against any of Trumps picks loses a primary besides Murkowski and Collins. I would expect they all get approved if they go to a vote.

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Curtis already opposed Gaetz. An anti-Trump Republican can survive in Utah, because Mormons mostly don't like him.

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Christians don’t like Trump either – only Christianists.

(Just as there is a huge difference between Muslims and Islamists, so is there a corresponding difference between Christians and what we should call Christianists.)

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Yep. The only other option would be Mitch McConnell, assuming he's planning to retire in 2026.

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Here I was wondering if Cornyn might be retiring in 2026. I'm surprised he's only 72. He seemed like he was 60 when he was first elected 22 years ago.

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The Steve Martin effect!

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Isn't Garrett Graves relatively moderate by Louisiana standards?

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Yes.

Honestly, if he wound up being Cassidy’s replacement, it wouldn’t be that big a shift. The state can do a lot worse.

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Julia Letlow doesn't seem to be that bad either.

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Agreed. Low bar to clear, granted, particularly in a state where their colleagues are Johnson, Scalise and whatever that wacko in Acadiana is named again

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IMO Johnson is actually at about the median of the House GOP. Scalise is worse, but there are a lot of them a lot worse than he is. Higgins is ugh.

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In West Virginia, Sen. Shelley Moore Capito (R) is the most likeable moderate Republican you're going to get in that now blood-red, permanent Republican stronghold. The other Republicans there are truly awful, hope she's re-elected in 2026 and doesn't get primaried!! 🙏💙

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Highly doubtful Senator Shelley Moore Capito will be primaried out of office. For starters, she hasn't done anything to really piss off Trump. She supported all his Supreme Court justice nominees, especially at the point when she was in favor of pushing through a vote to replace the late Ruth Bader Ginsburg.

Second, Moore Capito got 83% of the votes in the 2020 primary whereas each of her GOP challengers then got less than 10% of the votes. There's little she has done to dampen her popularity with West Virginians, especially GOP voters.

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