A bit surreal these days in a red FL area for me. Roadways plastered with signs for the many R races (sadly, tantamount to election) today; my sparse Dem ballot had Senate and four (technically) non-partisan contests.
Here in a very blue part of MA, it's not really any different. There's only one competitive race on my ballot too, and that's the case regardless if I take the D or R ballot. (The Republicans have a three-way race for losing to Elizabeth Warren and the Dems have competitive race for State Rep)
The difference is that in the other races there's an unopposed Democratic incumbent and no one at all running for the GOP.
Imo the turnout will be low in most of the state.. my entire Florida ballot had 4 races;local county Council chairman (nonpartisan); local mayor(nonpartisan); Congressional primary(3 little known Democratic candidates who have raised small money); Senate primary(I voted Powell but do have friends who voted Campbell because of the AFL-CIO endorsement).. Expecting Powell to win easily.. All local candidates on my ballot are Republicans, so I voted least toxic\crazy
My locals were two school board and two judges, voted for incumbent over openly-conservative challengers. Sadly, these local nonpartisan races are decided on August primary day with lopsided R turnout guaranteed.
Those school board races statewide need better coverage.. It's my understanding that desantis is bigshotting all over the state, trying to elect MFL types and their book burning friends.. Last cycle, they won a few seats in my county, and immediately went into chaos mode..and you are dead right, many races decided in low turnout August.. That's where a better state Democratic party could do a lot of good
What's up with these pretty weak numbers for Heinrich? It seems like he's been on the periphery of being competitive but I thought that Biden dropping out would have solidified him.
I think there’s also probably a stratum of soft Domenici support or uncertainty/indecision because she has a familiar name (added onto the ambient anti-incumbent atmosphere nationally and globally), with many of those people not actually wanting Republicans to control the Senate when it comes down to it. I agree with the other replier that the race will not ultimately end up being competitive (though as a Heinrich guy from way back, it still pains me to see!).
Yeah. Gotta think the Domenici name sets a high floor for her. Given that he was on of NM's senators for 36 years, it's very possible that his name still is familiar to more people than that of Heinrich, who's finishing up his second term.
I wouldn't sweat about the NM-SEN race. Per FiveThirtyEight, Senator Martin Heinrich has still been averaging quite a healthy lead in the polls over Republican Candidate Nella Domenici (an average of 5+% points ahead). The fact that the Domenici name isn't making this a close race is telling.
Heinrich btw won re-election in 2018 by nearly 24% points, in light of the fact that Libertarian Candidate Gary Johnson ran in the Senate race and got 15.38% of the votes. If Johnson didn't run in the race, Heinrich would have likely gotten around a 8% margin of victory. I expect he'll get around this margin of victory this time around as he's built incumbency status as a 2nd term Senator.
Also, on a side note, the late Pete Domenici was an old school Republican Senator who wouldn't fit in today's GOP. After he retired in 2008, Domenici had accepted Barack Obama as POTUS and was hopeful he was going to unite the country. It's possible the Domenici name wouldn't exactly be a selling point for the Trump-influenced Republican Party of today. Note Liz Cheney.
We will get our final pre-recount results for WA land commissioner this evening. We got updates from 20 of the state's 39 counties yesterday, adding 5852 votes and reducing Dem Upthegrove's lead from 951 to 192. As I feared, Stevens County came through for GOPer Pederson with significantly more ballots than they'd estimated. Upthegrove owes almost half of his remaining lead to an unexpectedly good result from Whatcom, where he leads by 2%, yet he won the update 27%-14%.
19 counties estimate 1420 outstanding votes, but I expect somewhere from 2500 to 3500 will be counted across the state today. An extrapolation of those outstanding votes would net Pederson 123 votes:
With Benton set to cut Upthegrove's lead in half on its own (and I suspect they'll do worse than that), this is set to be a nailbiter till the end. Upthegrove will need King County to come through and pad his lead, and he may require an unexpectedly positive result, like he got in Whatcom yesterday, in order to pull this off. Top 2 needs to go, or at the very least have the primary converted to ranked-choice.
Right now the lead goes as low as literally 30 votes, with 897 reported to count. Using the same extrapolation in your list, I got Upthegrove gaining 10 in the remaining. So at a 40 vote lead.
Of course assuming the reported remaining numbers are correct. Most time it seems the counties underestimated how many can be cured and counted.
11 counties haven't updated yesterday or so far today, and they're the likeliest to be off from the estimate. Among them, only Cowlitz (31%-7% Pederson) and Jefferson (26%-13% Upthegrove) don't have estimates, and they're among the biggest X-factors left.
The official count is down to a whopping 6 votes?! I think the extrapolation based on known estimates of remaining ballots, stays about Upthegrove +40ish. Yeah, the counties with unknown remaining numbers…
At the moment, Upthegrove's lead is 46 votes with an estimated 902 ballots left to count. Of those 902, the majority will go to candidates other than Peterson and Upthegrove. It will be close. The final will certainly meet the requirements for a machine recount. To meet the requirements of a required manual recount, the lead must be less than 150 votes. https://www.sos.wa.gov/recounts-washington-state
King County finalized its votes, putting Upthegrove ahead by 81 votes with an estimated 65 left to count. Subject to the recount, the Dems seem to have avoided a lock-out in this top-two primary.
Assuming the margin is under 150 votes, there will be a mandatory hand recount with observers. I don't believe that previously rejected ballots are reviewed, but I'm not certain on that point.
King County finalized its votes, putting Upthegrove ahead by 81 votes with an estimated 65 left to count. Subject to the recount, the Dems seem to have avoided a lock-out in this top-two primary.
Ugh, I’m really disappointed in DCCC for the continued low level of support for Michelle Vallejo in TX-15. I had hoped there’d be signs of a buy there when I saw that they were dropping a lot of money yesterday. It’s at least as competitive as IA-01, imo—though as a Texan desperate to replace Monica Mentirosa, I am perhaps biased!
The D-Trip's IE is now a lot smaller than House Majority PAC's, though, so they're playing in fewer races. HMP previously booked more than $2 million in Harlingen and San Antonio, which conceivably could be used for TX-15.
So wait, does the “Trip” in D-Trip stand for the 3Cs. I’ve seen folks use that for 10+ years and never picked up on it until seeing both used in the same thread…
"'We didn't get a response to our request for him to speak,' Kara Deniz, a Teamsters spokesperson, told Axios.
Rank-and-file Teamsters retirees have been invited to attend the DNC, a sign that O'Brien's snub is personal, The Bulwark reports."
So, my personal reaction to this is, he spoke to the Republican National Convention, so he can go fuck himself. And that must be the reaction of Democratic leaders. But is it the politically best reaction? Might they be shooting all of us in the foot, considering how useful the Teamsters Union could be in doing volunteer work for Democratic candidates, or would it have been manifestly stupid to give a speaking slot to such an unreliable individual?
None of the options in this kind of situation are unquestionably good.
I'd lean towards your last thought: it's unwise to give a speaking spot to someone who cannot be relied on. It has a risk of backfiring by pushing him further away from us, but letting him speak also has a risk of him doing something damaging.
At the end of the day if a prominent union head thinks that giving legitimacy to republicans with unions is an acceptable cost to get to be ignored by them, then his judgement is questionable. Questionable enough that I wouldn't trust him to avoid doing something stupid at our convention. It also calls into question the value of being in his good graces anyway.
But someone could make a fair argument that he's trying to expand the reach of pro-union messaging and if they ultimately endorse Harris then no harm no foul.
Right. I think the reaction to him from the DNC might have been different if he had already unambiguously endorsed Kamala Harris and the Democratic Party.
Agreed that none of the options are good. But as a general practice, the Dems can't afford to let a thing like this happen without some sort of public consequence.
Otherwise, they'd be inviting union leaders -- and for that matter the heads of other organizations -- play both sides. And O'Brien would be getting a free ride for all the heavy lifting that Dems (pretty much, Dems only) do for labor.
They're basically saying that union chiefs need to decide "which side are [they] on."
I agree with you far more often than not, so curious as to your thinking here. What do you see as the downsides? Is he a popular leader? There are probably some people who will be offended on his behalf, but I would guess there are more people who would actually laugh in his face at being outplayed by the Dems.
Will admit it’s based on zero evidence, but in most organizations support for leadership by the rank and file is lukewarm at best. Am not a union member so could be completely off base but I doubt this is much different.
Seems like unnecessarily snubbing someone who could be an ally. Unless they don’t want the Teamsters endorsement and see this as a way of not getting it.
Fair, but I agree with the others that speaking at the RNC is a bridge too far. The snub in this case is necessary. If the Harris team were the ones pointing out they never replied to O’Brien I’d be more inclined to agree with you. But since it’s his folks who are crying foul I think it’s more a case of he fucked around and found out.
Bigger picture, the thing I am most delighted with from Harris is instead of “when they go low we go high”, it’s instead “when they go low we kick them in the face”. Seeing Democrats actually fight on even ground is wonderful to see.
Thanks for expressing your opinion. I definitely don't think they should have invited him to speak without knowing exactly what he'd say, though, and would they trust him?
There are three of us? That’s got to be one of the highest representations from a school here. State would have been one of the last places I picked for that.
The main competitive seats this cycle are going to be Ohio and Montana. Next tier has AZ, NV, MI. We could maybe add PA and WI to that group. All defense for us. Stretch offensive targets of TX and FL. I am not optimistic about either offensive target, but I am more skeptical of Florida than of Texas.
With the D candidate values being first, the 2Q fundraising numbers are:
MT: $10.4m - $4.2m
OH: $12.4m - $4.3m
AZ: $10.3m - $4.3m
MI: $6.4m - $2m
NV: $7.3m - $4m
PA: $8m - $4.5m (+2m self-fund)
WI: $7.3m - $2.3m (+5m self-fund)
FL: $4.8m - $2.5m (+$5.8m self-fund)
TX: $10.3m - $7.9m
Based on those numbers and taking into account polling and other data, my thinking would be that the best places to donate are Montana and Nevada. Maybe Texas if you want an aspirational reach.
Tester has a big money advantage and it is a small state, but it looks like the hardest hold for us and arguably merits the higher priority despite already having lots of money available. Nevada has a small financial advantage than the other tier 2 seats and the state we haven't done as well there lately, not enough for me to feel comfortable. Casey and Baldwin actually have the smallest financial advantage of our defensive seats, due to self-funding by republican candidates — there's a good argument that they could use some money.
Texas we will in all likelihood lose this cycle but Allred is certainly the furthest competitive candidate from reaching financial saturation.
I'm still making my own mind up on where money would go the furthest and most usefully, but that's the main data I'm going to use while making my final decisions.
As an eternal optimist, I'm giving most to the Senate races and most of that to Murcasel-Powell. Two reasons:
1. She's raised less than candidates in much smaller states. Even if you count the self-funding, I'm pretty sure she's raised less per voter than any others of the nine seats above.
2. Yet she seems to be doing well against Skeletor, and has a good chance of being the 50th Dem+Indy senator.
Based on polling averages (which aren't very dependable in Senate races at this stage but still are the best objective information), only Tester has a better chance at being the tipping-point senator. The other factor of course: is the abortion referendum, which could improve Dem turnout in FL.
Martybooks: Could you explain the Tweet to which you linked?
"Much thanks to you Ms. Ansari.🎉🎉🎉With her very close victory in the AZ CD-3 Democratic primary, she deprived the radical ethnocentric Latina/o/x wing of the Arizona Democratic Party of one of its two AZ Congressional seats in a majority Latina/o/x district."
I guess I don't have enough background on this contest to understand what the Tweeter's talking about.
This YouTube video from Talking Feds with Harry Litman addresses it (ignore the ridiculous clickbait video title - no-one was shocked by the ruling): https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sO3c1tOS4Ho
To summarize, there is nothing in the New York State Constitution that states that voting must be in person, but there was a long tradition that interpreted the state's constitution to mean that, and Elise Stefanik made the argument that it did. The court said it was a difficult case, and one justice did vote that it is unconstitutional to allow everyone to vote early by mail.
The Dem Convention speakers schedule is out for Night 2. Former President Barack Obama and former FLOTUS Michelle Obama are the main speeches of the night.
Other notable speakers: Illinois Gov. JB Pritzker, Illinois Sen. Tammy Duckworth, Jason Carter, Stephanie Grisham, New York Sen. and Majority Leader Chuck Schumer, Vermont Sen. Bernie Sanders, Angela Alsobrooks, and Second Gentleman Doug Emhoff.
Tonight will also feature the roll call for the Presidential nomination of Kamala Harris and the Vice-Presidential nomination of Tim Walz, beginning with Delaware and ending with Minnesota and California.
How so? And it’s a genuine question. I don’t know if you’re using interesting as an intellectually “what is the rationale?“ Or as “WTF were they thinking?” Am guessing it’s more of the former and thinking someone else would be better suited but not sure.
It's an intellectual question, though I understand why you could have read the midwestern "interesting" into it!
Alsobrooks wasn't one of the people I'd have expected, but it does make a certain amount of sense, especially given that she's listed as a longtime mentee of Harris. I'm curious to hear what she's like as a speaker.
Makes sense, thanks for clarifying. And yeah, if the keynote speaker is meant for rising stars she probably wouldn’t have been on my radar (just because of limited slots) but great she’s getting the opportunity.
All I'll say is this, I assume Michelle will speak right before Barack and she should be up at the podium between 10-10:15 ET and even 10:15 is probably too late. That Joe Biden's speech itself didn't start until 11:30 ET was just an awful job of scheduling and planning because I don't think any of the speakers went particularly long.
A bit surreal these days in a red FL area for me. Roadways plastered with signs for the many R races (sadly, tantamount to election) today; my sparse Dem ballot had Senate and four (technically) non-partisan contests.
Here in a very blue part of MA, it's not really any different. There's only one competitive race on my ballot too, and that's the case regardless if I take the D or R ballot. (The Republicans have a three-way race for losing to Elizabeth Warren and the Dems have competitive race for State Rep)
The difference is that in the other races there's an unopposed Democratic incumbent and no one at all running for the GOP.
Imo the turnout will be low in most of the state.. my entire Florida ballot had 4 races;local county Council chairman (nonpartisan); local mayor(nonpartisan); Congressional primary(3 little known Democratic candidates who have raised small money); Senate primary(I voted Powell but do have friends who voted Campbell because of the AFL-CIO endorsement).. Expecting Powell to win easily.. All local candidates on my ballot are Republicans, so I voted least toxic\crazy
My locals were two school board and two judges, voted for incumbent over openly-conservative challengers. Sadly, these local nonpartisan races are decided on August primary day with lopsided R turnout guaranteed.
Those school board races statewide need better coverage.. It's my understanding that desantis is bigshotting all over the state, trying to elect MFL types and their book burning friends.. Last cycle, they won a few seats in my county, and immediately went into chaos mode..and you are dead right, many races decided in low turnout August.. That's where a better state Democratic party could do a lot of good
What's up with these pretty weak numbers for Heinrich? It seems like he's been on the periphery of being competitive but I thought that Biden dropping out would have solidified him.
Most likely little actual campaign as of yet..it's a non competitive race
Exactly. Polling shows it not to be a close race anyway.
I think there’s also probably a stratum of soft Domenici support or uncertainty/indecision because she has a familiar name (added onto the ambient anti-incumbent atmosphere nationally and globally), with many of those people not actually wanting Republicans to control the Senate when it comes down to it. I agree with the other replier that the race will not ultimately end up being competitive (though as a Heinrich guy from way back, it still pains me to see!).
Yeah. Gotta think the Domenici name sets a high floor for her. Given that he was on of NM's senators for 36 years, it's very possible that his name still is familiar to more people than that of Heinrich, who's finishing up his second term.
The Telegraph is another right-wing Brit paper. Like the Daily Mail. Redfield & Wilton are Brit pollsters who want to please their client.
I wouldn't sweat about the NM-SEN race. Per FiveThirtyEight, Senator Martin Heinrich has still been averaging quite a healthy lead in the polls over Republican Candidate Nella Domenici (an average of 5+% points ahead). The fact that the Domenici name isn't making this a close race is telling.
https://projects.fivethirtyeight.com/polls/senate/2024/new-mexico/
Heinrich btw won re-election in 2018 by nearly 24% points, in light of the fact that Libertarian Candidate Gary Johnson ran in the Senate race and got 15.38% of the votes. If Johnson didn't run in the race, Heinrich would have likely gotten around a 8% margin of victory. I expect he'll get around this margin of victory this time around as he's built incumbency status as a 2nd term Senator.
Also, on a side note, the late Pete Domenici was an old school Republican Senator who wouldn't fit in today's GOP. After he retired in 2008, Domenici had accepted Barack Obama as POTUS and was hopeful he was going to unite the country. It's possible the Domenici name wouldn't exactly be a selling point for the Trump-influenced Republican Party of today. Note Liz Cheney.
We will get our final pre-recount results for WA land commissioner this evening. We got updates from 20 of the state's 39 counties yesterday, adding 5852 votes and reducing Dem Upthegrove's lead from 951 to 192. As I feared, Stevens County came through for GOPer Pederson with significantly more ballots than they'd estimated. Upthegrove owes almost half of his remaining lead to an unexpectedly good result from Whatcom, where he leads by 2%, yet he won the update 27%-14%.
A summary of yesterday's updates:
Whatcom: 699 votes, +92 net
King: 323, +56
San Juan: 100, +17
Snohomish, Thurston, Clark, Mason, Kitsap, Okanogan, Clallam, Klickitat, Wahkiakum, Pend Oreille: 1200, -18
Skamania: 113, -11
Kittitas: 345, -22
Lincoln: 68, -23
Spokane: 225, -44
Franklin: 192, -47
Lewis: 206, -56
Stevens: 2381, -703
19 counties estimate 1420 outstanding votes, but I expect somewhere from 2500 to 3500 will be counted across the state today. An extrapolation of those outstanding votes would net Pederson 123 votes:
King: 300, +68
Clallam, Skagit, Walla Walla, Asotin, Stevens, Whitman, Pacific, Island, Ferry, Grant, Garfield, Pierce, Grays Harbor, Kitsap: 338, -40
Douglas: 60, -11
Chelan: 225, -13
Yakima: 120, -29
Benton: 377, -97
With Benton set to cut Upthegrove's lead in half on its own (and I suspect they'll do worse than that), this is set to be a nailbiter till the end. Upthegrove will need King County to come through and pad his lead, and he may require an unexpectedly positive result, like he got in Whatcom yesterday, in order to pull this off. Top 2 needs to go, or at the very least have the primary converted to ranked-choice.
Thanks for doing the muscle work
Nothing like a nail biter Top 2 primary...
This is so good. I tweeted out a link https://x.com/downballotnews/status/1825918925973914074
Reads to me like we're unfortunately more likely than not to be just barely shut out of the top two.
Hopefully I'm wrong and Upthegrove hangs in there.
Within 100 votes?
There's a pretty good chance of it. With Upthegrove and Pederson finishing near 400k votes!
Right now the lead goes as low as literally 30 votes, with 897 reported to count. Using the same extrapolation in your list, I got Upthegrove gaining 10 in the remaining. So at a 40 vote lead.
Of course assuming the reported remaining numbers are correct. Most time it seems the counties underestimated how many can be cured and counted.
11 counties haven't updated yesterday or so far today, and they're the likeliest to be off from the estimate. Among them, only Cowlitz (31%-7% Pederson) and Jefferson (26%-13% Upthegrove) don't have estimates, and they're among the biggest X-factors left.
The official count is down to a whopping 6 votes?! I think the extrapolation based on known estimates of remaining ballots, stays about Upthegrove +40ish. Yeah, the counties with unknown remaining numbers…
Pederson's got a lead now, so it's down to King to pull Upthegrove across the line.
We're down to probably only King, Walla Walla, and Whitman having outstanding votes, and the projection has Upthegrove by 2 votes lol.
And King did its job!
Update thread:
9AM PDT:
Lewis and Skamania finalized, positive results
Garfield +10 votes, estimate -9, net 0, positive result (net 2 better than expected)
Currently Upthegrove +192, projection Upthegrove +72
9:30AM:
Pacific increases estimate by 54, negative result
Currently Upthegrove +192, projection Upthegrove +66
10AM:
Pend Oreille adds 1 for Pederson, negative result (net 1 worse than expected)
San Juan finalized, negative result
Adams adds 38 votes, net -11, negative result (net 11 worse than expected)
Currently Upthegrove +180, projection Upthegrove +54 (uses rounded figures)
10:30AM:
Benton adds 376 votes, estimate -377, net -91, positive result (net 6 better than expected and removes biggest X-factor)
Kitsap adds 1 vote, estimate -1, net 0, neutral result
Douglas adds 71 votes, estimate -60, net -15, negative result (net 4 worse than expected)
Douglas finalized, positive result
Yakima adds 126 votes, estimate -120, net -28, positive result (net 1 better than expected)
Currently Upthegrove +46, projection Upthegrove +57
11AM:
Benton, Pend Oreille, and Columbia finalized, positive results
Columbia adds 6 votes, net -3, negative result (net 3 worse than expected)
Grays Harbor adds 57 votes, net -12, negative result (net 12 worse than expected)
Pierce adds 202 votes, estimate -5, net -1, positive result (net 1 worse than expected, but removes a big X-factor)
Currently Upthegrove +30, projection Upthegrove +41
11:30AM:
Whatcom finalized, neutral result
Klickitat, Pierce, and Wahkiakum finalized, positive results
Klickitat adds 4 votes, net -1, negative result (net 1 worse than expected)
Stevens adds 11 votes, estimate -25, net -3, positive result (net 5 better than expected)
Currently Upthegrove +26, projection Upthegrove +45
12PM:
Asotin adds 61 votes, estimate -25, net -17, negative result (net 11 worse than expected)
Ferry adds 12 votes, estimate -10, net -3, negative result (net 1 worse than expected)
Asotin finalized, positive result
Clallam adds 59 votes, estimate -100, net -10, negative result (net 3 worse than expected)
Currently Pederson +4, projection Upthegrove +30
12:30PM:
Yakima finalized, positive result
Currently Pederson +4, projection Upthegrove +30
1PM:
Grant adds 47 votes, estimate -10, net -11, negative result (net 8 worse than expected)
Grant finalized, positive result
Island adds 178, estimate -10, net -1, negative result (net 1 worse than expected, could have been much better)
Currently Pederson +16, projection Upthegrove +20
1:30PM:
Ferry, Lincoln, and Spokane finalized, positive results
Currently Pederson +16, projection Upthegrove +20
2PM:
Adams and Chelan finalized, positive results
Thurston finalized, negative result
Chelan adds 441 votes, -225 estimate, net -2, positive result (net 11 better than expected)
Currently Pederson +18, projection Upthegrove +32
2:30PM:
Skagit adds 131 votes, estimate -60, net -10, negative result (net 7 worse than expected)
Kittitas adds 1 vote, net 0, neutral result
Pacific adds 67 votes, estimate -67, net -9, negative result (net 2 worse than expected)
Jefferson adds 58, net +4, positive result (net 4 better than expected)
Island and Jefferson finalized, negative results
Grays Harbor, Kittitas, Mason, Okanogan, and Skagit finalized, positive results
Currently Pederson +33, projection Upthegrove +27
3PM:
Snohomish adds 2 votes, net -1, negative result (net 1 worse than expected)
Cowlitz adds 123 votes, net -24, negative result (net 24 worse than expected)
Snohomish finalized, neutral result
Clark, Pacific, and Stevens finalized, positive results
Currently Pederson +58, projection Upthegrove +2
3:30PM:
Garfield finalized, positive result
Currently Pederson +58, projection Upthegrove +2
3:45PM:
Cowlitz finalized, positive result
King adds 681 votes, estimate -300, net +139, great result (net 71 better than expected)
Currently Upthegrove +81, projection Upthegrove +73
4PM:
King finalized, negative result
Currently Upthegrove +81, projection Upthegrove +73
4:15PM:
Whitman adds 119 votes, estimate -15, net -10, negative result (net 9 worse than expected)
Walla Walla adds 110 votes, estimate -50, net -20, negative result (net 13 worse than expected)
Walla Walla and Whitman finalized, positive results
Clallam, Franklin, Kitsap, and Mason (de-finalized?) are still not finalized, but I don't expect they will produce additional votes.
Possibly final result: Upthegrove +51
5:30PM:
And now all counties have finalized their results, meaning Upthegrove should enter the manual recount with a seemingly comfortable lead of 51.
Is the "projection" what you projected the result to be at this point or your projection of what it will ultimately end up as?
The projection figure uses counties' estimated outstanding votes at the time of the update for a guess at the final result.
At the moment, Upthegrove's lead is 46 votes with an estimated 902 ballots left to count. Of those 902, the majority will go to candidates other than Peterson and Upthegrove. It will be close. The final will certainly meet the requirements for a machine recount. To meet the requirements of a required manual recount, the lead must be less than 150 votes. https://www.sos.wa.gov/recounts-washington-state
Upthegrove now leads by six votes. 395,915 to 395,909.
Wow! How close is that to a final initial tally?
King County finalized its votes, putting Upthegrove ahead by 81 votes with an estimated 65 left to count. Subject to the recount, the Dems seem to have avoided a lock-out in this top-two primary.
And it looks like we may have a final margin, at Upthegrove +51.
So we may have dodged a bullet, but I hope Democrats learn a lesson from this.
Agreed.. They need to have the state lege tweek the rules
What are the WA recount rules and processes?
Assuming the margin is under 150 votes, there will be a mandatory hand recount with observers. I don't believe that previously rejected ballots are reviewed, but I'm not certain on that point.
It seems that Chelan finalized with Pederson gaining only two votes? Your projection should have Upthegrove lead almost doubles to 40? Lol
King County finalized its votes, putting Upthegrove ahead by 81 votes with an estimated 65 left to count. Subject to the recount, the Dems seem to have avoided a lock-out in this top-two primary.
Wow!
Ugh, I’m really disappointed in DCCC for the continued low level of support for Michelle Vallejo in TX-15. I had hoped there’d be signs of a buy there when I saw that they were dropping a lot of money yesterday. It’s at least as competitive as IA-01, imo—though as a Texan desperate to replace Monica Mentirosa, I am perhaps biased!
The D-Trip's IE is now a lot smaller than House Majority PAC's, though, so they're playing in fewer races. HMP previously booked more than $2 million in Harlingen and San Antonio, which conceivably could be used for TX-15.
So wait, does the “Trip” in D-Trip stand for the 3Cs. I’ve seen folks use that for 10+ years and never picked up on it until seeing both used in the same thread…
yup
Gotta love when things click into place!
Hahah yep! You'll sometimes hear people refer to it out loud as "the D Triple C."
Roger that. Still disappointed but I get it (and do remember the HMP buy, which was heartening).
Let's discuss this:
DNC makes Teamsters president sweat: https://www.axios.com/2024/08/20/dnc-teamsters-sean-obrien-democrats (hat tip to Politicalwire, as usual, since that's where I saw excerpts and a link from the story):
"'We didn't get a response to our request for him to speak,' Kara Deniz, a Teamsters spokesperson, told Axios.
Rank-and-file Teamsters retirees have been invited to attend the DNC, a sign that O'Brien's snub is personal, The Bulwark reports."
So, my personal reaction to this is, he spoke to the Republican National Convention, so he can go fuck himself. And that must be the reaction of Democratic leaders. But is it the politically best reaction? Might they be shooting all of us in the foot, considering how useful the Teamsters Union could be in doing volunteer work for Democratic candidates, or would it have been manifestly stupid to give a speaking slot to such an unreliable individual?
None of the options in this kind of situation are unquestionably good.
I'd lean towards your last thought: it's unwise to give a speaking spot to someone who cannot be relied on. It has a risk of backfiring by pushing him further away from us, but letting him speak also has a risk of him doing something damaging.
At the end of the day if a prominent union head thinks that giving legitimacy to republicans with unions is an acceptable cost to get to be ignored by them, then his judgement is questionable. Questionable enough that I wouldn't trust him to avoid doing something stupid at our convention. It also calls into question the value of being in his good graces anyway.
But someone could make a fair argument that he's trying to expand the reach of pro-union messaging and if they ultimately endorse Harris then no harm no foul.
Right. I think the reaction to him from the DNC might have been different if he had already unambiguously endorsed Kamala Harris and the Democratic Party.
Agreed that none of the options are good. But as a general practice, the Dems can't afford to let a thing like this happen without some sort of public consequence.
Otherwise, they'd be inviting union leaders -- and for that matter the heads of other organizations -- play both sides. And O'Brien would be getting a free ride for all the heavy lifting that Dems (pretty much, Dems only) do for labor.
They're basically saying that union chiefs need to decide "which side are [they] on."
They should have let him speak. Spite might make you feel good, but in this instance the possible downside far outweighs it.
I agree with you far more often than not, so curious as to your thinking here. What do you see as the downsides? Is he a popular leader? There are probably some people who will be offended on his behalf, but I would guess there are more people who would actually laugh in his face at being outplayed by the Dems.
Will admit it’s based on zero evidence, but in most organizations support for leadership by the rank and file is lukewarm at best. Am not a union member so could be completely off base but I doubt this is much different.
Seems like unnecessarily snubbing someone who could be an ally. Unless they don’t want the Teamsters endorsement and see this as a way of not getting it.
Fair, but I agree with the others that speaking at the RNC is a bridge too far. The snub in this case is necessary. If the Harris team were the ones pointing out they never replied to O’Brien I’d be more inclined to agree with you. But since it’s his folks who are crying foul I think it’s more a case of he fucked around and found out.
Bigger picture, the thing I am most delighted with from Harris is instead of “when they go low we go high”, it’s instead “when they go low we kick them in the face”. Seeing Democrats actually fight on even ground is wonderful to see.
Thanks for expressing your opinion. I definitely don't think they should have invited him to speak without knowing exactly what he'd say, though, and would they trust him?
NC: Sabato's Crystal ball has moved NC from Lean R to Toss-up.
Love to see it
Hey, another lefty Wolven Sort! Huzzah indeed.
There are three of us? That’s got to be one of the highest representations from a school here. State would have been one of the last places I picked for that.
I'm preparing to contribute to some U.S. Senate races. Are there any competitive ones that really don't need my money? What do you think?
This is something I've been thinking about to do in the next few weeks as well.
There is the old DKE Q2 fundraising data here: https://www.dailykos.com/stories/2024/7/17/2254790/-Daily-Kos-Elections-2Q-2024-Senate-fundraising-reports-roundup
The main competitive seats this cycle are going to be Ohio and Montana. Next tier has AZ, NV, MI. We could maybe add PA and WI to that group. All defense for us. Stretch offensive targets of TX and FL. I am not optimistic about either offensive target, but I am more skeptical of Florida than of Texas.
With the D candidate values being first, the 2Q fundraising numbers are:
MT: $10.4m - $4.2m
OH: $12.4m - $4.3m
AZ: $10.3m - $4.3m
MI: $6.4m - $2m
NV: $7.3m - $4m
PA: $8m - $4.5m (+2m self-fund)
WI: $7.3m - $2.3m (+5m self-fund)
FL: $4.8m - $2.5m (+$5.8m self-fund)
TX: $10.3m - $7.9m
Based on those numbers and taking into account polling and other data, my thinking would be that the best places to donate are Montana and Nevada. Maybe Texas if you want an aspirational reach.
Tester has a big money advantage and it is a small state, but it looks like the hardest hold for us and arguably merits the higher priority despite already having lots of money available. Nevada has a small financial advantage than the other tier 2 seats and the state we haven't done as well there lately, not enough for me to feel comfortable. Casey and Baldwin actually have the smallest financial advantage of our defensive seats, due to self-funding by republican candidates — there's a good argument that they could use some money.
Texas we will in all likelihood lose this cycle but Allred is certainly the furthest competitive candidate from reaching financial saturation.
I'm still making my own mind up on where money would go the furthest and most usefully, but that's the main data I'm going to use while making my final decisions.
As an eternal optimist, I'm giving most to the Senate races and most of that to Murcasel-Powell. Two reasons:
1. She's raised less than candidates in much smaller states. Even if you count the self-funding, I'm pretty sure she's raised less per voter than any others of the nine seats above.
2. Yet she seems to be doing well against Skeletor, and has a good chance of being the 50th Dem+Indy senator.
Based on polling averages (which aren't very dependable in Senate races at this stage but still are the best objective information), only Tester has a better chance at being the tipping-point senator. The other factor of course: is the abortion referendum, which could improve Dem turnout in FL.
Solid reasons for donating to her! I've become a strong-pessimist on Florida lately, but I'd love for her to win and prove me wrong.
I definitely plan on donating to both Allred and Mucarsel Powell, as well as some defending incumbents.
Recount done in AZ Anzsari wins AZ 3 D nomination
https://x.com/AP_Politics/status/1825965594895585774
Martybooks: Could you explain the Tweet to which you linked?
"Much thanks to you Ms. Ansari.🎉🎉🎉With her very close victory in the AZ CD-3 Democratic primary, she deprived the radical ethnocentric Latina/o/x wing of the Arizona Democratic Party of one of its two AZ Congressional seats in a majority Latina/o/x district."
I guess I don't have enough background on this contest to understand what the Tweeter's talking about.
Must be a crypto hack. Since crypto spent big on Ansari.
Early mail in voting in NY upheld.
https://x.com/YanceyRoy/status/1825963719446376824
The idea that early voting in New York could be unconstitutional is bizarre. I'm curious what their argument was and may try to find that info later.
This YouTube video from Talking Feds with Harry Litman addresses it (ignore the ridiculous clickbait video title - no-one was shocked by the ruling): https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sO3c1tOS4Ho
To summarize, there is nothing in the New York State Constitution that states that voting must be in person, but there was a long tradition that interpreted the state's constitution to mean that, and Elise Stefanik made the argument that it did. The court said it was a difficult case, and one justice did vote that it is unconstitutional to allow everyone to vote early by mail.
The Dem Convention speakers schedule is out for Night 2. Former President Barack Obama and former FLOTUS Michelle Obama are the main speeches of the night.
Other notable speakers: Illinois Gov. JB Pritzker, Illinois Sen. Tammy Duckworth, Jason Carter, Stephanie Grisham, New York Sen. and Majority Leader Chuck Schumer, Vermont Sen. Bernie Sanders, Angela Alsobrooks, and Second Gentleman Doug Emhoff.
Tonight will also feature the roll call for the Presidential nomination of Kamala Harris and the Vice-Presidential nomination of Tim Walz, beginning with Delaware and ending with Minnesota and California.
https://demconvention.com/news/press-releases/program-schedule-democratic-national-convention-night-2-a-bold-vision-for-americas-future/
So the keynote is Alsobrooks. Interesting choice there.
How so? And it’s a genuine question. I don’t know if you’re using interesting as an intellectually “what is the rationale?“ Or as “WTF were they thinking?” Am guessing it’s more of the former and thinking someone else would be better suited but not sure.
It's an intellectual question, though I understand why you could have read the midwestern "interesting" into it!
Alsobrooks wasn't one of the people I'd have expected, but it does make a certain amount of sense, especially given that she's listed as a longtime mentee of Harris. I'm curious to hear what she's like as a speaker.
Makes sense, thanks for clarifying. And yeah, if the keynote speaker is meant for rising stars she probably wouldn’t have been on my radar (just because of limited slots) but great she’s getting the opportunity.
All I'll say is this, I assume Michelle will speak right before Barack and she should be up at the podium between 10-10:15 ET and even 10:15 is probably too late. That Joe Biden's speech itself didn't start until 11:30 ET was just an awful job of scheduling and planning because I don't think any of the speakers went particularly long.
Apparently they scratched James Taylor to avoid another timing miss
good
Will you post tabs for tonights primaries?
I think he posted that it's on Twitter🤔
will there be tabs for primary results tonight?
sorry trying to get this all set up properly.
is this considered the live digest? or is there another page?
pretty sure this is it!
Yeah, the Morning Digest is now your daily hub for commenting!
Is there going to be a post with FL primary results?
No live blogging here by the crew. Only on Twitter. Explanation in a comment on preview post.
And Discord!