The Massachusetts Teachers Association also spends quite heavily for their preferred candidates in State Legislative primaries. When we've had contested races where I live it's always been three times as much mail from them as from the candidate they're endorsing, to the point where, to some extent, it drowns out the message of their endorsee. (Though in both cases, they ended up winning pretty decisively, though they we're also the incumbent and the more progressive choice, which was probably more of a factor than the mail swarm.)
The Downballot continues its excellent data-driven journalism!
MEANWHILE: "How Trump is reshaping reality by hiding data"
"Curating reality is an old political game, but Trump’s sweeping statistical purges are part of a broader attempt to reinvent “truth”."
In short, the Trump regime continues to erase or bury data it doesn’t like. This article from the Washington Post highlights what has already happened. Expect far more of this. Don’t be surprised if we soon have no reliable unemployment figures, inflation scores or key government economic data.
WI-3 - Just got a text from the Rebecca Cooke campaign that she’s running again. She did well and she could certainly win in a bad midterm year for the GOP.
As many many remember, Krugman left the New York Times over their increasingly intrusive editing (and outright cancellation of his column); Borowitz left the New Yorker after many years.
What Borowitz, Krugman, Jennifer Rubin – and our own Simon Rosenberg – now have in common is that their Substack communicate directly with readers.
My choice would be Rob Bonta, but he wisely decided not to run. I suspect Harris will run and win, and in hindsight, Californians will think Newsom wasn't really that bad after all.
Harris would be more competent than Newsom. For starters, she won't have her own podcast while in office and she won't try to get distracted like Newsom has been.
He's like a checked out college senior, except he still has a year and a half and actual responsibilities. The sooner he's gone the better off California will be.
I believe that a viable moderate pathway to a liberal presidency can be created for 2028 and
don't really care much about Newsom's position on trans issues but his deference on every issue to these far right white supremacist/nationalist podcast hosts has been insane. He even agreed that Democrats have ideological purity tests and were wrong in kicking out RFK jr and dicator loving Tulsi when in reality Republicans hunt RINOs. He failed as a parent if his 13 yr old son is a diehard fan of someone who refers to POCs as DEI and speculates on celebrities' eggs. He wants to be Democrats' Mitt Romney. How desperate can he be to become President?
Certain people who claim themselves liberals can throw out purity tests at certain Democrats, especially with Democratic clubs like the Wellstone Democratic Club in Oakland, CA that does in fact have a history with this (long story but it has to do with the 2014 Oakland Mayoral Race). The Green Party has long tried to throw purity at Democrats for not going hard enough or for petty issues like Jill Stein as 2012 Green Party Presidential Candidate throwing propaganda like the Democratic Party wanted to gut social security.
However, Newsom saying purity tests in this case with Charlie Kirk is really stupid and he's taking the bait. He's the one arguing purity but wait, he's pushing Democrats to tone it down on AI regulation. He also didn't do jack squat on affordable housing when he was Mayor of San Francisco and now all of a sudden since being Governor wants to take action on it because it's a convenient issue now. Got nothing to do with purity and everything to do with not leading by principle like Jerry Brown did as Governor.
In all honesty, I think Newsom has an intention of trying to get middle ground on the issue of transgender athletes but regardless of his official position, he ought to shut down his podcast for a while.
He was the culture warrior from California during Trump 47 but now wants to now play the moderate similar to how Romney tried to distance himself in 2012 from his liberal record. Honestly, praising Kirk and not pushing back on most issues seems to be the worst way to win moderates. He also seemed ill prepared, most figures that Kirk quoted incl for trans athletes were from far right and unreliable think tanks. Tulsi was definitely not our best and we are better without her. I've seen this myth thrown around repeatedly that Trump has a liberal and diverse cabinet.
I'd say that's based on more perception than hard truth. Be warned though, Harris is tough and based on her debates with Mike Pence and Trump, she's not going to relent.
Besides, Newsom blew it with his future political aspirations in his recent podcast with Charlie Kirk. Asking Kirk for his recommendations on what Democrats should do is political malpractice for Democrats and something Harris would never do, even if being on a podcast.
I disagree and since it's The Race Which Shall Not Be Named; I won't elaborate (perhaps someone can start a separate thread on this topic for further constructive debate?)
Let’s just say that if Newsom ran for the Senate, it wouldn’t be easy.
A Senate primary in CA would give Newsom a hard time for his podcast with Charlie Kirk. After all, the 2003 SF Mayoral Race between Newsom and Green Party Candidate Matt Gonzales was historic, especially considering Newsom was a supervisor in the most wealthy, waspy district at the time and Gonzales was the more liberal candidate.
I'm giving a hypothetical to explain why if Newsom were to run for another political office outside of what is not allowed for discussion here, he'd not get an easy time running his respective campaign. We could also put a hypothetical if Newsom were running for Governor again.
The gravity of Newsom's podcast interview with Charlie Kirk is significant. It pissed off even State Senator Scott Weiner, who is gay, and one of the leading Democrats in state government.
I believe that a viable moderate pathway to a liberal presidency can be created for 2028 and
don't really care much about Newsom's position on trans issues but his deference on every issue to these far right white supremacist/nationalist podcast hosts has been insane. He even agreed that Democrats have ideological purity tests and were wrong in kicking out RFK jr and dicator loving Tulsi when in reality Republicans hunt RINOs. He failed as a parent if his 13 yr old son is a diehard fan of someone who refers to POCs as DEI and speculates on celebrities' eggs. He wants to be Democrats' Mitt Romney. How desperate can he be to become President?
Not elections related but wanted to go on the record that if the Pittsburgh Steelers actually do sign Aaron Rodgers, I will officially convert to the LA Rams being my number one team. For context, I was born and raised in Pittsburgh and always grew up a Steelers fan but I’ve been living in Los Angeles since 2007. When the Rams came back to LA with the Chargers, I made them my second and third team and my family joined me in rooting for the Rams in the 2022 Super Bowl due to a mixture of both my family also liking the Rams and a long hatred for the Cincinnati Bengals. However, my hatred for the Bengals does not extend to Joe Burrow because of his outspoken support for abortion right and gun control. My family even said they’d rather have another losing season with Russell Wilson than root for Aaron Rodgers. The Rooneys have really been pissing me off. I get that we need to shake things up on the team and we need a strong QB but this isn’t the way to do it. My dad’s been a lifetime season ticket holder since the Steel Curtain days. I don’t know yet how folks in Allegheny County, which is very blue and did not move an inch to the right (Northampton) or had a drop in voter turnout in the 2024 election unlike other counties (looking at you Philadelphia), will respond if Rodgers is signed. People who come in from the red territories like Westmoreland, Washington and Moon along with anyone coming in from Ohio and West Virginia might love this move but actual Pittsburgh residents might hate this even more than Heinz Feld being renamed Acrisure Stadium.
And while I’m on a little bit of a rant about Pennsylvania politics and sports, I held my nose and rooted for the Eagles in this year’s Super Bowl and I like Saquan Barkley. I feel like this past Super Bowl also reflects my switching allegiance on my favorite Pennsylvania Democrats. John Fetterman used to be my favorite with Shapiro and Casey tied for second, especially since he’s a Western PA Yinzer. Now, Shapiro, hailing from Montgomery County is my favorite. One thing I will also add is that Fetterman’s former campaign guy, Brendan McPhillips, has long been trashing Bob Brady’s Democratic machine in Philadelphia on their voter outreach. Pittsburgh’s Democratic Party is a much better run machine. If there’s any Democrat in Pennsylvania that needs to be pushed out before Fetterman, it’s Brady in my opinion. The Philadelphia Democratic machine needs new blood.
Keep in mind that Iowa's 100th district was a Democratic stronghold for decades and went for Obama by double digits, and went Democrat as recently as Fred Hubbell in the 2018 gubernatorial race. In terms of demographics and recent political history, it's the spitting image of the Senate district that flipped for Mike Zimmer. I'm not predicting a win, but there's no reason to believe that Democrats have any less chance of pulling it off here than in Zimmer's Senate race.
It may have changed just a little. I'm not exactly sure but since it's in the far southeastern corner of Iowa, state lines on two sides of it prevent it from changing much during redistricting.
An interesting anecdote is that Iowa's 100th House district is home to Keokuk in the state's southeastern corner, which back in 2011, University of Iowa Professor Stephen Bloom famously described in The Atlantic as a "depressed, crime-infested slum town" and "one of the skuzziest cities I've ever been to, and that's saying something." It's the kind of place that was the perfect petri dish for cultural backlash and the Trump realignment.
Haven't most of the places a lot of the public consider "slum cities" remained Democratic? I'm thinking of places like Detroit, Cleveland, Baltimore, St. Louis and New Orleans, for example, at least by reputations that are probably dated and in any case grossly unfair.
The difference between Keokuk and those cities is race. Its union influence waning, the white working class voters of Lee County started acting more like white working class voters elsewhere in the country in the Trump era.
I think concurrent with that difference is population. Keokuk's population is 9900 as of 2020, and 9500 as of 2023. St Louis is 300k in 2020 and 280k in 2023. Cleveland 370k and 360k. Detroit 640k and 630k. All of Lee county, where Keokuk is, was 33k people in 2020.
That's a huge difference in population and will shape the way the place is developed. In all senses of sociologically, physically, and economically. Even if Keokuk had the same ethnic demographic breakdowns as any of those other cities it would vote differently. Of course, the population difference is itself a major factor in the demographic difference.
That sounds like it could make sense, but let's pursue it further. How is voting in rural Black-majority areas different from in Black-majority urban areas, and is it more similar to voting in Black-majority urban areas or white-majority rural areas?
That's interesting. Keokuk was a hub for Jewish immigrants from Germany in the 19th century. My great-great grandfather married and lived in nearby Fairfield until moving back to Missouri. He is buried in Keokuk.
Always gotta be careful with district numbers because they often change during redistricting! The predecessor version of HD-100 was numbered HD-83. It shifted a bit geographically but is politically very similar.
This should give Democrats a bit of hope in the IA-SEN race given Joni Ernst won re-election by a much smaller amount back in 2020 than in 2014 and that she's chair of the Senate DOGE Committee.
Didn’t he just run and almost win? Buttigieg has name recognition. So it’s not a surprise he’d get a higher number than the other Democrats polled. But that doesn’t mean he’d be a stronger GE candidate than them.
I still find it interesting that the Clintons ended up going from being fixtures of Arkansas to being NYers later on. Bill Clinton being elected POTUS twice after serving as Governor of Arkansas and then Hillary Clinton ends up being elected twice as Senator of New York, including the first time when Clinton was still POTUS.
Carpetbagging likely cost Scott Brown any chance he had of winning a senate seat in a republican wave year of 2014. If republicans had found an otherwise identical clone to him that had started their political career in NH it would have been much closer, close enough that Shaheen could have lost.
Oz, from New Jersey, clearly underperformed in the 2022 PA senate race. Republicans netted 52% of the US house vote in PA that year, while Oz lost to Fetterman by 5 points despite Fetterman's health becoming a major detriment in the final stretch of the campaign.
This isn't California you're talking about. It's by no means impossible for the Republican candidate to defeat an ordinary Democrat, depending on the political climate and who votes. That farshlugene state just voted for fucking Trump!
I wouldn’t though jump the gun and say by default Mike Rogers has a shot at winning in 2026 just like last year, at least not yet.
Rogers may have benefitted last year in part because Trump won MI by more than he did in 2016. If he runs next year, he may have to run a stronger campaign this time around assuming MI will be moving more to the left of Trump in the downballot races.
Then again, John James ran a credible Senate race against Debbie Stabenow back in 2018 when the MI GOP otherwise had a bad time at the midterms. Anything can happen.
He has a shot, but it's likely to be the Dem's race to win. There have been some close calls including last year, but the GOP hasn't won a Senate race in Michigan since 1994. All else equal, you wouldn't expect the streak to snap in a midterm with a highly polarizing and likely unpopular GOP president who needed to do unusually well among irregular voters.
That's a fair assessment. My main point though is that Mike Rogers won't be dealing with the same political environment as he did last year in his previous Senate run, which I think you're touching base on as well.
Sure, he may be leading in the first poll showing a matchup between him and Rep. Haley Stevens. However, it's likely that has to do with Stevens not being known well outside of MI-11 in the eyes of Michiganders statewide.
Buttigieg has near 100% name recognition with the democratic primary electorate. Stevens does not.
This far out, before the candidates have even started to get their campaign into gear, a lot of polling differentials is going to come down to name recognition. And that name recognition difference not only can change, but will change. Whether it changes enough or changes to other candidates' advantage is another matter. But the basic point is that the polls of Buttigieg for senate and Stevens for senate are not like-to-like polls at this stage of the game. This time next year they will be close enough to make the comparison worthwhile.
Portugal’s minority government has lost a vote of confidence in parliament, forcing its resignation and bringing the EU country’s third general election in three years.
The exact vote count wasn’t immediately available, but the speaker of parliament, José Pedro Aguiar-Branco, said the centre-right government was defeated.
The country’s Constitutional Court has barred the far-right candidate, Calin Georgescu, from participating in the upcoming May election. Georgescu’s "victory" last year was annulled after intelligence revealed that Russia had tried to manipulate things in his favor.
(This is much to the disappointment of JD Vance and other American extremists.)
Final result ~51R-48D, a 3 point loss. That's a 24 point overperformance from 2024.
I expected that first win in Iowa would be a fluke and this one would see some overperformance but less. While we fell short this is still a huge overperformance.
Ernst won by six points in 2020. Can we hope for a six point improvement in Iowa to put this on the table? I'm not there yet because special elections are a different kind of electorate, but I can see the pathway for IA-Sen being potentially competitive next year.
Would be interesting to see if we see Iowa shifting back to being more competitive. Not holding my breath on it but it would be great to see. Even if it's only for a few cycles.
Idk, voters in special elections tend to be more educated, informed and less working class so Democrats win. We can only get a clearer picture in 2026 when Trump isn't on the ballot.
Race to the WH according to which, even Florida and Ohio may be competitive gives Iowa a safe R rating. If we see elections where democrats have won Iowa in the past, it was either due to legacy candidates over performing in rural white districts or extreme f ups by the Republican establishment in the state as well as by Bush.
NJ Gov. The only mail I have received so far, 3 pieces, and digital ads I have seen, are from Gottheimer. Who has a lot of money.
I've gotten Spiller mailers for months and only recently a couple from Sweeney and Fulop.
The Massachusetts Teachers Association also spends quite heavily for their preferred candidates in State Legislative primaries. When we've had contested races where I live it's always been three times as much mail from them as from the candidate they're endorsing, to the point where, to some extent, it drowns out the message of their endorsee. (Though in both cases, they ended up winning pretty decisively, though they we're also the incumbent and the more progressive choice, which was probably more of a factor than the mail swarm.)
The Downballot continues its excellent data-driven journalism!
MEANWHILE: "How Trump is reshaping reality by hiding data"
"Curating reality is an old political game, but Trump’s sweeping statistical purges are part of a broader attempt to reinvent “truth”."
In short, the Trump regime continues to erase or bury data it doesn’t like. This article from the Washington Post highlights what has already happened. Expect far more of this. Don’t be surprised if we soon have no reliable unemployment figures, inflation scores or key government economic data.
https://wapo.st/4iCmMtn
WI-3 - Just got a text from the Rebecca Cooke campaign that she’s running again. She did well and she could certainly win in a bad midterm year for the GOP.
I think she is going to benefit greatly from Trump and his MAGA on steroids second term
BOROWITZ – KRUGMAN!
Right now, Andy Borowitz has a fascinating live interview with Paul Krugman. Not paywalled.
https://substack.com/@borowitzreport?liveStream=14962
As many many remember, Krugman left the New York Times over their increasingly intrusive editing (and outright cancellation of his column); Borowitz left the New Yorker after many years.
What Borowitz, Krugman, Jennifer Rubin – and our own Simon Rosenberg – now have in common is that their Substack communicate directly with readers.
Katie Porter running for CA Gov officially. Still hope Kamala runs but if not Porter is my second choice.
She will reportedly drop out of the race if Kamala Harris announces a bid.
https://bsky.app/profile/artcandee.bsky.social/post/3lk4asrga7223
UGH. I don't like that at all.
It's smart politics though and Porter is still young politically speaking
If Kamala does not run, expect former Los Angeles Mayor Antonio Villaraigosa and Lt. Gov. Eleni Kounalakis to enter the race as well.
Both already entered the race quite a while ago.
Kounalakis has already entered.
She's seen as likely to exit if Harris enters. Villaraigosa may in to stay no matter what.
My choice would be Rob Bonta, but he wisely decided not to run. I suspect Harris will run and win, and in hindsight, Californians will think Newsom wasn't really that bad after all.
I really hope she doesn't run but I doubt she'd be much worse than Newsom.
Harris would be more competent than Newsom. For starters, she won't have her own podcast while in office and she won't try to get distracted like Newsom has been.
He's like a checked out college senior, except he still has a year and a half and actual responsibilities. The sooner he's gone the better off California will be.
I completely agree!
I believe that a viable moderate pathway to a liberal presidency can be created for 2028 and
don't really care much about Newsom's position on trans issues but his deference on every issue to these far right white supremacist/nationalist podcast hosts has been insane. He even agreed that Democrats have ideological purity tests and were wrong in kicking out RFK jr and dicator loving Tulsi when in reality Republicans hunt RINOs. He failed as a parent if his 13 yr old son is a diehard fan of someone who refers to POCs as DEI and speculates on celebrities' eggs. He wants to be Democrats' Mitt Romney. How desperate can he be to become President?
Certain people who claim themselves liberals can throw out purity tests at certain Democrats, especially with Democratic clubs like the Wellstone Democratic Club in Oakland, CA that does in fact have a history with this (long story but it has to do with the 2014 Oakland Mayoral Race). The Green Party has long tried to throw purity at Democrats for not going hard enough or for petty issues like Jill Stein as 2012 Green Party Presidential Candidate throwing propaganda like the Democratic Party wanted to gut social security.
However, Newsom saying purity tests in this case with Charlie Kirk is really stupid and he's taking the bait. He's the one arguing purity but wait, he's pushing Democrats to tone it down on AI regulation. He also didn't do jack squat on affordable housing when he was Mayor of San Francisco and now all of a sudden since being Governor wants to take action on it because it's a convenient issue now. Got nothing to do with purity and everything to do with not leading by principle like Jerry Brown did as Governor.
In all honesty, I think Newsom has an intention of trying to get middle ground on the issue of transgender athletes but regardless of his official position, he ought to shut down his podcast for a while.
He was the culture warrior from California during Trump 47 but now wants to now play the moderate similar to how Romney tried to distance himself in 2012 from his liberal record. Honestly, praising Kirk and not pushing back on most issues seems to be the worst way to win moderates. He also seemed ill prepared, most figures that Kirk quoted incl for trans athletes were from far right and unreliable think tanks. Tulsi was definitely not our best and we are better without her. I've seen this myth thrown around repeatedly that Trump has a liberal and diverse cabinet.
Wow. What kind of bad stuff would you expect Harris to do?
I'd say that's based on more perception than hard truth. Be warned though, Harris is tough and based on her debates with Mike Pence and Trump, she's not going to relent.
Besides, Newsom blew it with his future political aspirations in his recent podcast with Charlie Kirk. Asking Kirk for his recommendations on what Democrats should do is political malpractice for Democrats and something Harris would never do, even if being on a podcast.
I disagree and since it's The Race Which Shall Not Be Named; I won't elaborate (perhaps someone can start a separate thread on this topic for further constructive debate?)
Let’s just say that if Newsom ran for the Senate, it wouldn’t be easy.
A Senate primary in CA would give Newsom a hard time for his podcast with Charlie Kirk. After all, the 2003 SF Mayoral Race between Newsom and Green Party Candidate Matt Gonzales was historic, especially considering Newsom was a supervisor in the most wealthy, waspy district at the time and Gonzales was the more liberal candidate.
he is not running for Senate..c'mon man
I'm giving a hypothetical to explain why if Newsom were to run for another political office outside of what is not allowed for discussion here, he'd not get an easy time running his respective campaign. We could also put a hypothetical if Newsom were running for Governor again.
The gravity of Newsom's podcast interview with Charlie Kirk is significant. It pissed off even State Senator Scott Weiner, who is gay, and one of the leading Democrats in state government.
I believe that a viable moderate pathway to a liberal presidency can be created for 2028 and
don't really care much about Newsom's position on trans issues but his deference on every issue to these far right white supremacist/nationalist podcast hosts has been insane. He even agreed that Democrats have ideological purity tests and were wrong in kicking out RFK jr and dicator loving Tulsi when in reality Republicans hunt RINOs. He failed as a parent if his 13 yr old son is a diehard fan of someone who refers to POCs as DEI and speculates on celebrities' eggs. He wants to be Democrats' Mitt Romney. How desperate can he be to become President?
Not elections related but wanted to go on the record that if the Pittsburgh Steelers actually do sign Aaron Rodgers, I will officially convert to the LA Rams being my number one team. For context, I was born and raised in Pittsburgh and always grew up a Steelers fan but I’ve been living in Los Angeles since 2007. When the Rams came back to LA with the Chargers, I made them my second and third team and my family joined me in rooting for the Rams in the 2022 Super Bowl due to a mixture of both my family also liking the Rams and a long hatred for the Cincinnati Bengals. However, my hatred for the Bengals does not extend to Joe Burrow because of his outspoken support for abortion right and gun control. My family even said they’d rather have another losing season with Russell Wilson than root for Aaron Rodgers. The Rooneys have really been pissing me off. I get that we need to shake things up on the team and we need a strong QB but this isn’t the way to do it. My dad’s been a lifetime season ticket holder since the Steel Curtain days. I don’t know yet how folks in Allegheny County, which is very blue and did not move an inch to the right (Northampton) or had a drop in voter turnout in the 2024 election unlike other counties (looking at you Philadelphia), will respond if Rodgers is signed. People who come in from the red territories like Westmoreland, Washington and Moon along with anyone coming in from Ohio and West Virginia might love this move but actual Pittsburgh residents might hate this even more than Heinz Feld being renamed Acrisure Stadium.
And while I’m on a little bit of a rant about Pennsylvania politics and sports, I held my nose and rooted for the Eagles in this year’s Super Bowl and I like Saquan Barkley. I feel like this past Super Bowl also reflects my switching allegiance on my favorite Pennsylvania Democrats. John Fetterman used to be my favorite with Shapiro and Casey tied for second, especially since he’s a Western PA Yinzer. Now, Shapiro, hailing from Montgomery County is my favorite. One thing I will also add is that Fetterman’s former campaign guy, Brendan McPhillips, has long been trashing Bob Brady’s Democratic machine in Philadelphia on their voter outreach. Pittsburgh’s Democratic Party is a much better run machine. If there’s any Democrat in Pennsylvania that needs to be pushed out before Fetterman, it’s Brady in my opinion. The Philadelphia Democratic machine needs new blood.
Keep in mind that Iowa's 100th district was a Democratic stronghold for decades and went for Obama by double digits, and went Democrat as recently as Fred Hubbell in the 2018 gubernatorial race. In terms of demographics and recent political history, it's the spitting image of the Senate district that flipped for Mike Zimmer. I'm not predicting a win, but there's no reason to believe that Democrats have any less chance of pulling it off here than in Zimmer's Senate race.
Did it change in redistricting?
It may have changed just a little. I'm not exactly sure but since it's in the far southeastern corner of Iowa, state lines on two sides of it prevent it from changing much during redistricting.
An interesting anecdote is that Iowa's 100th House district is home to Keokuk in the state's southeastern corner, which back in 2011, University of Iowa Professor Stephen Bloom famously described in The Atlantic as a "depressed, crime-infested slum town" and "one of the skuzziest cities I've ever been to, and that's saying something." It's the kind of place that was the perfect petri dish for cultural backlash and the Trump realignment.
Haven't most of the places a lot of the public consider "slum cities" remained Democratic? I'm thinking of places like Detroit, Cleveland, Baltimore, St. Louis and New Orleans, for example, at least by reputations that are probably dated and in any case grossly unfair.
The difference between Keokuk and those cities is race. Its union influence waning, the white working class voters of Lee County started acting more like white working class voters elsewhere in the country in the Trump era.
I think concurrent with that difference is population. Keokuk's population is 9900 as of 2020, and 9500 as of 2023. St Louis is 300k in 2020 and 280k in 2023. Cleveland 370k and 360k. Detroit 640k and 630k. All of Lee county, where Keokuk is, was 33k people in 2020.
That's a huge difference in population and will shape the way the place is developed. In all senses of sociologically, physically, and economically. Even if Keokuk had the same ethnic demographic breakdowns as any of those other cities it would vote differently. Of course, the population difference is itself a major factor in the demographic difference.
That sounds like it could make sense, but let's pursue it further. How is voting in rural Black-majority areas different from in Black-majority urban areas, and is it more similar to voting in Black-majority urban areas or white-majority rural areas?
I take your point, but there are some cities with heavily Democratic white voters, including D.C.
That's interesting. Keokuk was a hub for Jewish immigrants from Germany in the 19th century. My great-great grandfather married and lived in nearby Fairfield until moving back to Missouri. He is buried in Keokuk.
Very helpful reminders. Dems even won the actual district in 2018! https://www.ourcampaigns.com/RaceDetail.html?RaceID=848005
Ballotpedia shows that HD-100 used to be a smaller-sized district up north in Dubuque. Am I reading that wrong?
Always gotta be careful with district numbers because they often change during redistricting! The predecessor version of HD-100 was numbered HD-83. It shifted a bit geographically but is politically very similar.
Thanks, David. Very helpful. I now see the 2018 Democratic victory and relatively closer GOP wins in 2020 and 2022.
This should give Democrats a bit of hope in the IA-SEN race given Joni Ernst won re-election by a much smaller amount back in 2020 than in 2014 and that she's chair of the Senate DOGE Committee.
And Senator Ernst did the unthinkable: she voted to confirm Trump’s DUI hire as SecDef. Unforgivable!
538 Pres approval tracking poll is gone. Any suggestions on where else to follow it? (I don't use RCP).
Elliott says they have plans to rebuild it: https://bsky.app/profile/gelliottmorris.com/post/3lk4gq2trxc2b
In view of the latest Michigan polling, maybe Buttegieg isn't that weak and Rogers is just that strong? Why does Rogers have so much name-recognition?
Rogers held Slotkins house district for years and has run statewide before.
Didn’t he just run and almost win? Buttigieg has name recognition. So it’s not a surprise he’d get a higher number than the other Democrats polled. But that doesn’t mean he’d be a stronger GE candidate than them.
I think Buttigeig would be equally as strong as Stevens.
Really, the only way we outright blow the seat is if we somehow nominate either Rashida Tlaib or Shiri Thanedar.
That he’s a carpetbagger and married to a man will hurt him.
The latter won't cost him any votes he isn't already losing because he's a Democrat.
The former isn't as big an issue as people think it is. If carpetbagging was an issue in elections, Hillary Clinton never would have become a Senator.
Him being gay fits into the narrative that he’s not one of us and people will vote based on the overall narrative.
Hillary Clinton is Hillary Clinton, though. And she ran in an overwhelmingly blue state where everything seemed to get tee’d up for her.
HRC underperformed quite a but in her first election. Same kind if underperformance would cost demi the seat.
I disagree with every point you make here
New York has always been welcoming to carpetbaggers. Clinton, Bobby Kennedy, Ramsey Clark among others. Michigan is not New York.
I still find it interesting that the Clintons ended up going from being fixtures of Arkansas to being NYers later on. Bill Clinton being elected POTUS twice after serving as Governor of Arkansas and then Hillary Clinton ends up being elected twice as Senator of New York, including the first time when Clinton was still POTUS.
It's just a very interesting evolution. :)
Carpetbagging likely cost Scott Brown any chance he had of winning a senate seat in a republican wave year of 2014. If republicans had found an otherwise identical clone to him that had started their political career in NH it would have been much closer, close enough that Shaheen could have lost.
Oz, from New Jersey, clearly underperformed in the 2022 PA senate race. Republicans netted 52% of the US house vote in PA that year, while Oz lost to Fetterman by 5 points despite Fetterman's health becoming a major detriment in the final stretch of the campaign.
This isn't California you're talking about. It's by no means impossible for the Republican candidate to defeat an ordinary Democrat, depending on the political climate and who votes. That farshlugene state just voted for fucking Trump!
I wouldn’t though jump the gun and say by default Mike Rogers has a shot at winning in 2026 just like last year, at least not yet.
Rogers may have benefitted last year in part because Trump won MI by more than he did in 2016. If he runs next year, he may have to run a stronger campaign this time around assuming MI will be moving more to the left of Trump in the downballot races.
Then again, John James ran a credible Senate race against Debbie Stabenow back in 2018 when the MI GOP otherwise had a bad time at the midterms. Anything can happen.
He has a shot, but it's likely to be the Dem's race to win. There have been some close calls including last year, but the GOP hasn't won a Senate race in Michigan since 1994. All else equal, you wouldn't expect the streak to snap in a midterm with a highly polarizing and likely unpopular GOP president who needed to do unusually well among irregular voters.
That's a fair assessment. My main point though is that Mike Rogers won't be dealing with the same political environment as he did last year in his previous Senate run, which I think you're touching base on as well.
Sure, he may be leading in the first poll showing a matchup between him and Rep. Haley Stevens. However, it's likely that has to do with Stevens not being known well outside of MI-11 in the eyes of Michiganders statewide.
Buttigieg has near 100% name recognition with the democratic primary electorate. Stevens does not.
This far out, before the candidates have even started to get their campaign into gear, a lot of polling differentials is going to come down to name recognition. And that name recognition difference not only can change, but will change. Whether it changes enough or changes to other candidates' advantage is another matter. But the basic point is that the polls of Buttigieg for senate and Stevens for senate are not like-to-like polls at this stage of the game. This time next year they will be close enough to make the comparison worthwhile.
He hosted a show on CNN several years ago, IIRC.
Portugal’s minority government has lost a vote of confidence in parliament, forcing its resignation and bringing the EU country’s third general election in three years.
The exact vote count wasn’t immediately available, but the speaker of parliament, José Pedro Aguiar-Branco, said the centre-right government was defeated.
https://www.theguardian.com/world/2025/mar/11/portugal-faces-third-election-in-three-years-as-government-loses-confidence-vote?utm_source=dlvr.it&utm_medium=bluesky&CMP=bsky_gu
ROMANIAN ELECTIONS
The country’s Constitutional Court has barred the far-right candidate, Calin Georgescu, from participating in the upcoming May election. Georgescu’s "victory" last year was annulled after intelligence revealed that Russia had tried to manipulate things in his favor.
(This is much to the disappointment of JD Vance and other American extremists.)
https://www.bbc.com/news/articles/cj679nk6endo
This is how you save Democracy.
Almost A close one in IA big D over performance https://x.com/chaznuttycombe/status/1899636269489283564?s=61&t=5copDbz1aPl7ASsRCUclLg
Final result ~51R-48D, a 3 point loss. That's a 24 point overperformance from 2024.
I expected that first win in Iowa would be a fluke and this one would see some overperformance but less. While we fell short this is still a huge overperformance.
Ernst won by six points in 2020. Can we hope for a six point improvement in Iowa to put this on the table? I'm not there yet because special elections are a different kind of electorate, but I can see the pathway for IA-Sen being potentially competitive next year.
Would be interesting to see if we see Iowa shifting back to being more competitive. Not holding my breath on it but it would be great to see. Even if it's only for a few cycles.
That race was also in a 27.5 point Trump district whereas the one we flipped in January was a 21 point Trump district. Still very encouraging.
Idk, voters in special elections tend to be more educated, informed and less working class so Democrats win. We can only get a clearer picture in 2026 when Trump isn't on the ballot.
Race to the WH according to which, even Florida and Ohio may be competitive gives Iowa a safe R rating. If we see elections where democrats have won Iowa in the past, it was either due to legacy candidates over performing in rural white districts or extreme f ups by the Republican establishment in the state as well as by Bush.
Maybe Rob Sand can run for governor.
I think he will. But I’d rather him run for Senate.
Nice!
Win or lose, turnout definitely matters.
Not good numbers for Bass regarding her handling of the fires but lot of caveats here based on demographics. https://www.latimes.com/california/story/2025-03-11/la-me-fire-poll-bass-newsom
Democrat wins Minnesota House special election by 40. Up from the 30 point margin in November.
https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2025/03/11/us/elections/results-minnesota-state-house-district-40b-special.html