PA: We start the day with McCormick having a little over 24,000 vote lead. Nothing definitive on how many ballots are left to count. The AP and Decision Desk have called it. CNN, NBC, ABC and the NY Times have not.
If I recall correctly, all Pennsylvania counties were required to say how many ballots they had left to count at midnight on Election Night. It’s therefore quite stunning that we cannot get an official, straight, updated answer on how many ballots there still are to count. As a consequence, the PA Senate race has been shockingly untransparent. This chaos does not create the necessary confidence in a fair and orderly election.
And, yes, I am well aware that the issue of undervotes (blank choices for senate), which apparently is especially dramatic in Philadelphia, has an impact on the count between Casey and McCormick.
NBC shows Casey’s deficit as 23,550 with approx. 44,000 votes left to count. If both numbers are accurate, the Senator is simply not closing the gap fast enough.
So I thought it would be interesting to compare the 2024 results to the last time Republicans won the popular vote - 2004. The Republican margin is also quite similar between the two elections - their margin this year is less than 1% narrower than in 2004.
The state that has swung Democratic by the largest margin in that time is Utah, with a 24% Democratic swing. Next up is its neighbor Colorado, with a 16-point Democratic swing. On the other end, the state with the largest Republican swing is, unsurprisingly, West Virginia, with a 29-point Republican swing. Arkansas is second on that list with a 21-point swing.
Here's the full list (a few of the numbers may change in states that haven't finished counting yet):
There's always interesting comparisons to be made to elections other than the most recent. Just Texas alone, you could also compare to TX-Sen 2024, Gov 2022, TX-Sen 2018, etc. Different coalition shifts reveal themselves in each. But my mind was also going to 2004 Pres when I saw the way the PV was shaping up. Fascinating that GA moved 14 points to the left while SC was static. KS 9 points to the left while MO goes 11 points to the right. IN 2 points to the left while OH goes 9 points to the right. People are ready to forecast the next decade of election results off of 2024 and I just say, look to the past and how wrong everyone would have been. MT went from Bush +20 to McCain +3 to Trump +20. Who's to say where it will go in the future? Is AZ trending left or right? Tied in the 90's', to Bush +6 and +10, to McCain/Romney +8/9, Trump +3, Biden +1, Trump +5. Is FL hopeless now? Was MI hopeless for Republicans after Obama won it by 16 in 2008? On a long enough trendline, nothing goes as planned. FL and NH were two of the reddest states in the whole country in 1988. IA, WI, and WV were among the bluest. The blue trend in the Chicago suburbs was one of the most consistent of the past couple decades - reversed this year. In WI, Trump gained in Dane while slipping in Waukesha. No one in their right mind could have conceived four years ago of what ended up happening in NY/NJ last week. Who the hell knows what 2028 will hold?
What we really need is a database of pundit scorecards. Media pundits whose analyses and predictions are woefully wrong, time and again, should be given compulsory four-year sabbaticals, with a moratorium on publication and interviews.
SC should have had a slightly shift to the left as well, but as someone suspected (you or Mark?) the Black voter turnout suffered this year.
Overall you see the whole Southeast from Mason-Dixon Line down with quite large left shift. Likely results of Suburbanization and interstate/international migration.
Two odd balls FL and SC stand out. Both with aging and natural shrinking population, and much higher immigration rate to keep the population ballooning.
I'm not sure . . .I've been worried about the aging out of AA Boomers, as both the generational loyalty and attentiveness to politics among the younger generation just isn't there, at least to the level it is/was with the generations that experienced Jim Crow.
Still plenty of Harris voters who go "moderate" GOP downballot in places like Omaha. In more demographically diverse areas there were more Trump voters who went Dem downballot (or just blanked downballot), particularly against conservative Republicans who haven't distinguished themselves like Bacon.
Yeah that also sticks out a lot. 20 years ago rural NE was going 80%+ for Bush...not much changed now, except they've gone from also handily winning Douglas, Sarpy, and Lancaster counties to losing their combined vote (and they're now 55% of the state instead of 50% in 2004). IA on the other hand, only had a few comparably red counties, in the atypical northwest corner of the state in 2004, now that shit is everywhere. And we've only really gained in a few counties around Des Moines, held even in a couple other places, and fallen massively in the remaining ~60% of the state. There were a dozen rural Kerry +10 counties that Trump wins 2-1 now.
Substantively, this moment feels a lot like November 2004 also. Then, the grass roots helped revitalize the party by moving beyond the hacks, insiders and timid souls in Washington. The party needs that same type of energy today.
Hopefully, we also get an equivalent political catastrophe of Bush’s second term - even before the big economy crash, there was Katrina, Iraq War fallout, unpopular Social Security changes, not to mention Mark Foley….
I worry the catastrophes will be much worse this time; the collapse of the global liberal democratic order, using intelligence agencies/law enforcement to go after the opposition . . .I fear the darkest days of this administration will make the worst of W Bush or Reagan look like a summer picnic.
The consequences will be worse, but I'm not sure if voters will have as big of a backlash as they did to Bush's failures.
A failed government response to a major disaster, a quagmire of a war going nowhere, and a major economic shock are all things that break through to the general public. The generally disinterested public will still hear about those things and still be unhappy. Weak partisans are willing to change their vote in response to these kinds of events.
Abuse of power has, sadly, seemed to avoid that ability in recent years. Even Bush's abuses of power were more of a backseat, especially for general public discourse. Foreign policy failure in wars we are not actively fighting in will be met with a shrug by most, certainly so for more abstract failures like the continued trend towards authoritarianism globally.
Trump got whacked for his failure to respond to Covid, as that had a real impact on people. He probably would have won in 2020 without that fuckup. If Trump fucks up the economy (entirely possible with all the talk of tariffs), or we get something like another hurricane Sandy hitting a blue state and he doesn't help because of who the state voted for, or something of the like, that will break through. I'm not optimistic on abuse of FBI, CIA, or DOJ powers breaking through at all.
The other thing re: abuse of power is Trump is going to try to instigate extreme responses to justify harsher crackdowns, and I'm afraid the far left will be all too willing to comply. People forget a big reason the Civil Rights Movement was so sucessfull is it was INCREDIBLY disciplined in both tactics and messaging. But the social media age incentivizes outrage which begets extremist rhetoric into a vicious cycle.
Just imagine if this Third Gulf War (I’m counting Iraq’s war of aggression against Iran) had never happened – and instead all that money had been used on America’s healthcare system, education and infrastructure?
"can't gerrymander a statewide election". Jeff Jackson proved that is so. Sometimes gerrymandering backfires - Republicans may have picked up Jackson's seat, but he's now in a much more powerful job. If Nickel could win the Senate seat (though Tillis will be tougher to beat than Butt, as he has been very different as Senator than he was in the state House, while Butt hasn't changed from his extremism as a Congressman) it would mean forcing two Democrats into greater power.
Tillis has actually developed into one of the more moderate, or at least bipartisan and constructive, GOP senators. But his state's bluer, or less red, than those of most others in his caucus so he's a natural target. And his relative bipartisanship might spark a primary challenge from the right which would make a pickup--amidst a GOP presidential midterm--easier. (Mark Robinson? Can we dream?)
Tillis won re-election by a smaller margin back in 2020 vs. his original Senate election back in 2014 when he unseated Senator Kay Hagan so he's not exactly an entrenched incumbent.
We have him in 2026 followed by Ted Budd in 2028, which will be an open presidential race year that's the first since 2008 when there was no Democratic incumbent POTUS. It's going to be interesting to see how the next four years with Trump evolve for Democrats.
He's potentially vulnerable. It's possible that the GOP administration won't be especially unpopular, which could make this a very tough pickup especially if Vance is already the incumbent. I think it's more likely that Budd will be saddled with either Vance as an unpopular incumbent or Vance/whoever trying to succeed an unpopular Trump, but we can't assume that.
how? You know that Trump will double down every single time; show me one time where Trump didn't over play his hand? he'd be such an easy mark at a poker table, it'd be laughable
I was saying in Trump's first term he actually could've easily achieved the popularity/NY Times accolades he's always dreamed of by being more of an AMLO style populist and doing bills like the transportation deal Biden signed. But he's an idiot so he didn't and won't.
Does Dave Wasserman still have that state by state spreadsheet this year that updates vote totals as they roll in? And if so, could somebody please provide me a link?
The actual vote count (plus remaining ballots) – it would be terrific if this was included in The Downballot’s otherwise-excellent overview of House races.
Would love it if Ed Markey retired in 2026 aged 80. That would be 50 years of service as he entered Congress in 1976 before winning John Kerry's seat in the Senate in the 2013 special election.
Joe Kennedy III would be great and he might still be there had he not challenged him in 2020!! 💙🇺🇲
That's an important distinction, to be sure, and one that transcends age. But to your example, Sanders has lost his fastball compared to 2016 or even 2020, and he just re-upped for another six years. He's consistent with my point, I'm afraid.
Bernie Sanders is not the one tweeting. It's his staff. He has no business running until he's almost 90 and with an extremely popular Republican governor on deck.
His DNC speech was not up to his previous standard, and the clips I saw from the trail were okay but not great. The takes this week about Harris losing because of her campaign leaning into “identity politics” (what?) are phoned in from 2016. Maybe he’s a beast in committee work, but his public-facing work is flagging.
I think Vermont requires a same party appointment if a senator dies or resigns midterm? (Technically Bernie may not be a Democrat, but that's what it would probably mean--and if not then surely there's a progressive who could apply to fill a vacancy as an Independent.)
Phil Scott may be a personally popular governor, but probably can't win a US Senate seat in Vermont even if it were open. He can ask Larry Hogan, among others, how that usually works out...
Vermont has the governor appoint a replacement, with no rules on the party of the replacement senator. That appointee serves until a special election to be held within six months, except when a general election is less than six months away, in which case the special election is held concurrent with the general.
It's about 50-50 on if this would be catastrophic or merely bad, were it to come to pass. It's not hard to imagine us winning the 2028 presidential election and having a narrow 50-50 senate. That would be via our current 47, plus 3 of: NC (2026), ME (2026), WI (2028), and NC (2028), while holding all our other seats in those two cycles. If we had a senate vacancy in Vermont in 2029 or 2030, that would eliminate a full quarter of the legislative time available to the dem president before the midterms, and also stall all judicial and executive nominations.
Even if Scott appointed a truly moderate republican for those six months and then a dem won the special election, it would still fully blockade our governance for a sizable length of time.
Bernie's still sharp and energetic as a Senator. At the risk of going into the forbidden zone, though, he's aged out of being a credible presidential candidate.
I have two big problems with officials staying on well past their 80s.
The first is that even if they're doing perfectly fine now, at their ages they can decline unexpectedly and quickly. The unexpectedly part will be exacerbated from the public perception point of view because most of them — quite understandably from a human perspective — will do their best to hide the decline earlier on, when it is easiest to keep hidden. Either mentally, physically, or both. Feinstein was doing fine up until somewhere around her last term. Kennedy, McCain, Lautenberg, Inouye, Byrd all died in office (as did Feinstein).
That decline or even them dying can be a major headache and could unexpectedly change the balance of power in the senate. It's because of McCain's passing that Kelly won his senate seat in Arizona, without which Biden would have not had a dem senate and would have effectively been a lame duck from day one. It's because of Kennedy's passing that Obama's legislative successes came to a halt after only a year.
Sanders, and Markey, Durbin, etc. if they seek another term, are all playing with fire — and entirely unnecessarily.
The second reason is simply that we have let our promotion-pipeline stagnate. Too many of our candidates are running for new offices late in life. If not for some of our 2018 gubernatorial wins we'd have a much more limited bench for future presidential and VP candidates. This doesn't just apply to senators, although that is where the worst of it is. If our governor of Maine was a decade younger we'd have an obvious and strong candidate to challenge Collins in 2026. If our governor of Wisconsin was a decade younger we'd have the same for challenging Johnson in the same cycle. It's a problem that filters all the way down: senators staying on longer means members of the house stay around longer because there's no promotions available for them, which means more local office holders stay on longer.
Very well-reasoned post and while I've reflexively become defensive of the "too old" critiques because I think the rhetoric around Biden got completely detached from reality, I think this is generally spot on-surprise quick declines and the stalling of the pipeline are fair reasons to impose a general "cut-off" date around 80.
The Downballot’s tracker currently has the House at 218–210, with seven uncalled races. Any predictions for how many of those Democrats will win, and which?
PS. Any links to live counts for those seven races?
Does this mean you’re counting Costa, Kaptur and Golden as victors? (I would agree.) While considering Bohannan’s recount against Miller-Meeks to be an exercise in futility and thus a loss?
Before the recount, Jared Golden was essentially at 50%. The Ranked Choice Tabulation is ongoing and will supposedly be completed today. We’ll see if that expectation is met. Maine is not revealing partial results until the RCV tabulation is complete. The consensus is that Theriault’s chances are literally nil.
The CA-13 election results are here with 85% in. Adam Gray trails Rep. John Duarte by 0.05% points, which in vote count means he's down 1,764 votes.
I'd say Gray still has a shot at tightening the race even more. Winning it may be possible but it's still going to take a bit more time for more votes to come in.
So Ohio went from R+4 in 2020 to R+10ish in 2024 on the POTUS line. Not as bad a reversion as Texas, but like the Lone Star State the Republican state legislature and government keeps stepping into scandals, and voters are rewarding them by becoming even more Republican. Doesn't instill confidence there.
Gilchrist has never won an election before on his own strength, and the LG hasnt been a stepping stone to be a nominee in a minute. I'm kinda skeptical he could pull it off, especially vs Duggan or Benson
As a Detroit resident I can tell you the respect for Duggan runs deep as he has brought the city back from the brink. But his statewide appeal may be a little limited. There is a huge undercurrent thirst here for an AA statewide official in a top spot and so I think if Gilcrest wants it and doesn't get it it may have a backlash against Peters as well who frankly no one even talks about or knows too well. If James runs for either Senate or Gov and Dems have no AA alternative its going to be an issue. I'm sure of it.
I would agree. There’s been a blue shift on the late-counted ballots throughout CA, but it seems especially noticeable in CA-45. I wonder if it’s because of all the corruption stuff in OC that was mentioned here (which heavily involved Steel) coming out in October causing the late votes to shift to Tran?
The easiest place to follow CA election results is on sos.ca.gov , the website for the Sec. of State's office. Sometimes the counties update their numbers faster that the state. In Tran's race you would want to look at both lavote.gov and also ocvote.gov because the district has voters in both counties, though CA-45 is mostly in OC. Tran leads L.A Co. by 18.7K to 14.6K for Steel. Steel leads OC by about 137.4K to 133K. That combines to a 236 vote margin currently for Steel. The next question is how many votes are left to count and where they come from. That gets harder to figure. There are about 100K uncounted votes in all of L.A. left, but most of those will not be in this district. Orange has about 75K left to count. These figures come from the Unprocessed Ballots Status page on the SoS site.
In CA-13 there are five counties that have voters in the district. Duarte is leading in Fresno and Madera, while Gray is ahead in Merced, San Joaquin and Stanislaus. Duarte is up districtwide by 1764 votes. This one was very close two years ago and is again this year. We just have to wait for the rest of the votes to be counted. The counties usually update around 5PM but not all of them do it every day.
Lake County is the slowest in California, they have a habit of not doing crap from Election Night all the way to just before certification and then dumping all of their outstanding votes.
Alison Riggs currently down 3,650 in the NC Supreme Court race but 25,000 still outstanding with Wake set to dump a big amount today. Chatham, Buncombe and Forsyth counties may be enough to send her over the top.
"While there are still 22 counties left to finish their final canvass, only 12 have votes left. Republican Jefferson Griffin still leads incumbent Democrat Allison Riggs by 3,532 votes in the race for the NC Supreme Court, but Wake and Guilford appear to be waiting to make a grand entrance at the very end.
This should be wrapped up in the next two hours. Updating with every drop now."
He is right about one thing. We need to go on a visual, on-screen offense. We need a counter-narrative that beats the trash they spew and we have to be just as brazen as the right wing is in shouting it from the mountain tops. If a shadow cabinet is able to create that contrast (that is so obvious to us) and breakthrough to voters, I’m all for it
imo Americans are not paying as close attention as the rest of the world is actually watching the Americans (having the strongest military in the history of earth kinda makes folks somewhat complacent imo)
I’ve heard others propose this. It’s a great idea – provided Democrats choose their most articulate and knowledgeable people for these roles. They need to make themselves available for interviews and hold frequent press conferences to impact the national narrative.
President Biden was a huge success in getting stuff done, imho the most consequential president since LBJ. Tragically, his administration neglected the critical task of continually forming the news narrative.
"Tragically, his administration neglected the critical task of continually forming the news narrative."
I just don't agree with this-the media flat out didn't want to cover his accomplishments . . .the POTUS without a state-run media network can't force the media to cover things if they opt not to.
Do I mostly fault the infotainment industry (aka mainstream news media), as well as the right-wing propagandist media? Do I fault them more than I fault Biden? Absolutely!
Of course it’s unfair. If President Biden had walked on water, the headline in The New York Times would probably be:
. "Biden Afraid of Water – Doesn’t Know How to Swim"
There was never a level playing field – but it is what it is. You have to play on the field that is given. And I’m sorry, but the Biden Administration could and should have done that more noisily and far more effectively.
Fine by me. "The media" still has to cover it and people still have to care.. Most Harris and Walz rallies were indeed covered. Given the election results though, they didn't. You can cry "what about the bully pulpit" all you want. It doesn't matter of people don't tune in. If people don't care.
The media's barely restrained hostility towards us is a huge issue.
I feel like Harris, Biden, HRC, and Obama all did the things that traditionally should be enough to get headlines and media attention. That failed, increasingly so as we get closer to the present (mostly). The problem isn't so much in lack of effort but in lack of adjusting in the face of that lack of success.
Harris started to do more work on this, she went onto Fox, she went to more non-traditional media outlets. It didn't do enough for her but she certainly tried more of something new.
If the answer was easy and obvious it would have been solved by now, but I think part of the answer is something democrats are generally uncomfortable with: we need to adopt a media stance similar to republicans. Relentlessly on message, never admitting fault and never giving credit, no matter how obvious it is that credit is due or we have some fault. Take an adversarial stance with media outlets, call them out for being republican biased, call out anchors on air for their bullshit. Attacking a "liberal media" didn't bear fruit for republicans right away, but it slowly built up a sense of "forced neutrality" in media outlets that has been substantially to the advantage of conservatism.
Bring up the message we want every time there's an event. Force it to tie into the event. Biden has had some of the lowest unemployment in our history: he should have talked about it every chance he got, no matter what. People truly do start to believe what they hear, if they hear it enough times. Take advantage of that psychology.
I agree that we should 'work the refs' and always call them on their BS. I don't agree with taking an adversarial stance as the default. This looks whiny when Republicans do it, and only impresses people who they already have. It would look equally whiny if we started doing it. The most important thing is just to meet the audience where they are, even if it means going to outlets that aren't generally friendly to us.
Working the refs and calling them out on their BS is more or less how I would define an adversarial stance. Think we might more or less be on the same page, with me being a bit more aggressive on it but not as much more as initially assumed.
No. He completely failed to grab the spotlight. Other presidents have gone over the media’s heads through Oval Office speeches, full blown prime time press conferences and take to the stump to shape and mold public opinion.
"If Dems in NV can't figure out the Clark electoral math that eluded them in Gov. Joe Lombardo's win in 2022 and Trump's in 2024, then they could lose statewide races (6 of 'em!) in 2026, too. Clark has two-thirds of the vote and has been reliable since 2008 for Dems. No more."
I've been waiting for more visualized data to be available before I really look into this, but I got the distinct impression that some of our largest declines this year was in urban areas. That would make Clark's shift an unsurprising one, although Clark also contains all of the suburban Las Vegas area as well.
If this is correct, it would give us a direct pathway to improvement: don't ignore urban areas, with the understanding that much like rural areas, changing the win/lose of the precincts might not happen but going from 70-30 to 80-20 (or vice versa) does matter.
Exactly correct; study the precinct level maps and plan accordingly (Masto won a razor thin margin race and Rosen arguably won an even more difficult race, plus the congressional races were basically not contested)
Well, he and the Republicans may do a lot of the work of changing public opinion, but it won't do us much good without making the effort to inform and turn out voters.
Even if you not unreasonably assume that Democrats and non-right leaning independents will be eager to vote to get rid of the GOP, it takes a lot of work to get them to the polls and make it happen, which has the effect of turning out a possible narrow victory into a potential "wave" or blowout. We can't expect that to happen if we just let "the rest take care of itself", even if polls and other indicators look favourable.
I actually think that the masto\rosen races prove that the Reid machine (culinary union) did fine in a bad cycle (I'd argue that sisolak lost a razor thin margin race due to only covid; and that was in a Democratic midterm)
I suspect that Trump had a unique skill at turning out low propensity low education voters who will not turn out for anyone else. We saw that the last two midterms when his base failed to turn out. I also suspect that the GOP establishment will try to take the party back in 2028 and this will split the party. This may happen before Trump leaves office because he will be a lame duck who is over 80 and he will in all likelihood be a political liability by then. Finally, if Trump goes through with his plans for massive tariffs and mass deportations, I don't know how this won't hurt the economy. At the end of the day, James Carville was right when he said "It's the economy stupid" to Bill Clinton.
I wish I shared your optimism, but right now there is zero indication that the GOP has any desire or incentive to go back to the center, instead of just further right. Don't let the very muted grumbling from a few Senators make you think otherwise.
PA: We start the day with McCormick having a little over 24,000 vote lead. Nothing definitive on how many ballots are left to count. The AP and Decision Desk have called it. CNN, NBC, ABC and the NY Times have not.
If I recall correctly, all Pennsylvania counties were required to say how many ballots they had left to count at midnight on Election Night. It’s therefore quite stunning that we cannot get an official, straight, updated answer on how many ballots there still are to count. As a consequence, the PA Senate race has been shockingly untransparent. This chaos does not create the necessary confidence in a fair and orderly election.
And, yes, I am well aware that the issue of undervotes (blank choices for senate), which apparently is especially dramatic in Philadelphia, has an impact on the count between Casey and McCormick.
It’s also quite strange how NBC and Decision Desk HQ consistently have different vote totals for each candidate.
https://www.nbcnews.com/politics/2024-elections/pennsylvania-senate-results#senate-results
https://decisiondeskhq.com/results/2024/General/races/pennsylvania-us-senate-all-parties-general-election/
Anyone have links to better live counts?
Granted undervotes seem to have saved our bacon in WI/MI/NV, so double-edged sword there
NBC shows Casey’s deficit as 23,550 with approx. 44,000 votes left to count. If both numbers are accurate, the Senator is simply not closing the gap fast enough.
Unless they're all from Philadelphia, if that's the right number, he won't be able to overcome that deficit.
CNN is showing deficit as 23,499
You all are doing awesome work. Learning more than I would ever have imagined about the country’s politics in a few short weeks.
So I thought it would be interesting to compare the 2024 results to the last time Republicans won the popular vote - 2004. The Republican margin is also quite similar between the two elections - their margin this year is less than 1% narrower than in 2004.
The state that has swung Democratic by the largest margin in that time is Utah, with a 24% Democratic swing. Next up is its neighbor Colorado, with a 16-point Democratic swing. On the other end, the state with the largest Republican swing is, unsurprisingly, West Virginia, with a 29-point Republican swing. Arkansas is second on that list with a 21-point swing.
Here's the full list (a few of the numbers may change in states that haven't finished counting yet):
UT: 24% Democratic swing
CO: 15.7%
GA: 14.4%
HI: 14.4%
VA: 14.1%
MD: 13.8%
NE: 12.3%
AK: 11.4%
VT: 11.4%
WA: 11.4%
CA: 10.5% (this will probably go up a little bit)
OR: 9.6%
KS: 9.2%
NC: 9.1%
TX: 9.0%
DE: 7.1%
NM: 6.7%
AZ: 4.9%
CT: 4.1%
DC: 3.9%
IN: 1.7%
ID: 1.6%
NH: 1.4%
MN: 0.8%
MT: 0.6%
IL: 0.3% Republican swing
MA: 0.4%
NV: 0.5%
SC: 0.8%
NJ: 1.1%
WI: 1.3%
ME: 2.2%
OK: 3.1%
MS: 4.2%
PA: 4.4%
MI: 4.8%
AL: 4.9%
WY: 6.0%
NY: 6.7%
RI: 7.2%
LA: 7.5%
SD: 7.7%
FL: 8.1%
ND: 9.1%
OH: 9.2%
KY: 10.8 %
MO: 11.2%
IA: 12.5%
TN: 15.5%
AR: 20.9%
WV: 29.0%
Bush won by 2.5. Right now the margin in this election is 1.9, and likely to drop to at least 1.5.
How is Nevada?
Just added Nevada. 0.5% swing to the right.
There's always interesting comparisons to be made to elections other than the most recent. Just Texas alone, you could also compare to TX-Sen 2024, Gov 2022, TX-Sen 2018, etc. Different coalition shifts reveal themselves in each. But my mind was also going to 2004 Pres when I saw the way the PV was shaping up. Fascinating that GA moved 14 points to the left while SC was static. KS 9 points to the left while MO goes 11 points to the right. IN 2 points to the left while OH goes 9 points to the right. People are ready to forecast the next decade of election results off of 2024 and I just say, look to the past and how wrong everyone would have been. MT went from Bush +20 to McCain +3 to Trump +20. Who's to say where it will go in the future? Is AZ trending left or right? Tied in the 90's', to Bush +6 and +10, to McCain/Romney +8/9, Trump +3, Biden +1, Trump +5. Is FL hopeless now? Was MI hopeless for Republicans after Obama won it by 16 in 2008? On a long enough trendline, nothing goes as planned. FL and NH were two of the reddest states in the whole country in 1988. IA, WI, and WV were among the bluest. The blue trend in the Chicago suburbs was one of the most consistent of the past couple decades - reversed this year. In WI, Trump gained in Dane while slipping in Waukesha. No one in their right mind could have conceived four years ago of what ended up happening in NY/NJ last week. Who the hell knows what 2028 will hold?
What we really need is a database of pundit scorecards. Media pundits whose analyses and predictions are woefully wrong, time and again, should be given compulsory four-year sabbaticals, with a moratorium on publication and interviews.
SC should have had a slightly shift to the left as well, but as someone suspected (you or Mark?) the Black voter turnout suffered this year.
Overall you see the whole Southeast from Mason-Dixon Line down with quite large left shift. Likely results of Suburbanization and interstate/international migration.
Two odd balls FL and SC stand out. Both with aging and natural shrinking population, and much higher immigration rate to keep the population ballooning.
imo the black voter turnout issue will self correct (I am betting Trump will be helpful here)
I'm not sure . . .I've been worried about the aging out of AA Boomers, as both the generational loyalty and attentiveness to politics among the younger generation just isn't there, at least to the level it is/was with the generations that experienced Jim Crow.
if Trump tanks the economy, do you really think any of that matters?🤔
Also curious that NE has shifted 12.3 points left and IA 12.5 points right. Culturally they're pretty similar.
And yet, given the Blue lean of NE-02, I was surprised that Tony Vargas failed to defeat Don Bacon.
Same here, especially since the NRCC seemed to think Bacon was DOA for much of the year
Still plenty of Harris voters who go "moderate" GOP downballot in places like Omaha. In more demographically diverse areas there were more Trump voters who went Dem downballot (or just blanked downballot), particularly against conservative Republicans who haven't distinguished themselves like Bacon.
Bingo
Bacon being milquetoast was his best feature
Yeah that also sticks out a lot. 20 years ago rural NE was going 80%+ for Bush...not much changed now, except they've gone from also handily winning Douglas, Sarpy, and Lancaster counties to losing their combined vote (and they're now 55% of the state instead of 50% in 2004). IA on the other hand, only had a few comparably red counties, in the atypical northwest corner of the state in 2004, now that shit is everywhere. And we've only really gained in a few counties around Des Moines, held even in a couple other places, and fallen massively in the remaining ~60% of the state. There were a dozen rural Kerry +10 counties that Trump wins 2-1 now.
Substantively, this moment feels a lot like November 2004 also. Then, the grass roots helped revitalize the party by moving beyond the hacks, insiders and timid souls in Washington. The party needs that same type of energy today.
Hopefully, we also get an equivalent political catastrophe of Bush’s second term - even before the big economy crash, there was Katrina, Iraq War fallout, unpopular Social Security changes, not to mention Mark Foley….
I worry the catastrophes will be much worse this time; the collapse of the global liberal democratic order, using intelligence agencies/law enforcement to go after the opposition . . .I fear the darkest days of this administration will make the worst of W Bush or Reagan look like a summer picnic.
The consequences will be worse, but I'm not sure if voters will have as big of a backlash as they did to Bush's failures.
A failed government response to a major disaster, a quagmire of a war going nowhere, and a major economic shock are all things that break through to the general public. The generally disinterested public will still hear about those things and still be unhappy. Weak partisans are willing to change their vote in response to these kinds of events.
Abuse of power has, sadly, seemed to avoid that ability in recent years. Even Bush's abuses of power were more of a backseat, especially for general public discourse. Foreign policy failure in wars we are not actively fighting in will be met with a shrug by most, certainly so for more abstract failures like the continued trend towards authoritarianism globally.
Trump got whacked for his failure to respond to Covid, as that had a real impact on people. He probably would have won in 2020 without that fuckup. If Trump fucks up the economy (entirely possible with all the talk of tariffs), or we get something like another hurricane Sandy hitting a blue state and he doesn't help because of who the state voted for, or something of the like, that will break through. I'm not optimistic on abuse of FBI, CIA, or DOJ powers breaking through at all.
The other thing re: abuse of power is Trump is going to try to instigate extreme responses to justify harsher crackdowns, and I'm afraid the far left will be all too willing to comply. People forget a big reason the Civil Rights Movement was so sucessfull is it was INCREDIBLY disciplined in both tactics and messaging. But the social media age incentivizes outrage which begets extremist rhetoric into a vicious cycle.
Not to diminish those things but the biggest motivator was a bad economy and the Iraq war.
Republicans lost both houses of congress long before the economy collapsed.
Just imagine if this Third Gulf War (I’m counting Iraq’s war of aggression against Iran) had never happened – and instead all that money had been used on America’s healthcare system, education and infrastructure?
It wouldnt have been though. We just would have run lower deficits.
Nice work👍
"can't gerrymander a statewide election". Jeff Jackson proved that is so. Sometimes gerrymandering backfires - Republicans may have picked up Jackson's seat, but he's now in a much more powerful job. If Nickel could win the Senate seat (though Tillis will be tougher to beat than Butt, as he has been very different as Senator than he was in the state House, while Butt hasn't changed from his extremism as a Congressman) it would mean forcing two Democrats into greater power.
Butt? Did you mean Ted Budd?
Tillis has actually developed into one of the more moderate, or at least bipartisan and constructive, GOP senators. But his state's bluer, or less red, than those of most others in his caucus so he's a natural target. And his relative bipartisanship might spark a primary challenge from the right which would make a pickup--amidst a GOP presidential midterm--easier. (Mark Robinson? Can we dream?)
Whoops! Typo!
Hard to believe the driver of the infamous "bathroom bill" actually has become reasonable and constructive in the Senate.
At least relatively speaking. Which isn't a particularly high bar to clear.
Crazy days indeed
Tillis won re-election by a smaller margin back in 2020 vs. his original Senate election back in 2014 when he unseated Senator Kay Hagan so he's not exactly an entrenched incumbent.
We have him in 2026 followed by Ted Budd in 2028, which will be an open presidential race year that's the first since 2008 when there was no Democratic incumbent POTUS. It's going to be interesting to see how the next four years with Trump evolve for Democrats.
Budd is DOA imo in '28
He's potentially vulnerable. It's possible that the GOP administration won't be especially unpopular, which could make this a very tough pickup especially if Vance is already the incumbent. I think it's more likely that Budd will be saddled with either Vance as an unpopular incumbent or Vance/whoever trying to succeed an unpopular Trump, but we can't assume that.
how? You know that Trump will double down every single time; show me one time where Trump didn't over play his hand? he'd be such an easy mark at a poker table, it'd be laughable
I was saying in Trump's first term he actually could've easily achieved the popularity/NY Times accolades he's always dreamed of by being more of an AMLO style populist and doing bills like the transportation deal Biden signed. But he's an idiot so he didn't and won't.
He could be and also won election to the Senate in 2022 by just 3.2% points.
Butt sounds good🙃
I want Cooper
Does Dave Wasserman still have that state by state spreadsheet this year that updates vote totals as they roll in? And if so, could somebody please provide me a link?
The map version is on Cook website. The put the downloadable spreadsheet behind the paywall.
Damn. New development as that spreadsheet was always available without subscription in previous cycles.
The actual vote count (plus remaining ballots) – it would be terrific if this was included in The Downballot’s otherwise-excellent overview of House races.
Markey has no business running at 80. I know he's far from the only one, but the madness needs to stop.
Would love it if Ed Markey retired in 2026 aged 80. That would be 50 years of service as he entered Congress in 1976 before winning John Kerry's seat in the Senate in the 2013 special election.
Joe Kennedy III would be great and he might still be there had he not challenged him in 2020!! 💙🇺🇲
Don't have a problem with it. Age is not the problem. Lack of fight is. Just contrast Sanders and Durbin.
That's an important distinction, to be sure, and one that transcends age. But to your example, Sanders has lost his fastball compared to 2016 or even 2020, and he just re-upped for another six years. He's consistent with my point, I'm afraid.
I follow him and his fastball is still as strong as ever.
Bernie Sanders is not the one tweeting. It's his staff. He has no business running until he's almost 90 and with an extremely popular Republican governor on deck.
Is he the one speaking? Or is there a ventriloquist?
His DNC speech was not up to his previous standard, and the clips I saw from the trail were okay but not great. The takes this week about Harris losing because of her campaign leaning into “identity politics” (what?) are phoned in from 2016. Maybe he’s a beast in committee work, but his public-facing work is flagging.
I think Vermont requires a same party appointment if a senator dies or resigns midterm? (Technically Bernie may not be a Democrat, but that's what it would probably mean--and if not then surely there's a progressive who could apply to fill a vacancy as an Independent.)
Phil Scott may be a personally popular governor, but probably can't win a US Senate seat in Vermont even if it were open. He can ask Larry Hogan, among others, how that usually works out...
Vermont has the governor appoint a replacement, with no rules on the party of the replacement senator. That appointee serves until a special election to be held within six months, except when a general election is less than six months away, in which case the special election is held concurrent with the general.
See here: https://crsreports.congress.gov/product/pdf/IF/IF11907
It's about 50-50 on if this would be catastrophic or merely bad, were it to come to pass. It's not hard to imagine us winning the 2028 presidential election and having a narrow 50-50 senate. That would be via our current 47, plus 3 of: NC (2026), ME (2026), WI (2028), and NC (2028), while holding all our other seats in those two cycles. If we had a senate vacancy in Vermont in 2029 or 2030, that would eliminate a full quarter of the legislative time available to the dem president before the midterms, and also stall all judicial and executive nominations.
Even if Scott appointed a truly moderate republican for those six months and then a dem won the special election, it would still fully blockade our governance for a sizable length of time.
VT is a dark blue state and Bernie Sanders still has energy like he used to.
That said, Sanders will likely be replaced by a Democrat if he ends up retiring at some point.
Exactly
Bernie's still sharp and energetic as a Senator. At the risk of going into the forbidden zone, though, he's aged out of being a credible presidential candidate.
I have two big problems with officials staying on well past their 80s.
The first is that even if they're doing perfectly fine now, at their ages they can decline unexpectedly and quickly. The unexpectedly part will be exacerbated from the public perception point of view because most of them — quite understandably from a human perspective — will do their best to hide the decline earlier on, when it is easiest to keep hidden. Either mentally, physically, or both. Feinstein was doing fine up until somewhere around her last term. Kennedy, McCain, Lautenberg, Inouye, Byrd all died in office (as did Feinstein).
That decline or even them dying can be a major headache and could unexpectedly change the balance of power in the senate. It's because of McCain's passing that Kelly won his senate seat in Arizona, without which Biden would have not had a dem senate and would have effectively been a lame duck from day one. It's because of Kennedy's passing that Obama's legislative successes came to a halt after only a year.
Sanders, and Markey, Durbin, etc. if they seek another term, are all playing with fire — and entirely unnecessarily.
The second reason is simply that we have let our promotion-pipeline stagnate. Too many of our candidates are running for new offices late in life. If not for some of our 2018 gubernatorial wins we'd have a much more limited bench for future presidential and VP candidates. This doesn't just apply to senators, although that is where the worst of it is. If our governor of Maine was a decade younger we'd have an obvious and strong candidate to challenge Collins in 2026. If our governor of Wisconsin was a decade younger we'd have the same for challenging Johnson in the same cycle. It's a problem that filters all the way down: senators staying on longer means members of the house stay around longer because there's no promotions available for them, which means more local office holders stay on longer.
Very well-reasoned post and while I've reflexively become defensive of the "too old" critiques because I think the rhetoric around Biden got completely detached from reality, I think this is generally spot on-surprise quick declines and the stalling of the pipeline are fair reasons to impose a general "cut-off" date around 80.
I only say that Markey appears to not only be popular (which makes his seat Safe D)but he apparently is doing his job
why? Has Markey not been doing his job? Strong disagree
In January West Virginia will have 4 different governors in 10 days!
On Jan 3 Gov Jim Justice (R) will leave office to be worn in as a US Senator.
Current LG/Senate President Craig Blair (R), who lost re-election, will be governor from Jan 3-8.
The winner of GOP caucus race between Sens. Tom Takubo, Randy Smith & Eric Tarr will replace Blair as Senate President/Acting Governor from Jan 8-13.
Newly elected #WVGov Patrick Morrisey (R) then gets sworn in on Jan 13.
I would like to see a comparison of their Gubernatorial To-Do Lists.
Would he hold out his Senate sworn-in and serving as governor till the end of his term, like Rick Scott did?
That’s some early 2000s New Jersey action!
All horrible governors
Lmao😂
The Downballot’s tracker currently has the House at 218–210, with seven uncalled races. Any predictions for how many of those Democrats will win, and which?
PS. Any links to live counts for those seven races?
https://www.the-downballot.com/p/the-downballots-live-results-tracker
(Table view gives margins etc.)
They'll win at least 3 and at most 6.
In reality, I think we're sitting at 219-213, with Alaska, CA 13 and CA 45 to be determined.
Does this mean you’re counting Costa, Kaptur and Golden as victors? (I would agree.) While considering Bohannan’s recount against Miller-Meeks to be an exercise in futility and thus a loss?
Yes.
I'd be happy with 4 or above
What about ME-02 with Golden and the whole ranked choice voting thing? I feel good about his chances but would love clarity on his race.
Everyone appears to think he has it won.
Before the recount, Jared Golden was essentially at 50%. The Ranked Choice Tabulation is ongoing and will supposedly be completed today. We’ll see if that expectation is met. Maine is not revealing partial results until the RCV tabulation is complete. The consensus is that Theriault’s chances are literally nil.
I think this is accurate. I suspect we win CA45 and lose the other two, but each of those races could go either way...
The CA-13 election results are here with 85% in. Adam Gray trails Rep. John Duarte by 0.05% points, which in vote count means he's down 1,764 votes.
I'd say Gray still has a shot at tightening the race even more. Winning it may be possible but it's still going to take a bit more time for more votes to come in.
https://www.nbcnews.com/politics/2024-elections/california-us-house-district-13-results
A Tim Ryan for Governor, Sherrod Brown for senator, ticket in 2026 would be a great combo.
So Ohio went from R+4 in 2020 to R+10ish in 2024 on the POTUS line. Not as bad a reversion as Texas, but like the Lone Star State the Republican state legislature and government keeps stepping into scandals, and voters are rewarding them by becoming even more Republican. Doesn't instill confidence there.
Would require strong tailwinds, but gives us a puncher's chance. And we know they'll fight.
And Trump will help us(if we let him)
Gilchrist has never won an election before on his own strength, and the LG hasnt been a stepping stone to be a nominee in a minute. I'm kinda skeptical he could pull it off, especially vs Duggan or Benson
I think Benson has the leg up in Michigan, though Duggan’s “I brought Detroit back from the brink” positioning will likely serve him very well
As a Detroit resident I can tell you the respect for Duggan runs deep as he has brought the city back from the brink. But his statewide appeal may be a little limited. There is a huge undercurrent thirst here for an AA statewide official in a top spot and so I think if Gilcrest wants it and doesn't get it it may have a backlash against Peters as well who frankly no one even talks about or knows too well. If James runs for either Senate or Gov and Dems have no AA alternative its going to be an issue. I'm sure of it.
disagree, Trump will provide the swing for us
Especially if they win a Super Bowl (I'm not joking)
CA-45 - Tran’s deficit is now down to 236 votes.
Any update on Adam Gray vs Duarte in CA-13? Number of votes remaining?
Duarte is still up by 1,764 votes. Heading to a photo finish either way.
I suspect that Tran is the favorite in his race but this one is a toss up.
I would agree. There’s been a blue shift on the late-counted ballots throughout CA, but it seems especially noticeable in CA-45. I wonder if it’s because of all the corruption stuff in OC that was mentioned here (which heavily involved Steel) coming out in October causing the late votes to shift to Tran?
Is there a website that shows a reliable live count for all three uncalled California House races?
Not sure what you mean by live count, but these two sites are not paywalled.
https://www.nbcnews.com/politics/2024-elections/house-results#results
https://decisiondeskhq.com/results/2024/General/US-House/
And there's the CA Secretary of State website.
https://electionresults.sos.ca.gov/contests/district/us-rep
Thank you.
The easiest place to follow CA election results is on sos.ca.gov , the website for the Sec. of State's office. Sometimes the counties update their numbers faster that the state. In Tran's race you would want to look at both lavote.gov and also ocvote.gov because the district has voters in both counties, though CA-45 is mostly in OC. Tran leads L.A Co. by 18.7K to 14.6K for Steel. Steel leads OC by about 137.4K to 133K. That combines to a 236 vote margin currently for Steel. The next question is how many votes are left to count and where they come from. That gets harder to figure. There are about 100K uncounted votes in all of L.A. left, but most of those will not be in this district. Orange has about 75K left to count. These figures come from the Unprocessed Ballots Status page on the SoS site.
In CA-13 there are five counties that have voters in the district. Duarte is leading in Fresno and Madera, while Gray is ahead in Merced, San Joaquin and Stanislaus. Duarte is up districtwide by 1764 votes. This one was very close two years ago and is again this year. We just have to wait for the rest of the votes to be counted. The counties usually update around 5PM but not all of them do it every day.
That’s very helpful, thank you! I’ve read that Merced County is setting a record as the slowest vote-counter in California.
Gray is ahead in Merced but only 50.5% to 49.5%. San Joaquin and Stanislaus are where he is over 53%. We want more votes from there!
Lake County is the slowest in California, they have a habit of not doing crap from Election Night all the way to just before certification and then dumping all of their outstanding votes.
Alison Riggs currently down 3,650 in the NC Supreme Court race but 25,000 still outstanding with Wake set to dump a big amount today. Chatham, Buncombe and Forsyth counties may be enough to send her over the top.
https://x.com/MichaelPruser/status/1857432050686431343?t=KbiQb7lwOzLsRiJv_eHgZg&s=19
Here is where one can follow along. https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1M8k8LlwsRsa_qiH8QtMOBgwlRCuC3vSt/edit?gid=2107745901#gid=2107745901
Further reduced to 3233.
3,188. I'm getting excited. Holding this seat is a big deal.
Once again showing that this election was not anything close to the Bulls--t Red Wave
"While there are still 22 counties left to finish their final canvass, only 12 have votes left. Republican Jefferson Griffin still leads incumbent Democrat Allison Riggs by 3,532 votes in the race for the NC Supreme Court, but Wake and Guilford appear to be waiting to make a grand entrance at the very end.
This should be wrapped up in the next two hours. Updating with every drop now."
. – Michael Pruser
Great idea from Wiley Nickel, and one that is long overdue.:
https://www.fox5dc.com/news/what-is-shadow-cabinet-united-states
Of course, since it involves some out-of-the box creativity, and possibly risk, I don't expect the Democratic leadership to actually do it.
He is right about one thing. We need to go on a visual, on-screen offense. We need a counter-narrative that beats the trash they spew and we have to be just as brazen as the right wing is in shouting it from the mountain tops. If a shadow cabinet is able to create that contrast (that is so obvious to us) and breakthrough to voters, I’m all for it
imo Americans are not paying as close attention as the rest of the world is actually watching the Americans (having the strongest military in the history of earth kinda makes folks somewhat complacent imo)
Yes to a Shadow Cabinet!
I’ve heard others propose this. It’s a great idea – provided Democrats choose their most articulate and knowledgeable people for these roles. They need to make themselves available for interviews and hold frequent press conferences to impact the national narrative.
President Biden was a huge success in getting stuff done, imho the most consequential president since LBJ. Tragically, his administration neglected the critical task of continually forming the news narrative.
"Tragically, his administration neglected the critical task of continually forming the news narrative."
I just don't agree with this-the media flat out didn't want to cover his accomplishments . . .the POTUS without a state-run media network can't force the media to cover things if they opt not to.
Do I mostly fault the infotainment industry (aka mainstream news media), as well as the right-wing propagandist media? Do I fault them more than I fault Biden? Absolutely!
Of course it’s unfair. If President Biden had walked on water, the headline in The New York Times would probably be:
. "Biden Afraid of Water – Doesn’t Know How to Swim"
There was never a level playing field – but it is what it is. You have to play on the field that is given. And I’m sorry, but the Biden Administration could and should have done that more noisily and far more effectively.
Fine by me. "The media" still has to cover it and people still have to care.. Most Harris and Walz rallies were indeed covered. Given the election results though, they didn't. You can cry "what about the bully pulpit" all you want. It doesn't matter of people don't tune in. If people don't care.
. . . . If you don’t try.
I'm not going to pretend that the reason there is no left wing equivalent of Fox "News" is due to a lack of effort. Deal with it.
The media's barely restrained hostility towards us is a huge issue.
I feel like Harris, Biden, HRC, and Obama all did the things that traditionally should be enough to get headlines and media attention. That failed, increasingly so as we get closer to the present (mostly). The problem isn't so much in lack of effort but in lack of adjusting in the face of that lack of success.
Harris started to do more work on this, she went onto Fox, she went to more non-traditional media outlets. It didn't do enough for her but she certainly tried more of something new.
If the answer was easy and obvious it would have been solved by now, but I think part of the answer is something democrats are generally uncomfortable with: we need to adopt a media stance similar to republicans. Relentlessly on message, never admitting fault and never giving credit, no matter how obvious it is that credit is due or we have some fault. Take an adversarial stance with media outlets, call them out for being republican biased, call out anchors on air for their bullshit. Attacking a "liberal media" didn't bear fruit for republicans right away, but it slowly built up a sense of "forced neutrality" in media outlets that has been substantially to the advantage of conservatism.
Bring up the message we want every time there's an event. Force it to tie into the event. Biden has had some of the lowest unemployment in our history: he should have talked about it every chance he got, no matter what. People truly do start to believe what they hear, if they hear it enough times. Take advantage of that psychology.
I agree that we should 'work the refs' and always call them on their BS. I don't agree with taking an adversarial stance as the default. This looks whiny when Republicans do it, and only impresses people who they already have. It would look equally whiny if we started doing it. The most important thing is just to meet the audience where they are, even if it means going to outlets that aren't generally friendly to us.
Working the refs and calling them out on their BS is more or less how I would define an adversarial stance. Think we might more or less be on the same page, with me being a bit more aggressive on it but not as much more as initially assumed.
No. He completely failed to grab the spotlight. Other presidents have gone over the media’s heads through Oval Office speeches, full blown prime time press conferences and take to the stump to shape and mold public opinion.
It makes sense and gives an extra opportunity to get media attention on fuck ups from his admin/cabinet.
I'm just not convinced Americans are that much into it
https://x.com/RalstonReports/status/1857217907404759548?t=dZ_wMoA0JCEiomG2KIFWyw&s=19
"If Dems in NV can't figure out the Clark electoral math that eluded them in Gov. Joe Lombardo's win in 2022 and Trump's in 2024, then they could lose statewide races (6 of 'em!) in 2026, too. Clark has two-thirds of the vote and has been reliable since 2008 for Dems. No more."
I've been waiting for more visualized data to be available before I really look into this, but I got the distinct impression that some of our largest declines this year was in urban areas. That would make Clark's shift an unsurprising one, although Clark also contains all of the suburban Las Vegas area as well.
If this is correct, it would give us a direct pathway to improvement: don't ignore urban areas, with the understanding that much like rural areas, changing the win/lose of the precincts might not happen but going from 70-30 to 80-20 (or vice versa) does matter.
Exactly correct; study the precinct level maps and plan accordingly (Masto won a razor thin margin race and Rosen arguably won an even more difficult race, plus the congressional races were basically not contested)
I disagree completely; Let Trump Be Trump (and the rest will take care of itself)
Well, he and the Republicans may do a lot of the work of changing public opinion, but it won't do us much good without making the effort to inform and turn out voters.
Even if you not unreasonably assume that Democrats and non-right leaning independents will be eager to vote to get rid of the GOP, it takes a lot of work to get them to the polls and make it happen, which has the effect of turning out a possible narrow victory into a potential "wave" or blowout. We can't expect that to happen if we just let "the rest take care of itself", even if polls and other indicators look favourable.
I actually think that the masto\rosen races prove that the Reid machine (culinary union) did fine in a bad cycle (I'd argue that sisolak lost a razor thin margin race due to only covid; and that was in a Democratic midterm)
I suspect that Trump had a unique skill at turning out low propensity low education voters who will not turn out for anyone else. We saw that the last two midterms when his base failed to turn out. I also suspect that the GOP establishment will try to take the party back in 2028 and this will split the party. This may happen before Trump leaves office because he will be a lame duck who is over 80 and he will in all likelihood be a political liability by then. Finally, if Trump goes through with his plans for massive tariffs and mass deportations, I don't know how this won't hurt the economy. At the end of the day, James Carville was right when he said "It's the economy stupid" to Bill Clinton.
Bingo; I've been preaching this for 10 days now
I wish I shared your optimism, but right now there is zero indication that the GOP has any desire or incentive to go back to the center, instead of just further right. Don't let the very muted grumbling from a few Senators make you think otherwise.
McCormick’s lead now a little over 22,000. Down 2,000 from the start of the day.
Just under 22,000 votes now. If NBC's site is right, the latest batch came from Erie County.
Absolutely amazing between Trump and the down ballot