Orlando, FL Mayor - Progressive Democratic State Rep. Anna Eskamani (D-HD-42), who is term-limited to her current office after this year's elections, is running for Mayor of Orlando:
Orlando has become something of a progressive stronghold in a GOP-leaning state in recent years, with Eskamani and Maxwell Frost, who defeated two former Members of Congress in the Democratic primary to become one himself in 2020, serving as progressive standard-bearers in the Orlando area.
The current Orlando Mayor is Buddy Dyer, and I don't know if he's running for re-election or not.
I should add that Anna's given name is pronounced AH-nuh, not A-nuh. The vowel forming the initial syllable is pronounced further back in the mouth than typical for a person whose given name is spelled Anna.
Kamala Harris won 447 counties nationally compared to Biden's 538. I think that puts Harris at the fewest county wins since Mondale.
There were only 61 counties (and independent cities) that voted differently in the Senate race than the Presidential race, which is actually up from 43 in 2020.
A reemerging era of ticket-splitting? Hardly. In most cases, these 61 counties are places that went Biden four years but flipped to Trump in 2024, yet still narrowly held out for the Democratic Senate nominee.
Counties that split their ticket include....
1 Trump/Gallego county in Arizona (Maricopa)
1 Harris/Garvey county in California (Orange)
1 Harris/Banks county in Indiana (St. Joseph)
6 Trump/King counties in Maine (Androscoggin, Aroostook, Franklin, Kennebec, Oxford, and Penobscot)
2 Harris/Hogan counties in Maryland (Anne Arundel and Frederick)
2 Harris/Deaton counties in Massachusetts (Bristol and Plymouth)
1 Trump/Slotkin county in Michigan (Saginaw)
12 Trump/Klobuchar counties in Minnesota (Anoka, Beltrami, Blue Earth, Carlton, Carver, Mahnomen, Mower, Nicollet, Norman, Rice, Scott, Winona)
1 Trump/Kunce county in Missouri (Platte)
6 Trump/Tester counties in Montana (Big Horn, Blaine, Hill, Lewis and Clark, Park, and Roosevelt)
2 Trump/Osborn counties in Nebraska (Sarpy and Thurston)
2 Trump/Kim counties in New Jersey (Gloucester and Passaic)
1 Trump/Heinrich county in New Mexico (Socorro)
6 Trump/Gillibrand counties in New York (Clinton, Essex, Ontario, Orange, Rockland, and Warren)
1 (!!) Trump/Brown county in Ohio (Lorain)
3 Trump/Casey counties in Pennsylvania (Bucks, Erie, and Monroe)
1 Harris/Blackburn county in Tennessee (Haywood)
7 Trump/Allred counties in Texas (Cameron, Duval, Hidalgo, Tarrant, Webb, Willacy, and Williamson)
1 Harris/Curtis county in Utah (Salt Lake)
1 Trump/Sanders county in Vermont (Orleans)
2 Trump/Kaine counties in Virginia (Prince Edward and Surry)
Speaking of fast growing exurban counties in Georgia and North Carolina, some of the movements are real. Harris reduced the vote margin in many NC exurbs, and increased it in the exurbs south of ATL where a lot of Black voters are moving in.
Some are NOT real. Cherokee and Forsyth, GA and NC coasts. You see a huge influx of newcomers and a lot more votes than 4 years ago. The newcomers still lean red just less so than long time residents. You would see a much reduced %, but still losing by more and more votes. Ex, in Cherokee GA or Brunswick NC, Harris’ vote deficits exceeded all history. You would never win an election with this sort of “blueing”.
Cabarrus and Gaston counties in NC are growing pretty fast with the rest of the Charlotte metro. They’re both also major destinations of former Charlotteans looking for more affordable housing options within driving distance, which could explain why they shifted left while Mecklenburg itself didn’t.
Gov.-elect Kelly Ayotte says “the timing is off” for the GOP-controlled legislature to draw new congressional maps for the Granite State, a goal of House Republicans since the 2020 Census.
German parliament votes to remove government led by Chancellor Olaf Scholz in no-confidence motion he called himself, triggering February 2025 snap election
The post-COVID political reaper continues its work.
It will be interesting to see what will finally switch things so that people arent basically continuously mad at the world. Or is this just our fate in the social media era.
I saw somewhere (here, the discord?) that the party holding the White House hasn't won the House since 2004. Even in relatively good times (2014, 2018, 2022) it just seems that people want to vote against the guy at the top.
It’ll be interesting to see with the pressures of a campaign where CDU and SDP actually land. I could see quite a few outcomes from SDP not landing in third, CDU underperforming, and AfD either way underperforming or way outperforming. Considering how a lot of elections have gone the last 12 months I wouldn’t trust polling in a European election as far as I can throw it
Texas 2026: Anyone have ideas on candidates for the two big races or what the outlook is like generally there? If you control for the national environment, Allred actually outran Beto by about four points so the state is continuing to shift down ballot it seems even though the top of the ticket was a bloodbath. I think we should take a serious swing at whichever office Ken Paxton runs for, he could probably lose in a 2018 type environment.
While Democratic leaders fled from their base constituencies in a listless herd, Republicans embarked on a politics of militant base appeasement. This also entailed a hollowing-out process, but one of a far different order than what the Democrats experienced. Where the Democrats increasingly relied on centrist-minded consultants, pollsters, and donors while preserving a rigidly impervious gerontocracy atop the party, the Republicans handed the levers of power over to radicalizing forces within the Tea Party and the Fox News messaging empire.
The Democratic Party is a big tent full of liberals, moderates and other independent-minded people. Vermont also has a moderate Republican Governor and kinds like him are in fact still electable in swing districts in CA, NY and elsewhere.
Let’s also not forget that we have FDR to thank for minimum wage, social security and unemployment insurance.
There are ideas liberals (or progressives) can sell to the public even if they can’t get the entire agenda accomplished all the time. John Fetterman for starters is a staunch pro-universal healthcare advocate while as a Senator representing PA.
The base of the Dem Party isn't The Nation readers. How folks can convince themselves after this election that the party needs to go further LEFT rather than moderate just blows my mind. Voters turned out in the swing states and swing voters went for the guy promising Americana Uber Alles.
Because to strict ideologues, they are never wrong. They are never out of touch. It's "those people" who are "out of touch." Just ask Seymour Skinner: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hYAuR5bkIlQ
The ideological spectrum as we analyze it is less consequential than candidate charisma and messaging that transcends left vs. center and connects with people the way Clinton, Obama, and Bernie, among others have in the past. And maybe have the instincts to recognize that de facto open borders is the biggest imaginable electoral loser before attaching yourself to that policy for more than three years.
I submit that it wasn't carved in stone that Harris was destined to get plastered because of a multiracial working-class Trump coalition this year. The closer we got to the election, the less she had to say that tickled downscale voters' erogenous zones. She couldn't have possibly read the room more poorly than her closing message of doubling down on preserving democracy with Liz Cheney at her side. It just wasn't salient.
Gretchen Whitmer and others pleaded with her campaign to change the subject to economic concerns but they were convinced that reproductive rights was voters' top priority and that their path to victory was through the microscopic cohort of college-educated moderate Republicans who hadn't already flipped to Biden four years ago. That kind of messaging isn't gonna win the Presidency.
The problem with this argument is "Union Guy" Joe Biden was running on a more populist economic message pre-debate and was set to lose worse than she did.
I do agree the "vibes" and charisma often matter more than strict ideological lines, but I think it's clear the American public isn't juiced by class war rhetoric-they want fairness. I'm not saying pivot to Jeff Summers-esque bullshit, but I keep coming back to this . . . Biden ran the most economically left/progressive administration since the 60s, and voters responded with "screw him!"
That all said, when I say "moderate" I'm referring moreso to culture war, criminal justice and immigration issues. Personally I think Biden hit near a perfect mark re: economics but it's clear I'm in a minority there.
As I said, messaging and candidate charisma is the primary driver. Biden was always a mediocre communicator. The octogenarian version of Biden was a uniquely dreadful communicator, incapable of articulating the kind of message that would move votes. Harris had a double challenge of digging out of the hole Biden left her and the party in....and the miserable identity crisis the Democrats have found themselves in during the Trump era where they had to be instructed by Gretchen Whitmer to talk about the economy in Michigan against their instincts of avoiding conflict with the managerial class who they felt dependent upon for victory.
There is no question that Adamas is a shameless conservative (and incompetent, and a crook) but I don't see what him going back to being a Republican would give Trump.
All of that feels a little cheap given that Adams is just such a fuck-up, but I might not be a cheap enough date. I don't think that sentence made much sense but I'm tired today.
I feel like we have a decent shot at NY-17 if Lawler isn't running. A 6 point loss for Jones honestly wasn't that bad. Gereghty is a very low profile nominee though. There must be someone with more campaign experience.
Would Pete Harckham want a crack at it? (Michelle Hinchey has the name rec but also seems like her ties are much more so with places further up the Hudson Valley)
That's been the vibe I've felt since the day after the election. 2004 redux. Down to the Republicans misreading their narrow win and coming after popular government programs. Assuming there are still free and fair elections in 2026 and 2028 (90-95% chance, perhaps? Orbanization takes time), we have every chance to win those.
In scenario 2, the question is how well Trump's appeal translates to whoever his successor is in 2028. I suspect not particularly well. I also suspect that the public will be Big Mad in 2028 about *something*; when was the last time right direction numbers were above 50%?
I submit 2016 was the realignment year. We're in the third cycle of the realignment with no end in sight and a Democratic Party paralyzed by the chasmic divide between the priorities of its donor class and the overwhelming majority of voters who oppose the priorities of its donor class.
I would agree with that assessment if Bernie Sanders types were the rule and not the exception among Democratic voters. They are not. Far from it. If they were, you would see those types getting elected in purple and red states, and not just Vermont and a handful of deep blue cities. A major issue is that Democrats have to pander to voters who at least claim they want policies that don't stand a chance in passing, and for whom German/Nordic style multipayer system healthcare is "not good enough."
I think the working class voters Mark is referring to want Bill Clinton-esque blue collar politics and not Bernie Sanders blue collar politics. A lot of folks will hate hearing that but that's the bandwidth these lower-propensity, non-college ed voters are on.
I don't think it's an either-or of Bernie vs. Clinton. There just has to be more of an interest shown in working-class priorities and an understanding that certain issues are just never going to fly with more than a rump of the electorate. Re-watch the Presidential debates of 2019 for a blueprint on how to best destroy a political party for a generation.
I think part of our problem is that "progressive" as a label seems to be applied to anything decently left of Manchin and there's a wing of elected officials that will recoil in terror at anything with said label.
The standout example I can think of is Walz. After he was chosen as Harris' running mate, there was some push back on how he was "too progressive" because of the policies pushed through in Minnesota, like the school lunches. When people at the top are equating free/expanded school lunch programs as equivalent to Medicare For All, it's going to be hard to get them on board with run of the mill working and middle class oriented policies. There's a wide swathe of ideology between Sanders and Manchin that is unfortunately conflated with one or the other.
I'm less rigid about the specifics of left vs. center because I've seen Democrats of both stripes connect with the working-class by traveling different lanes that seemed appropriate for the time. It's more about messaging than ideology....and not appearing to pander to special interests or the donor class. Without getting into the specifics of Presidential primaries as is forbidden, there was a candidate whose message really connected with the working class in 2016 but really did not connect with them in 2020 simply because of a shift in focus from kitchen table issues to cultural issues.
They DON'T want candidates who spend their time even discussing letting prisoners vote, gender reassignment, or even transgender athletes playing sports. That's for certain.
I'm assuming you are younger than me; in the 90s voters didn't associate Clinton with outsourcing jobs (which had actually peaked in the preceding two decades)
I think Dems have done a decent job of shedding the left-culture-war stuff that proliferated in Trump's first term. By far the biggest problem this cycle was that people were still angry about inflation. If inflation had been normal over the past four years and everything else had been the same, Harris would have won and we would have taken the House even with all the party's outreach, messaging, and policy weaknesses.
The unpopular incumbent President who had accomplished a lot but had missteps stood down because he knew he wouldn't win. His VP lost relatively narrowly to a totally corrupt, immoral goon who the American people hadn't much loved in the past. There are parallels.
Pre President Nixon was hardly seen as a "totally corrupt, immoral goon" by the majority of Americans though. It took Watergate to get that through most people's skulls.
I didn't say he was seen that way, just that he was. Huge percentages of people in this country think Trump is basically a god who has never done anything wrong in his life, ever.
Oh, also, the Republican candidate expertly played on cultural animus to deliver a big "fuck you" to the social progresses the country had been making. Though this was certainly more dramatic in '68.
I didn't see this mentioned over the weekend and I only found out about it today. On Saturday South Korea's parliament voted to impeach Yoon over his attempted coup. Wikipedia has a decent summary of it, better than what I saw in news articles:
The next step will be the SK constitutional court taking it up, with them having 180 days to reach a verdict. There are currently only six justices on the nine justice court, and officially they need seven judges to begin hearings but have decided to ignore that constraint. Four of the six justices were appointed by Yoon. If Yoon is removed from office there will be a special election for his replacement. The PM will serve as acting president during the trial.
Which mean Jared Moskowitz should accept such a nomination if, and only if, there is a firm commitment from DeSantis that the special election be held within a reasonable time – say 60 days.
This conversation (15 min) between Ben Wikler and Simon Rosenberg is really worth watching. Wikler is Chair of the Wisconsin Democratic Party and a strong candidate to be the next DNC Chair. (Imho, he’s the best candidate.)
IN-05: Didn't see it posted here but Spartz seems to be going through something. ¯\_(ツ)_/¯.
"congresswoman Victoria Spartz, an Indiana Republican, issued an ultimatum to her colleagues on Monday saying she will "not sit on committees or participate in the caucus" until she sees GOP leadership "governing."
Spartz continued in her post on X, formerly Twitter, "I do not need to be involved in circuses. I would rather spend more of my time helping @DOGE and @RepThomasMassie to save our Republic, as was mandated by the American people."
She says she doesn't want to be involved in circuses, but she's sure acting like a clown.
I found it somewhat embarrassing that she was the only Ukrainian-born member of Congress and yet by this year she was voting against aid for it. At least Eugene Vindman's election means she won't have that particular distinction anymore.
Oh that's just the tip of the iceburg! Spartz herself is toxic to her staff to the point where the House Ethics Committee had a panel to probe how she was treating them.
The House Ethics Committee has made preliminary inquiries into Rep. Victoria Spartz’s treatment of staff in response to multiple complaints filed about the Indiana Republican’s alleged “abuse,” “general toxicity,” and “rage,” according to a current aide and a former aide who made complaints and have been contacted by investigators in recent weeks.
The aides, who were granted anonymity due to their fear of retribution by Spartz, said their complaints were filed with panel investigators before Spartz won her primary race last month. The investigators told them the Ethics Committee would not launch a formal investigation before then given the potential appearance of meddling in the election, the aides said.
As a 2nd generation Ukranian Jewish American, I am embarrassed by Victoria Spartz. She came from my grandfather's hometown of Chernihiv and has become another MAGA Republican type who has accused the Department of Justice under Merrick Garland's leadership as being like the KGB. And she's now arguing she doesn't want to be involved in circuses while voting against aid for Ukraine? Against her own people?
I don't get Spartz. I really don't. If she gets primaried out of office, good riddance. Maybe next she can get a one-way ticket to Russia, meet Vladimir Putin and then she might attempt to walk back her stupid KGB remarks towards Garland.
Orlando, FL Mayor - Progressive Democratic State Rep. Anna Eskamani (D-HD-42), who is term-limited to her current office after this year's elections, is running for Mayor of Orlando:
https://www.instagram.com/p/DDo9c0_R-XS/
Orlando has become something of a progressive stronghold in a GOP-leaning state in recent years, with Eskamani and Maxwell Frost, who defeated two former Members of Congress in the Democratic primary to become one himself in 2020, serving as progressive standard-bearers in the Orlando area.
The current Orlando Mayor is Buddy Dyer, and I don't know if he's running for re-election or not.
I should add that Anna's given name is pronounced AH-nuh, not A-nuh. The vowel forming the initial syllable is pronounced further back in the mouth than typical for a person whose given name is spelled Anna.
Dyer has been there forever. It sounds like he previously claimed this would be his last term.
I mean, Disney World is located in Orlando and Governor DeSantis did battle Disney over fundamental fairness.
Final numbers.....
Kamala Harris won 447 counties nationally compared to Biden's 538. I think that puts Harris at the fewest county wins since Mondale.
There were only 61 counties (and independent cities) that voted differently in the Senate race than the Presidential race, which is actually up from 43 in 2020.
A reemerging era of ticket-splitting? Hardly. In most cases, these 61 counties are places that went Biden four years but flipped to Trump in 2024, yet still narrowly held out for the Democratic Senate nominee.
Counties that split their ticket include....
1 Trump/Gallego county in Arizona (Maricopa)
1 Harris/Garvey county in California (Orange)
1 Harris/Banks county in Indiana (St. Joseph)
6 Trump/King counties in Maine (Androscoggin, Aroostook, Franklin, Kennebec, Oxford, and Penobscot)
2 Harris/Hogan counties in Maryland (Anne Arundel and Frederick)
2 Harris/Deaton counties in Massachusetts (Bristol and Plymouth)
1 Trump/Slotkin county in Michigan (Saginaw)
12 Trump/Klobuchar counties in Minnesota (Anoka, Beltrami, Blue Earth, Carlton, Carver, Mahnomen, Mower, Nicollet, Norman, Rice, Scott, Winona)
1 Trump/Kunce county in Missouri (Platte)
6 Trump/Tester counties in Montana (Big Horn, Blaine, Hill, Lewis and Clark, Park, and Roosevelt)
2 Trump/Osborn counties in Nebraska (Sarpy and Thurston)
2 Trump/Kim counties in New Jersey (Gloucester and Passaic)
1 Trump/Heinrich county in New Mexico (Socorro)
6 Trump/Gillibrand counties in New York (Clinton, Essex, Ontario, Orange, Rockland, and Warren)
1 (!!) Trump/Brown county in Ohio (Lorain)
3 Trump/Casey counties in Pennsylvania (Bucks, Erie, and Monroe)
1 Harris/Blackburn county in Tennessee (Haywood)
7 Trump/Allred counties in Texas (Cameron, Duval, Hidalgo, Tarrant, Webb, Willacy, and Williamson)
1 Harris/Curtis county in Utah (Salt Lake)
1 Trump/Sanders county in Vermont (Orleans)
2 Trump/Kaine counties in Virginia (Prince Edward and Surry)
1 Trump/Cantwell county in Washington (Pacific)
1 Trump/Baldwin county in Wisconsin (Sauk)
While we're on the subject of counties, here is the list of counties with more than 100k votes where Harris got a better margin than Biden did.
Colorado: Larimer, El Paso, Jefferson, Douglas
Delaware (!?): Sussex
Georgia: Henry (biggest blue shift of any county of any size), Cobb, Cherokee, Forsyth
Indiana: Hamilton
Kansas: Johnson
Michigan: Ottawa
Missouri: St. Charles
North Carolina: Buncombe, Johnston, Gaston, Cabarrus, Brunswick
Ohio: Clermont, Delaware
Oklahoma: Tulsa (!?)
Oregon: Multnomah (largest county by # of votes to trend blue)
Pennsylvania: Cumberland, Butler (where Trump was shot at)
Utah: Davis, Utah
Virginia: Chesterfield
Washington: Kitsap, Clark, Thurston, Whatcom
Wisconsin: Waukesha
In general, these counties are affluent and mostly white and/or black.
Speaking of fast growing exurban counties in Georgia and North Carolina, some of the movements are real. Harris reduced the vote margin in many NC exurbs, and increased it in the exurbs south of ATL where a lot of Black voters are moving in.
Some are NOT real. Cherokee and Forsyth, GA and NC coasts. You see a huge influx of newcomers and a lot more votes than 4 years ago. The newcomers still lean red just less so than long time residents. You would see a much reduced %, but still losing by more and more votes. Ex, in Cherokee GA or Brunswick NC, Harris’ vote deficits exceeded all history. You would never win an election with this sort of “blueing”.
Cabarrus and Gaston counties in NC are growing pretty fast with the rest of the Charlotte metro. They’re both also major destinations of former Charlotteans looking for more affordable housing options within driving distance, which could explain why they shifted left while Mecklenburg itself didn’t.
Gov.-elect Kelly Ayotte says “the timing is off” for the GOP-controlled legislature to draw new congressional maps for the Granite State, a goal of House Republicans since the 2020 Census.
https://nhjournal.com/timing-is-off-ayotte-dashes-nhgop-hopes-for-new-cd-maps/
Uh, they had control over redistricting in 2021-2022, so it makes even less sense. Will they redraw it every 2 years?
German parliament votes to remove government led by Chancellor Olaf Scholz in no-confidence motion he called himself, triggering February 2025 snap election
The post-COVID political reaper continues its work.
It will be interesting to see what will finally switch things so that people arent basically continuously mad at the world. Or is this just our fate in the social media era.
I think this is just our fate - that said, there can be varying levels of anger
I saw somewhere (here, the discord?) that the party holding the White House hasn't won the House since 2004. Even in relatively good times (2014, 2018, 2022) it just seems that people want to vote against the guy at the top.
Will they be the first party swept out by the anti-incumbent wave, that was initially swept in by the same wave?
It’ll be interesting to see with the pressures of a campaign where CDU and SDP actually land. I could see quite a few outcomes from SDP not landing in third, CDU underperforming, and AfD either way underperforming or way outperforming. Considering how a lot of elections have gone the last 12 months I wouldn’t trust polling in a European election as far as I can throw it
Texas 2026: Anyone have ideas on candidates for the two big races or what the outlook is like generally there? If you control for the national environment, Allred actually outran Beto by about four points so the state is continuing to shift down ballot it seems even though the top of the ticket was a bloodbath. I think we should take a serious swing at whichever office Ken Paxton runs for, he could probably lose in a 2018 type environment.
James Talarico comes to mind
If Mark Cuban wants to run for Governor and spend some of his money.
While Democratic leaders fled from their base constituencies in a listless herd, Republicans embarked on a politics of militant base appeasement. This also entailed a hollowing-out process, but one of a far different order than what the Democrats experienced. Where the Democrats increasingly relied on centrist-minded consultants, pollsters, and donors while preserving a rigidly impervious gerontocracy atop the party, the Republicans handed the levers of power over to radicalizing forces within the Tea Party and the Fox News messaging empire.
https://www.thenation.com/article/politics/democratic-party-dealignment-left-adrift-hollow-parties/
I disagree that Democratic leaders fled from their base.
The most generous possible take is that they did a horseshit job of managing their base.
Maybe.
The base of the Democratic Party is not, has never been, nor will (probably) ever be "progressives."
Be nice if you defined your terms.
Be nice if you accepted that the USA isn't Vermont demographically nor politically.
The Democratic Party is a big tent full of liberals, moderates and other independent-minded people. Vermont also has a moderate Republican Governor and kinds like him are in fact still electable in swing districts in CA, NY and elsewhere.
Let’s also not forget that we have FDR to thank for minimum wage, social security and unemployment insurance.
There are ideas liberals (or progressives) can sell to the public even if they can’t get the entire agenda accomplished all the time. John Fetterman for starters is a staunch pro-universal healthcare advocate while as a Senator representing PA.
Yeah, so-called "hippie punching" has looked increasingly shrewd as the past decade wore on.
The fact that even in Vermont and many major cities that "progressivism" is running out of steam says it all.
The only thing running out of steam is the Democratic Party described in the article I posted.
The base of the Dem Party isn't The Nation readers. How folks can convince themselves after this election that the party needs to go further LEFT rather than moderate just blows my mind. Voters turned out in the swing states and swing voters went for the guy promising Americana Uber Alles.
Because to strict ideologues, they are never wrong. They are never out of touch. It's "those people" who are "out of touch." Just ask Seymour Skinner: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hYAuR5bkIlQ
Very ironic for a consultant class ideologue to say that.
The ideological spectrum as we analyze it is less consequential than candidate charisma and messaging that transcends left vs. center and connects with people the way Clinton, Obama, and Bernie, among others have in the past. And maybe have the instincts to recognize that de facto open borders is the biggest imaginable electoral loser before attaching yourself to that policy for more than three years.
I submit that it wasn't carved in stone that Harris was destined to get plastered because of a multiracial working-class Trump coalition this year. The closer we got to the election, the less she had to say that tickled downscale voters' erogenous zones. She couldn't have possibly read the room more poorly than her closing message of doubling down on preserving democracy with Liz Cheney at her side. It just wasn't salient.
Gretchen Whitmer and others pleaded with her campaign to change the subject to economic concerns but they were convinced that reproductive rights was voters' top priority and that their path to victory was through the microscopic cohort of college-educated moderate Republicans who hadn't already flipped to Biden four years ago. That kind of messaging isn't gonna win the Presidency.
The problem with this argument is "Union Guy" Joe Biden was running on a more populist economic message pre-debate and was set to lose worse than she did.
I do agree the "vibes" and charisma often matter more than strict ideological lines, but I think it's clear the American public isn't juiced by class war rhetoric-they want fairness. I'm not saying pivot to Jeff Summers-esque bullshit, but I keep coming back to this . . . Biden ran the most economically left/progressive administration since the 60s, and voters responded with "screw him!"
That all said, when I say "moderate" I'm referring moreso to culture war, criminal justice and immigration issues. Personally I think Biden hit near a perfect mark re: economics but it's clear I'm in a minority there.
As I said, messaging and candidate charisma is the primary driver. Biden was always a mediocre communicator. The octogenarian version of Biden was a uniquely dreadful communicator, incapable of articulating the kind of message that would move votes. Harris had a double challenge of digging out of the hole Biden left her and the party in....and the miserable identity crisis the Democrats have found themselves in during the Trump era where they had to be instructed by Gretchen Whitmer to talk about the economy in Michigan against their instincts of avoiding conflict with the managerial class who they felt dependent upon for victory.
Trump says he will 'look at' pardon for embattled New York mayor Eric Adams, who is facing bribery charges.
https://x.com/Phil_Lewis_/status/1868705084504522970
What can Adams offer Trump to get a pardon?
Become a Republican (again). Kiss his ass nonstop for a year or so.
I guess Trump is shallow enough for the second option to work.
Just ask Tulsi Gabbard and Rod Blagojevich. Like Adams they only became Democrats to advance their political careers.
There is no question that Adamas is a shameless conservative (and incompetent, and a crook) but I don't see what him going back to being a Republican would give Trump.
It would make it easier to point to us as being "out of touch" by Orange Blob and others. "See even New York City thinks Democrats are nuts!"
Cooperation. Fealty. Immigrants to deport. Anything he wants, I'm sure.
All of that feels a little cheap given that Adams is just such a fuck-up, but I might not be a cheap enough date. I don't think that sentence made much sense but I'm tired today.
Free press? Narcissism is rough.
I feel like we have a decent shot at NY-17 if Lawler isn't running. A 6 point loss for Jones honestly wasn't that bad. Gereghty is a very low profile nominee though. There must be someone with more campaign experience.
Would Pete Harckham want a crack at it? (Michelle Hinchey has the name rec but also seems like her ties are much more so with places further up the Hudson Valley)
I think he'd be a strong get, but he might want to stick with his pretty safe state senate seat.
I would think that virtually no one in the 17th knows the Hinchey name.
Hinchey would have been a solid candidate for NY-19 in 2026 had Molinaro won re-election, but it's a moot point now that Riley's in.
It feels like things could go 2 ways:
1) Trump's approval plummets, Dems win w/ a generic not Trump in 28. Dem structural problems papered over.
2) Trump doesn't blow things up. 2024 is a new 1980 - start of a real realignment. A Bill Clinton type fixer doesn't show up til 36.
Considering 2028 will be an open Presidential election, 2024 looks more like 2004 than 1980.
That's been the vibe I've felt since the day after the election. 2004 redux. Down to the Republicans misreading their narrow win and coming after popular government programs. Assuming there are still free and fair elections in 2026 and 2028 (90-95% chance, perhaps? Orbanization takes time), we have every chance to win those.
Don't forget the elections in 2025. We also have a MUCH stronger tradition of democracy than Hungary or pre Nazi Germany ever had.
In scenario 2, the question is how well Trump's appeal translates to whoever his successor is in 2028. I suspect not particularly well. I also suspect that the public will be Big Mad in 2028 about *something*; when was the last time right direction numbers were above 50%?
I submit 2016 was the realignment year. We're in the third cycle of the realignment with no end in sight and a Democratic Party paralyzed by the chasmic divide between the priorities of its donor class and the overwhelming majority of voters who oppose the priorities of its donor class.
I would agree with that assessment if Bernie Sanders types were the rule and not the exception among Democratic voters. They are not. Far from it. If they were, you would see those types getting elected in purple and red states, and not just Vermont and a handful of deep blue cities. A major issue is that Democrats have to pander to voters who at least claim they want policies that don't stand a chance in passing, and for whom German/Nordic style multipayer system healthcare is "not good enough."
I think the working class voters Mark is referring to want Bill Clinton-esque blue collar politics and not Bernie Sanders blue collar politics. A lot of folks will hate hearing that but that's the bandwidth these lower-propensity, non-college ed voters are on.
I don't think it's an either-or of Bernie vs. Clinton. There just has to be more of an interest shown in working-class priorities and an understanding that certain issues are just never going to fly with more than a rump of the electorate. Re-watch the Presidential debates of 2019 for a blueprint on how to best destroy a political party for a generation.
I think part of our problem is that "progressive" as a label seems to be applied to anything decently left of Manchin and there's a wing of elected officials that will recoil in terror at anything with said label.
The standout example I can think of is Walz. After he was chosen as Harris' running mate, there was some push back on how he was "too progressive" because of the policies pushed through in Minnesota, like the school lunches. When people at the top are equating free/expanded school lunch programs as equivalent to Medicare For All, it's going to be hard to get them on board with run of the mill working and middle class oriented policies. There's a wide swathe of ideology between Sanders and Manchin that is unfortunately conflated with one or the other.
I'm less rigid about the specifics of left vs. center because I've seen Democrats of both stripes connect with the working-class by traveling different lanes that seemed appropriate for the time. It's more about messaging than ideology....and not appearing to pander to special interests or the donor class. Without getting into the specifics of Presidential primaries as is forbidden, there was a candidate whose message really connected with the working class in 2016 but really did not connect with them in 2020 simply because of a shift in focus from kitchen table issues to cultural issues.
Working class voters want Clintonesque outsourcing of American jobs?? I don’t think so!
They DON'T want candidates who spend their time even discussing letting prisoners vote, gender reassignment, or even transgender athletes playing sports. That's for certain.
And on a lighter note, I insist that "Hey, you!" is a perfectly good, gender-neutral pronoun.
Well yes, going too far with the “hip in the crowd” agenda does not expand the base for Democrats.
I'm assuming you are younger than me; in the 90s voters didn't associate Clinton with outsourcing jobs (which had actually peaked in the preceding two decades)
Nearing two-thirds of a century...
I realize Clinton might be better known for his novel use of cigars. I also think of Obama’s reference to him as "the Secretary of Explaining Stuff".
They don’t want Clintonesque policies. That brought them NAFTA.
Are you that Pennsylvania guy from DKE? The same obsessive anti-progressive, “Johnny one note,” posting.
I think Dems have done a decent job of shedding the left-culture-war stuff that proliferated in Trump's first term. By far the biggest problem this cycle was that people were still angry about inflation. If inflation had been normal over the past four years and everything else had been the same, Harris would have won and we would have taken the House even with all the party's outreach, messaging, and policy weaknesses.
Assuming inflation is worth 2% in the swing states then yeah.
2024 was 1968. Let's hope we don't re-run 1972.
No it wasn't. Not even close. 1968 would be riots in Chicago and on the convention floor.
The unpopular incumbent President who had accomplished a lot but had missteps stood down because he knew he wouldn't win. His VP lost relatively narrowly to a totally corrupt, immoral goon who the American people hadn't much loved in the past. There are parallels.
Pre President Nixon was hardly seen as a "totally corrupt, immoral goon" by the majority of Americans though. It took Watergate to get that through most people's skulls.
I didn't say he was seen that way, just that he was. Huge percentages of people in this country think Trump is basically a god who has never done anything wrong in his life, ever.
Oh, also, the Republican candidate expertly played on cultural animus to deliver a big "fuck you" to the social progresses the country had been making. Though this was certainly more dramatic in '68.
I didn't see this mentioned over the weekend and I only found out about it today. On Saturday South Korea's parliament voted to impeach Yoon over his attempted coup. Wikipedia has a decent summary of it, better than what I saw in news articles:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Impeachment_of_Yoon_Suk_Yeol
The next step will be the SK constitutional court taking it up, with them having 180 days to reach a verdict. There are currently only six justices on the nine justice court, and officially they need seven judges to begin hearings but have decided to ignore that constraint. Four of the six justices were appointed by Yoon. If Yoon is removed from office there will be a special election for his replacement. The PM will serve as acting president during the trial.
Ah so they finally got around to actually impeaching him after the first try failed
Donald Trump could potentially name Rep. Jared Moskowitz (D-FL) to head up FEMA. https://bsky.app/profile/the-downballot.com/post/3ldh5zjkhfc2p
Savvy move if Moskowitz takes the bait. It sets Trump up to win Moskowitz red-trending district in a special election.
I doubt they'll win a special there, but it is savvy because that House seat would be vacant for a year.
Which mean Jared Moskowitz should accept such a nomination if, and only if, there is a firm commitment from DeSantis that the special election be held within a reasonable time – say 60 days.
lol cmon man you know Desantis would just lie or ignore the request.
He just shouldn't accept it.
The only reason they are considering him is to flip the seat. Jared must know that. He’s probably scared he’ll lose next time
If Democrats didn’t lose the seat in 2022 and 2024, I seriously doubt they lose when they don’t have the house or White House in 2026.
I wouldn't be so sure. The prez margin shrunk and I would expect whatever Republican runs for Gov to possibly carry the seat or come close.
Not a surprise that Moskowitz would think of selling out his party and taking a job with Trump. He’s the Eric Adams of South Florida.
This conversation (15 min) between Ben Wikler and Simon Rosenberg is really worth watching. Wikler is Chair of the Wisconsin Democratic Party and a strong candidate to be the next DNC Chair. (Imho, he’s the best candidate.)
https://www.hopiumchronicles.com/p/my-interview-with-ben-wikler-fighting
He was great on the Daily Show last week. Not sure if the people who can vote on this notice or care though. ¯\_(ツ)_/¯
IN-05: Didn't see it posted here but Spartz seems to be going through something. ¯\_(ツ)_/¯.
"congresswoman Victoria Spartz, an Indiana Republican, issued an ultimatum to her colleagues on Monday saying she will "not sit on committees or participate in the caucus" until she sees GOP leadership "governing."
Spartz continued in her post on X, formerly Twitter, "I do not need to be involved in circuses. I would rather spend more of my time helping @DOGE and @RepThomasMassie to save our Republic, as was mandated by the American people."
https://www.msn.com/en-us/news/politics/republican-issues-ultimatum-to-gop-house-leadership/ar-AA1vYS07?ocid=BingNewsBrowse
She says she doesn't want to be involved in circuses, but she's sure acting like a clown.
I found it somewhat embarrassing that she was the only Ukrainian-born member of Congress and yet by this year she was voting against aid for it. At least Eugene Vindman's election means she won't have that particular distinction anymore.
Oh that's just the tip of the iceburg! Spartz herself is toxic to her staff to the point where the House Ethics Committee had a panel to probe how she was treating them.
https://www.politico.com/news/2024/06/04/ethics-panel-probes-rep-spartz-over-staff-abuse-claims-00161623
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The House Ethics Committee has made preliminary inquiries into Rep. Victoria Spartz’s treatment of staff in response to multiple complaints filed about the Indiana Republican’s alleged “abuse,” “general toxicity,” and “rage,” according to a current aide and a former aide who made complaints and have been contacted by investigators in recent weeks.
The aides, who were granted anonymity due to their fear of retribution by Spartz, said their complaints were filed with panel investigators before Spartz won her primary race last month. The investigators told them the Ethics Committee would not launch a formal investigation before then given the potential appearance of meddling in the election, the aides said.
As a 2nd generation Ukranian Jewish American, I am embarrassed by Victoria Spartz. She came from my grandfather's hometown of Chernihiv and has become another MAGA Republican type who has accused the Department of Justice under Merrick Garland's leadership as being like the KGB. And she's now arguing she doesn't want to be involved in circuses while voting against aid for Ukraine? Against her own people?
I don't get Spartz. I really don't. If she gets primaried out of office, good riddance. Maybe next she can get a one-way ticket to Russia, meet Vladimir Putin and then she might attempt to walk back her stupid KGB remarks towards Garland.