“State Sen. Jason Esteves might not yet be a household name in Georgia politics, but you could be hearing plenty more about him over the next year.
The Atlanta Democrat is taking steps to prepare a campaign for governor in 2026. He’s lined up advisers, consulted with senior Democrats and set up meetings with activists and donors about a potential bid.
Esteves is staying mum for now about his plans, but his discussions are such an open secret that we regularly get calls about them. Even some Republicans are in the know.
“He is far and away the most electable of the potential Democratic candidates who have been mentioned,” said Jay Morgan, a former Georgia GOP executive director and well-connected lobbyist who has been briefed on the Democrat’s plans.
He said Esteves has all the positive attributes that made two-time gubernatorial nominee Stacey Abrams a national figure but “without the guile.”
Esteves won his Georgia Senate seat in 2022 after spending nine years on the board of education of Atlanta Public Schools, including as chair from 2018-2021. He’s a steadfast supporter of abortion rights and Medicaid expansion and has become a go-to expert in the chamber on education measures.
He could be a wild card in an unsettled field to succeed Gov. Brian Kemp. While the Republican race seems likely to revolve around a matchup between Attorney General Chris Carr and Lt. Gov. Burt Jones, Democrats are far more uncertain.
Former Atlanta Mayor Keisha Lance Bottoms and ex-DeKalb chief executive Michael Thurmond are kicking the tires on a run. U.S. Rep. Lucy McBath, D-Marietta, could also jump in, and Abrams hasn’t ruled out a third shot.
Expect Esteves to work to raise his profile.
Today, he plans to renew his calls to update the state’s decades-old school funding formula and push back on President Donald Trump’s vow to eliminate the federal Department of Education.
I googled Esteves and I’m good. He seems like an A+ choice and looks like the kind of guy you could have a beer with. McBath is always the #1 choice but maybe we could afford to save her for another cycle. Let’s be real, we will lose one of those Senate seats someday. It’s inevitable in a red state that’s still trying to swing.
If we can move on from depending on Stacey Abrams for another gubernatorial run, I'm willing to consider either Esteves or McBath.
I'm not ready to assert it's inevitable that one of the Senate seats will go red just yet. For starters, Trump beat Harris in GA but by 2.87% points less than he did with Clinton back in 2016. Not arguing it's going to be a walk in the park for Jon Ossoff in 2026 but Trump's GA win in 2024 isn't exactly remarkable.
So, this is deep in blue territory so it doesn't matter that much - though it is a county of 1 million, but I just heard the first few seconds of Ken Jenkins' victory speech. Literally, the first sentence was about how "diversity is our strength". He could have said something about fighting for the poor of the county, or making government "work for everybody", or continuing to keep taxes under control, or almost anything. Diversity is one of our strengths, but the voters don't want to hear about it.
If it matches how he ran his campaign, it looks like the voters had no problem with him. (That said, for many areas in the country the messages you prefer would definitely work better.)
I don't think Dems made much of an active defense of diversity initiatives in the last election. At least not one that percolated to the surface. Now that Trump is using "DEI" as an excuse to a wrecking ball to the federal government and issue orders that greatly exceed his constitutional authority, I expect to see more pushback.
It's one of these things where there were some initiatives that definitely were counterproductive or excessive, like trainings that studies showed actually made workplace bias worse, or requiring a "diversity statement" to get an academic job. So Dems didn't want to be seen as defending these initiatives, so they just kept their mouths shut, which let Trump define DEI however he wanted. If there has been more of a pushback earlier, maybe we wouldn't be in this position.
The academic DEI climate was more than just having to write a statement for a job. The reason why application statements on DEI were increasingly required, alongside statements about contributions to teaching and research, was that university administrators imagined that professors would be spending a major portion of their time on DEI initiatives. Any number of things could be filed under the category, some more worthy than others, but there was certainly a sense of "so now we have to do this too" among academics, who really just wanted to get on with their teaching and research.
I should add that the academic DEI statement was likened by critics to a loyalty oath to DEI ideology (whatever nebulous set of beliefs that entails). To a certain extent it was, but if you wrote a statement that was only an ideological pledge, you would be rather unlikely to get the job. It essentially mirrored to teaching and research statements, in that it was supposed to highlight past successes and future ambitions in the field. The bullshit part of it is that 99% of academics were not actually committed to DEI initiatives in the way they were committed to teaching and research, so whatever little thing you might have done had to be couched as opening up the field to underrepresented groups in some major way, etc.
Would be amazing to see Senator Andy Beshear sworn into office in January 2027. Would love to see him again beat the forced-birther, Daniel Cameron. Would Barr be easier to beat than Cameron? Perhaps there is time for today’s extreme Republican brand to weaken, even in Kentucky, before the 2026 elections.
Not likely to happen. Beshear is committed to completing his term, and hopefully to helping whichever Democrat gets the nomination in 2027. From my perspective, who succeeds Beshear is somewhat more important than who succeeds McConnell or Barr. Also, it's not exactly a secret that Beshear has an eye on 2028, even though he hasn't said anything yet. That's something I have no opinion about except that it would probably amount to entering the Veepstakes.
Nope. Cameron has found a race for higher office that he can win. Kentuckians are not going to elect a Democrat to the Senate except under a crazy circumstance like that one special election in Alabama.
Which is why we need to contest everywhere. You never know what whackjob could end up winning a Republican primary anymore. But also I'm not sure Cameron is strong. And I honestly believe racism contributed on the margins to Beshear winning last time. I think Cameron may well be beatable in KY even without being crazy.
Of course it's good to have credible candidates in case lightning strikes 7 times in the same place, but while I totally agree that racism contributed to Cameron's defeat for Governor, in no way do I think the racism of white people who can't stand to vote for a Black man will overcome the racism of policy and messaging voting for the Republicans in a _U.S. Senate_ race in Kentucky, and note that one of Beshear's victories was by just a few thousand votes.
Overall, it's much more likely for Cameron to be defeated in the Republican primary than in a general election for the Senate.
Y'know, I do assume that the focus on racism as a reason for Cameron losing in 2023 is an effort to avoid giving any credit to the Beshear campaign, to the power of incumbency, or to those of us who voted for him. (Remember, incumbency almost carried Bevin to a second term in 2019.)
We have had three (3) Republican governors in my lifetime. Two have been able to run for a second term, neither have succeeded. The third was elected in 1967. Granted, it's gotten harder, and the bench has gotten much smaller, but Republican governors are not the norm here. If there's been a norm in the time that governors have been able to run for a second term, it's been two terms for a Democrat (Paul Patton, Steve Beshear, Andy Beshear) followed by one term for a Republican (Ernie Fletcher, Matt Bevin). Obviously, there's no guarantee that any pattern _will_ continue into the indefinite future, but that has been the pattern so far.
I think he benefitted in the 2019 open-seat AG race because he was an unknown, and because of the focus on first the Democratic primary for Governor (I swear, it felt like you could hardly turn around without seeing an ad for Beshear, Adkins, or Edelen), and then Beshear vs. Bevin. The 2023 general was the only time he's run against an incumbent, and also the only time he has lost. While I wouldn't assume that he definitely would win an open-seat race for Senate, he has shown that he can win statewide when he isn't facing an incumbent.
McConnell has until January 9, 2026 to make a decision. I don't think he'll wait that long, but wouldn't be surprised if he doesn't announce anything until after filing opens on November 5. We may have a chance in KY-06 if Barr leaves it open, if we can recruit a good candidate, and if that candidate isn't hung out to dry Because Kentucky. Of course, that depends on Barr choosing to run for Senate. If he's hedging based on what McConnell decides, and potential candidates for his seat are hedging based on what he decides, His Mitchness may think that's just fine for now.
it's pretty obvious from his votes on cabinet nominees that he's retiring. He's not going to want to end the most successful Republican career in the Senate in history by losing a primary to a neo-nazi neanderthal
No, but it sure seems McConnell isn’t fighting all that hard to convince his fellow Republican senators to vote against the confirmation of neo-Nazi neanderthals and otherwise utterly unqualified Trump nominees.
It’s as though Mitch isn’t lifting a finger to ensure that his own occasional No vote is anything more than purely symbolic and an exercise in futility.
He's jsut behaving in a way that he thinks will reflect on him well when biographies are written. I hope historian see right through it, he could have ensured Trump wasn't able to hold office again with very little effort in 2021.
I think he probably will retire, but until *he* says so, or the Secretary of State's office closes on January 9, 2026 without him having filed, I'm not going to assume that he definitely *will* retire.
. "Let’s Buy California from Trump – Denmark’s Next Big Adventure"
Worth noting that the Danes have no interest in Texas, nor in Florida and Mar-al-Ego. But that California is deemed worthwhile. Perhaps because this Left Coast state’s values would better enable sensible cultural integration.
Here is the official website for DENMARKIFICATION:
There is also a petition to rename Disney World the "Hans Christian Andersen Park". That is just to show how stupid Republicans are with regards to Greenland.
Or Tivoli USA, after the Danish amusement park which was a prototype for most other such parks, including Walt Disney's creations. (If there can be Disneyland Paris, then why not?)
If there is any validity to Nancy Mace's disturbing accusations of sexual assault, she should make them out in the open, not just on the floor of the House, where the speech and debate clause protects her against any charge of defamation.
Yeah. Fuck Alan Wilson, but I understand why he’s pissed she’s using that venue to level a serious, serious accusation at him that seems to be partly in furtherance of her gubernatorial ambitions
For whatever it's worth to you, this Kentucky Democrat has no problems with Senate vacancies (which are very rare) being filled by special election without an interim appointment.
Just a few weeks ago in Canada, the Liberal Party/Parti libéral du Canada was in very dire straights to the point whether they would have to fight to be the Official Opposition. Now, with the replacing of PM Justin Trudeau to lead the party and Donald Trump’s bullying tactics threatening annexation that has galvanized almost all Canadians to fight for the Maple Leaf, the Liberals have a serious chance to form government (either a minority or majority).
Speaking of the Maple Leaf, three days until the 60th anniversary of Flag Day, when the Maple Leaf was moved to become THE central symbol of the Canadian flag. And to think that this iconic and very Canadian symbol nearly tore the nation apart.
I suspect that if they had put the matter to a vote, like New Zealand or Maine did, they would still have the Red Ensign rather than such a distinctive flag as they do now.
If the Liberal Party hadn't promised a new flag for Canada in the 1963 federal election, I would agree with that. Especially since both Ontario and Manitoba both put versions of the Red Ensign on their provincial flags after the flag change was made. This wasn't an out of the blue decision by then Prime Minister Lester Pearson. Ironically, THE biggest defender of the Red Ensign, former Prime Minister John Diefenbaker had ZERO British blood in him (he had in fact been called a "Hun" in an early campaign of his due to his German ancestry). "Dief the Chief" would be buried with the Red Ensign draping his coffin.
MN just changed their flag and the GOP did the usual whining bs. People agreed but it was a blur of social media posts. Give them a vote, they’d say no. Give them a new flag that’s a millions better, everyone shuts up after a month or two of implementation.
And, the old flag was HORRIBLE! Yes all caps. Busy ass nonsense. We redid that and also the state seal at the same time. It was a huge improvement and we went from 0 loons represented to 1.
Sorry you all can’t enjoy loons, they are like if a duck was sexy. No idea if they quack but they howl. Mostly at dusk across the lake while you’re sitting next to a campfire. Chef kiss. If you stay out til 2am, then maybe you get a wolf howl and it’s time to pack it up. Not that we’re afraid of wolves (this isn’t the 90’s) but it’s literally last call at that point.
I seriously doubt they will be able to form a majority. Their current government is a minority. But they look in much better shape to at least hold the Conservatives to a minority.
Passings: Ex-Rep. Beverly Byron (D-MD) died last weekend at 92. She represented MD-06 from 1978 to 1992, and was the last Democrat to do so when it was more clearly Western MD-based, before being redrawn to include more of Montgomery County. As such, she was a relatively conservative Democrat (the Almanac of American Politics once said "you could call her the northernmost Southern Democrat") who made an interesting contrast with Connie Morella, a liberal Republican from Montgomery who represented MD-08 from 1987 to 2002.
Byron was one of three Democratic husband-wife teams to represent MD-06, two of which were in the Byron family where the men were elected first, died in office, and their wives were elected to succeed them. There were William and Katherine Byron (1939-42), their son Goodloe and Beverly Byron (1971-92), and John and April Delaney (2013-18 and 2025 on, with David Trone in between.)
Ironically it was actually redistricting that doomed her tenure in Congress in 1992. The district lines were redrawn in 1991/92 for some more suburban, more socially liberal areas to be covered and made her subject to attacks for her somewhat conservative beliefs - especially on social issues (she was anti choice) - that she would not have been had her district remained the way it was. Despite the hard feelings of her losing her seat, she remained loyal to the Democratic Party and one of her granddaughters, Mollie Byron is a senior advisor to Governor Wes Moore (D-MD).
Such "suburban, socially liberal areas" must have been in Howard County, as the 1992 redistricting moved MD-06 entirely out of Montgomery County, and Howard was the only county partially included in it addition to the five (Garrett, Allegany, Washington, Frederick, and Carroll) that were entirely in the district, all of which were then red.
Indeed they were. I lived in Ellicott City in Howard County from 2002 to 2007 and was technically in MD-6 with Roscoe Bartlett as my US Rep briefly. Thankfully it was redistricted to MD-7 with Elijah Cummings (may he rest in power), so I can proudly say he was my first AND second US House vote!
2002 redistricting basically turned it into a red vote sink for a decade (except for Frederick and maybe Hagerstown), cutting out its portion of Howard and adding Republican parts of Baltimore and Harford Counties. Not until 2012 did they try to swing it, by cutting out everything east of Frederick (and the red northern half of Frederick County, later re-added to it) and replacing that with blue Montgomery County voters.
How does their 48-52 final approval rating work out mathematically? He's 89-11 republicans, 9-91 democrats, which would more or less cancel out to ~50-50 before we factor in independents. Who have him at 37-63. You'd expect something more like 45-55 or worse, with those numbers. They need to have some stark imbalance in party ID to have those numbers and still result in 48-52. We should expect some imbalance, but with those top line numbers you'd think they polled >40% of the sample as republican with independents and democrats splitting the remainder.
Another thing that jumped out at me, the support for issues based on how much people follow the news. People who follow the news "a lot" support an increase in deportations at 70%. "A little" drops all the way down to 26%. And "nothing at all" craters to 4% (!). Reducing the size of government goes 53% to 35% to 12%. Cabinet positions is 49% to 40% to 11%.
IMO that's a terrifying insight into how horrible the media environment is for us. Coverage with the news that people follow is causing people to support republicans more.
OK, with those numbers that got me to do the math. I made an excel sheet and with the exit poll ID I got 46-54 approval. With the other numbers you did I got 48-52.
I guess it isn't as excessively skewed as I first thought, but that second set of party ID is still unrepresentatively imbalanced I think.
The sample does seem to be a bit too red, so if he's underwater even with that it's a potentially good sign. I'm not buying that the 2024 exit polls are gospel that should be the standard for pollsters to weight to for at least the next couple of years.
Key points for discussion per the article. If the majorities polled say Trump is not going to stop inflation, then this is going to be a problem for the GOP.
The fact that Trump isn't at or below 40 already with all of this chaos tells you many people are giving him a huge honeymoon compared to where he was at the first time.
If this remains consistent through this upcoming cycle it will not be a Democratic wave.
Is there any timetable on when the North Carolina Supreme Court has to stop stalling and likely act unconstitutionally and against the most basic precepts of democracy to annul an election because they didn't like the results, so the decision can be appealed to the very uncertain fate of a federal court decision?
The NCSC has to follow state statute when deciding this: order a retabulation of the results or call another election. If they just throw out 6,500 or 65,000 votes it makes it easy for a federal court to reverse that.
Griffin has appealed the Wake County judge decision to the NC Court of Appeals (where he is a sitting judge and two of his peers donated to his election challenge). Chances are he and the other two won’t recuse themselves. It will probably take 2-3 months for this to work back to NCSC and longer if it bounces back to the federal courts.
Griffin should’ve taken his lumps and conceded last December. Even if he doesn’t prevail, he should (and will) get a strong challenger for his Court of Appeals seat for his shenanigans.
Russia-Ukraine talks have been slated for Munich (yes, the same city where Chamberlain gave the Sudetenland to Hitler).
The next Ukrainian elections are going to be interesting, as any deal that comes out of Munich is going to be a giveaway to Russia with nothing, or very little, in return to Ukraine. It's not far-fetched that Zelensky's party could be completely wiped out in the next Ukrainian elections.
Mayor Eric Adams of New York City is said to have been quietly exploring a run in this spring’s Republican primary as he seeks a path to a second term.
Without Adams in the dem primary, the RCV battle for not-Cuomo has more media and voter time and energy devoted to it. Makes it far easier for one of the decent candidates to stand out and get enough support to overcome Cuomo.
We need to avoid what happened last time where Adams and Yang took up too much of the oxygen and left Garcia a hair short.
Fortunately, he needs to win at least one of them to have any shot at all. It's reasonable to think he has a better chance in the republican primary, and his best way of winning that is to convince their base that he's a true convert to MAGAism. Which would preclude running in the dem primary.
I'm not completely sure that's true in New York City. Staten Island, yes, but in a citywide race, the Republican has to support Trump but I don't know if they have to be really loud and obnoxious about it. We shall see.
Georgia Democratic State Senator Jason Esteves preparing for a potential run for governor in 2026
https://www.ajc.com/politics/politically-georgia/jason-esteves-preparing-for-a-potential-run-for-governor-in-2026/QTDYNPH6UBBKXJBDYKDSVKC47Q/
“State Sen. Jason Esteves might not yet be a household name in Georgia politics, but you could be hearing plenty more about him over the next year.
The Atlanta Democrat is taking steps to prepare a campaign for governor in 2026. He’s lined up advisers, consulted with senior Democrats and set up meetings with activists and donors about a potential bid.
Esteves is staying mum for now about his plans, but his discussions are such an open secret that we regularly get calls about them. Even some Republicans are in the know.
“He is far and away the most electable of the potential Democratic candidates who have been mentioned,” said Jay Morgan, a former Georgia GOP executive director and well-connected lobbyist who has been briefed on the Democrat’s plans.
He said Esteves has all the positive attributes that made two-time gubernatorial nominee Stacey Abrams a national figure but “without the guile.”
Esteves won his Georgia Senate seat in 2022 after spending nine years on the board of education of Atlanta Public Schools, including as chair from 2018-2021. He’s a steadfast supporter of abortion rights and Medicaid expansion and has become a go-to expert in the chamber on education measures.
He could be a wild card in an unsettled field to succeed Gov. Brian Kemp. While the Republican race seems likely to revolve around a matchup between Attorney General Chris Carr and Lt. Gov. Burt Jones, Democrats are far more uncertain.
Former Atlanta Mayor Keisha Lance Bottoms and ex-DeKalb chief executive Michael Thurmond are kicking the tires on a run. U.S. Rep. Lucy McBath, D-Marietta, could also jump in, and Abrams hasn’t ruled out a third shot.
Expect Esteves to work to raise his profile.
Today, he plans to renew his calls to update the state’s decades-old school funding formula and push back on President Donald Trump’s vow to eliminate the federal Department of Education.
He or McBath are way stronger than Thurman or Bottoms.
McBath has been battle tested in a competitive House district. Could become a credible gubernatorial candidate.
I googled Esteves and I’m good. He seems like an A+ choice and looks like the kind of guy you could have a beer with. McBath is always the #1 choice but maybe we could afford to save her for another cycle. Let’s be real, we will lose one of those Senate seats someday. It’s inevitable in a red state that’s still trying to swing.
If we can move on from depending on Stacey Abrams for another gubernatorial run, I'm willing to consider either Esteves or McBath.
I'm not ready to assert it's inevitable that one of the Senate seats will go red just yet. For starters, Trump beat Harris in GA but by 2.87% points less than he did with Clinton back in 2016. Not arguing it's going to be a walk in the park for Jon Ossoff in 2026 but Trump's GA win in 2024 isn't exactly remarkable.
So, this is deep in blue territory so it doesn't matter that much - though it is a county of 1 million, but I just heard the first few seconds of Ken Jenkins' victory speech. Literally, the first sentence was about how "diversity is our strength". He could have said something about fighting for the poor of the county, or making government "work for everybody", or continuing to keep taxes under control, or almost anything. Diversity is one of our strengths, but the voters don't want to hear about it.
If it matches how he ran his campaign, it looks like the voters had no problem with him. (That said, for many areas in the country the messages you prefer would definitely work better.)
What’s wrong with that.
I don't think Dems made much of an active defense of diversity initiatives in the last election. At least not one that percolated to the surface. Now that Trump is using "DEI" as an excuse to a wrecking ball to the federal government and issue orders that greatly exceed his constitutional authority, I expect to see more pushback.
It's one of these things where there were some initiatives that definitely were counterproductive or excessive, like trainings that studies showed actually made workplace bias worse, or requiring a "diversity statement" to get an academic job. So Dems didn't want to be seen as defending these initiatives, so they just kept their mouths shut, which let Trump define DEI however he wanted. If there has been more of a pushback earlier, maybe we wouldn't be in this position.
The academic DEI climate was more than just having to write a statement for a job. The reason why application statements on DEI were increasingly required, alongside statements about contributions to teaching and research, was that university administrators imagined that professors would be spending a major portion of their time on DEI initiatives. Any number of things could be filed under the category, some more worthy than others, but there was certainly a sense of "so now we have to do this too" among academics, who really just wanted to get on with their teaching and research.
I should add that the academic DEI statement was likened by critics to a loyalty oath to DEI ideology (whatever nebulous set of beliefs that entails). To a certain extent it was, but if you wrote a statement that was only an ideological pledge, you would be rather unlikely to get the job. It essentially mirrored to teaching and research statements, in that it was supposed to highlight past successes and future ambitions in the field. The bullshit part of it is that 99% of academics were not actually committed to DEI initiatives in the way they were committed to teaching and research, so whatever little thing you might have done had to be couched as opening up the field to underrepresented groups in some major way, etc.
Would be amazing to see Senator Andy Beshear sworn into office in January 2027. Would love to see him again beat the forced-birther, Daniel Cameron. Would Barr be easier to beat than Cameron? Perhaps there is time for today’s extreme Republican brand to weaken, even in Kentucky, before the 2026 elections.
Not likely to happen. Beshear is committed to completing his term, and hopefully to helping whichever Democrat gets the nomination in 2027. From my perspective, who succeeds Beshear is somewhat more important than who succeeds McConnell or Barr. Also, it's not exactly a secret that Beshear has an eye on 2028, even though he hasn't said anything yet. That's something I have no opinion about except that it would probably amount to entering the Veepstakes.
Yeah, I think he’s going to run for president.
hope so!!
Nope. Cameron has found a race for higher office that he can win. Kentuckians are not going to elect a Democrat to the Senate except under a crazy circumstance like that one special election in Alabama.
Which is why we need to contest everywhere. You never know what whackjob could end up winning a Republican primary anymore. But also I'm not sure Cameron is strong. And I honestly believe racism contributed on the margins to Beshear winning last time. I think Cameron may well be beatable in KY even without being crazy.
Of course it's good to have credible candidates in case lightning strikes 7 times in the same place, but while I totally agree that racism contributed to Cameron's defeat for Governor, in no way do I think the racism of white people who can't stand to vote for a Black man will overcome the racism of policy and messaging voting for the Republicans in a _U.S. Senate_ race in Kentucky, and note that one of Beshear's victories was by just a few thousand votes.
Overall, it's much more likely for Cameron to be defeated in the Republican primary than in a general election for the Senate.
Y'know, I do assume that the focus on racism as a reason for Cameron losing in 2023 is an effort to avoid giving any credit to the Beshear campaign, to the power of incumbency, or to those of us who voted for him. (Remember, incumbency almost carried Bevin to a second term in 2019.)
Yes, but he is a Republican, so his winning would have been normal for Kentucky.
We have had three (3) Republican governors in my lifetime. Two have been able to run for a second term, neither have succeeded. The third was elected in 1967. Granted, it's gotten harder, and the bench has gotten much smaller, but Republican governors are not the norm here. If there's been a norm in the time that governors have been able to run for a second term, it's been two terms for a Democrat (Paul Patton, Steve Beshear, Andy Beshear) followed by one term for a Republican (Ernie Fletcher, Matt Bevin). Obviously, there's no guarantee that any pattern _will_ continue into the indefinite future, but that has been the pattern so far.
I think he benefitted in the 2019 open-seat AG race because he was an unknown, and because of the focus on first the Democratic primary for Governor (I swear, it felt like you could hardly turn around without seeing an ad for Beshear, Adkins, or Edelen), and then Beshear vs. Bevin. The 2023 general was the only time he's run against an incumbent, and also the only time he has lost. While I wouldn't assume that he definitely would win an open-seat race for Senate, he has shown that he can win statewide when he isn't facing an incumbent.
please, don't hold your breath waiting for Sen Beshear!
McConnell has until January 9, 2026 to make a decision. I don't think he'll wait that long, but wouldn't be surprised if he doesn't announce anything until after filing opens on November 5. We may have a chance in KY-06 if Barr leaves it open, if we can recruit a good candidate, and if that candidate isn't hung out to dry Because Kentucky. Of course, that depends on Barr choosing to run for Senate. If he's hedging based on what McConnell decides, and potential candidates for his seat are hedging based on what he decides, His Mitchness may think that's just fine for now.
it's pretty obvious from his votes on cabinet nominees that he's retiring. He's not going to want to end the most successful Republican career in the Senate in history by losing a primary to a neo-nazi neanderthal
No, but it sure seems McConnell isn’t fighting all that hard to convince his fellow Republican senators to vote against the confirmation of neo-Nazi neanderthals and otherwise utterly unqualified Trump nominees.
It’s as though Mitch isn’t lifting a finger to ensure that his own occasional No vote is anything more than purely symbolic and an exercise in futility.
He's jsut behaving in a way that he thinks will reflect on him well when biographies are written. I hope historian see right through it, he could have ensured Trump wasn't able to hold office again with very little effort in 2021.
I think he probably will retire, but until *he* says so, or the Secretary of State's office closes on January 9, 2026 without him having filed, I'm not going to assume that he definitely *will* retire.
Over 200,000 Danes have signed the petition...
. "Let’s Buy California from Trump – Denmark’s Next Big Adventure"
Worth noting that the Danes have no interest in Texas, nor in Florida and Mar-al-Ego. But that California is deemed worthwhile. Perhaps because this Left Coast state’s values would better enable sensible cultural integration.
Here is the official website for DENMARKIFICATION:
https://denmarkification.com/
There is also a petition to rename Disney World the "Hans Christian Andersen Park". That is just to show how stupid Republicans are with regards to Greenland.
I probably shouldn’t repeat the joke Norwegians tell about Danes, who are constantly accused of swallowing their consonants:
"Danish is not a language – it’s a hereditary speech defect."
(Jests aside, Norwegians have a keen appreciation of their southern neighbors.)
The Swedish woman I had a relationship with in the mid 90s said that Danish is like Swedish spoken with a potato in your mouth.
Or Tivoli USA, after the Danish amusement park which was a prototype for most other such parks, including Walt Disney's creations. (If there can be Disneyland Paris, then why not?)
If there is any validity to Nancy Mace's disturbing accusations of sexual assault, she should make them out in the open, not just on the floor of the House, where the speech and debate clause protects her against any charge of defamation.
Yeah. Fuck Alan Wilson, but I understand why he’s pissed she’s using that venue to level a serious, serious accusation at him that seems to be partly in furtherance of her gubernatorial ambitions
As with any such assusations, due process should unfold as the evidence comes out.
So far, her ex-husband is denying the accusations and already is getting a legal team to address them.
Honestly the way she went about is disgusting in so many ways and truly harms real victims of assault.
For whatever it's worth to you, this Kentucky Democrat has no problems with Senate vacancies (which are very rare) being filled by special election without an interim appointment.
Just a few weeks ago in Canada, the Liberal Party/Parti libéral du Canada was in very dire straights to the point whether they would have to fight to be the Official Opposition. Now, with the replacing of PM Justin Trudeau to lead the party and Donald Trump’s bullying tactics threatening annexation that has galvanized almost all Canadians to fight for the Maple Leaf, the Liberals have a serious chance to form government (either a minority or majority).
https://www.theguardian.com/world/2025/feb/11/canada-liberal-party-trump
Speaking of the Maple Leaf, three days until the 60th anniversary of Flag Day, when the Maple Leaf was moved to become THE central symbol of the Canadian flag. And to think that this iconic and very Canadian symbol nearly tore the nation apart.
I suspect that if they had put the matter to a vote, like New Zealand or Maine did, they would still have the Red Ensign rather than such a distinctive flag as they do now.
If the Liberal Party hadn't promised a new flag for Canada in the 1963 federal election, I would agree with that. Especially since both Ontario and Manitoba both put versions of the Red Ensign on their provincial flags after the flag change was made. This wasn't an out of the blue decision by then Prime Minister Lester Pearson. Ironically, THE biggest defender of the Red Ensign, former Prime Minister John Diefenbaker had ZERO British blood in him (he had in fact been called a "Hun" in an early campaign of his due to his German ancestry). "Dief the Chief" would be buried with the Red Ensign draping his coffin.
Hark a Vagrant's take on it is pretty good:
http://www.harkavagrant.com/index.php?id=294
(Last comic on the page)
MN just changed their flag and the GOP did the usual whining bs. People agreed but it was a blur of social media posts. Give them a vote, they’d say no. Give them a new flag that’s a millions better, everyone shuts up after a month or two of implementation.
And, the old flag was HORRIBLE! Yes all caps. Busy ass nonsense. We redid that and also the state seal at the same time. It was a huge improvement and we went from 0 loons represented to 1.
Sorry you all can’t enjoy loons, they are like if a duck was sexy. No idea if they quack but they howl. Mostly at dusk across the lake while you’re sitting next to a campfire. Chef kiss. If you stay out til 2am, then maybe you get a wolf howl and it’s time to pack it up. Not that we’re afraid of wolves (this isn’t the 90’s) but it’s literally last call at that point.
In both cases I mentioned, the new flag was a clear improvement but still lost handily.
I seriously doubt they will be able to form a majority. Their current government is a minority. But they look in much better shape to at least hold the Conservatives to a minority.
Passings: Ex-Rep. Beverly Byron (D-MD) died last weekend at 92. She represented MD-06 from 1978 to 1992, and was the last Democrat to do so when it was more clearly Western MD-based, before being redrawn to include more of Montgomery County. As such, she was a relatively conservative Democrat (the Almanac of American Politics once said "you could call her the northernmost Southern Democrat") who made an interesting contrast with Connie Morella, a liberal Republican from Montgomery who represented MD-08 from 1987 to 2002.
Byron was one of three Democratic husband-wife teams to represent MD-06, two of which were in the Byron family where the men were elected first, died in office, and their wives were elected to succeed them. There were William and Katherine Byron (1939-42), their son Goodloe and Beverly Byron (1971-92), and John and April Delaney (2013-18 and 2025 on, with David Trone in between.)
https://marylandmatters.org/2025/02/10/beverly-byron-former-md-congresswoman-dies-at-92/
Ironically it was actually redistricting that doomed her tenure in Congress in 1992. The district lines were redrawn in 1991/92 for some more suburban, more socially liberal areas to be covered and made her subject to attacks for her somewhat conservative beliefs - especially on social issues (she was anti choice) - that she would not have been had her district remained the way it was. Despite the hard feelings of her losing her seat, she remained loyal to the Democratic Party and one of her granddaughters, Mollie Byron is a senior advisor to Governor Wes Moore (D-MD).
Such "suburban, socially liberal areas" must have been in Howard County, as the 1992 redistricting moved MD-06 entirely out of Montgomery County, and Howard was the only county partially included in it addition to the five (Garrett, Allegany, Washington, Frederick, and Carroll) that were entirely in the district, all of which were then red.
Indeed they were. I lived in Ellicott City in Howard County from 2002 to 2007 and was technically in MD-6 with Roscoe Bartlett as my US Rep briefly. Thankfully it was redistricted to MD-7 with Elijah Cummings (may he rest in power), so I can proudly say he was my first AND second US House vote!
2002 redistricting basically turned it into a red vote sink for a decade (except for Frederick and maybe Hagerstown), cutting out its portion of Howard and adding Republican parts of Baltimore and Harford Counties. Not until 2012 did they try to swing it, by cutting out everything east of Frederick (and the red northern half of Frederick County, later re-added to it) and replacing that with blue Montgomery County voters.
New Marquette University national poll. Trump approval and favourability both somewhat underwater. Mixed opinions on policies.
https://law.marquette.edu/poll/2025/02/12/new-marquette-law-school-poll-national-survey-finds-public-strongly-favors-some-trump-policies-strongly-opposes-others/
How does their 48-52 final approval rating work out mathematically? He's 89-11 republicans, 9-91 democrats, which would more or less cancel out to ~50-50 before we factor in independents. Who have him at 37-63. You'd expect something more like 45-55 or worse, with those numbers. They need to have some stark imbalance in party ID to have those numbers and still result in 48-52. We should expect some imbalance, but with those top line numbers you'd think they polled >40% of the sample as republican with independents and democrats splitting the remainder.
Another thing that jumped out at me, the support for issues based on how much people follow the news. People who follow the news "a lot" support an increase in deportations at 70%. "A little" drops all the way down to 26%. And "nothing at all" craters to 4% (!). Reducing the size of government goes 53% to 35% to 12%. Cabinet positions is 49% to 40% to 11%.
IMO that's a terrifying insight into how horrible the media environment is for us. Coverage with the news that people follow is causing people to support republicans more.
If you plug in the split from the 2024 exit poll (31D-35R-34I) he'd be about -7. Something like 32D-38R-30I gets you to about -4.
OK, with those numbers that got me to do the math. I made an excel sheet and with the exit poll ID I got 46-54 approval. With the other numbers you did I got 48-52.
I guess it isn't as excessively skewed as I first thought, but that second set of party ID is still unrepresentatively imbalanced I think.
The sample does seem to be a bit too red, so if he's underwater even with that it's a potentially good sign. I'm not buying that the 2024 exit polls are gospel that should be the standard for pollsters to weight to for at least the next couple of years.
I wouldn't weight to party ID in any case, but the exit polls provide a decent quick and dirty reasonableness check.
The follow a news a lot probably skews to Trump cheerleaders right now as many liberals are less engaged with the news.
I think a lot of liberals have been trying to block out the news since November, but that's slowly changing.
48-52 is among all adults. So I assume is approval among RVs is a little lower.
Key points for discussion per the article. If the majorities polled say Trump is not going to stop inflation, then this is going to be a problem for the GOP.
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Overall opinion is skeptical on tariffs
Majorities doubt Trump will reduce inflation
Polarized views by party remain very strong
Opinion shifts toward increased optimism on the nation’s direction
Pessimism is going up due to economic uncertainty. That will just continue to drive Trump's numbers down..
There's always economic uncertainty but as it relates to prices, I think independents and moderate voters are certainly keeping their eyes peeled.
The fact that Trump isn't at or below 40 already with all of this chaos tells you many people are giving him a huge honeymoon compared to where he was at the first time.
If this remains consistent through this upcoming cycle it will not be a Democratic wave.
It's pretty dang early in the cycle.
Is there any timetable on when the North Carolina Supreme Court has to stop stalling and likely act unconstitutionally and against the most basic precepts of democracy to annul an election because they didn't like the results, so the decision can be appealed to the very uncertain fate of a federal court decision?
The NCSC has to follow state statute when deciding this: order a retabulation of the results or call another election. If they just throw out 6,500 or 65,000 votes it makes it easy for a federal court to reverse that.
But how long can they continue stalling?
Griffin has appealed the Wake County judge decision to the NC Court of Appeals (where he is a sitting judge and two of his peers donated to his election challenge). Chances are he and the other two won’t recuse themselves. It will probably take 2-3 months for this to work back to NCSC and longer if it bounces back to the federal courts.
This is such a horrible precedent! They shouldn't be able to delay so much.
Griffin should’ve taken his lumps and conceded last December. Even if he doesn’t prevail, he should (and will) get a strong challenger for his Court of Appeals seat for his shenanigans.
Russia-Ukraine talks have been slated for Munich (yes, the same city where Chamberlain gave the Sudetenland to Hitler).
The next Ukrainian elections are going to be interesting, as any deal that comes out of Munich is going to be a giveaway to Russia with nothing, or very little, in return to Ukraine. It's not far-fetched that Zelensky's party could be completely wiped out in the next Ukrainian elections.
Why on Earth do you think he will agree to surrender?
Who can we get to run against Fetterman?
Wouldn’t mind seeing Connor Lamb take another crack at it. Maybe Chris Deluzio.
In the no surprise department:
Mayor Eric Adams of New York City is said to have been quietly exploring a run in this spring’s Republican primary as he seeks a path to a second term.
https://bsky.app/profile/nytimes.com/post/3lhzgp5kdl22z
As long as Adams is voted out, that’s what matters at this point.
I’m sure he’d make a fine speaker at the 2028 RNC Convention. Not!
I think that'd be for the best for us.
Without Adams in the dem primary, the RCV battle for not-Cuomo has more media and voter time and energy devoted to it. Makes it far easier for one of the decent candidates to stand out and get enough support to overcome Cuomo.
We need to avoid what happened last time where Adams and Yang took up too much of the oxygen and left Garcia a hair short.
Don't count on this man with a hugely puffed-up ego not running in _both_ primaries!
He certainly could, I'd believe that of his ego.
Fortunately, he needs to win at least one of them to have any shot at all. It's reasonable to think he has a better chance in the republican primary, and his best way of winning that is to convince their base that he's a true convert to MAGAism. Which would preclude running in the dem primary.
I'm not completely sure that's true in New York City. Staten Island, yes, but in a citywide race, the Republican has to support Trump but I don't know if they have to be really loud and obnoxious about it. We shall see.