We should expect this across the country up and down the ballot. The MN GOP has said they won’t seat a DFL state house rep regardless of how the courts rule on his 14 vote win. Almost overplaying their hand since there is a question of what counts as a quorum and it’s the DFL SoS who gets final say as presiding over the state house until a Speaker is elected.
They call themselves Republicans , but they are no longer a party but a rabid cult plowing their way through everything in their path and feeling more empowered then ever due to their Tyrant in charge. Every damn race they loose, they lie and either claim cheating when their wasn't any or repulsive stunts like this . They also silenced a mayor in Texas and took away his powers in I think 2022? And test runs for stripping dems from power were sprinkled across the US in red states over the past few yrs. Could you just imagine what would happen if we ever even mentioned one of these actions against this cult? These are all overgrown bullies , screaming , crying, snot nose brats that all need a major time out !
Yes, they all need a major time out – as in time out of office. That can only happen through hard work, rebuilding and strengthening Democratic state parties, a well-honed 50 State Strategy.
None of which means all 50 states will get the same priority. As I've had to remind people here ad nauseum, even the highly touted 50 State Strategy gave top priority to swing states and districts.
Absolutely. And it also means carefully choosing (and vetting) candidates that are optimally suited for their town/district/state. For instance, however frustrating he was, Joe Manchin was the best Democrats could hope for in West Virginia. Many commenters here and elsewhere wished him good riddance, but I sure do wish we now had Senator Manchin rather than Senator Jim Justice.
Right although it should be worth mentioning that back when Howard Dean was DNC Chair in the 2005-2009 period, he had the DNC invest in states like MS which hadn't received much if any previous support. Certainly the investments may have not been as much as in swing states like WI but this was a start at the time, especially considering the mid 2000's came amid President Bush's approval ratings taking a dip.
What the 50 state strategy really entails in principle is that the Democratic Party should not ignore or write off any race in states that are not considered friendly to Democrats. The strategy itself will take time to implement.
In the immediate future, priority should certainly be made over races Democrats NEED to win.
Fetterman, Gallego, and reportedly Ossoff the first Senate Dems to sign onto the Laken Riley Act which was passed in the House. The bill allows the detention of illegal immigrants charged with a crime.
More house Democrats voted for the bill this year than last, signaling a lurch to the right on the issue of immigration.
If the Democratic Party wants to win over populists, it will mean having SOME socially conservative positions that base voters won't like. And not just in purple states either.
In this case, the detention of these specific immigrants charged with a crime is less divisive than deporting hordes of immigrants and migrants just simply because they illegally crossed the border. To me, this is more common sense.
“We must give law enforcement the means to take action when illegal immigrants break the law, to prevent situations like what occurred to Laken Riley,” he said in a statement.
Of course, that doesn't mean mass deportations won't happen--for MAGA, the act of crossing the border illegally is a crime worthy of expulsion. It doesn't have to be murder or any other crime.
I'm not saying that these D Sens are wrong, but if they think that supporting the deportation of people who've committed crimes will be limited to those charged and convicted of felonies, they're sadly mistaken.
Felony crimes differ depending on the nature of the crime. They don’t by default apply to violent crimes.
However, my understanding is that this specific legislation is meant to target those who crossed border illegally and committed specific crimes in the U.S., not strictly the act of crossing the border illegally. This particularly applies to such crimes as stabbing and homicide. Whatever degrees of severity of the crime is contingent on how the legal system classifies them.
The bill is actually common sense and gives Democrats some populist credibility by supporting. If they paired stuff like that with comprehensive immigration reform, a compromise would fix the damn issue for good (we can only dream)!! 💙🇺🇲💯😢
If Canada became the 51st state, it would have two Senators, most likely Democrats. It would have 51 members of Congress, a large majority of whom would surely caucus as Democrats. That would make Hakeem Jeffries speaker of the House.
Not that this would ever happen, but if Canada were to become part of the U.S. they should negotiate to have Canadian provinces admitted as states. Most of the provinces are plenty big enough to be states. Only Prince Edward Island would be questionable, with a population of about 180,000 residents. Canada has a higher population than California; neither country should have only two senators.
Then Democrats would end up with clear majorities in both the Senate and the House. Isn't that why Republicans oppose statehood for Puerto Rico and the District of Columbia?
I'm not so sure about American Samoa. The current elected delegate to the House of Representatives, Amata Coleman Rudewagen, is a Republican. In 2024, she won her sixth term with 75% of the vote.
Their elections are nonpartisan and usually are determined by which family you represent. I'd guess Faleomavaega would still be the delegate if Agent Orange complications hadn't compromised his ability to represent them and then killed him.
It's true that party affiliations are not listed on the ballot for Congressional delegate, but Rudewagen is well known as a Republican and has served for a long time on the Republican National Committee.
Part of the fun of wonky communities like this are the occasional thought exercises like “what would the US political landscape look like if Canada was part of the US?”
I hate hate hate hate hate that we’re doing these thought exercises because that fat fucking crazy asshole has delusions of territorial expansion as part of his idea of what a “great” president is supposed to do.
The first thing I did was check population, estimated a EV count and we’d still have lost in 2024. But Canada joining as one state would be an INSANE thing for them to agree to. If there were any agreement, they would certainly bargain for as many states as possible to get as many Senators and EV as possible.
In the extremely unlikely event that Canada became part of the US, it would become more than just the 51st state. Given that it has ten provinces (plus three territories), Canada would likely add the 51st, 52nd, 53rd, 54th, 55th, 56th, 57th, 58, 59th and 60th states.
I’ll let somebody else perform the hypothetical math of how many Democratic senators and representatives that would add, versus new Republican lawmakers.
If something were to happen with Greenland (and I’m not convinced this isn’t just a ploy to force Denmark to uniformly ban Chinese investment there/cut sweetheart deals for US mining and shipping firms) itd probably look more like the relationship with the Marshall Islands than statehood
If I was a Greenlander, I might say something like:
“Hmm, I’ll think about if you Americans first show your other territories some respect – by granting statehood to Puerto Rico (if they want it), the Virgin Islands, Guam, American Samoa and the Northern Mariana Islands. Oh, as well as the District of Columbia while you’re at it. Then we’ll talk.”
The losses of Cheri Beasley in 2020 as well as Sam Ervin and Lucy Inman in 2022 sting very badly.
I’ve gotten to know Justices Ervin and Riggs and they’re both very decent and intelligent, but to Riggs’s credit, I think she understands that judges really are politicians better than any of the other judges I listed.
I like them all, and I'd be happy to support Beasley if she runs against Newby for Chief Justice again in 2028. However, we don't necessarily need them to run. NC Democrats have many qualified circuit court judges and attorneys, including many who are younger than those I listed above.
We are very close to being able to say what the state of the judiciary will be when Trump takes office. Biden will leave office with 1 SCOTUS justice (11%), 44 circuit judges (25%), and 183 district judges (27%). Trump already has 3 SCOTUS (33%), 53 circuit (30%), and 168 district (25%). Obama still has 2 SCOTUS (22%), 35 circuit (20%), and 186 district (27%). Dubya has 2 SCOTUS (22%), 26 circuit (15%), and 79 district (12%). Clinton has 9 circuit (5%) and 17 district (3%). Poppy has 1 SCOTUS (11%), 4 circuit (2%) and 4 district (1%). Reagan has 5 circuit (3%) and 6 district (1%). That makes for partisan totals of 6-3 GOP (67%) on SCOTUS, a tie of 88-88 on the circuits with three vacancies (49%-49%-2%), and a sizeable Dem lead of 386-257 on the district courts with 37 vacancies (57%-38%-5%).
The vacancies Trump is set to inherit: The Maine seat on the 5D-0R-1v 1st circuit opened on Halloween with the retirement of an Obama appointee, and Biden's uncontroversial nominee wasn't given a vote under the 'deal' that kept Sinema and Manchin playing ball for district nominees. The 7R-6D-2v 3rd circuit will leave NJ and DE seats. The NJ seat shouldn't have opened to begin with (Obama appointee going to the private sector in June 2023), and several Dems balked at voting for the first Muslim circuit judge; the administration refused to back down and the nominee never got a vote. The DE seat will open on the 15th with the retirement of a Dubya appointee. The seat never got a nominee despite being announced in May; it seems highly unlikely that Biden would have willingly passed up the opportunity to appoint a home state judge, so I'm pretty certain the judge offered an ultimatum that made a Biden appointment dependent upon a Harris victory. Of the 37 district vacancies, 35 have two GOP senators (3 AL, 2 AK, 1 AR, 4 FL, 1 IN, 1 KS, 4 LA, 1 MS, 4 MO, 4 NC, 1 OH, 1 SC, 1 TN, 7 TX). Biden filled 33 seat that required at least one GOP blue slip, but that was largely dependent upon the timing of the vacancy: he filled 3 of 4 that opened under Trump, 25 of 32 that opened in the 117th congress, and 5 of 32 that opened in the 118th congress. There's uncertainty connected to three future vacancies that were set to occur upon confirmation of a successor. We've seen vacancies rescinded for a circuit seat in NC and district seats in NC and OH. I expect the same for a circuit seat in TN and district seats in MT and NY, the latter of which hasn't been officially announced, but we'll see. The two Dem state district judgeships left vacant: an SD CA seat that opened in 2021 saw two failed nominees, the first a critic of residency restrictions for sex offenders and the latter probably receiving a 'not qualified' ABA rating and never being withdrawn despite it being clear by June that she would fail; the second opened on SD NY on New Year's Eve after Ossoff helped vote down a nominee in July for relocating a trans woman prisoner to a women's prison.
Appointing party has become a near-perfect analog for judicial ideology, thanks to the elimination of the filibuster. Under Biden: 1 of 1 SCOTUS appointee has a Dem donation history; 17 circuit appointees have Dem donation histories while the other 27 have none; 86 district appointees have Dem donation histories, 90 have none, 4 have GOP histories, and 3 have mixed histories. The seven with GOP or split histories: Susan Bazis (D NE, Fischer and Ricketts): 4 GOP donations, $2200, 2005-2007; Kelly Rankin (D WY, Barrasso and Lummis): 7 GOP donations, $1540, 2002-2010; John David Russell (ND OK, Mullin and Lankford): $1000 to Glen Mulready for OK Insurance Commissioner, 2018; Elizabeth Coombe (ND NY, Schumer and Gillibrand): $250 to John Katko, 2014; David Leibowitz (SD FL, Rubio and Scott): 9 donations 2007-2018, $7030 to Curbelo, Fleischmann, Brian Fitzpatrick, Giuliani, and Joe Garcia, $3500 to Crist, Cicilline, and Al Lawson; John Murphy (ED PA, Toomey and Casey): 47 donations 2010-2022, $5500 to Toomey, $1359 to his law firm's winner-endorsing PAC, $850 to Dems, and $620 to other GOPers; Camela Theeler (D SD, Rounds and Thune), $500 to Jim Abbott in 2002 for SD Gov, $250 to Dusty Johnson in 2016. The GOP donations from Coombe, Theeler, and Russell may simply be personal connections, while Rankin and Bazis are clearly partisan Republicans; Leibowitz and particularly Murphy bought their way onto the courts.
As for how a second Trump term's set to impact the judiciary, the highlight is of course adding youth to the GOP SCOTUS slate, but more fundamentally, it is likely to boil down to replacing a bunch of Dubya appointees. By appointing president:
Elon Musk’s manipulative, lying post against Norwegian Prime Minister Jonas Gahr Støre will be subject to the ongoing European Union investigation against Musk and his Xitter.
In the screenshot shown in the article, Musk connects two events that have nothing to do with each other, stating the Norwegian PM made his claims in a conversation with Bill Gates – which is an outright lie!
“The republican conference is filled with marauding bands of individuals who can't stand each other.”
. – Hakeem Jeffries, House Minority Leader
(Given their puny two-seat majority, this gives Democrats ever-present golden opportunities to provoke internecine warfare within the Republican caucus!)
Oh, there are subtle ways to provoke their internal strife, for instance by proposing amendments or legislation that parts of their caucus will support.
A modest example: propose restoring the regulations on investments in China that were a prime reason for Elon Musk working so hard to kill the bipartisan continuing resolution that had been negotiated.
I am talking about the actual knifing; our better strategy is to focus on the positive impact of our agenda as opposed to the crazy that Trump will provide in the 2nd term; we all know that Trump is undisciplined; he'll be knifing Johnson by June I'm betting
Dems shouldn't throw the GOP lifelines to get out of any of their self-created crises, with the only exceptions being the most basic stuff like preventing government shutdowns or defaults.
Permanent debt ceiling repeal – with a caveat: a stipulation against debt-financed tax cuts, and especially not for high-income earners and large corporations.
Yes, but “Nonpartisan voters” is a bigger block than either party. As Ralston himself states in the Tweet you quoted: “Major parties make up less than 60 percent of the electorate.”
Others have pointed out that young new voters tend to register as Independent / Nonpartisan.
Which still wasn't quite enough to deliver it to Harris, but was for most other statewide and downballot Dems. So calling it "newly red" is a bit of a stretch, even from an authority on the state like Ralston. Thoroughly purple is fine for now.
LOL at "newly red". Who won the state in 2000 and 2004? How big was Bill Clinton's margin in 1996? (That would be one point).
For various reasons, registered Republicans are going to pass registered Democrats in Nevada, this will also happen in North Carolina, and then in Pennsylvania at some point. Bloated registered Dem advantages didn't stop these states from voting GOP in previous decades. It won't, on its own, mean these states are uniquely shifting Republican moreso than the country now (basically every state with partisan reg shows a GOP shift if you ignore independents - Colorado is the one exception and even there the GOP has been close to keeping parity by registration in recent years even as they lose every race by double digits now).
Calling Nevada "newly red" is unnecessary engagement bait on Ralston's behalf. Nevada has been a swing state for over a decade now. It was a swing state that we just barely won more often than lost, but a swing state nonetheless. There are potential signs for it being a slightly less friendly swing state, in the near future, but not enough information to make a confident evaluation either way.
Calling it a red state is just plainly wrong, like if we called Michigan or Pennsylvania "newly blue" states after 2020.
It is unfortunate too, because there is an interesting discussion to be had over the data about Nevada's recent trends, but his provocative framing kills the discussion off right away. I'm sure it's good for his engagement and eventual subscription numbers, but it's an annoying trend.
In my experience, we always have to look at the totality of what Jon Ralston writes. Yes, he does have an annoying tendency to make attention-grabbing statements. The key is to never stop with those.
"President Carter will lie in state at the US Capitol. Trump lies everywhere else."
North Carolina GOP and the slimeball Griffin cannot abide by the vote count multiple times and seek to make the case where “low score”
wins. They have learned the lessons that Trump has employed and now feel empowered to make up whatever rules it takes to have their favored outcome.
Given a choice between power and democracy, today’s Republican Party will choose power almost every time – democracy be damned!
We should expect this across the country up and down the ballot. The MN GOP has said they won’t seat a DFL state house rep regardless of how the courts rule on his 14 vote win. Almost overplaying their hand since there is a question of what counts as a quorum and it’s the DFL SoS who gets final say as presiding over the state house until a Speaker is elected.
The GOP's motto should be, "If you can't win, cheat."
They call themselves Republicans , but they are no longer a party but a rabid cult plowing their way through everything in their path and feeling more empowered then ever due to their Tyrant in charge. Every damn race they loose, they lie and either claim cheating when their wasn't any or repulsive stunts like this . They also silenced a mayor in Texas and took away his powers in I think 2022? And test runs for stripping dems from power were sprinkled across the US in red states over the past few yrs. Could you just imagine what would happen if we ever even mentioned one of these actions against this cult? These are all overgrown bullies , screaming , crying, snot nose brats that all need a major time out !
Yes, they all need a major time out – as in time out of office. That can only happen through hard work, rebuilding and strengthening Democratic state parties, a well-honed 50 State Strategy.
None of which means all 50 states will get the same priority. As I've had to remind people here ad nauseum, even the highly touted 50 State Strategy gave top priority to swing states and districts.
Absolutely. And it also means carefully choosing (and vetting) candidates that are optimally suited for their town/district/state. For instance, however frustrating he was, Joe Manchin was the best Democrats could hope for in West Virginia. Many commenters here and elsewhere wished him good riddance, but I sure do wish we now had Senator Manchin rather than Senator Jim Justice.
Right although it should be worth mentioning that back when Howard Dean was DNC Chair in the 2005-2009 period, he had the DNC invest in states like MS which hadn't received much if any previous support. Certainly the investments may have not been as much as in swing states like WI but this was a start at the time, especially considering the mid 2000's came amid President Bush's approval ratings taking a dip.
What the 50 state strategy really entails in principle is that the Democratic Party should not ignore or write off any race in states that are not considered friendly to Democrats. The strategy itself will take time to implement.
In the immediate future, priority should certainly be made over races Democrats NEED to win.
true but we overspend in some swing states to the point of over saturation imo
Fetterman, Gallego, and reportedly Ossoff the first Senate Dems to sign onto the Laken Riley Act which was passed in the House. The bill allows the detention of illegal immigrants charged with a crime.
More house Democrats voted for the bill this year than last, signaling a lurch to the right on the issue of immigration.
If the Democratic Party wants to win over populists, it will mean having SOME socially conservative positions that base voters won't like. And not just in purple states either.
In this case, the detention of these specific immigrants charged with a crime is less divisive than deporting hordes of immigrants and migrants just simply because they illegally crossed the border. To me, this is more common sense.
Here's Gallego's statement on the bill:
https://www.politico.com/live-updates/2025/01/08/congress/laken-riley-act-ruben-gallego-00197043
----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
“We must give law enforcement the means to take action when illegal immigrants break the law, to prevent situations like what occurred to Laken Riley,” he said in a statement.
Of course, that doesn't mean mass deportations won't happen--for MAGA, the act of crossing the border illegally is a crime worthy of expulsion. It doesn't have to be murder or any other crime.
I'm not saying that these D Sens are wrong, but if they think that supporting the deportation of people who've committed crimes will be limited to those charged and convicted of felonies, they're sadly mistaken.
Felony crimes differ depending on the nature of the crime. They don’t by default apply to violent crimes.
However, my understanding is that this specific legislation is meant to target those who crossed border illegally and committed specific crimes in the U.S., not strictly the act of crossing the border illegally. This particularly applies to such crimes as stabbing and homicide. Whatever degrees of severity of the crime is contingent on how the legal system classifies them.
imagine that.. the states they represent all voted for Trump
Same with MI as well. Senator Gary Peters has signed onto this bill.
https://www.politico.com/live-updates/2025/01/08/congress/laken-riley-act-ruben-gallego-00197043
The bill is actually common sense and gives Democrats some populist credibility by supporting. If they paired stuff like that with comprehensive immigration reform, a compromise would fix the damn issue for good (we can only dream)!! 💙🇺🇲💯😢
Few if any Americans would object if known drug traffickers, sex traffickers, and members of violent gangs were quickly and unceremoniously deported.
#Final Results - Virginia SD10
🔴 Luther Cifers - 59% (+18)
🔵 John Trammell - 41%
🔴 2024 Results - Trump +27
That’s the special election ratio you love to see, unpredictive as it might e
If Canada became the 51st state, it would have two Senators, most likely Democrats. It would have 51 members of Congress, a large majority of whom would surely caucus as Democrats. That would make Hakeem Jeffries speaker of the House.
Not that this would ever happen, but if Canada were to become part of the U.S. they should negotiate to have Canadian provinces admitted as states. Most of the provinces are plenty big enough to be states. Only Prince Edward Island would be questionable, with a population of about 180,000 residents. Canada has a higher population than California; neither country should have only two senators.
Then Democrats would end up with clear majorities in both the Senate and the House. Isn't that why Republicans oppose statehood for Puerto Rico and the District of Columbia?
Not to mention the Virgin Islands, Guam, American Samoa and the Northern Mariana Islands.
I'm not so sure about American Samoa. The current elected delegate to the House of Representatives, Amata Coleman Rudewagen, is a Republican. In 2024, she won her sixth term with 75% of the vote.
Their elections are nonpartisan and usually are determined by which family you represent. I'd guess Faleomavaega would still be the delegate if Agent Orange complications hadn't compromised his ability to represent them and then killed him.
It's true that party affiliations are not listed on the ballot for Congressional delegate, but Rudewagen is well known as a Republican and has served for a long time on the Republican National Committee.
Apologies, Zack, you beat me to the point. I didn’t refresh the page before posting my comment.
Part of the fun of wonky communities like this are the occasional thought exercises like “what would the US political landscape look like if Canada was part of the US?”
I hate hate hate hate hate that we’re doing these thought exercises because that fat fucking crazy asshole has delusions of territorial expansion as part of his idea of what a “great” president is supposed to do.
The first thing I did was check population, estimated a EV count and we’d still have lost in 2024. But Canada joining as one state would be an INSANE thing for them to agree to. If there were any agreement, they would certainly bargain for as many states as possible to get as many Senators and EV as possible.
At least 4 states, yeah? Ontario, Quebec, West The Canadia, East The Canadia.
In the extremely unlikely event that Canada became part of the US, it would become more than just the 51st state. Given that it has ten provinces (plus three territories), Canada would likely add the 51st, 52nd, 53rd, 54th, 55th, 56th, 57th, 58, 59th and 60th states.
I’ll let somebody else perform the hypothetical math of how many Democratic senators and representatives that would add, versus new Republican lawmakers.
Never going to actually happen; Canadian voters would never stand for it
As dumb as the idea is, Greenland becoming the 51st state is a far more likely idea. Hell, the US retaking the Panama Canal is more likely.
If something were to happen with Greenland (and I’m not convinced this isn’t just a ploy to force Denmark to uniformly ban Chinese investment there/cut sweetheart deals for US mining and shipping firms) itd probably look more like the relationship with the Marshall Islands than statehood
Yeah. If it was statehood, I could be all for it if they vote Dem.
If I was a Greenlander, I might say something like:
“Hmm, I’ll think about if you Americans first show your other territories some respect – by granting statehood to Puerto Rico (if they want it), the Virgin Islands, Guam, American Samoa and the Northern Mariana Islands. Oh, as well as the District of Columbia while you’re at it. Then we’ll talk.”
The losses of Cheri Beasley in 2020 as well as Sam Ervin and Lucy Inman in 2022 sting very badly.
I’ve gotten to know Justices Ervin and Riggs and they’re both very decent and intelligent, but to Riggs’s credit, I think she understands that judges really are politicians better than any of the other judges I listed.
hope they run again.. Trump will make NC very much competitive by overreach in a 2nd term
I like them all, and I'd be happy to support Beasley if she runs against Newby for Chief Justice again in 2028. However, we don't necessarily need them to run. NC Democrats have many qualified circuit court judges and attorneys, including many who are younger than those I listed above.
I always wondered if NC had a Senate race in 2018, would Democrats have won it? 💙🇺🇲🤔
I am betting yes
We are very close to being able to say what the state of the judiciary will be when Trump takes office. Biden will leave office with 1 SCOTUS justice (11%), 44 circuit judges (25%), and 183 district judges (27%). Trump already has 3 SCOTUS (33%), 53 circuit (30%), and 168 district (25%). Obama still has 2 SCOTUS (22%), 35 circuit (20%), and 186 district (27%). Dubya has 2 SCOTUS (22%), 26 circuit (15%), and 79 district (12%). Clinton has 9 circuit (5%) and 17 district (3%). Poppy has 1 SCOTUS (11%), 4 circuit (2%) and 4 district (1%). Reagan has 5 circuit (3%) and 6 district (1%). That makes for partisan totals of 6-3 GOP (67%) on SCOTUS, a tie of 88-88 on the circuits with three vacancies (49%-49%-2%), and a sizeable Dem lead of 386-257 on the district courts with 37 vacancies (57%-38%-5%).
The vacancies Trump is set to inherit: The Maine seat on the 5D-0R-1v 1st circuit opened on Halloween with the retirement of an Obama appointee, and Biden's uncontroversial nominee wasn't given a vote under the 'deal' that kept Sinema and Manchin playing ball for district nominees. The 7R-6D-2v 3rd circuit will leave NJ and DE seats. The NJ seat shouldn't have opened to begin with (Obama appointee going to the private sector in June 2023), and several Dems balked at voting for the first Muslim circuit judge; the administration refused to back down and the nominee never got a vote. The DE seat will open on the 15th with the retirement of a Dubya appointee. The seat never got a nominee despite being announced in May; it seems highly unlikely that Biden would have willingly passed up the opportunity to appoint a home state judge, so I'm pretty certain the judge offered an ultimatum that made a Biden appointment dependent upon a Harris victory. Of the 37 district vacancies, 35 have two GOP senators (3 AL, 2 AK, 1 AR, 4 FL, 1 IN, 1 KS, 4 LA, 1 MS, 4 MO, 4 NC, 1 OH, 1 SC, 1 TN, 7 TX). Biden filled 33 seat that required at least one GOP blue slip, but that was largely dependent upon the timing of the vacancy: he filled 3 of 4 that opened under Trump, 25 of 32 that opened in the 117th congress, and 5 of 32 that opened in the 118th congress. There's uncertainty connected to three future vacancies that were set to occur upon confirmation of a successor. We've seen vacancies rescinded for a circuit seat in NC and district seats in NC and OH. I expect the same for a circuit seat in TN and district seats in MT and NY, the latter of which hasn't been officially announced, but we'll see. The two Dem state district judgeships left vacant: an SD CA seat that opened in 2021 saw two failed nominees, the first a critic of residency restrictions for sex offenders and the latter probably receiving a 'not qualified' ABA rating and never being withdrawn despite it being clear by June that she would fail; the second opened on SD NY on New Year's Eve after Ossoff helped vote down a nominee in July for relocating a trans woman prisoner to a women's prison.
Appointing party has become a near-perfect analog for judicial ideology, thanks to the elimination of the filibuster. Under Biden: 1 of 1 SCOTUS appointee has a Dem donation history; 17 circuit appointees have Dem donation histories while the other 27 have none; 86 district appointees have Dem donation histories, 90 have none, 4 have GOP histories, and 3 have mixed histories. The seven with GOP or split histories: Susan Bazis (D NE, Fischer and Ricketts): 4 GOP donations, $2200, 2005-2007; Kelly Rankin (D WY, Barrasso and Lummis): 7 GOP donations, $1540, 2002-2010; John David Russell (ND OK, Mullin and Lankford): $1000 to Glen Mulready for OK Insurance Commissioner, 2018; Elizabeth Coombe (ND NY, Schumer and Gillibrand): $250 to John Katko, 2014; David Leibowitz (SD FL, Rubio and Scott): 9 donations 2007-2018, $7030 to Curbelo, Fleischmann, Brian Fitzpatrick, Giuliani, and Joe Garcia, $3500 to Crist, Cicilline, and Al Lawson; John Murphy (ED PA, Toomey and Casey): 47 donations 2010-2022, $5500 to Toomey, $1359 to his law firm's winner-endorsing PAC, $850 to Dems, and $620 to other GOPers; Camela Theeler (D SD, Rounds and Thune), $500 to Jim Abbott in 2002 for SD Gov, $250 to Dusty Johnson in 2016. The GOP donations from Coombe, Theeler, and Russell may simply be personal connections, while Rankin and Bazis are clearly partisan Republicans; Leibowitz and particularly Murphy bought their way onto the courts.
As for how a second Trump term's set to impact the judiciary, the highlight is of course adding youth to the GOP SCOTUS slate, but more fundamentally, it is likely to boil down to replacing a bunch of Dubya appointees. By appointing president:
Reagan, circuit: 5 senior-eligible
Reagan, district: 6 senior-eligible, 1 vacancy
Poppy, SCOTUS: 1 senior-eligible
Poppy, circuit: 4 senior-eligible
Poppy, district: 4 senior-eligible, 1 vacancy
Clinton, circuit: 9 senior-eligible
Clinton, district: 17 senior-eligible, 5 vacancies
Dubya, SCOTUS: 2 senior-eligible
Dubya, circuit: 15 senior-eligible, 2 qualifying in 119th congress, 5 in 120th, 1 vacancy
Dubya, district: 37 senior-eligible, 12 qualifying in 119th congress, 13 in 120th, 1 future vacancy, 13 vacancies
Obama, SCOTUS: 1 senior-eligible, 1 qualifying in 119th congress
Obama, circuit: 5 senior-eligible, 8 qualifying in 119th congress, 8 in 120th, 2 vacancies
Obama, district: 24 senior-eligible, 32 qualifying in 119th congress, 39 in 120th, 2 future vacancies, 15 vacancies
Trump, circuit: 1 senior-eligible, 1 qualifying in 119th congress, 1 in 120th
Trump, district: 10 qualifying in 120th congress, 2 vacancies
great job👍
Thank you
LeBlanc out for Liberal Party leadership. As the Trudeau loyalist of Trudeau loyalists, this is probably a wise move on his part
his candidacy would have been laughable at best
In fairness, nobody wants to be known as Michael Ignetieff 2.0 or John Turner 2.0.
MUSK’s LIES about the Norwegian PM
Elon Musk’s manipulative, lying post against Norwegian Prime Minister Jonas Gahr Støre will be subject to the ongoing European Union investigation against Musk and his Xitter.
In the screenshot shown in the article, Musk connects two events that have nothing to do with each other, stating the Norwegian PM made his claims in a conversation with Bill Gates – which is an outright lie!
https://www.nrk.no/urix/delte-falsk-nyhet-om-store-pa-x-1.17197603
(English via Google Translate)
https://www-nrk-no.translate.goog/urix/delte-falsk-nyhet-om-store-pa-x-1.17197603?_x_tr_sl=no&_x_tr_tl=en&_x_tr_hl=en&_x_tr_pto=wapp
“The republican conference is filled with marauding bands of individuals who can't stand each other.”
. – Hakeem Jeffries, House Minority Leader
(Given their puny two-seat majority, this gives Democrats ever-present golden opportunities to provoke internecine warfare within the Republican caucus!)
we should not mettle in that; the Republicans are very capable of knifing each other; our best strategy is to do nothing there
Oh, there are subtle ways to provoke their internal strife, for instance by proposing amendments or legislation that parts of their caucus will support.
A modest example: propose restoring the regulations on investments in China that were a prime reason for Elon Musk working so hard to kill the bipartisan continuing resolution that had been negotiated.
I am talking about the actual knifing; our better strategy is to focus on the positive impact of our agenda as opposed to the crazy that Trump will provide in the 2nd term; we all know that Trump is undisciplined; he'll be knifing Johnson by June I'm betting
On that we agree! Leave all the actual knifing to them.
Dems shouldn't throw the GOP lifelines to get out of any of their self-created crises, with the only exceptions being the most basic stuff like preventing government shutdowns or defaults.
None, zero. Shutting down the government is fine by me. Make them pass their own stupid shitty budgets.
Permanent debt ceiling repeal. Other than that, they can cobble together votes themselves for their terrible ideas
Permanent debt ceiling repeal – with a caveat: a stipulation against debt-financed tax cuts, and especially not for high-income earners and large corporations.
Exactly
slit as many (metaphorical) throats as possible. No quarter given.
I am very much a centre-left squish, but in a non-ideological fighting mood. Nothing else makes any sense.
NEVADA
"Republicans are within 4,000 voters of overtaking Dems in this newly red state. Dem lead was 10 times that a year ago."
https://x.com/RalstonReports/status/1877043102365483234?t=plhBwLt-yEarxO_nepGtQw&s=19
Time for an intraparty struggle in the Silver State?
Yes, but “Nonpartisan voters” is a bigger block than either party. As Ralston himself states in the Tweet you quoted: “Major parties make up less than 60 percent of the electorate.”
Others have pointed out that young new voters tend to register as Independent / Nonpartisan.
Which still wasn't quite enough to deliver it to Harris, but was for most other statewide and downballot Dems. So calling it "newly red" is a bit of a stretch, even from an authority on the state like Ralston. Thoroughly purple is fine for now.
I totally agree.
LOL at "newly red". Who won the state in 2000 and 2004? How big was Bill Clinton's margin in 1996? (That would be one point).
For various reasons, registered Republicans are going to pass registered Democrats in Nevada, this will also happen in North Carolina, and then in Pennsylvania at some point. Bloated registered Dem advantages didn't stop these states from voting GOP in previous decades. It won't, on its own, mean these states are uniquely shifting Republican moreso than the country now (basically every state with partisan reg shows a GOP shift if you ignore independents - Colorado is the one exception and even there the GOP has been close to keeping parity by registration in recent years even as they lose every race by double digits now).
Calling Nevada "newly red" is unnecessary engagement bait on Ralston's behalf. Nevada has been a swing state for over a decade now. It was a swing state that we just barely won more often than lost, but a swing state nonetheless. There are potential signs for it being a slightly less friendly swing state, in the near future, but not enough information to make a confident evaluation either way.
Calling it a red state is just plainly wrong, like if we called Michigan or Pennsylvania "newly blue" states after 2020.
It is unfortunate too, because there is an interesting discussion to be had over the data about Nevada's recent trends, but his provocative framing kills the discussion off right away. I'm sure it's good for his engagement and eventual subscription numbers, but it's an annoying trend.
In my experience, we always have to look at the totality of what Jon Ralston writes. Yes, he does have an annoying tendency to make attention-grabbing statements. The key is to never stop with those.
Democrats have got the entirety of 2025 and a majority of 2026 to register new voters and gain ground with nonpartisans and it will be fine!! 💙🇺🇲
Magnificent retort: "Mexican president says U.S. should be called "América Mexicana" in Trump clapback"
https://www.axios.com/2025/01/08/mexican-president-responds-trump-america-mexicana