I got a bunch of fundraising texts from the FL-6 guy, which naturally were unduely optimistic about how competitive the district is.
Usually I'm annoyed when people raise huge sums for uncompetitive races, but it will be interesting to see if a well financed candidate can overperform in these kinds of districts.
Weil is running an effective campaign; they are not wasting any money here(I am active in the Volusia County DEC; it is all hands on deck); I cant speak for the Valimont campaign(thats 450 miles away in the panhandle)
I think the results will show whether he really ran an effective campaign. We've seen many Democratic candidates in very Republican districts spend tons of money and get swamped in the election. But right now, heavy funding might not be necessary for Democrats to beat the usual Election Day spread in special elections.
The Florida races are another example of Democratic voters throwing away their money on hopeless races. It's their money but would be put to far better use in winnable races.
Would love to see Andy Levin get back into the house whether it be in 10 or 11.
I'm unsure about that. I don't think the elements are there for a shock win a la Doug Jones in AL. However, they are there for an overperformance that may change the political conversation.
But then again, they're held on the same day as the WI Supreme Court race, which is a bigger deal.
absolutely the Wisconsin race is priority #1 because of the competitive nature, but to disregard Josh or Gay is not helpful imo (longshots actually win sometimes; i am a gambler, so i know the odds are against us here in Florida)
That's a real problem with Daily Kos. They constantly try to promote fundraising for candidates in R+20 districts which takes money away from winnable races.
I ran the candidate endorsement program there for more than a decade (and that program no longer exists following my departure). We were very strategic in our endorsements. Are you referring to folks in the community?
As a matter of transparency, on my articles on Daily Kos I have promoted and shared information on races Democrats didn't have on their radar or weren't going to win simply because I felt there needed to be more visibility. My agenda on DK with respect to covering the races was only mine and not me speaking on behalf of the DK staff. This applied to the MO-SEN and WV-SEN races.
On the other hand, in a discussion thread, Markos himself made an error on the MO-SEN race last year when he said to a DK member that there really wasn't a race. There was and the MO-SEN race ended up becoming lost by Democrats at close to the same margin as the FL-SEN and TX-SEN races.
Daily Kos didn't officially promote fundraising or otherwise contributing to races that looked hopeless, though they allowed users to do so in comments and diaries. Sometimes an initially unwinnable race eventually came to look competitive and it got more attention.
Some at Simon Rosenberg's Hopium Chronicles have complained about him not paying attention to the Florida specials, to which Simon responds that he doesn't want to waste Democrats' time and money promoting races that are almost certain to result in losses and disappointment--though he's open to changing his mind if they do look competitive. He's been heavily promoting getting involved in races such as the WI Supreme Court and VA-Gov that are clearly winnable.
as a i posted below; the Wisconsin race is #1, but we Democrats are able to walk and chew gum at the same time(i am not criticizing your post by the way)
My sentiments exactly. It's really hard to find a race Dems have lost in recent years due to a lack of money. And cash isn't fungible. Most donors are motivated by emotion. It's not realistic to expect every person giving $10 on ActBlue to do coldblooded research on how to maximize the effectiveness of their donations.
But what I will say is, these candidates offer a lesson! If you're running in a more competitive race and need money, try doing what the successful folks are doing!
The DNC and the various other parts of the Democratic Party need to identify best practices and implement them widely, adjusting them of course to specific local circumstances.
For starters, this means calls to all the candidates and campaigns that greatly performed – and extensive conversations about what they did and how.
As far as I know, this is not being done. Certainly it wasn’t done under DNC Chair Jaime Harrison. (I haven’t heard of anything that Harrison did after the 2024 election! Seems he was just passing the time, waiting for his successor.)
I am, however, very hopeful about Ken Martin. As new DNC Chair, he has clearly hit the ground running!
I give Jaime Harrison credit for one thing - He made improvements over Tim Kaine and Debbie Wasserman-Shultz's time as DNC Chair back when President Obama was in office. The 2022 midterms ended up being better for Democrats than back in 2010 and 2022.
That said, Harrison didn't do enough and we now have Ken Martin to replace him so we have change. I agree on Martin's progress so far as DNC Chair.
You sure those are hopeless races in this environment? Those two Iowa specials looked hopeless on paper, and we flipped one and nearly flipped the other.
I would like to see Democrats win at local and state elections in FL. Putting the energy and resources more into high profile races like the gubernatorial and senate races isn't giving the FL Democratic Party enough stream.
I read John Ganz's "When the Clock Broke" last year (great book, highly recommend), and one of the topics that struck me was just how undemocratic Louisiana is and has been for quite some time. I knew it was bad, but I didn't know just *how* bad it's been historically.
Missed yesterday's continuation of the long running discussion on low propensity vs high propensity voters, whether good or bad turnout is better for Dems these days, etc. A nuance I think gets missed sometimes is that turnout is not just a sliding scale that will deliver a fixed result depending where it lands. I think objectively in 2024 Democrats suffered from poorer base turnout than 2020, but at the same time Republicans hit and may have even exceeded their 2020 turnout (which was already quite high, but just swamped by Democrats plus Gary Johnson or Trump voters that flipped to Biden). So in 2024 we would have preferred for higher turnout among Dems, but lower turnout among Republicans. I don't think it's a given that lower 2024 turnout would have been immediately better for us (could have come from even greater Dem dropoff) or that higher 2024 turnout would have meant a GOP landslide (Republicans might have been close to maxed out).
But yes the pattern is clear that with *very* low turnout (like the OH-06 special we got within single digits) that partisan engaged Democrats made up a disproportionate share and dropoff hit Republicans harder, so it would not shock me to see this dynamic continue for WI-Supreme Court and other races. Another note: trying to parse early vote statistics remains murky at best in states with partisan voter registration; in a state without it like Wisconsin, good luck. County comparisons don't tell you who's turning out in those counties.
Yes! Any examination of turnout must be coupled with the question "Turnout of whom?" What genuinely surprises me about the 2024 Presidential Election is this:
2020: While Republicans had a fairly extensive groundgame operation, the Biden Campaign and Democrats severely restricted their direct contact with voters due to Covid precautions.
2024: The Harris-Waltz Campaign invested heavily in GOTV efforts. This was complemented by the work of scores of unaffiliated grassroot organizations, postcard and call and texting campaigns, and voter registration efforts by Field Team 6* and other groups.
According to the various media I read, Democratic GOTV and groundgame efforts** in 2024 were dramatically more extensive than in 2020, and also more extensive than corresponding Trump Campaign / Republican efforts.
And yet the results do not reflect this. Turnout of Democrats and Democrat-leaning Independents was far lower. How could al these efforts have failed so miserably?
.
*) Has Field Team 6 released a state-by-state breakdown of its voter registration efforts? I think such data would be really helpful – but I have yet to see it.
**) Also helpful would be really granular voting data and GOTV info for far mor voter groups/demographics, e.g. Ukrainian-Americans, Polish-Americans, etc etc etc.
I think the turnout efforts were pretty effective. Dem turnout was vastly better in the contested states with active turnout operations than in the uncontested states. The problem was that in 2020, most voters were already inclined to vote against Trump. In 2024, too many of those same voters were angry at Biden and not inclined to vote for Harris a priori.
That's an excellent point. Democrats managed record turnout in 2020 even when they ceded conventional GOTV operations to the other guys because of COVID. I wasn't quite sure how they pulled it off then, and it's even more impressive to behold in contrast to the diminished turnout this year even with GOTV firing on all cylinders.
I think it boils down to two factors: 1) still further realignment of blue-collar Democrats who the Harris campaign was counting on but either didn't vote or went Trump this year; and 2) new voters entering the electorate were far more likely to have voted Republican than any other election since the Reagan years, with the collapsing numbers of college enrollment driving the realignment as much as the podcast bros.
Regarding your #2, Shor had an interesting hypothesis that, given left-leaning Millennials were children of Boomers (relatively liberal generation), a lot of GenZ's right shift can be explained by them being the offspring of the more conservative "Reagan Youth" GenX (who have also turned out to be the most Trumpy generation themselves). While I don't think that's the whole story at all, I've found that usually the simpler macro-explanations prove better than the micro-dissections provided after every election.
Yup. Such detailed "predictions" are always easier after the fact – never mind that they’re utterly artificial and rarely voiced beforehand. I think Yogi Berra had something to say about that.
I strongly believe it was because of 4 factors: Biden-his flubs, age, approval and him not allowing primaries; global post COVID inflation; border crisis and a global anti-incumbent wave due to distrust generated by COVID and aftermaths.
I actually think it wasn't that bad a result; HW Bush got butchered due to a smaller bout of inflation (again something that he couldn't control) and a tax raise.
I mean, it wasn't that bad a margin compared to results around the world, but the U.S. economy was by far the best in the world, and the results of this election are so extremely dire!
i am currently helping the Weil campaign; not going to say that we are going to win; but, we are scaring the begesus out of the Republicans; how do i know??..because the entire Randy Fine campaign is about 2 things only(neither of which has anything at all to do with Randy Fine); 1\Trump, Trump, and did i mention Trump; and 2\tying Josh to AOC(and strangely enough not actually identifying AOC by name, which is a poor tactic imo; just putting them both togetherby photoshop since i doubt Josh would be stupid enough to be in a picture with her); oh and of course the Republicans are mailing out expensive 3rd party trash mailers not directly tied to the Fine campaign; at least we are forcing the Republicans to actively campaign if nothing else
i will try and find out for an update(atm i have no idea; sorry); it is a huge longshot; the last Democratic Congressman was my friend Suzanne Kosmas in 2010(it is basically a 2-1 district, but the Weil(pronounced like wheel)campaign is incredibly funded and professional with tons of activity);Trump and Musk are losing popularity, so maybe closing the margin to 10% or so would be good(the race will be determined in my home county of Volusia, but make no mistake, Florida is gerrymandered to the max statewide)
I keep repeating this: If Democratic candidates can achieve Scandinavian-level turnout (± 80 percent) of our voters, while Republican turnout remains the same, then we’ll turn the map Blue! Imho, this should not be impossible.
The Democratic National Committee (DNC) announced an investment in two April special House races in Florida. [The] investment, which according to the DNC will allow the Florida Democratic Party to bring in “additional full-time organizing capacity to mobilize voters and volunteers on the ground” in the state’s first and sixth congressional districts.
The investment will also cover the rollout of a voter protection program in the two districts, which will include more than 200 poll watchers and greeters to be deployed on Election Day. The DNC did not provide a specific dollar amount for the investment.
It would be much better if they had a long-term plan for light red states like Florida and Ohio. One election isn't the end, you know. Democrats were so close to wrestling back Florida in 2010, 2014 and 2018. I feel the MAGA +40R transplants during 2020-24 really tilted it. It was very close in 2020 as well. They have totally ceded the ground in Florida, it's pathetic. Atleast, Charlie Crist should be banned from primaries.
Demographic trends keep changing. It is true that most domestic movers were Republicans but Florida also receives a lot of immigrants and native-born Floridians tend to lean left. If Democrats can win back the Latino vote, it may be competitive in a strong cycle. Also, another increasing immigrant group, Haitians in Florida lean Democratic heavily. Trump's demonization of Florida Latinos especially Venezuelans like deportation to El Salvador and revocation of Parole is a political opportunity too.
Basically, I feel that trends are not set in stone and Democrats should have some sort a 50 state Dean-esque strategy to stand their ground in red states.
Also nominating perennial candidates like Crist make no sense.
I think Crist's stock as a politician outside of FL-13 for how long he served in the House was gone after he couldn't unseat Rick Scott in the gubernatorial race back in 2014. I can't fathom why he was needed in the 2022 midterms to challenge Governor DeSantis if he couldn't even defeat Scott. Might have saved himself a huge liability if he ran for re-election as Governor back in 2010 instead of jumping in the Senate race.
Since you bring up the Latino vote, I'd say FL Democrats first really need to define their agenda for Latinos other than being GOP lite.
They should start showing spine on the issue of Cuba and stop acting like they're living in the past.
When you have Annette Taddeo, FL Democratic Party Chair Nikki Fried and Rep. Jared Moskowitz all crying uncle over President Biden's decision to remove Cuba as a state sponsor of terrorism to ensure the Catholic church is able to help get prisoners in Cuba returned, you know FL Democrats need to get their ass together.
Republicans in states like California don't give up, they constantly keep fighting to win elections and to move the needle to the right on issues like crime where Dems take positions that are out of step with the public whereas in Florida, Democrats can't even break the supermajority.
Long-term plan: create enthusiasm that drives members of the Sofa-sitter Party to the polls!
How, you ask? By clearly showing that Democrats fight tooth and nail for the Constitution and democracy, and against all enemies foreign and domestic. (No pussy footing!)
While in power, use that power to truly benefit people – and communicate it loudly enough to drown out the right-wing media and blogosphere.
I am extremely ready for Durbin to be replaced with a better Democrat. For a decade plus I've been following up most of my criticisms of Schumer by saying that I am afraid Durbin would be a worse option.
1. I want a younger, new generation of Democrat representing a Blue State like Illinois.
2. Yes, the CR vote is still one of the reasons. I have heard the arguments on both sides and while I understand and think there are valid points to avoiding a shutdown, I still think the leadership bumbled their strategy on how to deal with that situation. I don’t just blame Schumer for betting it all on House Republicans not being able to get their shit together on the budget and having no Plan B. Durbin is the Minority Whip and is second in command. While we don’t know the behind the scenes specifics on how active Durbin was with figuring out what to do about the upcoming CR fight, I think it’s still clear Durbin, like Schumer, is still hoping that repeating their 2017 strategy will work. There are parts of it like going into GOP districts and holding Town Halls there and everywhere can still work but this was a smaller GOP majority that is way more in line with Trump than it was back in 2017 when the GOP had a bigger majority.
3. Durbin has been pretty weak as the Chairman of the Senate Judiciary Committee. He’s kept the Blue Slips rule intact and he’s offered more sternly worded warnings than action. Whitehouse should be the Senate Judiciary Chairman.
I personally would like Schumer to go but I think if there’s one person we can force into retirement to get us closer to new leadership we are demanding, it’s Durbin. Schumer is starting to realize that angry base and calls for him to step down are real. Schumer went from saying “we haven’t reached a constitutional crisis yet” in his interview with Chris Hayes because SCOTUS hasn’t ruled on Trump defying judges orders yet to now saying we’re facing a constitutional crisis. And he’s doing that because he’s getting blowback for being out of touch with the situation. I’m not saying that Schumer has fully seen the light yet but I think mobilizing that anger on the CR vote and keeping it still fresh and relevant would work better at pressuring someone like Durbin who faces the voters next year to call it quits. Schumer isn’t up until 2028. I don’t think he can fully recover from his self-inflicted damage. I understand voters have shitty memories but even if Schumer were to actually put up a tougher fight now and especially in September, I don’t think it would save his chances of being elected the party’s leader in 2029. Even Michael Bennet told his town hall that leaders need to know when it’s time to step aside for a new generation and even reminded voters that he was one of the first Democratic Senators to call for Biden to drop out. I think the sentiment is bubbling amongst his colleagues. I don’t doubt more Dem Senators who voted No on cloture we’re privately relieved that there wasn’t a shutdown because I think they believe that it would’ve distracted from Trump’s approval rating taking a nose dive but what has resonated with them is that Schumer’s not thinking ahead of the opposition and waiting too long to let Trump hit himself. Durbin I believe is in line with Schumer’s thinking and that’s why I would love to see polling come out showing him losing his primary. Indivisible should put resources behind that effort.
Her cross-party appeal will never not be baffling to me. She votes the party line 90+% of the time (and nearly 100% when her vote would actually impact the outcome).
All the big names in Maine want to be governor because it is the easier election to win. Eventually/hopefully that primary will get too crowded and someone will decide that they have better odds running for the senate.
It's unfortunate that Mills isn't younger. An incumbent governor would be a great senate candidate.
Very true. It's easy for me to forget because senator is more important for us, but for most people governor is more enjoyable job than senator. At least this century. Maybe in the past it was different.
I totally understand that not everyone is interested in moving the bulk of their lives to Washington, DC.
Still, being a United States Senator—even for just one term—carries so much prestige that I would be loath to turn down such an opportunity, were it to come my way.
Yeah, problem is it isn't in a vacuum. Governor has a lot of prestige too. And unlike a senator these days, a governor can put their name on things. Being a senator today must feel like a glorified nomination confirmer/denier. Legislation all makes its way through leadership first; gone are the days of yore when bills would have a senator's name on it because they were the principal author and sponsor.
He'll make a good Governor, wish ANY Democrat would just take on Susan and get her out; the seat must flip this time or Democrats will be in the definite minority until the 2030's, Tillis & Ernst too!! 💙🇺🇲
We haven't had that many good election cycles for dems lately. Only 2018 was great for us in the past 15 years. We had a narrow advantage in 2020, and a narrow disadvantage in 2016. Elections in 2012 modestly favored us while 2024 modestly disfavored us. And of course 2010 and 2014 were absolutely atrocious for us. Finally 2022 was much better than expected but still not a great year.
That history in mind, NC's senate elections have been 2010-2016-2022 for the Class 3 seat, and 2014-2020-2026 (upcoming) for the Class 2 seat. NC held no senate elections in either of the two good cycles for us, and has instead held them in all but one of the bad cycles (2024).
Only 2016 and 2020 were years in that set that we could realistically hope to have won, but in both we fell a bit short. Burr was already an incumbent in 2016 and we didn't have a single pickup in a state that HRC lost. For 2020 our candidate self-imploded in the final stretch and went from narrowly ahead in the polls to narrowly behind in the polls. I think we'd have been slightly favored to win the seat in the alternate timeline where Cunningham lacked skeletons in his closet.
Point being, NC is a purple state that has a bit more red than blue in that blend of purple, but it's not one we should be aggressively pessimistic about. If 2026 is a good election cycle for us then I feel good about our chances in NC.
Yes, we would have stood a good chance of winning a Senate seat in North Carolina in 2018 had one been up at that time. Hell, we might have even gotten Cheri Beasley over the finish line in 2022 had we actually treated it like the competitive race that it was.
Makes sense; Collins looked DOA in 2020 and if she was able to win handsomely in that environment, if I were Dem pol in that state I'd consider her Main Electoral Jesus until proven otherwise.
I get that idea, but still, if you're an ambitious Maine Democrat, there aren't a lot of opportunities to advance electorally (only one safely-blue House seat, and offices like AG and SoS are appointed rather than elected).
A race against Collins is high-risk, but also potentially high-reward. There are many examples of seemingly-entrenched politicians getting caught napping, facing an insurmountably-bad national mood, or just overstaying their welcome.
. Musk's PAC offers $100 to Wisconsin voters in pitch against "activist judges"
Elon Musk's political action committee is offering Wisconsin voters $100 to sign a petition expressing their opposition to "activist judges." … Musk is throwing his considerable wealth behind Trump's priorities — including an upcoming election in Wisconsin for a crucial seat on the state's Supreme Court.
The April 1 election in Wisconsin will determine the tilt of an ideologically divided bench in a swing state where state-level decisions can carry national implications for abortion rights, legislative redistricting and election laws.
Two Musk-backed groups — America PAC and Building America's Future — have combined to spend nearly $20 million to support Brad Schimel, the Republican candidate for the Wisconsin court seat.
After a voter signs the petition and is credited with $100, Musk's team won't know for sure whether, or how, that person voted in Wisconsin's election. But the groups will have the voter's data, which will allow the groups to contact them again in the future.
Exactly! Wisconsin Democrats are against activist judges – but we know who they are: the likes of Schimel, not Crawford!
Two sides can play this game. Depending on the wording and payout date, Democrats could be encouraged to sign this petition, collect their $100, and consider donating it to Susan Crawford’s campaign!
But it’s Musk — and Democrats’ effort to yoke him to Schmiel — that will be dominating the airwaves on behalf of Democrats in the closing weeks, even as abortion and public safety have also been emphasized in TV ads. A second ad, backed by the Democratic Party of Wisconsin, uses audio of Schmiel saying he needs to “invest in knee pads” because he has to “crawl around begging people” to financially support his bid. The ad then cuts to images of Musk, who “needs a guaranteed vote” on the state Supreme Court because he’s “suing the state of Wisconsin.”
“Schmiel begged, and Musk unloaded $10 million to rig the court,” the ad’s narrator says. “So how much does it cost to buy off a corrupt politician? Just ask Brad Schmiel.”
Internal Democratic data found that this ad was especially effective at chipping away at Schmiel’s favorability, reducing it by 14 percent among moderate voters.
Honestly, I wouldn't even mind a 50-60 year old, so long as they do a better job than Durbin and only serve a few terms. For most people, being a Senator is a career capstone, so it makes sense they'd be older when they run. The problem isn't that older people run for Senate, it's that they stay in office longer than they should. In other words, in a world of Diane Feinsteins, be a Tina Smith.
I think younger generations of Democrats who run for political office are not exactly like Durbin or Schumer.
So far with such Democrats being elected to the Senate from Chris Murphy to Ruben Gallego, they have a bigger BS detector and fight back harder. Sure would like to see an ideal Democratic Senate Candidate to replace Durbin with greater resolve against fascism.
Michigan: Andy Levin should run for state AG to succeed Dana Nessel.
Illinois: If Durbin DOESN'T retire, Lt. Gov. Juliana Stratton or someone else should primary challenge him anyways and force him out. The seat is safe D no matter what happens anyway!! 💙🇺🇲
No, she’s pretty clearly eyeing a senate run next year, if reports are to be believed, and she’ll have Pritzker’s backing, thought a Pritzker retirement would change the calculus. National Dems I do think would be behind Underwood though.
Outside of these two, Raja, Casten, and Ramirez are names to watch.
Regarding pro Putin Georgescu's recent ban from elections, I saw this comment on a TLDR video;
Romanian here, here's more context about Calin Georgescu:
- He claimed Pepsi contains nanochips
- He called the head of WHO (a black man) a "house n*****", twice, hard R, in an English interview
- He wanted to ban political parties (all of them, or at least all that don't support him)
- He declared 0 campaign expenditures (although that TikTok campaign cost millions of dollars, as confirmed by TikTok themselves). This is illegal.
- He was supported and protected by Foreign Legion mercenary Horatiu Potra and his band. Long story short, Potra fled the country, police raided his house and found grenades and grenade launchers, automatic rifles, 1 million euros cash hidden in a safe in the floor
- He said once he's elected he would go after the press "paid by George Soros" - he said they are on "known lists"
- He wanted to nationalize land, like the communists did
- He thinks water contains energy and he said he would build the first water pipes
- And the list goes on and on
I feel this video did not stress enough how much of a nutjob he is.
Also, Lasconi was (and still is) bitter because she thought she had a real chance in the canceled elections. The truth is most people voted for her due to a lack of alternative. Now that there are better alternatives, her rating plummeted.
"The legionaries" was a political party in Romania active between 1927-1941. These guys were voted mainly because they presented themselves as very religious. Once in power, they did horrendous murders in Romania and they also allied with the nazis in WW2. The current Romanian legislation prevents the rise of such a sect in the political spectrum and whoever declares they support the actions of "the legionaries" will face prison and also that person cannot run for elections. Now what do you think Georgescu declared numerous times in various interviews? He really shouldn't be allowed to run for elections. Normally, the authorities should have banned him from the very beginning, just like they did with Sosoaca
The IOC has elected Kirsty Coventry from Zimbabwe to lead the organization, as she beat 6 other contenders for the job, including Juan Antonio Samaranch Salisachs from Spain (the son of former IOC President Juan Antonio Samaranch). Coventry is the first woman and the first person from an African country to lead the IOC.
Conor Lamb, for those too lazy to click. Without context I assumed it was Casey.
Link doesn't have him explicitly say he's going to run, but he attacks Fetterman in a way that is likely setting the field for a primary run.
Nice to see serious candidates prepping themselves to get us an upgrade in that seat. Would much rather have a reliable democrat in place in 2029, especially if we win the presidency.
Conor Lamb is no better than Fetterman is. At best, he'd be the Pennsylvania version of Manchin/Sinema (Fetterman does have progressive views on some issues-you can't really say that about Lamb, he'd be a clear downgrade.).
Ok, no. Lamb was for the most part a pretty standard moderate Democrat in the House, acting like he’d be worse than Manchin and Sinema is ridiculous. He wouldn’t be great, and he might not even be better than Fetterman, but he wouldn’t be single handey sinking the entire Democratic agenda and then leaving the party altogether.
Conor lamb is a mainstream liberal. He is not a progressive nor a Sinema. Fetterman's support of Trump Greenland proposal and partial support of Gaza boots on ground proposal was atrocious. He is very sympathetic to Trump.
The Nation also messed up in its coverage of Lamb, arguing he was in the vein of Joe Manchin. Incorrect assessment of him but then again, former editor Katrina Vanden Heuvel believed the GOP was going to expire after the 2010's.
Plenty to like about Lamb although if he isn't completely in line with where Democrats are on a particular issue, it isn't because he's going to pull a Fetterman by voting for Trump nominees. It's usually a difference of opinion, not being a loose cannon like Manchin.
Imho, Joe Manchin was always an anti-progressive first, and a Democrat second. In that regard he was incredibly consistent. On top of that, both pecuniarily and ideologically, he was and still is beholden to the oil-gas-coal industry.
Oh sure. You have to punish Fetterman by voting for his primary opponent, almost no matter who they are. He's been an extremely bitter and surprising disappointment.
Originally Lamb represented the old PA-18 Congressional District but then due to redistricting moved to the bluer PA-17 Congressional District, which made it easier for him to vote blue. This happened at the beginning of 2019, the 3rd year of Trump's first term as POTUS.
Also, Lamb's evolution as a politician isn't far off from how Kirsten Gillibrand was in the House before she became Senator. The one difference was that Gillibrand was appointed by then-NY Governor David Paterson to replace Hillary Clinton after she became Secretary of State.
For the most part up until the Republican budget Gillibrand voted for, she had a reliably liberal voting record where she was a regular team player for Democrats. Her voting record in the House differed but that was representative of the district at the time.
Lamb on the other hand has not been in Congress since 2023. If he runs for the Senate and wins in 2028, he won’t have the GOP budget as a liability against him.
Oh God, please not Casey. I'm still pissed that he belly-flopped last year. All he had to do was outperform Harris by 1.35% and he would have captured a majority. (And it was doable; Sherrod Brown ran ahead of Harris by nearly twice that percentage!)
What I'm "talkin about" is that Casey blew a winnable race. It doesn't mean he's a bad person, but he had 18 years to build up an infrastructure and a personal brand (other than just his last name) and never did.
Yeah i'm generally on the let swing/red seat Dems do what they need to do to get reelected page but this is crossing into being unnecessarily antagonistic to the point of liability.
OH-Gov, Sherrod Brown and his wife are moving from Cleveland to Columbus. Columbus is the capitol so there’s speculation that he’s gearing up for a Governor run. He does state that Connie Schultz has a teaching job at Denison University and they want to be closer to their grandkids. That could be the real and only reason but who knows. I know Amy Acton has jumped into the race but I think it might make more sense for Brown to run for Governor and Acton for Senate. We get another fresh new voice in the Senate and Brown can pull an almost DeWine and make his comeback. I say “almost DeWine” because DeWine first came back as AG in 2010 and then Governor. Thoughts? https://www.wlwt.com/article/former-sen-sherrod-brown-relocates-to-columbus/64245207
I like it if it's what they actually want to do. Sherrod is getting up there but it's not like we have a huge bench. Would like to see a strong statewide ticket if for no other reason to help Kaptur and Sykes.
Yes, I am a firm believer in running strong top-of-ticket campaigns in hostile states, if only for the coattails. Few things are worse than watching your party get destroyed both up and down the ballot because no one ran damage control at the top (e.g. Nevada Democrats in 2014).
And if his opponent were, say, insufferable asshole Vivek Ramaswamy, I actually think Brown would have a chance of pulling it off.
The (gerrymandered-as-all-hell) Ohio Legislature can be rather toxic at times; there's a chance that a critical mass of voters might decide to vote for a Democratic governor in the hopes of checking their power a bit.
Plus, gubernatorial elections tend to be (a bit) less polarized in general, no?
I'd love her to run too, but a week or two ago she hinted she was leaning strongly towards governor. I'm hoping we have someone else that can impress us like she did, but I don't know the state well to guess at any names.
Even if senator wasn't a worse job in most cases, it would especially be the case for Alaska and Hawaii, where they have to make a weekly commute that the governor doesn't have to take.
Pro tip: discussion of that particular foreign conflict is discouraged here.
glad i missed it; ty march madness
I got a bunch of fundraising texts from the FL-6 guy, which naturally were unduely optimistic about how competitive the district is.
Usually I'm annoyed when people raise huge sums for uncompetitive races, but it will be interesting to see if a well financed candidate can overperform in these kinds of districts.
Yeah, I've gotten several from both of them.
Weil is running an effective campaign; they are not wasting any money here(I am active in the Volusia County DEC; it is all hands on deck); I cant speak for the Valimont campaign(thats 450 miles away in the panhandle)
I think the results will show whether he really ran an effective campaign. We've seen many Democratic candidates in very Republican districts spend tons of money and get swamped in the election. But right now, heavy funding might not be necessary for Democrats to beat the usual Election Day spread in special elections.
agreed; a lot will come from enthusiasm; vast majority of folks have no idea there is an election
The Florida races are another example of Democratic voters throwing away their money on hopeless races. It's their money but would be put to far better use in winnable races.
Would love to see Andy Levin get back into the house whether it be in 10 or 11.
i beg to differ
disagree about Florida; agree about Levin
I'm unsure about that. I don't think the elements are there for a shock win a la Doug Jones in AL. However, they are there for an overperformance that may change the political conversation.
But then again, they're held on the same day as the WI Supreme Court race, which is a bigger deal.
absolutely the Wisconsin race is priority #1 because of the competitive nature, but to disregard Josh or Gay is not helpful imo (longshots actually win sometimes; i am a gambler, so i know the odds are against us here in Florida)
That's a real problem with Daily Kos. They constantly try to promote fundraising for candidates in R+20 districts which takes money away from winnable races.
I ran the candidate endorsement program there for more than a decade (and that program no longer exists following my departure). We were very strategic in our endorsements. Are you referring to folks in the community?
I remember well the endorsements by DK Elections. They always seemed thoughtful and very reasonable – winnable races.
Usually it was the candidates themselves passing the hat for money on the site. They were almost all candidates who were running in lost cause races.
As a matter of transparency, on my articles on Daily Kos I have promoted and shared information on races Democrats didn't have on their radar or weren't going to win simply because I felt there needed to be more visibility. My agenda on DK with respect to covering the races was only mine and not me speaking on behalf of the DK staff. This applied to the MO-SEN and WV-SEN races.
On the other hand, in a discussion thread, Markos himself made an error on the MO-SEN race last year when he said to a DK member that there really wasn't a race. There was and the MO-SEN race ended up becoming lost by Democrats at close to the same margin as the FL-SEN and TX-SEN races.
https://ballotpedia.org/United_States_Senate_election_in_Florida,_2024
https://ballotpedia.org/United_States_Senate_election_in_Missouri,_2024
https://ballotpedia.org/United_States_Senate_election_in_Texas,_2024
Yes, or users working for said campaigns.
Daily Kos didn't officially promote fundraising or otherwise contributing to races that looked hopeless, though they allowed users to do so in comments and diaries. Sometimes an initially unwinnable race eventually came to look competitive and it got more attention.
Some at Simon Rosenberg's Hopium Chronicles have complained about him not paying attention to the Florida specials, to which Simon responds that he doesn't want to waste Democrats' time and money promoting races that are almost certain to result in losses and disappointment--though he's open to changing his mind if they do look competitive. He's been heavily promoting getting involved in races such as the WI Supreme Court and VA-Gov that are clearly winnable.
as a i posted below; the Wisconsin race is #1, but we Democrats are able to walk and chew gum at the same time(i am not criticizing your post by the way)
these specials are taking money from no other races though; show me one race not being funded and i will change my mind
My sentiments exactly. It's really hard to find a race Dems have lost in recent years due to a lack of money. And cash isn't fungible. Most donors are motivated by emotion. It's not realistic to expect every person giving $10 on ActBlue to do coldblooded research on how to maximize the effectiveness of their donations.
But what I will say is, these candidates offer a lesson! If you're running in a more competitive race and need money, try doing what the successful folks are doing!
The DNC and the various other parts of the Democratic Party need to identify best practices and implement them widely, adjusting them of course to specific local circumstances.
For starters, this means calls to all the candidates and campaigns that greatly performed – and extensive conversations about what they did and how.
As far as I know, this is not being done. Certainly it wasn’t done under DNC Chair Jaime Harrison. (I haven’t heard of anything that Harrison did after the 2024 election! Seems he was just passing the time, waiting for his successor.)
I am, however, very hopeful about Ken Martin. As new DNC Chair, he has clearly hit the ground running!
I give Jaime Harrison credit for one thing - He made improvements over Tim Kaine and Debbie Wasserman-Shultz's time as DNC Chair back when President Obama was in office. The 2022 midterms ended up being better for Democrats than back in 2010 and 2022.
That said, Harrison didn't do enough and we now have Ken Martin to replace him so we have change. I agree on Martin's progress so far as DNC Chair.
You sure those are hopeless races in this environment? Those two Iowa specials looked hopeless on paper, and we flipped one and nearly flipped the other.
as an activist, here in Florida, on the ground, thank you for your post; my county actually matters this time(for once)
Maybe not quite, but it would be shocking, especially in Alabama, I mean the Panhandle.
I would like to see Democrats win at local and state elections in FL. Putting the energy and resources more into high profile races like the gubernatorial and senate races isn't giving the FL Democratic Party enough stream.
LA politics. Oh boy!
I read John Ganz's "When the Clock Broke" last year (great book, highly recommend), and one of the topics that struck me was just how undemocratic Louisiana is and has been for quite some time. I knew it was bad, but I didn't know just *how* bad it's been historically.
Definitely an excellent book. But yeah. Louisiana is pretty miserable when it comes to voting rights.
Missed yesterday's continuation of the long running discussion on low propensity vs high propensity voters, whether good or bad turnout is better for Dems these days, etc. A nuance I think gets missed sometimes is that turnout is not just a sliding scale that will deliver a fixed result depending where it lands. I think objectively in 2024 Democrats suffered from poorer base turnout than 2020, but at the same time Republicans hit and may have even exceeded their 2020 turnout (which was already quite high, but just swamped by Democrats plus Gary Johnson or Trump voters that flipped to Biden). So in 2024 we would have preferred for higher turnout among Dems, but lower turnout among Republicans. I don't think it's a given that lower 2024 turnout would have been immediately better for us (could have come from even greater Dem dropoff) or that higher 2024 turnout would have meant a GOP landslide (Republicans might have been close to maxed out).
But yes the pattern is clear that with *very* low turnout (like the OH-06 special we got within single digits) that partisan engaged Democrats made up a disproportionate share and dropoff hit Republicans harder, so it would not shock me to see this dynamic continue for WI-Supreme Court and other races. Another note: trying to parse early vote statistics remains murky at best in states with partisan voter registration; in a state without it like Wisconsin, good luck. County comparisons don't tell you who's turning out in those counties.
Yes! Any examination of turnout must be coupled with the question "Turnout of whom?" What genuinely surprises me about the 2024 Presidential Election is this:
2020: While Republicans had a fairly extensive groundgame operation, the Biden Campaign and Democrats severely restricted their direct contact with voters due to Covid precautions.
2024: The Harris-Waltz Campaign invested heavily in GOTV efforts. This was complemented by the work of scores of unaffiliated grassroot organizations, postcard and call and texting campaigns, and voter registration efforts by Field Team 6* and other groups.
According to the various media I read, Democratic GOTV and groundgame efforts** in 2024 were dramatically more extensive than in 2020, and also more extensive than corresponding Trump Campaign / Republican efforts.
And yet the results do not reflect this. Turnout of Democrats and Democrat-leaning Independents was far lower. How could al these efforts have failed so miserably?
.
*) Has Field Team 6 released a state-by-state breakdown of its voter registration efforts? I think such data would be really helpful – but I have yet to see it.
**) Also helpful would be really granular voting data and GOTV info for far mor voter groups/demographics, e.g. Ukrainian-Americans, Polish-Americans, etc etc etc.
I think the turnout efforts were pretty effective. Dem turnout was vastly better in the contested states with active turnout operations than in the uncontested states. The problem was that in 2020, most voters were already inclined to vote against Trump. In 2024, too many of those same voters were angry at Biden and not inclined to vote for Harris a priori.
This is the first time I've seen someone say this, and it makes a hell of a lot of sense to me.
That's an excellent point. Democrats managed record turnout in 2020 even when they ceded conventional GOTV operations to the other guys because of COVID. I wasn't quite sure how they pulled it off then, and it's even more impressive to behold in contrast to the diminished turnout this year even with GOTV firing on all cylinders.
I think it boils down to two factors: 1) still further realignment of blue-collar Democrats who the Harris campaign was counting on but either didn't vote or went Trump this year; and 2) new voters entering the electorate were far more likely to have voted Republican than any other election since the Reagan years, with the collapsing numbers of college enrollment driving the realignment as much as the podcast bros.
Regarding your #2, Shor had an interesting hypothesis that, given left-leaning Millennials were children of Boomers (relatively liberal generation), a lot of GenZ's right shift can be explained by them being the offspring of the more conservative "Reagan Youth" GenX (who have also turned out to be the most Trumpy generation themselves). While I don't think that's the whole story at all, I've found that usually the simpler macro-explanations prove better than the micro-dissections provided after every election.
Yup. Such detailed "predictions" are always easier after the fact – never mind that they’re utterly artificial and rarely voiced beforehand. I think Yogi Berra had something to say about that.
I saw an Atlasintel poll where voters who didn't turn out disapproved Trump 80-20.
thank you; i have been saying this from the day after the election(our messaging was off)
I strongly believe it was because of 4 factors: Biden-his flubs, age, approval and him not allowing primaries; global post COVID inflation; border crisis and a global anti-incumbent wave due to distrust generated by COVID and aftermaths.
I actually think it wasn't that bad a result; HW Bush got butchered due to a smaller bout of inflation (again something that he couldn't control) and a tax raise.
I mean, it wasn't that bad a margin compared to results around the world, but the U.S. economy was by far the best in the world, and the results of this election are so extremely dire!
i am currently helping the Weil campaign; not going to say that we are going to win; but, we are scaring the begesus out of the Republicans; how do i know??..because the entire Randy Fine campaign is about 2 things only(neither of which has anything at all to do with Randy Fine); 1\Trump, Trump, and did i mention Trump; and 2\tying Josh to AOC(and strangely enough not actually identifying AOC by name, which is a poor tactic imo; just putting them both togetherby photoshop since i doubt Josh would be stupid enough to be in a picture with her); oh and of course the Republicans are mailing out expensive 3rd party trash mailers not directly tied to the Fine campaign; at least we are forcing the Republicans to actively campaign if nothing else
Any polls showing the state of the race between Josh Weil and Randy Fine? How much of a D longshot is this? What are your own expectations?
i will try and find out for an update(atm i have no idea; sorry); it is a huge longshot; the last Democratic Congressman was my friend Suzanne Kosmas in 2010(it is basically a 2-1 district, but the Weil(pronounced like wheel)campaign is incredibly funded and professional with tons of activity);Trump and Musk are losing popularity, so maybe closing the margin to 10% or so would be good(the race will be determined in my home county of Volusia, but make no mistake, Florida is gerrymandered to the max statewide)
I keep repeating this: If Democratic candidates can achieve Scandinavian-level turnout (± 80 percent) of our voters, while Republican turnout remains the same, then we’ll turn the map Blue! Imho, this should not be impossible.
absolutely
DNC INVESTS in Florida special elections
The Democratic National Committee (DNC) announced an investment in two April special House races in Florida. [The] investment, which according to the DNC will allow the Florida Democratic Party to bring in “additional full-time organizing capacity to mobilize voters and volunteers on the ground” in the state’s first and sixth congressional districts.
The investment will also cover the rollout of a voter protection program in the two districts, which will include more than 200 poll watchers and greeters to be deployed on Election Day. The DNC did not provide a specific dollar amount for the investment.
https://thehill.com/homenews/campaign/5205408-dnc-investment-florida-special-elections/
It would be much better if they had a long-term plan for light red states like Florida and Ohio. One election isn't the end, you know. Democrats were so close to wrestling back Florida in 2010, 2014 and 2018. I feel the MAGA +40R transplants during 2020-24 really tilted it. It was very close in 2020 as well. They have totally ceded the ground in Florida, it's pathetic. Atleast, Charlie Crist should be banned from primaries.
one of my favorite ball busting jokes is to remind my Republican friends that they have voted more times for Charlie Crist than me
DYK that it was Susie Wiles who ran those 3 nail biting campaigns for Republicans.
yup..she wins elections
In theory, a long-term plan sounds great, but what would that plan be? To somehow reverse demographic trends?
Demographic trends keep changing. It is true that most domestic movers were Republicans but Florida also receives a lot of immigrants and native-born Floridians tend to lean left. If Democrats can win back the Latino vote, it may be competitive in a strong cycle. Also, another increasing immigrant group, Haitians in Florida lean Democratic heavily. Trump's demonization of Florida Latinos especially Venezuelans like deportation to El Salvador and revocation of Parole is a political opportunity too.
Basically, I feel that trends are not set in stone and Democrats should have some sort a 50 state Dean-esque strategy to stand their ground in red states.
Also nominating perennial candidates like Crist make no sense.
I think Crist's stock as a politician outside of FL-13 for how long he served in the House was gone after he couldn't unseat Rick Scott in the gubernatorial race back in 2014. I can't fathom why he was needed in the 2022 midterms to challenge Governor DeSantis if he couldn't even defeat Scott. Might have saved himself a huge liability if he ran for re-election as Governor back in 2010 instead of jumping in the Senate race.
Since you bring up the Latino vote, I'd say FL Democrats first really need to define their agenda for Latinos other than being GOP lite.
They should start showing spine on the issue of Cuba and stop acting like they're living in the past.
When you have Annette Taddeo, FL Democratic Party Chair Nikki Fried and Rep. Jared Moskowitz all crying uncle over President Biden's decision to remove Cuba as a state sponsor of terrorism to ensure the Catholic church is able to help get prisoners in Cuba returned, you know FL Democrats need to get their ass together.
How left-leaning are people born in Florida?
Republicans in states like California don't give up, they constantly keep fighting to win elections and to move the needle to the right on issues like crime where Dems take positions that are out of step with the public whereas in Florida, Democrats can't even break the supermajority.
Long-term plan: create enthusiasm that drives members of the Sofa-sitter Party to the polls!
How, you ask? By clearly showing that Democrats fight tooth and nail for the Constitution and democracy, and against all enemies foreign and domestic. (No pussy footing!)
While in power, use that power to truly benefit people – and communicate it loudly enough to drown out the right-wing media and blogosphere.
Very difficult to drown them out, and it's very late to try to amplify left-wing media voices, but they're trying.
as far as Durbin goes, i could honestly care either way, Safe hold with or without the incumbent imo
I am extremely ready for Durbin to be replaced with a better Democrat. For a decade plus I've been following up most of my criticisms of Schumer by saying that I am afraid Durbin would be a worse option.
I'm really not a fan of senators over 80 running for re-election in safe blue seats. We need generational change in several seats, including this one.
I'd like to see Juliana Stratton and Lauren Underwood go for the seat either way. It's time for a massive upgrade
Democrats need younger firebrands. A generational change is desperately needed. Lakshya Jain predicts that Senators like Durbin will face tough primaries. The Schumer kind of Democrats need to be replaced with fighters, don't care whether they are moderates or progressives. https://www.politico.com/news/magazine/2025/03/21/polling-data-democrats-primaries-grassroots-tea-party-00241769
i think it depends on the type of firebrand; i like boring if they produce results; Trump is a firebrand for instance
I want Durbin to retire for three reasons:
1. I want a younger, new generation of Democrat representing a Blue State like Illinois.
2. Yes, the CR vote is still one of the reasons. I have heard the arguments on both sides and while I understand and think there are valid points to avoiding a shutdown, I still think the leadership bumbled their strategy on how to deal with that situation. I don’t just blame Schumer for betting it all on House Republicans not being able to get their shit together on the budget and having no Plan B. Durbin is the Minority Whip and is second in command. While we don’t know the behind the scenes specifics on how active Durbin was with figuring out what to do about the upcoming CR fight, I think it’s still clear Durbin, like Schumer, is still hoping that repeating their 2017 strategy will work. There are parts of it like going into GOP districts and holding Town Halls there and everywhere can still work but this was a smaller GOP majority that is way more in line with Trump than it was back in 2017 when the GOP had a bigger majority.
3. Durbin has been pretty weak as the Chairman of the Senate Judiciary Committee. He’s kept the Blue Slips rule intact and he’s offered more sternly worded warnings than action. Whitehouse should be the Senate Judiciary Chairman.
I personally would like Schumer to go but I think if there’s one person we can force into retirement to get us closer to new leadership we are demanding, it’s Durbin. Schumer is starting to realize that angry base and calls for him to step down are real. Schumer went from saying “we haven’t reached a constitutional crisis yet” in his interview with Chris Hayes because SCOTUS hasn’t ruled on Trump defying judges orders yet to now saying we’re facing a constitutional crisis. And he’s doing that because he’s getting blowback for being out of touch with the situation. I’m not saying that Schumer has fully seen the light yet but I think mobilizing that anger on the CR vote and keeping it still fresh and relevant would work better at pressuring someone like Durbin who faces the voters next year to call it quits. Schumer isn’t up until 2028. I don’t think he can fully recover from his self-inflicted damage. I understand voters have shitty memories but even if Schumer were to actually put up a tougher fight now and especially in September, I don’t think it would save his chances of being elected the party’s leader in 2029. Even Michael Bennet told his town hall that leaders need to know when it’s time to step aside for a new generation and even reminded voters that he was one of the first Democratic Senators to call for Biden to drop out. I think the sentiment is bubbling amongst his colleagues. I don’t doubt more Dem Senators who voted No on cloture we’re privately relieved that there wasn’t a shutdown because I think they believe that it would’ve distracted from Trump’s approval rating taking a nose dive but what has resonated with them is that Schumer’s not thinking ahead of the opposition and waiting too long to let Trump hit himself. Durbin I believe is in line with Schumer’s thinking and that’s why I would love to see polling come out showing him losing his primary. Indivisible should put resources behind that effort.
Maine. Missed this. Looks like Troy Jackson is going to run for governor. I was really hoping he would take on Susan Collins.
https://www.mainepublic.org/politics/2025-03-07/former-maine-senate-president-troy-jackson-eyes-run-for-governor-in-2026
wondering if Collins retires; have not heard anything yet
As far as I know, she's going to keep running until she drops, like Grassley. 😢
she is younger than she looks imo; but i tend to agree here; lifer imo
Her cross-party appeal will never not be baffling to me. She votes the party line 90+% of the time (and nearly 100% when her vote would actually impact the outcome).
All the big names in Maine want to be governor because it is the easier election to win. Eventually/hopefully that primary will get too crowded and someone will decide that they have better odds running for the senate.
It's unfortunate that Mills isn't younger. An incumbent governor would be a great senate candidate.
she is younger than Collins..???..
actually Mills is 5 years older(wow); Collins looks older to me
It's been rumored that she suffers from some kind of disease though take it with a grain of salt.
You mean Collins has the health problem, right?
Really? Vocal tremor aside, she doesn't appear unhealthy to me.
Collins is "perpetually concerned" – but strangely seems to suffer no personal ill effects from her chronic condition.
That and Governor is a better job.
Very true. It's easy for me to forget because senator is more important for us, but for most people governor is more enjoyable job than senator. At least this century. Maybe in the past it was different.
I totally understand that not everyone is interested in moving the bulk of their lives to Washington, DC.
Still, being a United States Senator—even for just one term—carries so much prestige that I would be loath to turn down such an opportunity, were it to come my way.
Yeah, problem is it isn't in a vacuum. Governor has a lot of prestige too. And unlike a senator these days, a governor can put their name on things. Being a senator today must feel like a glorified nomination confirmer/denier. Legislation all makes its way through leadership first; gone are the days of yore when bills would have a senator's name on it because they were the principal author and sponsor.
He'll make a good Governor, wish ANY Democrat would just take on Susan and get her out; the seat must flip this time or Democrats will be in the definite minority until the 2030's, Tillis & Ernst too!! 💙🇺🇲
no reason we cant defeat Tillis with Governor Cooper
Tillis has an impressively low approval at 25%.
He's definitely #1 most vulnerable on the Senate side, Collins a close 2nd; Ernst not far behind; Husted a distant 4th!!
I’d say Ernst is way closer to being at the same level of competitiveness as Husted than she is to Collins and Tillis.
Yeah, I actually think Dan Sullivan is more beatable than Joni Ernst (especially if Mary Peltola runs against him).
We say that until the results start coming in and the republican wins. I guess the people of NC want a republican senate
We haven't had that many good election cycles for dems lately. Only 2018 was great for us in the past 15 years. We had a narrow advantage in 2020, and a narrow disadvantage in 2016. Elections in 2012 modestly favored us while 2024 modestly disfavored us. And of course 2010 and 2014 were absolutely atrocious for us. Finally 2022 was much better than expected but still not a great year.
That history in mind, NC's senate elections have been 2010-2016-2022 for the Class 3 seat, and 2014-2020-2026 (upcoming) for the Class 2 seat. NC held no senate elections in either of the two good cycles for us, and has instead held them in all but one of the bad cycles (2024).
Only 2016 and 2020 were years in that set that we could realistically hope to have won, but in both we fell a bit short. Burr was already an incumbent in 2016 and we didn't have a single pickup in a state that HRC lost. For 2020 our candidate self-imploded in the final stretch and went from narrowly ahead in the polls to narrowly behind in the polls. I think we'd have been slightly favored to win the seat in the alternate timeline where Cunningham lacked skeletons in his closet.
Point being, NC is a purple state that has a bit more red than blue in that blend of purple, but it's not one we should be aggressively pessimistic about. If 2026 is a good election cycle for us then I feel good about our chances in NC.
Yes, we would have stood a good chance of winning a Senate seat in North Carolina in 2018 had one been up at that time. Hell, we might have even gotten Cheri Beasley over the finish line in 2022 had we actually treated it like the competitive race that it was.
And Cal Cunningham could and should have won against Thom Tillid in 2020, had he not acted like a perfidious idiot.
We've kept the races pretty close though in varying environments. In a blue wave federal races in that state are definitely winnable.
yup
disagree in 26
Makes sense; Collins looked DOA in 2020 and if she was able to win handsomely in that environment, if I were Dem pol in that state I'd consider her Main Electoral Jesus until proven otherwise.
i can envision Trump petulantly knee capping her though
I get that idea, but still, if you're an ambitious Maine Democrat, there aren't a lot of opportunities to advance electorally (only one safely-blue House seat, and offices like AG and SoS are appointed rather than elected).
A race against Collins is high-risk, but also potentially high-reward. There are many examples of seemingly-entrenched politicians getting caught napping, facing an insurmountably-bad national mood, or just overstaying their welcome.
MUSK TRIES TO BUY WISCONSIN SUPREME COURT SEAT
. Musk's PAC offers $100 to Wisconsin voters in pitch against "activist judges"
Elon Musk's political action committee is offering Wisconsin voters $100 to sign a petition expressing their opposition to "activist judges." … Musk is throwing his considerable wealth behind Trump's priorities — including an upcoming election in Wisconsin for a crucial seat on the state's Supreme Court.
The April 1 election in Wisconsin will determine the tilt of an ideologically divided bench in a swing state where state-level decisions can carry national implications for abortion rights, legislative redistricting and election laws.
Two Musk-backed groups — America PAC and Building America's Future — have combined to spend nearly $20 million to support Brad Schimel, the Republican candidate for the Wisconsin court seat.
After a voter signs the petition and is credited with $100, Musk's team won't know for sure whether, or how, that person voted in Wisconsin's election. But the groups will have the voter's data, which will allow the groups to contact them again in the future.
https://www.axios.com/2025/03/21/elon-musk-pac-wisconsin-judges
Imagine the Republican outcry – and probable criminal charges – if, say, Michael Bloomberg or better yet George Soros were to attempt the same.
Democrats should collect their $100 and then vote correctly; just sayin
Exactly! Wisconsin Democrats are against activist judges – but we know who they are: the likes of Schimel, not Crawford!
Two sides can play this game. Depending on the wording and payout date, Democrats could be encouraged to sign this petition, collect their $100, and consider donating it to Susan Crawford’s campaign!
https://www.politico.com/news/2025/03/21/musk-looms-large-in-this-wisconsin-judicial-race-00241457
But it’s Musk — and Democrats’ effort to yoke him to Schmiel — that will be dominating the airwaves on behalf of Democrats in the closing weeks, even as abortion and public safety have also been emphasized in TV ads. A second ad, backed by the Democratic Party of Wisconsin, uses audio of Schmiel saying he needs to “invest in knee pads” because he has to “crawl around begging people” to financially support his bid. The ad then cuts to images of Musk, who “needs a guaranteed vote” on the state Supreme Court because he’s “suing the state of Wisconsin.”
“Schmiel begged, and Musk unloaded $10 million to rig the court,” the ad’s narrator says. “So how much does it cost to buy off a corrupt politician? Just ask Brad Schmiel.”
Internal Democratic data found that this ad was especially effective at chipping away at Schmiel’s favorability, reducing it by 14 percent among moderate voters.
This is what I call absolute cinema.
You just made my day!
Sweep the leg.
get him a body bag
Durbin needs to retire. Have a 30-40 year old replace him in the Senate with fire in their belly.
Honestly, I wouldn't even mind a 50-60 year old, so long as they do a better job than Durbin and only serve a few terms. For most people, being a Senator is a career capstone, so it makes sense they'd be older when they run. The problem isn't that older people run for Senate, it's that they stay in office longer than they should. In other words, in a world of Diane Feinsteins, be a Tina Smith.
The bigger problem is Democrats who collaborate with fascism. It's that serious.
I think younger generations of Democrats who run for political office are not exactly like Durbin or Schumer.
So far with such Democrats being elected to the Senate from Chris Murphy to Ruben Gallego, they have a bigger BS detector and fight back harder. Sure would like to see an ideal Democratic Senate Candidate to replace Durbin with greater resolve against fascism.
Michigan: Andy Levin should run for state AG to succeed Dana Nessel.
Illinois: If Durbin DOESN'T retire, Lt. Gov. Juliana Stratton or someone else should primary challenge him anyways and force him out. The seat is safe D no matter what happens anyway!! 💙🇺🇲
the Lt might be holding back for Gov but imo Underwood would be formidable
No, she’s pretty clearly eyeing a senate run next year, if reports are to be believed, and she’ll have Pritzker’s backing, thought a Pritzker retirement would change the calculus. National Dems I do think would be behind Underwood though.
Outside of these two, Raja, Casten, and Ramirez are names to watch.
Casten's pretty good. He's one of the best Democrats in the House on climate change and the environment.
Regarding pro Putin Georgescu's recent ban from elections, I saw this comment on a TLDR video;
Romanian here, here's more context about Calin Georgescu:
- He claimed Pepsi contains nanochips
- He called the head of WHO (a black man) a "house n*****", twice, hard R, in an English interview
- He wanted to ban political parties (all of them, or at least all that don't support him)
- He declared 0 campaign expenditures (although that TikTok campaign cost millions of dollars, as confirmed by TikTok themselves). This is illegal.
- He was supported and protected by Foreign Legion mercenary Horatiu Potra and his band. Long story short, Potra fled the country, police raided his house and found grenades and grenade launchers, automatic rifles, 1 million euros cash hidden in a safe in the floor
- He said once he's elected he would go after the press "paid by George Soros" - he said they are on "known lists"
- He wanted to nationalize land, like the communists did
- He thinks water contains energy and he said he would build the first water pipes
- And the list goes on and on
I feel this video did not stress enough how much of a nutjob he is.
Also, Lasconi was (and still is) bitter because she thought she had a real chance in the canceled elections. The truth is most people voted for her due to a lack of alternative. Now that there are better alternatives, her rating plummeted.
"The legionaries" was a political party in Romania active between 1927-1941. These guys were voted mainly because they presented themselves as very religious. Once in power, they did horrendous murders in Romania and they also allied with the nazis in WW2. The current Romanian legislation prevents the rise of such a sect in the political spectrum and whoever declares they support the actions of "the legionaries" will face prison and also that person cannot run for elections. Now what do you think Georgescu declared numerous times in various interviews? He really shouldn't be allowed to run for elections. Normally, the authorities should have banned him from the very beginning, just like they did with Sosoaca
The IOC has elected Kirsty Coventry from Zimbabwe to lead the organization, as she beat 6 other contenders for the job, including Juan Antonio Samaranch Salisachs from Spain (the son of former IOC President Juan Antonio Samaranch). Coventry is the first woman and the first person from an African country to lead the IOC.
https://apnews.com/article/ioc-olympics-president-election-coventry-coe-samaranch-762f3442ff2a01be9e822cd017b89a59
Hmm. Considering the IOC’s history appointing a key figure from Zimbabwe is an eyebrow raising move
Then again to their credit they’ve never been close to as bent as FIFA and they’ve reformed for the better in the last 10-15 years
Kristy Coventry's white, if my memory's correct.
If she wasn't good at swimming, it's very possible the Mugabe regime would have had her executed based on her race alone.
Without looking it up, I believe she was a massive national hero.
As bad as Mugabe was, he didn't conduct a genocide against white Zimbabweans, so I'm having trouble following your claim.
He almost certainly would have if he thought he could get away with it-things were headed in that direction at the time of his death.
One word, Gukurahundi.
Let's not sane wash Robert Mugabe here. Yes Ian Smith was a racist, but Mugabe was in fact responsible for genocide. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gukurahundi
Not a genocide of white Zimbabweans, but the murders of some 20,000 people per the linked article are noted.
PA-Sen, Looks like someone might be eyeing a comeback in 2028. https://x.com/aoc/status/1903180440011522373?s=46&t=NhLQrgM30BfZmjI73-3rMg
Good.
Conor Lamb, for those too lazy to click. Without context I assumed it was Casey.
Link doesn't have him explicitly say he's going to run, but he attacks Fetterman in a way that is likely setting the field for a primary run.
Nice to see serious candidates prepping themselves to get us an upgrade in that seat. Would much rather have a reliable democrat in place in 2029, especially if we win the presidency.
DeLuzio would also be a good candidate.
Conor Lamb is no better than Fetterman is. At best, he'd be the Pennsylvania version of Manchin/Sinema (Fetterman does have progressive views on some issues-you can't really say that about Lamb, he'd be a clear downgrade.).
Ok, no. Lamb was for the most part a pretty standard moderate Democrat in the House, acting like he’d be worse than Manchin and Sinema is ridiculous. He wouldn’t be great, and he might not even be better than Fetterman, but he wouldn’t be single handey sinking the entire Democratic agenda and then leaving the party altogether.
No, but a moderate would be no better than a Republican pretty much anywhere in country.
That makes no sense.
Conor lamb is a mainstream liberal. He is not a progressive nor a Sinema. Fetterman's support of Trump Greenland proposal and partial support of Gaza boots on ground proposal was atrocious. He is very sympathetic to Trump.
Mainstream Liberals at this point are no better than Republicans.
Well, that's crazy.
gimme a f--king break
Republicans have gotten their recent success by insisting on strict purity tests. We need to do the same, or we won't have a party in five years.
Eh, he'd vote the party line 90+% of the time.
My problem with him is that he's bland and boring as hell.
im good with bland and boring; just sayin; Biden was bland and boring, and passed some amazing legislation imo
I've never found Biden to be either of those things.
to each his own
I would not underestimate Conor Lamb.
-He signed on as a sponsor for DC statehood.
-Argued Trump needed to be impeached immediately over the January 6th insurrection and voted in favor of impeachment in all prior cases.
-Voted for Biden's agenda the majority of the time while being in the House.
His record so far is better than Fetterman's.
https://ontheissues.org/PA/Conor_Lamb.htm
https://x.com/ConorLambPA/status/1348334498749030402
https://web.archive.org/web/20220321164848/https://projects.fivethirtyeight.com/biden-congress-votes/conor-lamb/
https://www.congress.gov/member/conor-lamb/L000588
He also supports LGBTQ equality, china tariffs, unions and the environment. Let's own it, progressives messed up against him.
The Nation also messed up in its coverage of Lamb, arguing he was in the vein of Joe Manchin. Incorrect assessment of him but then again, former editor Katrina Vanden Heuvel believed the GOP was going to expire after the 2010's.
Plenty to like about Lamb although if he isn't completely in line with where Democrats are on a particular issue, it isn't because he's going to pull a Fetterman by voting for Trump nominees. It's usually a difference of opinion, not being a loose cannon like Manchin.
Imho, Joe Manchin was always an anti-progressive first, and a Democrat second. In that regard he was incredibly consistent. On top of that, both pecuniarily and ideologically, he was and still is beholden to the oil-gas-coal industry.
Lamb was quite conservative for a Democrat, though.
He was definitely in the squishy-moderate range. Still a sight better than what Fetterman has revealed himself as.
I'd rather someone better than Lamb run, but if that's our choices then it's an easy one in my book.
Fetterman is more like a populist neoconservative Democrat. I'd take Conor Lamb any day over him.
Oh sure. You have to punish Fetterman by voting for his primary opponent, almost no matter who they are. He's been an extremely bitter and surprising disappointment.
Not as conservative as you might think. Voted for Biden's agenda the majority of the time.
100 percent of the time infact.
Yup!
The conservative history with Lamb has to do with the old PA-18 district, which was more conservative than the PA-17 district he moved to.
Ok, noted.
He had to be to win that US House election. His old seat was represented by a hardline "Birther" (remember those) Republican.
Yeah, true!
Originally Lamb represented the old PA-18 Congressional District but then due to redistricting moved to the bluer PA-17 Congressional District, which made it easier for him to vote blue. This happened at the beginning of 2019, the 3rd year of Trump's first term as POTUS.
Also, Lamb's evolution as a politician isn't far off from how Kirsten Gillibrand was in the House before she became Senator. The one difference was that Gillibrand was appointed by then-NY Governor David Paterson to replace Hillary Clinton after she became Secretary of State.
And Gillibrand voted for the Republican budget. So not such a great precedent.
For the most part up until the Republican budget Gillibrand voted for, she had a reliably liberal voting record where she was a regular team player for Democrats. Her voting record in the House differed but that was representative of the district at the time.
Lamb on the other hand has not been in Congress since 2023. If he runs for the Senate and wins in 2028, he won’t have the GOP budget as a liability against him.
Oh God, please not Casey. I'm still pissed that he belly-flopped last year. All he had to do was outperform Harris by 1.35% and he would have captured a majority. (And it was doable; Sherrod Brown ran ahead of Harris by nearly twice that percentage!)
seriously dude??; talkin about monday morning quarterbacking??..c'mon man
What I'm "talkin about" is that Casey blew a winnable race. It doesn't mean he's a bad person, but he had 18 years to build up an infrastructure and a personal brand (other than just his last name) and never did.
he was fighting an uphill battle
With the benefit of hindsight, so were Tammy Baldwin, Elissa Slotkin, Jacky Rosen, and Ruben Gallego.
He lost because he tied himself too closely to Biden since years.
Yeah i'm generally on the let swing/red seat Dems do what they need to do to get reelected page but this is crossing into being unnecessarily antagonistic to the point of liability.
OH-Gov, Sherrod Brown and his wife are moving from Cleveland to Columbus. Columbus is the capitol so there’s speculation that he’s gearing up for a Governor run. He does state that Connie Schultz has a teaching job at Denison University and they want to be closer to their grandkids. That could be the real and only reason but who knows. I know Amy Acton has jumped into the race but I think it might make more sense for Brown to run for Governor and Acton for Senate. We get another fresh new voice in the Senate and Brown can pull an almost DeWine and make his comeback. I say “almost DeWine” because DeWine first came back as AG in 2010 and then Governor. Thoughts? https://www.wlwt.com/article/former-sen-sherrod-brown-relocates-to-columbus/64245207
I like it if it's what they actually want to do. Sherrod is getting up there but it's not like we have a huge bench. Would like to see a strong statewide ticket if for no other reason to help Kaptur and Sykes.
Yes, I am a firm believer in running strong top-of-ticket campaigns in hostile states, if only for the coattails. Few things are worse than watching your party get destroyed both up and down the ballot because no one ran damage control at the top (e.g. Nevada Democrats in 2014).
And if his opponent were, say, insufferable asshole Vivek Ramaswamy, I actually think Brown would have a chance of pulling it off.
Dunno. Is there any evidence that Buckeyes are more likely to vote Democratic for Governor than for Senator?
The (gerrymandered-as-all-hell) Ohio Legislature can be rather toxic at times; there's a chance that a critical mass of voters might decide to vote for a Democratic governor in the hopes of checking their power a bit.
Plus, gubernatorial elections tend to be (a bit) less polarized in general, no?
I would agree with your last sentence as a general point.
I'd rather he run for senate, but I'm not surprised that he could prefer governor.
Feel like I'm saying this a lot lately, between Alaska, Maine, and now Ohio.
My dream Senate candidate in Alaska is Mary Peltola.
If 2026 turns out to be a good year for Democrats, I really think she could win.
I'd love her to run too, but a week or two ago she hinted she was leaning strongly towards governor. I'm hoping we have someone else that can impress us like she did, but I don't know the state well to guess at any names.
Even if senator wasn't a worse job in most cases, it would especially be the case for Alaska and Hawaii, where they have to make a weekly commute that the governor doesn't have to take.
im with Sherrod; whatever he wants, he gets