161 Comments

If things ended where they stand, the House would be be 222-213.

https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2024/11/06/us/elections/results-house-races-tracker.html

The best I can see the Democrats doing is 217. And that would require that they hold what they have and win AK, CA 13, 41 and 45.

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Fantastic if we can reduce the Republican majority to a single seat: 218–217!

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thanks for posting; imo even the worst case scenario is not too bad here

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Holding them to basically a draw in a R+4 environment where the Republican POTUS won the popular vote is crazy, even with the court drawn assists we got.

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Considering the 2024 election results, a 222-213 breakdown isn't bad. It certainly sets Democrats up for the opportunity to potentially get bigger gains in the 2026 midterms depending on how Trump's presidency ends up unfolding.

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Downballot, 2024 is basically 2022 but with a competent New York D party on the one hand and Shapiro/Whitmer not heading the Pennsylvania/Michigan ticket on the other.

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Nov 11·edited Nov 11

With US Rep Elise Stefanik (R-NY) tapped to become UN Ambassador, that will cause a seat vacancy in late January … forcing a special election in the spring in NY CD-21. And a headache for the House GOP’s very precarious majority, as seat will be empty for a few months.

https://x.com/Politics1com/status/1855953833987285081

https://x.com/anniekarni/status/1855936947669102657

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Awesome news; hopefully Trump does more of this; Senate also 👍

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Nov 11·edited Nov 11

This is my cousins district and he says the North Country is flooded with right-wing groups in the mountains. The Democratic base is in the very south in the District around Glens Falls which is home to a lot of older Democrats who have been trending Republican. If this is even somewhat competitive it will be a miracle. There are Democrats around Plattsburgh near Canada as well but it's a college town and many cant vote there. In the west the military community in Watertown is pretty Republican.

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I think we should at least put up a fight

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Democrats held this district for a few terms during the Obama years but they've given up their gains and returned to their ancestral Republicanism. St. Lawrence County used to be comfortably blue but it's become a Republican stronghold in the Trump era.

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Redistricting has made it more Republican. Unless Republicans totally screw things up in only three months, it’s virtually impossible for Democrats to make it a contest.

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still we should at worst put up a viable alternative

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I think we will overperform but fall short by a comfortable margin.

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These states have turnout in excess of the 2020 election - only DE and NH voted for Harris

Delaware +1%

Georgia +5%

Idaho +3%

Michigan +2%

Nevada +2%

New Hampshire +2%

North Carolina +2%

North Dakota +1%

South Carolina +1%

South Dakota +1%

Wisconsin +3%

https://x.com/WinWithJMC/status/1855952066205630776

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Nov 11·edited Nov 11

Harris also did better than Clinton did in NH back in 2016.

Meanwhile Chris Pappas got a wider margin of victory this time around in NH-01 vs. back in 2022 while Maggie Goodlander won election to represent NH-02 by nearly 6% points. Not bad!

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Apart from MI/WI and the Dakotas, that looks like a list of states that have gained population recently.

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Cook lists those states but also Maine (+0.9%).

Every state shifted red (as currently counted). The smallest shift: Utah (R+0.1%). Second smallest: Washington (R+0.3%).

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Zuckerman doesn't seem to be a very good politician

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Just as many Trump protégés fall short it’s the same thing with many Sanders protégés. The question in Vermont is does Phil Scott FINALLY step down from the Governorship in 2026?

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Is Engel going to be able to defeat Ciscomani in AZ-06?

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not looking good but punchers chance

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The worst thing that happened to the NC Supreme Court was when Republicans changed the elections from nonpartisan to partisan in 2018. Following the last nonpartisan election, Democrats held a 6-1 advantage on the court. Since then every race has been won by the Republicans except for one where two Republicans split the vote, with most of the results being achingly close. Clearly there were a small number of voters who were willing to vote for the more progressive candidate when the races were nonpartisan, but now simply check the "R" box.

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Is there a collated live count of all the remaining House races? A single web page that shows them all?

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Excellent! But I couldn’t access that. Would you be willing to post a gift link, giving access to those of us who unsubscribed the NYT in protest?

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Unfortunately, maybe because it’s not an article, that option doesn’t seem to be available.

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Ok, thanks. I very much appreciate your continuing updates!

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In Kentucky, when a newcomer tries to go straight to the Supreme Court by running against a sitting judge, always bet on the sitting judge, even if it's an open seat race. Also, the Court of Appeals and Supreme Court use the same district map, so Goodwine was running before people who were familiar with her (or at least with seeing her name), and had already elected her to the Court of Appeals. As for Trump having won the district, so did Beshear, and he won by a wider margin.

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And in other news (and so it begins): "President-elect Donald Trump on Sunday demanded that the next Senate GOP leader allow him to make appointments to his administration and the courts without Senate approval."

https://wapo.st/3YFBp6V

"100% agree. I will do whatever it takes to get your nominations through as quickly as possible.”

– Rick Scott, aspiring Senate Majority Leader

"All options are on the table.”

– John Thune, a second aspiring Senate Majority Leader

"It is unacceptable for Senate Ds to blockade President Trump’s cabinet appointments."

– John Cornyn, a third aspiring Senate Majority Leader

"Additionally, no Judges should be approved during [Biden’s remaining time in office]."

– Donald Trump

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Nov 11·edited Nov 11

It has never quite been legally established what “advice and consent of the Senate” (the Constitutional language for appointments) actually requires from the Senate. It’s always just been assumed that the Senate has to vote to approve cabinet members and judges, and it’s never come up as an actual issue.

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Democracy’s foundation is the widely-shared respect for customs and traditions, and not primarily the Constitution. An awful lot of damage is about to be done without necessarily violating the letter of the Constitution; besides, the only interpretation that counts will be that of the Supreme Court majority that has been carefully selected by Leonard Leo.

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I can also imagine the filibuster will be history January 2.

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I can imagine new Senate rules that allow en-banc certification of Trump’s cabinet nominations and slates of new judges.

Likewise I can image the Senate abandoning its practice of pro-forma sessions, and instead periodically adjourning so that Trump can make lots of recess appointments.

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Nov 11·edited Nov 11

This is where the result in PA-Sen looms large. If Casey somehow wins, then the Republicans will still need Murkowski and Collins to override Harris’ tie-break (or they will at least need to get them to abstain) until Jan. 20. After that point, they will still need them after Vance’s seat is vacated until it’s filled. Not that I have any faith in either of them to stand up when it matters, but it is at least an obstacle.

If McCormick wins, then Collins and Murkowski are irrelevant.

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Given that Dems were pushing so hard for that, it would be appropriate for them to do that to us, I suppose.

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Did Democrats do it?

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I think it really depends on who the leader is and how they see things. McConnell liked the filibuster because it relieved pressure on him to pass things that were popular with the GOP base and/or donors but highly unpopular with most voters.

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Politicians are loathe to do one thing and that's concede power. I'll be very surprised if the GOP Senate caucus just decides to give up all of theirs to Heir Trump, especially as he is now term-limited. Note the contours of Thune and Cornyn's statements (I don't think Scott has a chance to win Majority Leader).

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They can't do anything about judges in the lame duck session unless both of Manchin and Sinema refuse to play ball, and that hasn't been a problem up to this point.

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He congratulated McCormick on winning PA for no reason at all. Expect nothing from him that bends whatever imaginary rules there are

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Joe Manchin crowing and crying about bipartisanship and how Democrats ignored moderates. What's he saying about Trump demanding the Senate rules be blown up around advise and consent?

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Manchin is very conservative – he is no moderate; that is an abuse of the term.

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Will the Downballot be examining what is happening with J.D. Vance's Senate seat and Elise Stefanik's House seat?

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Democrats have an excellent track record of overperforming in special elections. We need to launch high-intensity efforts to capture whatever House and Senate seats are vacated by Trump’s appointments.

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https://thehill.com/homenews/senate/4981631-senate-vacancy-vance-ohio-dewine/

Any special election for Vance's seat wouldn't be until 2026; DeWine will appoint someone to serve until then.

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I think it’s a safe bet that Governor DeWine won’t be appointing Sherrod Brown.

/s

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I'd expect him to appoint Matt Dolan.

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Hopefully, he’s not a total MAGA maniac

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He lost both the 2022 and 2024 primaries because he was seen as not pro-Trump enough. How he actually does in office will be another question entirely, of course.

But DeWine isn’t really MAGA and doesn’t have much incentive (at present) to pick someone from that crowd.

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He might appoint his own son (depending on whether his son wants it)

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author

You bet we will!

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Michigan: "Trump won swing state by 80,618 votes — 50,332 of them came from Dearborn, Dearborn Heights and Hamtramck, which are largely made up of Arab voters who voted for Biden in 2020."

https://www.timesofisrael.com/voters-in-arab-american-strongholds-helped-tip-michigan-in-trumps-favor/

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Many of them went to the dark side in 2022 to ban pride flags and the like. Whitmer did quite a bit worse there than in 2018.

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I agree, social conservatism played a part too, i don't think it was just spite over Israel/palestine.

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As some of us have been saying for years, Muslim Americans are NOT natural allies of Democrats.

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Its one of the most conservative mainstream religions with an extreme emphasis on gender roles and structure. This needs to stop being a surprise. We are going to lose more of those voters, as the media fragmentation continues.

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Hijabs…. Really interesting seeing all the Handmaid memes this election season and then we rely on voters who literally do that. Throw a Gucci or Louis print on it and it’s called culture.

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So it appears Twitter has been hemorrhaging users and Bluesky and threads have been the go to place for folks. I’ve made the jump myself to threads and Bluesky but am definitely liking Bluesky better. Anyone else on Bluesky?

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I left Twitter when it switched to “X.” I briefly went back the past couple of days to get election news (X makes it very inconvenient for non-users to read posts), and I have sincerely regretted it.

Makes me appreciate spaces like this a whole lot more.

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Elon’s site really is in the Xitter. Sad!

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Isn't part of that because they're gonna start scavenging user-created content on Twitter to feed to Moloch...I mean...Grok?

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What is bluesky?

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Kind of a Twitter alternative

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I left X on the eve of the election and have no plans on filling it with anything except some time on here. Less social media is better for my mental health.

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PA-Sen, Another day another stupid way the GOP

Is trying to rush getting a prematurely declared winner into the Senate before all the votes are counted. This time the PA GOP is trying to put pressure on Shapiro if he supports a $2 million recount. It’s irrelevant what he think because they law would allow either Casey or McCormick to call for a recount if it’s still at .5%. https://x.com/samuelchentv/status/1856000859093774369?s=46&t=NhLQrgM30BfZmjI73-3rMg

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Casey has done exactly nothing that McCormick wouldn't do in the same position.

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PERSONAL SECURITY

It’s only a matter of time before Trump tries to weaponize America’s intelligence agencies against the opposition and people he considers to be domestic enemies. We’re unlikely to know how well he succeeds in perverting these agencies.

For this reason, I would like to see ActBlue drop its requirement that political donors provide their email address.

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I don't believe that ActBlue requires a phone number. I don't see how they could run without emails, though.

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Do tell, why do they need an email?

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I just checked my profile. Phone number is labeled "optional" and I have never listed mine there.

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Thanks! I’ll correct my post. But, imho, it ought to be possible to make a donation without providing one’s email address.

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They probably need some sort of identifying info so as to stop obvious ways of trying to circumvent campaign finance limits.

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Of course! I’m pretty sure name and physical address is sufficient.

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A number of the post-mortems here have commented that Harris ran a less identity-politics driven campaign than either Biden or Clinton. Be that as it may, I do remember the very first action of the Harris campaign, where she held a series of zoom calls by racial and gender affiliation. (I.e. black women, black men, Latina women, etc., with white guys going last.) As someone who has long thought identity politics were a stumbling block for the Democratic Party, I had a strong WTF reaction to this initial move. Fundraising is obviously not campaigning, but for me it set the tone.

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It was never clear to me whether that was coordinated by her campaign or outside groups outsider of their control. If it was the former I agree that was not smart.

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North Carolina lean relative to the nation:

2000: R+13.35

2004: R+9.98

2008: R+6.94

2012: R+5.9

2016: R+5.75

2020: R+5.79

2024: R+1.85

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This year is gonna be wild for PVI's. GA almost even with the country, WI and MI back to the left of it. I'm cautious to over-interpret it because if you ask me, the states that have the biggest potential to snap back are the ones where Harris lost 10+ points. The inverse of states like Indiana, Montana, North Dakota in 2008 - biggest shifts to the left, set them up for biggest shifts to the right afterwards. Or maybe I'm wrong, and CO will be to the left of NY going forward. KS to the left of FL. ME to the left of IL. Will just have to wait and see.

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I think Kansas will be to the left of Florida by the end of the decade, unless something strange happens to cause the Cuban vote to shift back to Dems.

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Hint: distancing ourselves from people who call themselves socialists in ANY form. Yes a lot of people my generation and younger associate that term with western and Northern Europe. That doesn’t change however that to most Latino it is associated with Cuba and Venezuela.

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I have never fathomed why certain American leftists insist on calling themselves "Democratic Socialists" rather than "Social Democrats". The first term is toxic to huge swathes of voters, the second much less so if at all.

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Because too many of them buy into the argument that the only people who care are die hard Republicans who will NEVER vote Democratic. And/or the argument that "Democrats are going to be called "socialists" no matter what so they might as well just be socialists." Forgetting the fact that to the majority of Americans even in 2024, socialism is still considering to be THE gateway drug to communism.

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Quite an electoral dilemma. The best possible way to appeal to the working-class voters we've lost is a left populism that the opposition has to discovered to be so easy to successfully brand as socialism.

The fact that the Democrats have breathlessly advocated for a lax immigration policy to intentionally grow the ranks of the very people most sensitive to concerns about "socialism" represents the truly Shakespearean nature of the party's self-immolation.

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And just to build off your first paragraph - Those same people who frame pro-working class policies as socialism have created their own populist narrative that gets votes but isn’t pro-worker at all. It’s a whole bullshit conundrum of being pro-worker makes you a socialist but being pro-rich means you’re pro-worker.

All the analysis about Dems losing the working class is so dumb. It’s true and we have but good lord, I don’t know what else Dems can do. Wipe their asses for them?!? Pray to Jeebus?

I’m ignoring all the election analysis this time around bc the answer is clear and I see the price tags at grocery stores. I think we got away with it in 2022 bc it was inflation and temporary bc of Covid. 2024 is where it sunk in that a 12-pack of pop is staying at $8.49. A bag of Doritos is $5.29. My purchasing power is shot but I’ve avoided that bc I love grocery shopping and cooking so going to four stores in a grocery run to get all the sales is fun for me. But, I have no kids and have four grocery stores within 10 minutes all in a succinct route.

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And why is it easily branded as socialism? Because the biggest advocates of it are people who insist and insist and insist in calling themselves "socialists." No matter how many times some of us correctly point out that the majority of Americans are to put it diplomatically uncomfortable with politicians who call themselves socialists in ANY form. Bernie Sanders can put the word democratic in front of the word socialist/socialism ALL he wants. It's not going to change the fact that to the majority of Americans, socialism = communism.

Yes, the lax immigration policy has hurt. But so has the embracement of the word socialist from SOME on the left. No getting around that fact.

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I’m an Elisabeth Warren leftist. Let’s hear it for "Well-regulated Capitalism"!

The great irony is that Bernie Sanders is NOT a socialist. I have never heard him propose legislation for, nor argue for, government ownership of the means of production and distribution.

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The trends in FL have been terrible, but I think the reckoning due to climate change is already starting. Insurance prices are on the brink of unaffordability, and as a result, I know multiple people who live near the coast that are now stuck because they simply cannot sell their properties even if they want to.

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They had their smallest net gain population wise in decades in 2023 due to outflows; the 2024-25 figures will be revealing

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Hopefully, Clayton can deliver the state for Nickel/Cooper/Jackson for Sen 2026.

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imo Trump will

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If the economy collapses, absolutely. Just as Bush the Younger did in 2028.

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