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The Republican Party, which has been taken over by MAGA, is suddenly discovering that it is running reprehensible MAGA candidates that fail to appeal to voters – Mark Robinson, Kari Lake, JD Vance... And the most toxic of them all: Agent Orange.

Who woulda thunk?

Simon Rosenberg of the Hopium Chronicles made an astute early call to bet on North Carolina and Arizona, precisely because of their weak flagship Republican candidates: Robinson and Lake. In other words, Simon believed this weakness gave Biden (now Harris) a golden opportunity to "Expand the Map".

In Arizona, the Hopium community has invested at least $ 360,000 in the Senate Campaign of Ruben Gallego, who will be a significant upgrade from Kyrsten Sinema. Gallego, as we all know, is running against the photogenic but utterly vile Kari Lake. Gallego is leading by high single digits.

In North Carolina, the Hopium community made early contributions of $ 480,000 to the state Democratic Party, led by its amazing Chair, Anderson Clayton. (age 26!) We’re now seeing how the poisonous Robinson, and the hard work of Clayton & Co, and of course the Harris-Walz Campaign, are threatening Republican losses up and down the ballot in the Tar Heel State.

Polls are close, but if Kamala Harris wins North Carolina’s 16 Electoral Votes, it’s very difficult to see a Trumpian path to 270. Quite the contrary: Harris will be well-poised to win the 2024 Presidential Election well outside the MoS ("Margin of Steal").

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Good post.

NC has 16 EV's this round, I believe.

Trump's best path to 270 is his 219 base + 16 NC + 16 GA + 19 PA. 219 + 51 = 270.

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Corrected. Thanks!

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In every situation; Pennsylvania remains key(literally the 'keystone' state)

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It is also the only path he has that involves just three states and he's behind in polls in two of them. Without any one of those three, Trump would need to win four of the remaining five swing states not named Nevada to win.

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We could take it away with Maine under that scenario, the same way we need Nebraska's one vote with the "blue wall."

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UNH had a poll with Harris up 5 in ME-02 about a month ago. The more recent one from Pan Atlantic Research showing Trump up 7 is more in line with 2020 but still it's probably not too expensive to run some ads and get some organizers out from New England.

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Crazy candidates have been ruining GOP chances since at least 2012 with the second Tea Party wave. Leadership kind of understands this but rarely does anything about it, but in reality, their primary voters are so crazy & bloodthirsty that they constantly select the loudest & craziest candidate that gets the slightest bit of traction. Leadership also knows that they can't do anything about it because of the fear of their mouthpieces in the media turning on them & calling for a primary challenge. They're damned if they do, damned if they don't.

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deletedSep 20
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And now Ken Buck is one of the more reasonable Republicans!

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Remember when Paul Ryan was considered a very-extreme Republican? Sigh!

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It's crazy ain't it; Liz Cheney and Paul Ryan are our allies against Trump (dogs and cats living together; mass hysteria!!)

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Yup, and Dick Cheney – never mind that he ought to be tried at The Hague.

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To his credit; McConnell has long been pushing back against this, but he's found himself helpless against Trump's hold on the crazies

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Much of this might have been avoided had Mitch McConnell the courage to strongly push for conviction in Trump’s second impeachment case.

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Agreed; I just believe he knew he didn't have the necessary votes

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Interesting. So you think that's why he caved on Trump, not because he realized it would cause all the Republican incumbents to lose primaries?

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Only one opinion but yes I believe that McConnell would have eliminated Trump if possible but after realizing he didn't have the necessary votes, he backed away

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It's no wonder that McConnell with the health issues he's dealt with is retiring.

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I would go back to 2010 when Harry Reid was able to beat Sharron Angle.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2010_United_States_Senate_election_in_Nevada

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The customer (in this case, Republican voters) is always right.

It's important to note what that phrase really means. If you want to buy an ill-fitting, out-of-fashion suit made of poor-quality, mismatched fabrics that would literally see you laughed out of the room, it's not the salesman's job to convince you otherwise.

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"…the story about Robinson will divert attention from the lies about Haitian immigrants eating pets, which diverted attention from Trump’s abysmal debate performance, which diverted attention from Trump’s filming a campaign ad at Arlington National Cemetery."

– Heather Cox Richardson ("Letters from an American")

https://heathercoxrichardson.substack.com/p/september-19-2024

(HCR’s entire letter is well worth reading, as always.)

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I dunno if I can even post this here, but Trump has gone full fascist now apparently blaming Jews if he loses. As if the blatant lies about Haitians eating pets wasn't bad enough. The bar doesn't seem to stop lowering for Trump and his ilk.

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With the GOP, it isn't even low bar to have nominees for political office who aren't doing anything to really show they deserve serving in office.

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I'm a little surprised Robinson is denying he made those posts. Speaking as someone who wrote under a pseudonym (Desmoinesdem) for 10+ years, he didn't cover his tracks well!

It seems like the path of least resistance would be to say that we're all sinners and he found Jesus and doesn't do those things anymore.

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And of course to claim: "God has forgiven me – so why won’t you?"

.

"Donald Trump should be forced to carry Mark Robinson to term."

– Ron Filipkowski

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Forgiven him for something he didn’t do?

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It’s the Trump playbook. If you’re accused of a bad thing, you deny everything; if you concede even a little, you’ve already lost.

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And the guy considers himself a mini-Trump

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Not so mini. The weigh-in might well be competitive.

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Lmao😂

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How well does that work for other politicians, though?

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I would agree with you in 99% of instances, but the things he was writing about are multiple levels beyond the typical stuff you see. For example, he wrote a detailed comment on a porn message board about graphic sex with his wife's sister. That is a combination of so many adjectives that I almost don't even know where to start other than it being the kind of thing that leaves such an indelible mark that I don't think you can come back from it.

And its far from the only thing and probably not even the worst thing!

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Curious; where did you find the actual posts? CNN report? Or some other sources?

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That one specifically I got texted about. I texted my friend about where he saw it and he got it from a Twitter account called American Muckrakers

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Thank you for the reply

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I guess he also had an Ashley Madison account; this guy may be a bigger cheater than Trump(Not even going to comment on his affair with his sister in law)

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As a still pseudonymed commenter, I was thinking the same thing. His internet hygiene is terrible.

I wonder if his porn account password was MR123456, or maybe it was "password."

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Sep 20Liked by David Nir, Jeff Singer

Please; more cocktail recipes..!!

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author

I'm so glad you liked! I promise more in the future!

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Oh and if you have no idea what we're talking about here, I included a cocktail recipe in the header of this morning's email. Those don't appear on the site, though, so you gotta check your email to enjoy! Looks like so: https://x.com/DavidNir/status/1837156613074952616

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Sep 20·edited Sep 20Liked by David Nir

"I would rather have a free bottle in front of me than a pre-frontal lobotomy."

That said, a thermos of cold daiquiri will do just fine. Cheers!

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And in other good news, the share price of Truth Social (Trump Media & Technology Group Corp) is down another 6.1 % today, currently trading at $ 13.80. The previous 52-week low was $ 14.32.

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Which begs the obvious question; when does Trump actually pull the trigger and sell?

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BK baby

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Not for another 46 days. Trump put no money into it, and bad news about his personal social media business failing isn't news he would want out there before election day.

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I tend to agree but needless to say Trump is somewhat erratic at times

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What I love about following $DJT, especially this week, is that it's often inversely correlated with the broader markets. The markets were up YUGE this week thanks to interest rate cuts (woohoo!), but Trump's stock is tanking. Amazing!

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Yup. The stock market as a whole is crashing upward, while DJT’s stock is gaining downward.

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The polls on raising the minimum wage in California are interesting, since our legislature just recently raised fast food wages to $20. That legislation passed the assembly by a wide margin and got exactly the 21 votes it needed in the senate with all Republicans against and Democrats in more centrist districts abstaining.

From an economic standpoint, most wages in urban areas are already approaching the proposed $18, since employers paying less are losing workers to McDonald's.

A good friend who manages a luxury resort in OC is having trouble retaining front desk people since they are paying only $18 and do lose people to fast food. They are hiring a lot of retirees who are fine with $18 so long as they get the employee travel benefits.

The polls on this proposition and on crime seem to be showing that the legislature is quite to the left of the voters.

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Just out of curiosity, what are farm workers in California earning?

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Sep 20·edited Sep 20

According to the CA Employment Development Department median hourly is $24.59 and median annual is $51,158.

Of course that varies greatly from region to region and how skilled the worker is. Wine grape harvesters who hand-pick the grapes at elite vineyards can make upwards of $100 an hour, but others are making close to minimum wage. (The days of being payed by the bushel are gone. CA now requires minimum wage and overtime for farm workers.)

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Thank you!

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So no taking advantage of workers' undocumented status?

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My understanding is that is rarer these days too. (Though I'm certainly not an expert.) It's more common for undocumented workers to be officially on payroll with a fake SSN. Hence the argument that having undocumented workers actually helps the financial stability of entitlement programs: They pay in, but don't get paid out.

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California generally elects left-wing Democrats and right-wing Republicans. Various attempts to change that, such as the top two primary and the Redistricting commission have not resulted in more moderate electeds, despite promising to do so.

I'm not sure if there's any research into what actually leads to a more moderate legislature, but I would be curious to read it if it exists. I suspect that political culture and history play a role. That certainly seems to be the case in Massachusetts, where I live.

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I don’t think this comment is accurate? There actually is a pretty big moderate Democratic contingent in the legislature, and the progressive caucus here is more mainline Democratic than “left-wing.” For example, progressive caucus members wouldn’t go along with a plan for single-payer healthcare because of cost concerns.

Maybe there are a decent chunk of left-wing voters, but it’s really not reflected in our politicians, and that’s arguably why Democrats have held such a tight grip on the legislature for awhile now. It’s also part of why we haven’t seen much in the way of big, structural changes…another reason for that, frankly, is Newsom.

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Statistical measures of polarization has California quite high. For example:

https://research.bshor.com/publication/polarization_2decades/polarization_2decades.pdf

If you look at the graph on page 6, The CA Dems are the furthest to left of any State and the CA GOP is the furthest to the right of any State, except Texas and Oklahoma.

Though the other axis of the graph shows that CA voters are actually further left and and further right than their lawmakers! Hence your perception that legislature is moderate.

California legislature: Extremely polarized

California voters: Even more polarized

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I would question the methodology being applied here. Oftentimes this is a measurement of legislation being proposed. If the legislature is only proposing moderate reforms, and the Republicans in the state are reflexively opposing them for strategic reasons, it would skew the analysis completely.

As someone who lives in the state, I can assure you that the Democratic politicians here skew moderate.

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While I agree that rollcall votes can be a somewhat limited measure of ideology, (looking at bills introduced or sponsored tends to be more reliable,) "reflexively opposing [all bills] for strategic reasons" is a sign of a polarized legislature. That does not happen in Massachusetts, where I live. Even though the Republicans are in a deep minority, they work together with the majority on legislation.

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Sep 20·edited Sep 20

The redistricting commission might have by virtue of creating more tossup districts (although this is true anywhere, and not unique to California), but the top 2 did not. I can't think of a prominent example where a super left-wing Dem and a super right-wing Repub both ran for a seat but a moderate Dem won by tacking to the middle. There are, however, examples of one party getting shut out of a general election due to the math of mutiple candidates running at once, but that has nothing to do with ideology. My prediction is that one of these days, two Republicans will sneak into a statewide office due to too many candidates running, and then voters will repeal this awful idea.

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You are most likely correct but I am hoping the legislature will try a preemptive fix

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Good progress although in hindsight, minimum wage should be much higher than what we have now in CA, let alone the rest of the U.S.

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Does the Down Ballot have a pollster ratings spreadsheet? Even a political geek such as myself is having a hard time remembering the A-rated versus the D-rated

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This isn't something we do (we gotta stay focused on cocktail recipes 😆), but 538 seems to have this market cornered: https://projects.fivethirtyeight.com/pollster-ratings/

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Sep 20Liked by David Nir

If truth be told; I'd prefer the cocktail recipes!!

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Thanks; I'll try making a mental note of their A's and B's

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Anyone heard of the "University of Mary Washington" or know anything about their polling?

They apparently have a poll showing Harris only up two in Virginia.

That being said, they just dropped it today, and it was taken before the debate, so I have a feeling this is more about narrative-setting than anything else.

https://thehill.com/homenews/campaign/4890835-harris-trump-virginia-survey/.

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Sep 20·edited Sep 20

The University of Mary Washington is located in Fredericksburg, VA. I applied there and was accepted when it was called Mary Washington College, as did many of my classmates. I ultimately opted to attend Roanoke College (which puts out its own sometimes dubious polls.)

This poll result looked plausible two or three months ago, toward the end of Biden's run. Now it's a clear outlier, and was mostly taken at least two weeks ago, pre-debate (Sept. 3-9) so it's somewhat outdated as well.

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Yes, they have occasionally done Virginia polling before. They don’t have a great track record.

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https://wapo.st/3XzItRX

Link to wapo article.

Pro Trump election board in Georgia requiring hand count of ballots. There's going to be litigation, but if this were to stand, we may not know the Georgia results until after inauguration day.

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Wouldn’t ordinarily have a problem with it. But the timing is the problem. Forcing them to start on election night.

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https://politicalwire.com/2024/09/20/georgia-election-board-to-require-hand-counted-ballots/

"The office of the Republican state attorney general, which is responsible for advising the board, wrote in an opinion that the change was unlawful.”

Related stories: https://politicalwire.com/2024/09/20/georgia-election-board-goes-rogue/

I would expect quick litigation from Marc Elias' organization.

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The problem - and purpose - of requiring a complete hand count is that it would "[delay] reporting of results by weeks if not months." I think the hope of the cabal trying to require this is that the delay would throw the election to the U.S. House of Representatives. We really need some constitutional reforms!

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There is literally no reason why each of the 50 states shouldn't have the same exact election rules, especially for a national, federal election. Absolutely no logic otherwise.

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https://politicalwire.com/2024/09/20/new-ad-ties-trump-to-mark-robinson/

The link is currently weird, showing the HTML code, but it's still quite readable, and this ad is by the Harris campaign.

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Jimmy Jr. was a big fan of Obama and was always vocally against the Republicans so that makes a lot of sense,

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Yeah, he wasn’t the crook and reactionary his father was. Although his father did deliver for his members.

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Yeah, the history of management of unions isn't perfect. However, that shouldn't distract from the fact that unions are still important for raising awareness and advocating for the standard of living.

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The Teamsters' Union was really an organized crime organization when Jimmy Hoffa the older was running them, so more than not perfect, but the fact is, any organization can engage in criminal activity.

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Of course. It’s not anti-union to criticize leadership when it’s corrupt or critical criminal in intent.

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https://www.dailykos.com/stories/2024/9/20/2271541/-Doug-Emhoff-shares-Harris-message-of-unity-in-red-state-tour

Florida, Mississippi and now Texas. Why MS, do you think?

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To help Ty Pinkins downballot! /s

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As I recall, MS has a high floor with the AA vote but it seems implausible that there are enough potential seing voters to climb much past the floor.

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WI State House analysis https://x.com/DanRShafer/status/1837182295570088014

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Dems would have to 9-3 in the toss-up and close races to take the majority per my math and his predictions.

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https://politicalwire.com/2024/09/20/nebraska-seems-unlikely-to-adopt-winner-take-all/ Lindsay Graham's speech didn't change any votes in the state legislature, per the bill's author.

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That is good news.

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These days, if I'm sending an out of state GOP Senator to convince other GOPs to do something, Lindsey would be pretty far down ony list.

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What I want to know is why that fucking guy has not been indicted for election interference in Georgia.

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