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Polls by RMG Research for U.S. term limits show Democrats leading in 3 Republican held districts, IA 3, NY 19 and CA 41, but with a lot of undecided.

https://projects.fivethirtyeight.com/polls/

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I'm glad to see Schweikert down by a point in AZ CD 1 and hopefully we can knock him out this year.

There's an interesting name misidentify situation with Schweikert. Judy Schweibert is running for AZ Senate in district 2 which partially overlaps his district. Republicans are running ads painting Schweibert as radical, Communist Judy (she's a normal D).

I've heard from people who are confusing the two and "didn't know that about Schweikert."

I'm hoping this could shave a point off Schweikert's vote, anything helps. For those confused I tell them vote for "Bert" but not "Kert.". We'll take a win anyway we can get it.

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I was hoping Andrei Cherny would win the Democratic primary for AZ-01. I know little about Amish Shah, the man who beat him, but I do of course hope he is victorious over Schweikert. Near as I can tell, our prospects of flipping the House are very, very good. My worry is the Senate; we need to keep it to confirm more President Kamala Harris’ executive appoinmtents and to confirm good judges. If MAGA Republicans take the Senate, I fear serious obstruction of Kamala Harris’ agenda and sensible budget allocations.

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We also need it to pass vital legislation.

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Not a fan of either but anybody with a D by their name is better than Schweikert.

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Among other things; he's tainted by corruption (am I remembering correctly?)

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I would vote against Breed.

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That isn't actually an option. You'd have to choose which candidates to vote -for-.

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Sep 13·edited Sep 13

Regarding the San Francisco Mayoral Race:

Aaron Peskin and Ahsha Safai are the best choices. Besides the fact that Peskin went to my high school, he's a traditional Berkeley liberal who has kicked ass with legislation that looks out for small businesses and the underdog while fighting against big development interests. He's also got support from the unions and key Democratic Party groups, including the Harvey Milk LGBTQ Club. The other two candidates running, Mark Farrell and Daniel Lurie as mentioned, are real bores.

https://www.aaron2024.com/endorsements

Lurie may be an interesting candidate but he's getting too much support from wealthy donors. I also found him to be strange when he said he would bring more tech into the city but not look at other kinds of businesses, especially non-profits as many have been priced out of San Francisco. Lurie should know this as he's got a history as a non-profit leader. Farrell on the other hand has been out of office for years, is a VC and has gotten criticism for his support from GOP donors in the city.

London Breed has been awful and made the stupid recommendation per public health during the COVID-19 pandemic that movie theaters could not serve concession foods. This essentially risked putting these establishments out of business as they make their money through selling concession food. She's also not been proactive enough with the police department in cutting down crime and ensuring that the business climate has stopped the exodus of businesses from leaving or shutting down.

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Not serving food for people to eat in an enclosed space during a pandemic sure doesn't sound the least bit "stupid" to me, and PPP and EIDL were set up to help businesses in crisis. In terms of your remarks on Peskin: he opposes big developers, but what's his plan to create more housing?

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You’re a COVID restriction lover. The only thing I ever get agreed with Mitch McConnell on was when he said “liberals plan their lives around COVID”.

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You're trolling. No-one "loves" restrictions, but more of them early on could have saved hundreds of thousands of lives. Since I guess none of them were you, you obviously don't give a shit. So why are you here, if that's your philosophy?

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I never caught COVID even though I rarely masked except when work forced me to. I did get vaccinated though.

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That's nice. Think for a second about my occupation, and also, my main gig for the last few years has been at a nursing home. Also, maybe you don't know that I live in New York. Do you also want to make fun of 9/11/01?

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Sep 14·edited Sep 14

What's with all the COVID deniers flooding this place lately? Did they get lost or are we being brigaded?

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Or you were lucky enough to have an asymptomatic case.

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Sep 13·edited Sep 13

Over a million Americans officially died to Covid; further, the CDC estimates that ~25% of Covid deaths were incorrectly not attributed to Covid.

At its peak over 20,000 Americans were dying on a weekly basis — we were having more people die every single day than died on 9/11. That's more than all historical US deaths to HIV/AIDS or the 1918 Spanish Flu. That's almost triple the number of US deaths in WW2. In fact, if you include the estimated unaccounted for deaths, total deaths to Covid in the US are roughly equal to all wartime deaths throughout our entire history.

Dismissing people for having supported restrictions in the past, during the height of the pandemic, is plainly ridiculous and displaying of a lack of empathy for our fellow human beings (and self, for that matter).

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you need to get a huge dose of reality beat into your pathetic brain...I had 5 family and/or friends fucking die of covid...your bs is not needed or wanted

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Sep 13·edited Sep 14

You are sounding a lot like a troll here. I agree that, in retrospect, we were likely more restrictive on COVID than we needed to be in some instances (Seattle public schools waiting over a year to reopen comes to mind) but your combative stance and attacking people for having a different position than you feels ill-intentioned and I'd urge you to revise your approach.

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During the height of the Covid pandemic, not being allowed to serve food at movie theaters is actually a great idea. Good for Breed.

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Yeah you’re one of those COVID extremists who loved lockdowns and masks.

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You're aware that this is a Democratic site? There was literally no reason not to wear a mask if you went into an indoor or crowded outdoor public space before the vaccines were developed.

Also, personal attacks are not acceptable on this board.

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It’s the only thing I disagreed on was with how other Democrats were obsessed with COVID restrictions. I hated the COVID restrictions and thought they were extreme. I can disagree on an issue.

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Perhaps be a little more diplomatic in your argument; just saying

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That’s a fair point.

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I'm disabled and diabetic, and I am the primary caregiver for my 98 year old mother. Following a careful protocol allowed us to get to May 2023 before either of us caught covid, and when we did, both of us had 5 vaccines and the symptoms were extremely mild.

Had either of us caught covid near the beginning, we very like would have had a different outcome. I believe caution up front was prudent for a public health emergency.

Neither of us mask anymore, and we both just got vaccine #7.

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I would’ve masked around you.

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Up yours.

My wife is in health care and had people cough on her everyday during the height of Covid

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Go back to 4chan.

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My apologies; I've gone over it in my head like50 times; I give up; what's VC??

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Not lying; at first I was Viet Cong???wtf??lol

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Since it's SF, my guess is Venture Capitalist.

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Thanks; so definitely not Viet Cong🙃

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Sep 13·edited Sep 13

Minnesota Pres:

Minn Post/Embold Research

1,616 LVs from 9/8

Harris 49%

Trump 45%

https://www.minnpost.com/elections/2024/09/minnpost-poll-shows-harris-has-narrow-lead-over-trump-in-minnesota/

INDIANA-Pres & Gov

Lake Research (B-rated)

600 LVs from 9/2

Trump- 52%

Harris- 42%

Braun 41% (+2)

McCormick 39%

Rainwater 9%

RMG (C-rated)

450 LVs each from 9/12

NY-19

Riley- 42%

Molinaro- 39%

CA-41

Rollins- 41%

Calvert-35%

IA-3

Baccam- 42%

Nunn- 39%

Michigan Pres and Senate

Cygnal(B-rated) 600 LVs from 9/1

Harris 47/46

Slotkin 44/43

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Cygnal is a Republican affiliated firm, I believe.

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For a Republican firm; I'll take those numbers any day

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Thanks for neatly laying all of that out! Did RMG (or any of the others) poll on behalf of any partisan organization?

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Never mind, for U.S. Term Limits per Paleo.

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For some reason my comments won't keep spaces between paragraphs anymore so they blend together. Anyone know what's up?

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Bipartisan group of lawmakers signs pledge to certify 2024 election results, https://www.politico.com/live-updates/2024/09/13/congress/house-centrists-vow-to-certify-2024-election-00178945 (hat tip to PoliticalWire as usual for me):

- On balance, I think this is good, but with some caveats:

A pair of House centrists, Reps. Josh Gottheimer (D-N.J.) and Don Bacon (R-Neb.), have worked for months to organize what they’re calling a “unity commitment” — an agreement to “safeguard the fairness and integrity” of this fall’s presidential election.

Five other Republicans also signed on: Reps. Brian Fitzpatrick (R-Pa.), Mike Lawler (R-N.Y.), Lori Chavez-DeRemer (R-Ore.), Nick LaLota (R-N.Y.) and Anthony D’Esposito (R-N.Y.).

- So, all threatened incumbent Republicans. Smart of them, but they are still members of the party whose presidential candidate is a notorious outlaw.

some Republicans have also pointed to comments from Democrats such as Rep. Jamie Raskin (D-Md.), who has questioned whether Trump would be legally qualified even if he did win the election under the Constitution. Raskin has pointed to the Fourteenth Amendment, which bars people who have “engaged in insurrection

- So this isn't all about upholding the constitution; it's also about overriding it in case Trump wins...

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Forgive my cynicism, but I would not be surprised if Don Bacon, and a couple of the other Republicans, signed onto this primarily to increase their re-election chance by appearing more moderate.

Also, it’s shocking that only six Republicans were willing to sign.

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I implied that.

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Antisemitic Ads About Doug Emhoff Target Muslim Voters, https://politicalwire.com/2024/09/13/antisemitic-ads-about-doug-emhoff-target-muslim-voters/

Is there a good way to publicize these ads to Jewish voters in states like PA and FL?

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Poll: Americans favor Supreme Court term limits, oppose more justices, https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/2024/09/13/supreme-court-term-limits-justices-poll/ (again hat tip to Politicalwire):

"About two-thirds of Americans support imposing term limits on Supreme Court justices, but only 3 in 10 back expanding the size of the court — a proposal advanced by congressional Democrats and court transparency advocates as a way to dilute the power of the high court’s current 6-3 conservative supermajority."

Annenberg survey. So if the Democrats keep the Senate, since term limits are probably unconstitutional (I think they are) and would certainly be overruled by the court, the Democrats would face a difficult choice. There are other interesting details in that report on the survey, so it's worth reading the article. It wasn't paywalled for me.

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Disfavor over changing the size of the court is one of those things that I think would be unlikely to actually cause harm if timed right, unless the new court did things that pissed people off.

Voters in this country will consistently oppose changing the rules. There is an implicit belief that the rules that exist are fair, and that changing the rules is thus unfair. If the rules are changed, they will be angry... briefly. Then they will accept the new rules as the basis of "fair" and would oppose any further changing of said rules.

If we did it early on in a congressional term it would probably be fine, unless the new court made some ruling that really pissed people off or came across as the court running amok, whatever the left-leaning equivalent of Dobbs or Citizens United would be — I do not know what those could be.

That said I think it's all academic: there is very little chance that democrats in congress would go through with this. I would wholly expect them to get cold feet. If they held larger majorities when Dobbs dropped it might have happened, but it's been long enough since then for them to do the same thing as voters above: they're not angry enough to do anything about it. Roberts & co are evil but they aren't stupid, and they will in all likelihood intentionally time dramatic reshapings of US law to when democrats do not hold both chambers of congress.

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Imo the congressional Democratic caucus would go for legislation and not court fixes; mainly for the reasons you point out

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And most of the legislation is likely to be overturned by the Supreme Court, even if Congress exercises their constitutional prerogative to expressly exclude the courts from jurisdiction over it.

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Agreed

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I don't know how strategic the extremists on the court are in that regard. They've taken unnecessary steps.

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I think they've been depressingly strategic throughout. Less so now that the court is 6-3 instead of 5-4, as that shifted the balance of power away from Roberts in particular.

They often make their horrible decisions in a multi-step process. They didn't just come in, toss Chevron out the window, and go about their day. They made decisions over the course of a few years that chipped away at Chevron and only then did they toss it out the window. Their jurisprudence is ideologically boiling frogs in a way: they consistently make things worse in steps, with only a handful of huge steps happening here and there when conservative ideology just cannot help itself.

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When it was 5-4, yes, but as you said, Roberts has lost control of the court.

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Only 39% oppose increasing the size of the court, though.

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What are you reading?

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I clicked through to the actual survey results. 1/3rd neither favored nor opposed, a plurality opposed, but the majority were not opposed.

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I skipped through it and must have missed that specific.

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That's not bad, then!

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I suspect what would inevitably happen would be that, in an actual push to expand the Supreme Court, public opinion would move to a near 50-50 state where the Party In Power supports and the Party Out of Power opposes, with only marginal variation depending on the overall popularity of the Party In Power.

Basically, I think if we do it, we have the support of Democrats and piss off Republicans. It would remain to be seen whether our Congressmembers would go for it, but that's how I see it breaking down in the general public.

Ultimately, I think we will wind up with a Jackson/Marshall moment in the next decade, and the Court winds up making a ruling that is ignored with impunity. I'm not sure what happens after that.

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anyone have an update on NC early voting? Could the GOP/RFK mess may result in a complete cancellation of this?

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This is for absentee ballots. They should be in the mail by September 21st per the last thing I saw. Early voting starts in NC on October 17th

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Has this poll been shared already? It's conducted by Hendrix College. I've never heard of them before. It shows Trump leads in Arkansas by only 15 points. If this is anywhere close to being true, he's in deep trouble.

https://x.com/USA_Polling/status/1834660359598219594

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Yes, they’ve been polling Arkansas for a long time.

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How much did he win by in 2020, and how close were they to predicting that margin?

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He won by 28 points in 2020.

I wouldn't extrapolate too much from a single poll in an uncompetitive State though.

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Definitely not! Or a single poll in any state.

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Hendrix polled Arkansas twice that cycle. The first poll was conducted June 9-10 (869 LV) and showed Trump ahead by just two points (47-45). The second was conducted October 11-13 (647 LV) and showed Trump ahead by 25 points (58-34). They have a 0.9/3 538 pollster rating.

Overall I wouldn't make any judgments from this.

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Saint Aslam poll from NH

Harris 51%

Trump 43%

2,240 LVs from 9/12

North Carolina

Quantus

815 LVs from 9/12

Trump 50%

Harris 48%

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Very close to 2020 numbers.

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They didn't poll the NH governor's race, or at least it isn't in that link. I haven't seen a single poll of it yet. This is one of the elections I'm most unsure of right now.

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Are you sure about the Montana Senate race?

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Sep 13·edited Sep 13

I'm more sure of where that one is than I am of where NH-Gov is.

MT-Sen is one where Tester still has a good shot of winning but it looks to be modestly tilting towards the republican candidate, unfortunately. Maybe something like Tester has a ~30-40% chance of winning.

He's been behind in nearly all of the recent polling, but polling errors are a real thing that happen from time to time. Unlike Heitkamp in 2018, Tester wouldn't need a large polling error in his favor in order to win.

Of course, relying on polling errors is not a good place to be in...

NH-Gov, on the other hand, has zero polls that I've seen. Ayotte is a well known figure and that can be a serious advantage in this state (Sununu's last name gave him both the primary and general election wins in 2016!). NH gave democrats a lot of gubernatorial wins for a while, and the same for Sununu lately. I have no real concept of where this race might be and would default to calling it a tossup. But it could plausibly be leans R/D or even likely R/D. We need data and I haven none.

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New RMG national poll Harris by 4 was 2 pre-debate https://x.com/Taniel/status/1834669376240255078

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And this is only 2/3 post-debate.

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RMG is the actual Scott Rasmussen; not the fakers he sold out to(please correct me if I am wrong)

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"Sold out to" isn't the way I'd word it. But yeah, RMG is Scott Rasmussen.

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Yeah. RMG polling tends to lean just a shade to the right but is basically honest. Rasmussen polling, on the other hand, has about as much touch with reality as Donald Trump's Tuesday night rants.

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Prosecutor won’t charge Lt. Gov. Burt Jones in Trump Georgia election case, https://www.ajc.com/politics/state-prosecutor-declines-to-pursue-charges-against-burt-jones-in-trump-case/RMUUQFKCVZHCHJYQ4P23B33ISY/ (hat tip to Politicalwire as usual)

Most of this is paywalled (greyed out) for me, so I don't know whether there's an explanation of why no charges are being filed, but I will copy the first 2 paragraphs, which I can see:

A state prosecutor on Friday announced he would decline to pursue criminal charges against Lt. Gov. Burt Jones regarding his efforts to aid Donald Trump as the former president sought to overturn Georgia’s 2020 election results.

After spending five months investigating the former GOP state senator, Pete Skandalakis, executive director of the Prosecuting Attorneys’ Council of Georgia, concluded “this matter does not warrant further consideration.”

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