Early Vote update: over 4.5 million people have already voted. As reports come in from additional states later today, we’ll probably approach 5 million. McDonald’s Election Project has breakdowns per state, and for states that report such data: info on party split, gender, age and ethnicity.
Columbus/Indigenous Peoples' Day. From what I understand, this is the last day off for elections workers in PA until every vote is counted. Starting tomorrow, Allegheny County (Pittsburgh & suburbs), for instance, will have at least one satellite voting and/or ballot drop off location open every day EXCEPT Friday (10/18). I know Philadelphia & the Philly Suburban counties are doing similar or larger satellite location operations.
I just saw a Delaware County press release from 10/4 (two Fridays ago) announcing that they just sent out their 54k requested ballots plus their ballot drop boxes open 8am tomorrow morning. My best bud from college told me that he & his parents received their ballots in Washington County Saturday. We're going to see huge updates from Delaware & Erie counties for sure this week. I also expect requests to skyrocket as well as the deadline nears.
Tomorrow's update is going to be the biggest one yet, for sure. And that will be just the beginning.
Quite early, the Hopium community invested a significant amount of money in Nebraska’s Democratic Party and its "Blue Dot". It would be wonderful if massive Blue turnout in the "Blue Dot" helps lift Dan Osborn to victory – although that may still be a long shot. We’ll definitely win the congressional race and its single Electoral Vote.
Hopium also invested early in Ruben Gallego’s senate race in Arizona and in the North Carolina Democratic Party, led by the amazing Anderson Clayton. Gallego is likely to trounce Kari Lake, and NC is looking good!
What is one county that, thanks to demographic factors and previous election results, you believe is almost guaranteed to vote for the winner of the presidential election?
Given its close proximity to places that have shifted double digits to the GOP in recent cycles, I'm quite confident that Erie County will be decisively red moving forward, starting with next month.
Strongly disagree. Erie County has a significant city, plus some suburbs that have moved to the left, and combined, they're the majority of the county's population. I suspect Erie County will vote about the same as it did in 2020.
Looking at the population and demographic breakdowns, I'm not seeing that big of a difference between Erie County, PA, and Mahoning County, OH. Is Erie County substantially less blue-collar than conventional wisdom would assume?
Interesting that you'd compare Erie to Mahoning when they haven't voted the same way since 2012 - Erie went Trump/Biden while Mahoning went Clinton/Trump.
Probably because they're an hour apart, both have populations of around 250,000 and are about 80% white. Given the trajectory of all of Erie County's neighbors, why should we suspect it to not follow their lead?
My first impulse is to look at the county with the longest active streak, Clallam co. in WA. I've noticed that:
- The county is continuously growing in population.
- The elections are usually very close - The winning candidate hasn't won by more than 52% since 1984. Even Obama in 2008 only won by about 3%, nearly the same margin that Biden won.
- Third party percentages are higher than usual (10% in 2016).
Not sure what to make of it, but I'd still go with this as my pick.
It is tough to find a county that is both at a tipping point and one that is not moving in one direction or the other. I would suggest that the popular vote will be similar to Washoe County, Nevada, which has been close to the popular vote the last few elections.
Just watched Brad Raffensperger, Georgia’s Secretary of State, on a live interview with Amy Gardner of the Washington Post. Very interesting. Good questions and answers on the whole, although I do wish my question had been asked:
“The Georgia Board of Elections has enacted rules allowing local election boards to refuse or delay certification, potentially raising havoc after Election Day. Have you and Governor Kemp rescinded this dangerous usurpation of authority, in order to ensure timely certification of Georgia’s election results?”
Californians will vote on proposition 5 that would reduce the percentage for voter approved bonds for low cost housing and infrastructure bonds with repayment from property taxes from 2/3 to 55%.
The 2/3 rule was a poison pill included in prop 13 passed in 1978 that reduced and capped increases in property taxes. In most jurisdictions, the 2/3 limit is virtually impossible to achieve.
California has one of the worst housing affordability problems in the country, and needs price relief and more housing.
Unfortunately, the Howard Jarvis group (right wing anti tax and helped get prop 13 passed) has been effective in promoting this as undoing prop 13.
I've been in pie fights on 2 sites arguing it does no such thing. The only change is reducing the percentage. The only change in property taxes will be that more bonds will get approved at 55% than 2/3.
I find it stunning that normally liberal individuals buy into this right wing crap.
Heavens knows I benefit from prop 13 in that I pay 40% of taxes new buyers do, which helps make my occupancy affordable, but I fully support prop 5.
Prop 13 in California is almost a religion. To a certain point I understand it, since if my house were taxed at market rate, I'd have to sell and move, probably out of state.
The decomposing corpse of Howard Jarvis plagues us to this day. The Howard Jarvis Taxpayers Assn (HJTA) opposes just about anything that spends money or especially anything that raises any kind of tax. In this election they also oppose Props 2 (school bonds) and 4 (Water, fire prevention and other climate risks). HJTA also is against L.A. County Measure A (sales tax funded homeless services) and Measure US (LAUSD local school bonds.). Those bastards have been around forever in CA, or at least since I was a teenager...
Prop 13 also is hurting what should be natural turnover in the single family housing market by giving homeowners like seniors a disincentive from selling their homes and downsizing.
Very rural community in Northern Maine. Granted, there are few services. Like most people here, we have our own well, we have to drive our trash to the transfer station, and we have a volunteer fire department. Ten minutes to walk to our nearest neighbor.
In the 1990's the CA city I lived in had multiple bonds on the ballot one year for funding such things as schools, the fire department and parks. Each failed having gotten about 65%-66% in favor. A 2/3 majority is so undemocratic and has starved CA cities and counties of basic resources. Just what the far right dreams of.
It was posted at the end of the day yesterday but why does everyone think these generally horrific GOP internals were leaked this weekend?
The only bright spot is in Wisconsin where Hovde is surging. Every other race was looking bad for the GOP. In my opinion the only reason you leak something like this is either 1) to sound the alarm or 2) to throw off the other side. Maybe they want us to rush into Texas and get complacent in Ohio?
It's just very strange to me that something like this was put out there. As for Florida not being in the mix, I bet they didn't even test it. McConnell is on his way out and will not even spend money on polling his enemy's territory.
We need to help Baldwin! Momentum is against her!!
We are less than 3 weeks out. Money at this point is probably not going to make a huge difference in saturated races. Nebraska perhaps. But not Ohio. For example.
It seemed to have been written for a top level super pac donor. It has levels of detail not seen in internals released to the media and says "proprietary and confidential." Maybe some major donor saw this and blew his top.
The goal of McConnell’s pac is to elect Republicans in the Senate. i think they see the spread between Trump and the Republican candidate as a continued problem that they
want to close. This was not an inadvertent or leaked set of poll as the title of the memo included for media. Harris and the Democrat candidate for the most part have close spread on the elect numbers. They want to Republican voters of Trump to vote downballot.
I don't know if I would say the numbers were generally horrific. I think the margins in AZ, MD, MT and NV are generally in line with numbers we've seen by other pollsters recently even if the high undecideds are producing numbers that seem a little unbelievable. PA is among the best polls for McCormick, but I wouldn't say its an outlier. The 4 that have diverged most are MI, WI, TX and OH. In the case of Ohio and Michigan, I think it could be a function of this pollster not pushing leaners and with leaners it could be something like 48-47, in Ohio and 49-46 in Michigan. Wisconsin and Texas are the two that look the most like outliers
I disagree, I think they got the most they could out of Barnes; personally, I thought he was kind of a weak candidate that was propped up as much as humanly possible
Agreed. Considering the riots after George Floyd next door in MN, running a black man for Senate two years later was going to elicit political attacks that would be more potent. We lost bc of exactly why many of us thought we could lose. Also didn’t help that he was a young up and comer vs a long-time politician voters knew.
Smart that WI Dems have positioned Sarah Godlewski to run in 2028 if she can win SoS in 2026. Which, that’s a long time and some ifs when it comes to politics. Who knows, maybe someone better will come along. But, laying the groundwork immediately after the loss is what makes WI Dems a party to watch. The state has strong Dem, progressive roots.
Lastly, bc shoulda woulda couldas, Ron Kind was either tired of politics or is a turd. He read the room and wanted to leave WI-3 after barely winning in 2020, which was fair. But, I wonder if he assumed crappy midterm during a Dem POTUS, why bother for Senate in 2022? Bc then the GOP did mostly terrible and he could’ve been a Senator. I don’t think it’s much of a question that he would’ve won. It’s more of would it have still been a squeaker, or a solid 5%? Johnson really is a lucky SOB. WI Dems know it and hate it.
Flashback to 2016, I was SUPREMELY confident that Hillary Clinton & Russ Feingold had Wisconsin in the bag.
Imagine my horror when the winners were Donald Trump & Ron Johnson. Ever since then, I've avoided complacency and see no race on the map as safe. Hopefully Democrats in Wisconsin are feeling the same way!! 💙🇺🇲
I knocked on 41 doors yesterday in Central PA. It was partly a GOTV canvass but also included doors of independents that were not reached earlier. Only got one Trump voter and one wavering voter. Most of the voters contacted already had received their mail ballots and had to return them.
The goal for our area of the Harris/Walz/Casey campaign was to hit 35,000 door prior to the election. Our area is North Central PA, north of Dauphin County (Harrisburg).
My impression is that the field organization is firing on all cylinders.
Meanwhile, Elon Musk's voter mobilization for Trump is going just about as well as his Twitter Spaces. In other words, their app is working so poorly that they can’t track whether their canvassers are actually doing the work.
No one wants the NRSC job in 2026! Eric Schmitt declined as did Katie Britt. It's the only uncontested Republican Senate leadership post left.
Republicans will have 20 seats to defend including Maine and North Carolina. But Democrats will also have to defend Ossoff in Georgia and Peters in Michigan. They are probably waiting to see who wins the Presidential because it could be an okay year for Republicans in 2026 if Harris wins this Nov.
...nor while corrupt justices endorsed by Leonard Leo, who don’t give a damn about the Constitution and judicial precedence, continue to have a majority on the Supreme Court.
"We were with @jontester in a union hall in Butte, MT where a group of union carpenters stood on their feet and cheered for him loudly, promising they were going to vote for him. Many of the men in that room told us afterwards that they did plan to vote for Trump"
If the internal Republican polling leaked earlier is anything to go by, the terrible Tim's lead in Montana was only 4 points in there (48% - 44%). Hopefully dwindling in the final weeks. I've said for a long time never to give up on Sen. Jon Tester. I've always saw some kind of light at the end of that MT tunnel. Still definitely an uphill battle, but at the same time definitely achievable, all strengthening my hope!!
Conventional wisdom would cause anyone to believe that, but it's definitely possible she loses in a stunner. Stranger things have happened and Dan Osborn is the strongest Independent candidate I've seen in years!!
Smaller state (more easy to retail politic, more affordable to advertise), with a competitive congressional district/electoral vote overlap, outside a republican wave year (hopefully)?
Nebraska is about 3 points redder then Kansas – but yeah, it's 2/3rds the size, and I wonder if having the population more condensed into Omaha and Lincoln helps at all.
I don't think Osborn is very likely to win, but I can see why he might be able to make them sweat in a way that Orman couldn't a decade ago.
Maybe bc both Senate seats are up? Gives voters the option to be Republicans for one and then prove the “independence” that so many voters claim to have. Plus, Trump at the top gives voters a lot of options to be Republican but also give that little slice of fuck all ya’ll. Throw in a touch of sexism from men wanting to vote for a man and there you have it.
I feel better about Osborn than any of the other reach seats, probably even MT. Have a consistent inkling that something legit is going on with his campaign, and it's connecting with the electorate.
Then again, could just be gas. At my age, it usually is.
I've been fooled too many times to see a independent beating a Republican senator in a Red State. The other side of that coin is true too as Larry Hogan will probably find out in a couple of weeks.
Even if Fischer's internals are to be believed, a 6 point lead for an incumbent in a state as rural and red as Nebraska is very weak, esp from an internal poll no less. Even if Fischer is the favorite here, I'd say it's Lean R at best. NE 02 will be highly competitive at both the congressional level and federal due to Nebraska's unique split electoral vote rules and higher turnout here should benefit Harris, Vargas and Osborn alike. Moreover, if Trump is perceived as a weak candidate and fails to excite his base, it's conceivable that rural areas will turn out less. Both scenarios are quite probable and would benefit Osborn.
I thought that NE's voters were actually highly urban, though granted, Omaha and Lincoln aren't huge cities, and I think a lot of small cities are included in the definition of "urban" in such analyses.
Republicans are up to their usual dirty tricks and attempts at suppression of Black votes, probably showing that all the claims about the Democrats having trouble with Black voters are likely to be no more than marginally accurate:
Michigan Republican Blames ‘Proofing Error’ for Misleading Ad in Black-Owned Newspaper
The state’s legislative Black caucus has asked the attorney general and a county prosecutor to investigate Tom Barrett’s congressional campaign for potential voter disenfranchisement.
Per PoliticalWire's summary of this paywalled article, the "error" was that it "incorrectly listed Election Day as Nov. 6."
So far today, I'd say there is one other significant story on PoliticalWire, which some of you will approve of:
“But the Trump campaign and the Elon Musk-backed America Pac, which is now doing an outsized portion of the Trump ground game, use a management app called Campaign Sidekick that struggles in areas with slow internet and means canvassers have to use an offline version.”
Mailed out my ballot yesterday for KH and Dems up and down the ticket. California is of course never in question as far as its support for our Vice President is concerned but I hope we can get more Democrats into the House as well.
Democratic Presidential nominee Kamala Harris will make her first ever Fox News interview on Wednesday with Special Report host Bret Baier on his show.
Harris's running mate Tim Walz has already been interviewed on Fox News Sunday twice this campaign.
I wish she wouldn’t. It legitimizes them as a news organization and I’m doubtful there are a significant number of Fox viewers that are open to voting for her.
I think that ship sailed decades ago. And, frankly, it's not like the vast majority of the rest of the media is particularly legitimate. If she can get 10 fox viewers to vote for her, or just not bother to vote, good.
Fox is worse than most networks (but not some ONN, etc.) but the vast majority of the news media is truly terrible - either corrupt, incompetent, or both.
I don't entirely get what we're disagreeing about here. Are you saying that because Fox is worse (than some) all of the other ones are completely legitimate? Sure, Fox got caught. That doesn't mean that the scumbags at the Wall Street Journal, or Newsmax, or the NYT, or Newsweek, or ONN, The Washington Post, etc. are all legitimate.
Disagree, I don’t think she needs to deal with Fox at all. Treat them like the right wing propaganda machine they are. There would be absolutely zero impact to her not sitting for an interview with them. Any complaints by right wingers could be easily dealt with my just stating that she has decided to talk to legitimate news organizations.
I see it less as an attempt to squeeze out a few votes from Fox News viewers than to signal to some truly undecided voters (who don't watch Fox News) that she's willing to mix it up with hostile outlets.
It's admittedly not without risk....especially since last week was our first reminder in this truncated campaign that she's not good in question-and-answer interview settings. If she thought was winning, I'd probably advise her against it. But since recent campaign moves suggest she doesn't think she's winning, she needs to put out as many signals as she can to assuage her vulnerabilities with skeptical voters that may still be won over, and like it or not, being insufficiently prepared for the job is one of those perceived vulnerabilities.
She had a couple of major word salads on the "60 Minutes" interview and on "The View", when asked if she'd have done anything differently than Joe Biden and she responded, "I can't think of a single thing", and then spent most of the rest of the interview trying to walk that back. The Trump campaign quickly flooded the zone with ads with that soundbyte. Not sure it'll pack the same punch as "I was for it before I was against it" but she should have been prepared with a better answer to such an easy question.
Sending Obama out to scold black voters for being insufficiently motivated and releasing her medical records while nudging Trump to do the same. I can't see a campaign that believes they're winning doing either of those things three weeks before the election.
I have thought about this a lot and where I essentially come down is that this job needs to be done in the, depending on the office, between 18-66 months of your time in office. In the last 6 months before the election, if you're a candidate who is good at media you should basically do interviews with everyone. Obviously there are situational exceptions to this, I certainly wouldn't begrudge Roy Cooper for doing a Fox News interview right now.
But I do think in the time between elections, yeah I think they should be frozen out. I don't think they should have a prime seat at press briefings. Unless its one of those aforementioned situational exceptions I don't think a safe seat Democrat should ever do an interview with Fox News.
I think they're also going to ramp up, probably through surrogates and digital ads, the Trump is a coward message by ducking another debate and also pointing to all the interviews she's done with more neutral outlets while he basically only does bro podcasts and right wing news outlets and her going on Fox News the most well known of those right wing news outlets allows her to make that argument even more strongly.
Of all the arguments presented this one I can potentially get behind. If those attacks actually do occur then I would agree, it’s a decent idea to do the interview.
I imagine this is less about Fox viewers than it is about demonstrating to everyone else that she is bipartisan, open to reaching out, not afraid of debate and tough questions, etc.
Former state Senate Majority Leader Dale Schultz, R-Richland Center, announced Friday that he was endorsing Democratic presidential candidate Kamala Harris and her running mate Tim Walz in the November election.[...]
“Seeing my good friend, former Republican Iowa County Sheriff Steve Michek, join former Congresswoman Liz Cheney in Ripon in endorsing the vice president by making the point that Donald Trump’s actions on Jan. 6 were disqualifying for anyone who truly supports law enforcement and the rule of law had a great affect,” Schultz said. “That along with seeing members of my own family being affected by the disgusting lies being told and perpetuated by Trump and MAGA in Florida as a major hurricane hit was when I just said: ‘Enough’s enough! I need to stand up and be counted.'”[unquote]
As a Florida resident, I'm very skeptical of achieving the 60%threshold for both the marijuana(#3) and abortion(#4) amendments; the state and county Republican REC's are now including defeat of both in their GOTV lit along with DeSantis using tax payer dollars for their defeat as well(hoping I'm wrong, but I don't think that I am); I should add that I have personal friends who are strong democratic party voters that strongly oppose the marijuana amendment
What are REC's? Anyway, it's interesting to get your views, because looking at the polling, I was expecting both referenda to win. With abortion rights leading 58-35, whoever is undecided, there's plenty of room to go over 60.
If I had a forced handicap; I'd say #3(marijuana) fails and #4(abortion) is 50\50(but millions of voters will use the REC recs from top to bottom of their ballot); basically meaning that I think the undecided are heavily R voters that will end up voting against(like I said, I really am hoping I'm wrong but those slate cards might be a killer for both); I should add that I am personally strongly in favor of both amendments
What I've noticed is that voters don't hesitate to vote for Republicans while voting against them on issues, so it shouldn't surprise us if people vote straight Republican tickets but disregard their referendum voting advice. The 60% requirement in Florida is a considerable wrinkle, but Florida is also a whole lot less Republican than states like Arkansas that have voted as I described. Is marijuana legalization very unpopular with retirees?
Honestly, I would think not but I am amazed at the number of my Democratic party friends that will vote no on #3 and yes on #4; I think your points are very valid but the 60% threshold kinda reminds me of the Democratic ceiling in Mississippi; that last 3-4% points is extremely difficult to navigate
Totally agree. We all could use some advice on which candidates to vote for, especially for the more obscure races. But, a ballot question? Nah nah nah, let me get my readers out. Even if not all people are smart enough to understand certain ballot initiatives, I bet a heavy, heavy majority of voters think they are.
I can see a decent case for weed running behind slightly in FL just because of a large senior Dem population that could have some No on 3 yes on 4 votes. Anecdotally my 60-year-old moderate Dem father is excited to vote yes on 3 hah.
Early Vote update: over 4.5 million people have already voted. As reports come in from additional states later today, we’ll probably approach 5 million. McDonald’s Election Project has breakdowns per state, and for states that report such data: info on party split, gender, age and ethnicity.
https://election.lab.ufl.edu/early-vote/2024-early-voting/
I appreciate your cairn showing us the path of early vote each day.
As of 1:30pm, the count is just a hair below 4.7 million. Stephen is right about PA.
These updates include no updates from PA since Friday morning due to the holiday weekend & that ALL votes before Election Day are mail-in ballots.
What holiday?
Is today not a holiday where you are?
Honestly, maybe I missed something due to the hurricanes but I hadn't seen any coverage of a holiday here
That explains why the traffic was not too bad.
Columbus/Indigenous Peoples' Day. From what I understand, this is the last day off for elections workers in PA until every vote is counted. Starting tomorrow, Allegheny County (Pittsburgh & suburbs), for instance, will have at least one satellite voting and/or ballot drop off location open every day EXCEPT Friday (10/18). I know Philadelphia & the Philly Suburban counties are doing similar or larger satellite location operations.
Thanks; I'm completely in the dark apparently; lol
Based on my canvassing yesterday, we should expect a ton of mail in ballots to be returned in PA this week.
I just saw a Delaware County press release from 10/4 (two Fridays ago) announcing that they just sent out their 54k requested ballots plus their ballot drop boxes open 8am tomorrow morning. My best bud from college told me that he & his parents received their ballots in Washington County Saturday. We're going to see huge updates from Delaware & Erie counties for sure this week. I also expect requests to skyrocket as well as the deadline nears.
Tomorrow's update is going to be the biggest one yet, for sure. And that will be just the beginning.
Quite early, the Hopium community invested a significant amount of money in Nebraska’s Democratic Party and its "Blue Dot". It would be wonderful if massive Blue turnout in the "Blue Dot" helps lift Dan Osborn to victory – although that may still be a long shot. We’ll definitely win the congressional race and its single Electoral Vote.
Hopium also invested early in Ruben Gallego’s senate race in Arizona and in the North Carolina Democratic Party, led by the amazing Anderson Clayton. Gallego is likely to trounce Kari Lake, and NC is looking good!
I'm not sure I'd say we're "definitely" going to win the congressional race. I'm pretty confident in the electoral vote, though...
What is one county that, thanks to demographic factors and previous election results, you believe is almost guaranteed to vote for the winner of the presidential election?
Erie PA
Given its close proximity to places that have shifted double digits to the GOP in recent cycles, I'm quite confident that Erie County will be decisively red moving forward, starting with next month.
Strongly disagree. Erie County has a significant city, plus some suburbs that have moved to the left, and combined, they're the majority of the county's population. I suspect Erie County will vote about the same as it did in 2020.
Looking at the population and demographic breakdowns, I'm not seeing that big of a difference between Erie County, PA, and Mahoning County, OH. Is Erie County substantially less blue-collar than conventional wisdom would assume?
Interesting that you'd compare Erie to Mahoning when they haven't voted the same way since 2012 - Erie went Trump/Biden while Mahoning went Clinton/Trump.
Probably because they're an hour apart, both have populations of around 250,000 and are about 80% white. Given the trajectory of all of Erie County's neighbors, why should we suspect it to not follow their lead?
My first impulse is to look at the county with the longest active streak, Clallam co. in WA. I've noticed that:
- The county is continuously growing in population.
- The elections are usually very close - The winning candidate hasn't won by more than 52% since 1984. Even Obama in 2008 only won by about 3%, nearly the same margin that Biden won.
- Third party percentages are higher than usual (10% in 2016).
Not sure what to make of it, but I'd still go with this as my pick.
Possibly Oklahoma County, OK.
Northampton County, PA.
This is the one considered pretty much the State bellwether, no?
This was the first county I thought of after posting my original question.
It is tough to find a county that is both at a tipping point and one that is not moving in one direction or the other. I would suggest that the popular vote will be similar to Washoe County, Nevada, which has been close to the popular vote the last few elections.
Clay, MO, and Spotsylvania, VA, are a couple for me.
Saginaw County. Also the winner in MI 08.
Just watched Brad Raffensperger, Georgia’s Secretary of State, on a live interview with Amy Gardner of the Washington Post. Very interesting. Good questions and answers on the whole, although I do wish my question had been asked:
“The Georgia Board of Elections has enacted rules allowing local election boards to refuse or delay certification, potentially raising havoc after Election Day. Have you and Governor Kemp rescinded this dangerous usurpation of authority, in order to ensure timely certification of Georgia’s election results?”
Californians will vote on proposition 5 that would reduce the percentage for voter approved bonds for low cost housing and infrastructure bonds with repayment from property taxes from 2/3 to 55%.
The 2/3 rule was a poison pill included in prop 13 passed in 1978 that reduced and capped increases in property taxes. In most jurisdictions, the 2/3 limit is virtually impossible to achieve.
California has one of the worst housing affordability problems in the country, and needs price relief and more housing.
Unfortunately, the Howard Jarvis group (right wing anti tax and helped get prop 13 passed) has been effective in promoting this as undoing prop 13.
I've been in pie fights on 2 sites arguing it does no such thing. The only change is reducing the percentage. The only change in property taxes will be that more bonds will get approved at 55% than 2/3.
I find it stunning that normally liberal individuals buy into this right wing crap.
Heavens knows I benefit from prop 13 in that I pay 40% of taxes new buyers do, which helps make my occupancy affordable, but I fully support prop 5.
Supposedly liberal people who hate seeing homeless people but support maintaining the housing shortage are nothing new.
Prop 13 in California is almost a religion. To a certain point I understand it, since if my house were taxed at market rate, I'd have to sell and move, probably out of state.
The decomposing corpse of Howard Jarvis plagues us to this day. The Howard Jarvis Taxpayers Assn (HJTA) opposes just about anything that spends money or especially anything that raises any kind of tax. In this election they also oppose Props 2 (school bonds) and 4 (Water, fire prevention and other climate risks). HJTA also is against L.A. County Measure A (sales tax funded homeless services) and Measure US (LAUSD local school bonds.). Those bastards have been around forever in CA, or at least since I was a teenager...
Prop 13 also is hurting what should be natural turnover in the single family housing market by giving homeowners like seniors a disincentive from selling their homes and downsizing.
We count our blessings that we’re living where the property tax is about $ 1000. And that’s per year.
Where is that again?
Very rural community in Northern Maine. Granted, there are few services. Like most people here, we have our own well, we have to drive our trash to the transfer station, and we have a volunteer fire department. Ten minutes to walk to our nearest neighbor.
Really beautiful area of the country. Do you see auroras much in the winter?
I didn't realize you were a Mainer! Which town do you live in?
In the 1990's the CA city I lived in had multiple bonds on the ballot one year for funding such things as schools, the fire department and parks. Each failed having gotten about 65%-66% in favor. A 2/3 majority is so undemocratic and has starved CA cities and counties of basic resources. Just what the far right dreams of.
It was posted at the end of the day yesterday but why does everyone think these generally horrific GOP internals were leaked this weekend?
The only bright spot is in Wisconsin where Hovde is surging. Every other race was looking bad for the GOP. In my opinion the only reason you leak something like this is either 1) to sound the alarm or 2) to throw off the other side. Maybe they want us to rush into Texas and get complacent in Ohio?
It's just very strange to me that something like this was put out there. As for Florida not being in the mix, I bet they didn't even test it. McConnell is on his way out and will not even spend money on polling his enemy's territory.
We need to help Baldwin! Momentum is against her!!
Perhaps to motivate donors?
We are less than 3 weeks out. Money at this point is probably not going to make a huge difference in saturated races. Nebraska perhaps. But not Ohio. For example.
Good point.
There is a strong possibility that they are NOT strategic masters. Just saying.
It's McConnells PAC. They are pretty strategic love him or hate him.
It seemed to have been written for a top level super pac donor. It has levels of detail not seen in internals released to the media and says "proprietary and confidential." Maybe some major donor saw this and blew his top.
The goal of McConnell’s pac is to elect Republicans in the Senate. i think they see the spread between Trump and the Republican candidate as a continued problem that they
want to close. This was not an inadvertent or leaked set of poll as the title of the memo included for media. Harris and the Democrat candidate for the most part have close spread on the elect numbers. They want to Republican voters of Trump to vote downballot.
I don't know if I would say the numbers were generally horrific. I think the margins in AZ, MD, MT and NV are generally in line with numbers we've seen by other pollsters recently even if the high undecideds are producing numbers that seem a little unbelievable. PA is among the best polls for McCormick, but I wouldn't say its an outlier. The 4 that have diverged most are MI, WI, TX and OH. In the case of Ohio and Michigan, I think it could be a function of this pollster not pushing leaners and with leaners it could be something like 48-47, in Ohio and 49-46 in Michigan. Wisconsin and Texas are the two that look the most like outliers
Wisconsin Democrats need to be firing on all cylinders for Kamala & Tammy, can't get caught napping like 2016!! 💙🇺🇲
I'm a fan of the Wisconsin Democratic party; they know how to win close races
They got caught napping in 2022 too. Mandela Barnes had a very winnable race and everyone ignored him until it was too late.
I disagree, I think they got the most they could out of Barnes; personally, I thought he was kind of a weak candidate that was propped up as much as humanly possible
Agreed. Considering the riots after George Floyd next door in MN, running a black man for Senate two years later was going to elicit political attacks that would be more potent. We lost bc of exactly why many of us thought we could lose. Also didn’t help that he was a young up and comer vs a long-time politician voters knew.
Smart that WI Dems have positioned Sarah Godlewski to run in 2028 if she can win SoS in 2026. Which, that’s a long time and some ifs when it comes to politics. Who knows, maybe someone better will come along. But, laying the groundwork immediately after the loss is what makes WI Dems a party to watch. The state has strong Dem, progressive roots.
Lastly, bc shoulda woulda couldas, Ron Kind was either tired of politics or is a turd. He read the room and wanted to leave WI-3 after barely winning in 2020, which was fair. But, I wonder if he assumed crappy midterm during a Dem POTUS, why bother for Senate in 2022? Bc then the GOP did mostly terrible and he could’ve been a Senator. I don’t think it’s much of a question that he would’ve won. It’s more of would it have still been a squeaker, or a solid 5%? Johnson really is a lucky SOB. WI Dems know it and hate it.
Godlewski is married to a serial white collar crook. She's not who we need representing our party.
I would argue that she'd be better than the alternative
I find nowhere about anything of her husband other than he's a rich investor; do you care to elaborate?
I would think Kind wins that race
As I remember, he declined to run.
The problem in 2022 WI-Sen was that we didn't clear the field for Barnes nearly soon enough, so that his early fundraising suffered.
That and everyone wrote him off due to crappy October polling + Red Wave hype that didn't materialize.
Flashback to 2016, I was SUPREMELY confident that Hillary Clinton & Russ Feingold had Wisconsin in the bag.
Imagine my horror when the winners were Donald Trump & Ron Johnson. Ever since then, I've avoided complacency and see no race on the map as safe. Hopefully Democrats in Wisconsin are feeling the same way!! 💙🇺🇲
I knocked on 41 doors yesterday in Central PA. It was partly a GOTV canvass but also included doors of independents that were not reached earlier. Only got one Trump voter and one wavering voter. Most of the voters contacted already had received their mail ballots and had to return them.
The goal for our area of the Harris/Walz/Casey campaign was to hit 35,000 door prior to the election. Our area is North Central PA, north of Dauphin County (Harrisburg).
My impression is that the field organization is firing on all cylinders.
Meanwhile, Elon Musk's voter mobilization for Trump is going just about as well as his Twitter Spaces. In other words, their app is working so poorly that they can’t track whether their canvassers are actually doing the work.
https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2024/oct/14/trump-ground-game-smartphone-app
True stroke of genius for the Trump Campaign to outsource their groundgame to Musk!
/S
And don't forget the ever forgettable Charlie Kirk
Another yuge genius. I am so grateful to him, as well as to Tulsi Gabbard and Laura Loomer who helped prepare Trump for his catastrophic debate.
AFAIK. Loomer is still on that plane(maybe I missed something recently)
https://www.google.com/url?sa=t&source=web&rct=j&opi=89978449&url=https://thehill.com/homenews/senate/4931624-eric-schmitt-nrsc-leadership/amp/&ved=2ahUKEwjDo7CXlY6JAxWMVTABHduBAHYQyM8BKAB6BAgFEAI&usg=AOvVaw0lT-i8uj2LxYeJe6lJxwn7
No one wants the NRSC job in 2026! Eric Schmitt declined as did Katie Britt. It's the only uncontested Republican Senate leadership post left.
Republicans will have 20 seats to defend including Maine and North Carolina. But Democrats will also have to defend Ossoff in Georgia and Peters in Michigan. They are probably waiting to see who wins the Presidential because it could be an okay year for Republicans in 2026 if Harris wins this Nov.
Maybe or maybe not. We can't assume Republicans will do well in a midterm while a Democrat is in the White House anymore.
...nor while corrupt justices endorsed by Leonard Leo, who don’t give a damn about the Constitution and judicial precedence, continue to have a majority on the Supreme Court.
"We were with @jontester in a union hall in Butte, MT where a group of union carpenters stood on their feet and cheered for him loudly, promising they were going to vote for him. Many of the men in that room told us afterwards that they did plan to vote for Trump"
https://x.com/mo_robz/status/1845526363249557658?t=JeCUqQTiGldJkAZtkmxXvg&s=19
If the internal Republican polling leaked earlier is anything to go by, the terrible Tim's lead in Montana was only 4 points in there (48% - 44%). Hopefully dwindling in the final weeks. I've said for a long time never to give up on Sen. Jon Tester. I've always saw some kind of light at the end of that MT tunnel. Still definitely an uphill battle, but at the same time definitely achievable, all strengthening my hope!!
💙🇺🇲🙏🌊
I expect Fisher to win. NE-SEN-A will likely stay red.
Conventional wisdom would cause anyone to believe that, but it's definitely possible she loses in a stunner. Stranger things have happened and Dan Osborn is the strongest Independent candidate I've seen in years!!
What's making him stronger than Greg Orman was in KS?
Smaller state (more easy to retail politic, more affordable to advertise), with a competitive congressional district/electoral vote overlap, outside a republican wave year (hopefully)?
I didn't realize NE had a lower population, but it does.
Per DuckAssist, whatever that is (top of DuckDuckGo search results):
"As of July 1, 2023, Nebraska's population is estimated to be 1,978,379."
"The population of Kansas was 2,937,880 according to the 2020 census."
I guess that makes sense, since KS has Wichita, Topeka and Kansas City, Kansas, plus a bunch of KC suburbs, whereas NE has only Omaha and Lincoln.
Nebraska is about 3 points redder then Kansas – but yeah, it's 2/3rds the size, and I wonder if having the population more condensed into Omaha and Lincoln helps at all.
I don't think Osborn is very likely to win, but I can see why he might be able to make them sweat in a way that Orman couldn't a decade ago.
It would certainly make the GOTV focus easier, plus Tony Vargas running a strong race of his own
Maybe bc both Senate seats are up? Gives voters the option to be Republicans for one and then prove the “independence” that so many voters claim to have. Plus, Trump at the top gives voters a lot of options to be Republican but also give that little slice of fuck all ya’ll. Throw in a touch of sexism from men wanting to vote for a man and there you have it.
I feel better about Osborn than any of the other reach seats, probably even MT. Have a consistent inkling that something legit is going on with his campaign, and it's connecting with the electorate.
Then again, could just be gas. At my age, it usually is.
I've been fooled too many times to see a independent beating a Republican senator in a Red State. The other side of that coin is true too as Larry Hogan will probably find out in a couple of weeks.
Fischer is a real commie.
Even if Fischer's internals are to be believed, a 6 point lead for an incumbent in a state as rural and red as Nebraska is very weak, esp from an internal poll no less. Even if Fischer is the favorite here, I'd say it's Lean R at best. NE 02 will be highly competitive at both the congressional level and federal due to Nebraska's unique split electoral vote rules and higher turnout here should benefit Harris, Vargas and Osborn alike. Moreover, if Trump is perceived as a weak candidate and fails to excite his base, it's conceivable that rural areas will turn out less. Both scenarios are quite probable and would benefit Osborn.
I thought that NE's voters were actually highly urban, though granted, Omaha and Lincoln aren't huge cities, and I think a lot of small cities are included in the definition of "urban" in such analyses.
In NJ-07, if the DCCC is reluctant to advertise in the NYC TV market, why can't they spend money for canvassing?
Republicans are up to their usual dirty tricks and attempts at suppression of Black votes, probably showing that all the claims about the Democrats having trouble with Black voters are likely to be no more than marginally accurate:
https://www.nytimes.com/2024/10/14/us/politics/michigan-republican-misleading-ad.html
Michigan Republican Blames ‘Proofing Error’ for Misleading Ad in Black-Owned Newspaper
The state’s legislative Black caucus has asked the attorney general and a county prosecutor to investigate Tom Barrett’s congressional campaign for potential voter disenfranchisement.
Per PoliticalWire's summary of this paywalled article, the "error" was that it "incorrectly listed Election Day as Nov. 6."
So far today, I'd say there is one other significant story on PoliticalWire, which some of you will approve of:
https://politicalwire.com/2024/10/14/harris-agrees-to-interview-with-fox-news/
“The interview, with Fox News’s chief political anchor, Bret Baier, will take place near Philadelphia on Wednesday, shortly before it airs at 6 p.m."
I guess Baier is among the more professional people on that habitually lying entertainment network.
There's also this story that we can laugh and point at:
https://politicalwire.com/2024/10/14/trumps-ground-game-app-crashes/
“But the Trump campaign and the Elon Musk-backed America Pac, which is now doing an outsized portion of the Trump ground game, use a management app called Campaign Sidekick that struggles in areas with slow internet and means canvassers have to use an offline version.”
Mailed out my ballot yesterday for KH and Dems up and down the ticket. California is of course never in question as far as its support for our Vice President is concerned but I hope we can get more Democrats into the House as well.
3 more weeks to go. Let's go.
Democratic Presidential nominee Kamala Harris will make her first ever Fox News interview on Wednesday with Special Report host Bret Baier on his show.
Harris's running mate Tim Walz has already been interviewed on Fox News Sunday twice this campaign.
https://www.thewrap.com/kamala-harris-fox-news-interview-bret-baier-special-report-when/
I wish she wouldn’t. It legitimizes them as a news organization and I’m doubtful there are a significant number of Fox viewers that are open to voting for her.
I think that ship sailed decades ago. And, frankly, it's not like the vast majority of the rest of the media is particularly legitimate. If she can get 10 fox viewers to vote for her, or just not bother to vote, good.
I kind of agree with both of you, but especially you.
You mean other stations have had to pay out nearly a billion dollars in damages for level?
Fox is worse than most networks (but not some ONN, etc.) but the vast majority of the news media is truly terrible - either corrupt, incompetent, or both.
Did they have to pay out nearly a billion in damages for pushing the lie that Trump really won the election?
I don't entirely get what we're disagreeing about here. Are you saying that because Fox is worse (than some) all of the other ones are completely legitimate? Sure, Fox got caught. That doesn't mean that the scumbags at the Wall Street Journal, or Newsmax, or the NYT, or Newsweek, or ONN, The Washington Post, etc. are all legitimate.
You gotta deal with the media landscape you have, not the media landscape you may wish you had.
Disagree, I don’t think she needs to deal with Fox at all. Treat them like the right wing propaganda machine they are. There would be absolutely zero impact to her not sitting for an interview with them. Any complaints by right wingers could be easily dealt with my just stating that she has decided to talk to legitimate news organizations.
I see it less as an attempt to squeeze out a few votes from Fox News viewers than to signal to some truly undecided voters (who don't watch Fox News) that she's willing to mix it up with hostile outlets.
It's admittedly not without risk....especially since last week was our first reminder in this truncated campaign that she's not good in question-and-answer interview settings. If she thought was winning, I'd probably advise her against it. But since recent campaign moves suggest she doesn't think she's winning, she needs to put out as many signals as she can to assuage her vulnerabilities with skeptical voters that may still be won over, and like it or not, being insufficiently prepared for the job is one of those perceived vulnerabilities.
I guess I didn't see the interview you're referring to. Which questions did she flub?
She had a couple of major word salads on the "60 Minutes" interview and on "The View", when asked if she'd have done anything differently than Joe Biden and she responded, "I can't think of a single thing", and then spent most of the rest of the interview trying to walk that back. The Trump campaign quickly flooded the zone with ads with that soundbyte. Not sure it'll pack the same punch as "I was for it before I was against it" but she should have been prepared with a better answer to such an easy question.
Oops....she said "there's not one thing that comes to mind" rather than the quote I said.
What campaign moves has she made that make you think she thinks she’s losing?
Sending Obama out to scold black voters for being insufficiently motivated and releasing her medical records while nudging Trump to do the same. I can't see a campaign that believes they're winning doing either of those things three weeks before the election.
I have thought about this a lot and where I essentially come down is that this job needs to be done in the, depending on the office, between 18-66 months of your time in office. In the last 6 months before the election, if you're a candidate who is good at media you should basically do interviews with everyone. Obviously there are situational exceptions to this, I certainly wouldn't begrudge Roy Cooper for doing a Fox News interview right now.
But I do think in the time between elections, yeah I think they should be frozen out. I don't think they should have a prime seat at press briefings. Unless its one of those aforementioned situational exceptions I don't think a safe seat Democrat should ever do an interview with Fox News.
I think they're also going to ramp up, probably through surrogates and digital ads, the Trump is a coward message by ducking another debate and also pointing to all the interviews she's done with more neutral outlets while he basically only does bro podcasts and right wing news outlets and her going on Fox News the most well known of those right wing news outlets allows her to make that argument even more strongly.
Of all the arguments presented this one I can potentially get behind. If those attacks actually do occur then I would agree, it’s a decent idea to do the interview.
I imagine this is less about Fox viewers than it is about demonstrating to everyone else that she is bipartisan, open to reaching out, not afraid of debate and tough questions, etc.
Not sure why she’d do this. 3 weeks out and we’re talking to Fox News viewers?
I hope they made some kind of deal whereby Bret Baier agrees to not interrupt Harris as much as he did with Obama.
Here is perfect parry to that crap:
"My apologies for talking while you’re trying to interrupt me, but..."
Democrats are pathetic wimps Part XXXVVVIII . . . .
This seems like it could be important:
https://civicmedia.us/news/2024/10/11/former-gop-state-senate-majority-leader-schultz-endorses-harris-walz
[quote]
Former state Senate Majority Leader Dale Schultz, R-Richland Center, announced Friday that he was endorsing Democratic presidential candidate Kamala Harris and her running mate Tim Walz in the November election.[...]
“Seeing my good friend, former Republican Iowa County Sheriff Steve Michek, join former Congresswoman Liz Cheney in Ripon in endorsing the vice president by making the point that Donald Trump’s actions on Jan. 6 were disqualifying for anyone who truly supports law enforcement and the rule of law had a great affect,” Schultz said. “That along with seeing members of my own family being affected by the disgusting lies being told and perpetuated by Trump and MAGA in Florida as a major hurricane hit was when I just said: ‘Enough’s enough! I need to stand up and be counted.'”[unquote]
Cant hurt; drip, drip, drip, drip continues
He's from Wisconsin, for everyone else that was trying to figure out what state he was from.
Every little bit helps, even if this won't be a huge deal it can't hurt!
Sorry, yes, I forgot to include that he was from WI.
As a Florida resident, I'm very skeptical of achieving the 60%threshold for both the marijuana(#3) and abortion(#4) amendments; the state and county Republican REC's are now including defeat of both in their GOTV lit along with DeSantis using tax payer dollars for their defeat as well(hoping I'm wrong, but I don't think that I am); I should add that I have personal friends who are strong democratic party voters that strongly oppose the marijuana amendment
What are REC's? Anyway, it's interesting to get your views, because looking at the polling, I was expecting both referenda to win. With abortion rights leading 58-35, whoever is undecided, there's plenty of room to go over 60.
Republican Executive Committee; they are the storm troopers if you will
If I had a forced handicap; I'd say #3(marijuana) fails and #4(abortion) is 50\50(but millions of voters will use the REC recs from top to bottom of their ballot); basically meaning that I think the undecided are heavily R voters that will end up voting against(like I said, I really am hoping I'm wrong but those slate cards might be a killer for both); I should add that I am personally strongly in favor of both amendments
What I've noticed is that voters don't hesitate to vote for Republicans while voting against them on issues, so it shouldn't surprise us if people vote straight Republican tickets but disregard their referendum voting advice. The 60% requirement in Florida is a considerable wrinkle, but Florida is also a whole lot less Republican than states like Arkansas that have voted as I described. Is marijuana legalization very unpopular with retirees?
Honestly, I would think not but I am amazed at the number of my Democratic party friends that will vote no on #3 and yes on #4; I think your points are very valid but the 60% threshold kinda reminds me of the Democratic ceiling in Mississippi; that last 3-4% points is extremely difficult to navigate
I take your point on the last few points. Your friends are anecdotal, though.
Absolutely, but, in theory they 'should' be voting for; but for their own reasons will be against
Totally agree. We all could use some advice on which candidates to vote for, especially for the more obscure races. But, a ballot question? Nah nah nah, let me get my readers out. Even if not all people are smart enough to understand certain ballot initiatives, I bet a heavy, heavy majority of voters think they are.
In OH weed outran abortion, but by less than a point.
Abortion was +13.2%, 56.6% to 43.4%. Weed was +14.0, 57.0% to 43.0%.
https://www.npr.org/2023/11/07/1209092670/2023-results-key-ohio-elections
Now, I think it is true that lots of folks voted for one and not the other. But in aggregate, weed did run ahead.
I don't see that happening here; and as you note, neither surpassed 60%
That was not the point. 60% or not. Weed outran abortion. I bet that happens again.
I would not have thought it would in OH, but it did.
I think you are wrong; we shall see
I can see a decent case for weed running behind slightly in FL just because of a large senior Dem population that could have some No on 3 yes on 4 votes. Anecdotally my 60-year-old moderate Dem father is excited to vote yes on 3 hah.