Could be national. Or it could be Big Ten areas only. Harris has been all over Big Ten football games too. While not every state in the region is competitive, enough of then are to justify things like Big Ten Network ad buys.
One election I'm interested in downballot is Massachusetts' Question 1.
If passed it would specifically state that the State Auditor has the power to audit the state legislature. The currently elected auditor was rebuffed by the legislature when she tried to audit them, then the state AG refused to back her up.
My interest is threefold:
(1) I want to live in MA, so I care more about their nuts & bolts politics than I do most states.
(2) It's absurd to me to imagine that an elected office of State Auditor isn't allowed to audit an entire branch of the state government. The arguments put forth by the legislature are unconvincing.
(3) MA's legislature is underachieving considering the balance of power and ideology of the median state voter. Anything that puts even a little bit of pressure on them to be better is of interest to me.
On more standard partisan politics, I really want to see how Texas and Alaska end up in the presidential race plus AK-AL and TX-Sen. I'm optimistic about our prospects in each state in the medium term and want to see what this year's data points suggest for their trends.
The legislature is notoriously opaque. Even things like votes on legislation aren't public record. Even if the case to vote 'no' were more convincing, that alone would convince me to vote 'yes'.
"In recent years, the number of international students at U.S. colleges and universities has declined. Do you believe the U.S. should do more to attract foreign students to our colleges and universities?"
The results deviated sharply on racial lines :
White 23-55
Asian 64-19
Black 50-36
Hispanic 42-42
The overall result was essentially the same for all education levels.
Glad to see it isn't even remotely close. I already expected it to pass but I do worry that voters could get confused (I'm lazy and haven't looked up the ballot wording) and vote no as a result.
I suspect the actual result will be a little closer, since the wording the Pioneer Institute used is different than what's on the ballot, but it should still win in a landslide.
Ballot Question:
This proposed law would specify that the State Auditor has the authority to audit the Legislature.
A YES VOTE would specify that the State Auditor has the authority to audit the Legislature.
A NO VOTE would make no change in the law relative to the State Auditor’s authority.
(Remarkably clear and concise, which is unusual for MA questions)
PI poll question:
The job of the State Auditor is to audit state agencies, report on how well they are functioning and make recommendations for improvement. In Massachusetts, the legislature is exempt from these audits. The current State Auditor is seeking to gain the ability to audit the legislature. Do you approve of this?
(Seems to be pushing for a 'yes' answer in my view)
Cuomo + Hochul + Adams + Jacobs has been bad news for Dems and progressives in NY. You'd think eith both Vongressional Dem leaders from NY, the state party would not be such a train wreck, but it is.
At least the IDC is no more.
I am generally optimistic about the House, but I think +1-2 is it out of NY. I'd love to be wrong.
It's hard to believe Hochul is more hated by people in NY state than Trump, but according to the latest Siena poll that the case! Hopefully Hochul gets primaried in 2026 before she causes more damage in a midterm.
That -is- hard to believe, but I suppose that's because Republicans hate her because she's a Democrat but Democrats don't like her because she's ineffective and not liberal.
CA-41 is moving away from Ken Calvert as the demographics in the district do not favor him. He's facing a similar situation as what Darrell Issa had faced heading towards the 2016 election back in CA-49 then.
The chaos with the Temecula Unified school board is bound to be setting a tone going up the ballot of it. Upsetting high propensity, highly educated voters is bad dharma.
Basically, same goes me on left-shifting/suburban R-held seats in general. If we manage to beat Fitzpatrick, for example, the R's would probably nominate some frothing-at-the-mouth fascist on future cycles and we'd just hold the seat.
On a general level, I'll be interested to see (after months of breaking down results by district) how far candidates in state legislative races manage to outrun their presidential nominee, both percentage-wise and in raw votes. With just 57 full and 28 partial chambers covering 42 full- and 2 half-states, plus specials, up for election, it's not a perfect measure, but it's the best measure we get of where we are on the path to the demise of split-ticket voting. It's also interesting seeing the portion of voters that bother voting/are willing to vote in uncontested races.
Democrat Kamala Harris leads Republican Donald Trump by four points in Pennsylvania, a new Spotlight PA poll of likely voters in the critical swing state shows.
The vice president won 50% support among those surveyed, while the former president secured 46%. The two other presidential candidates who will appear on Pennsylvania’s Nov. 5 ballot — Jill Stein of the Green Party and Libertarian Chase Oliver — polled at 1% and less than 1%, respectively.
PR Gov. The island has been bouncing back and forth between parties and third parties have been gaining ground. There seems to be a credible Non-PIP (independence) 3rd party candidate who could break the disfunctional hold the two entrenched parties have. Meanwhile, the pro-statehood party nominated a pretty conservative option who would be the party's first female governor.
SC01. Nancy Mace isn't the most popular republican and while I expect her to win I'll be curious about the margins. Charleston is growing like crazzzy. Could be competitive again by end of decade.
Michigan---whatever district Tim Walberg is now. He's been even more whack than normal. If there's any return of WWC voters, we'd see it here.
#1. He's the incumbent Lieutenant Governor. #2. North Carolina elected Jesse Helms to the US Senate no fewer than FIVE times. The attitude of "elect this candidate because "own the libs"/"drive liberals crazy"" is well embedded into the Tar Heel State. Especially in rural parts.
I actually meant BEFORE he became the incumbent; clearly an own goal by the Republicans; wow, this guy is like the goose that laid the golden egg for our side(I would still argue in favor of Stein but this race ended the moment this clown was nominated)
Are you a local/Wolven Sort? I know somebody of our ilk with a very similar name.
And yeah, the unbounded cray-cray of the NCGOP primary electorate knows few bounds. The Superintendent of Education nominee is somehow even crazier than Robinson.
Tokenism got him the nomination to his current role. And in his current position as LG, he was a natural choice for running for a promotion, plus tokenism again.
The most important traits for a republican candidate in the eyes of republican primary voters is the ability to be obnoxiously loud, confident, wrong, and cruel.
It is unsurprising that an electorate that filters for toxic traits will have candidates that are found to have toxic histories.
I'm not knowledgeable about SD politics, but my guess is that it won't hurt her. I'd love to hear from someone who's more likely to know, though. As do Cabinet, who the hell knows what a demented Trump who's angry at the world might do if he had the chance?
Republicans in South Dakota selected for a candidate that would be as cruel and as ignorant as they could find. They went for someone like Noem instead of the type of conservative that people are still willing to invite to Thanksgiving dinner. That made it more likely that their governor was the type of person to brag about killing a pet dog. Her issues are the direct result of what the republican primary electorate filters for, just like Robinson.
It's SD so she's unlikely to truly suffer at the ballot box if she runs for office again, but it did kill her national ambitions.
The question ultimately becomes how did he become Lt. Governor because that title alone makes someone a viable candidate if they choose to run for governor.
He handily won the Lt. Gov. primary but he also ran against 6 people who had some elected experience, including someone who had statewide experience. In a 2-person race, my guess is he probably loses. And then as for the general election, In the general election he ran against a seemingly unoffensive state rep, but the state also had a competitive presidential election, gubernatorial election and US Senate election which allowed him to fly under the radar.
Jon Tester’s Senate race in Montana, which will determine which party controls the chamber. Tester is losing and I’m not sure Dems across the country are paying enough attention. How can we help?
Nor sure Tester is losing; I thought the polls were unclear? Jon Tester should consider inviting Tim Walz to campaign with him. It’s not money that Tester lacks – an absurd amount of money is being spent on this Senate race.
RealClearPolling is a very conservative, almost propagandist website. Granted, conservative doesn’t have to mean inaccurate – but in this case the above is a good indication. Unlike 538 or Nate Silver, they do not rate or weigh the pollsters – and RealClearPolling throws an astounding number of bad polls into their average.
Today, many pollsters are really not in the polling business at all. Instead, they have found extremely cost-effective ways to influence the media narrative! That disturbing fact gets far too little media attention.
Back to Montana...
Aaron, as you point out, there is a paucity of public polls for Montana. The two Republican-leaning polls you cite favor Sheehy; another previous poll showed Tester with an advantage. This race is close to a tossup, at most lean Sheehy. Jon Tester could definitely use some help, but I still think he has a reasonably strong chance of winning re-election. (And let’s not write off Deb Mucarsel-Powell in Florida!)
A more fitting comparison is North Dakota in 2018, another race where Republican-leaning polls went unanswered. I recall some clever but ridiculous spin coming from Heitkamp backers in 2018 that counterpunched the polling showing Cramer leading without actually producing numbers that showed a different outcome. Tester's people have yet to stoop to that level of spin, which tells me they either don't plan to insult our intelligence or can't even find a starting point to base any possible spin about Tester's standing. I projected a double-digit Tester loss late last year and the tea leaves continue to point in that direction. It's impressive that he was able to defy gravity as long as he did.
Gift subscription to the website? Is that even a thing? What's the value of it? I don't really care to get into the business of Romney-style "bets" on political predictions but I bet you'd have been just as confident predicting that Heitkamp and Bullock wouldn't have lost by double digits, so you may want to rethink your oveconfidence. Plenty of people on this site still owe us the "shoes" they promised to eat if certain outcomes materialized that actually did.
At this point the polling is more favorable towards Allred, Powell, and perhaps even Dan Osborn, so the main question is whether those contests should take priority or if we just have more confidence in Tester as an incumbent.
And Lucas Kunce in the MO-SEN race. Per Newsweek, a recent poll is showing he’s 4 points behind Josh Hawley, a big leap considering where he was months ago.
Of course, this is one poll but it’s also an internal for Kunce’s campaign.
That was his internal from GQR Research. I will add tho that there was also the recent Change Research poll that showed Kunce only down by 5 and potentially tied. Either way, fool's gold or not, the race is at least fairly competitive and it doesn't hurt to invest and build up infrastructure to reach out and engage voters. The goal shouldn't just be to win, but to compete and show that you have a presence and care enough to listen to voters.
They are not, simply because their states require an investment of $40-50 million to do so. That’s why Schumer is not prioritizing them. But at some point if MT is lost (and we’re consistently up in the other 6-7 key states) you have to go for broke (literally).
We passed the $40 million mark in TX investments a few months ago. But I'm unsure how great our investment in FL will be (it stood at $15M a few months ago).
Harris for President: $189.6 million raised, ($99.3 million directly ($66.2 million from contributions under $200), $90 million transferred from fundraising committee). $173.8 million spent ($137 million on ad buys & production, $6.4 million on payroll). $235.5 million cash on hand.
DNC: $68.7 million raised, $84 million spent ($18 million transferred to state parties, $5 million each transferred to DCCC and DSCC, $10 million on canvassing). $50.4 million cash on hand.
Donald J. Trump for President 2024 Inc.: $44.5 million raised, $61.3 million spent ($47 million on ad buys and production, $10.1 million on direct mail). $134.6 million cash on hand.
RNC: $40.4 million raised, $60.2 million spent ($28.2 million transferred to state parties). $79.3 million cash on hand.
Save America: $2,137 raised, $2.4 million spent ($1.8 million on legal fees). $2.1 million cash on hand.
Note that both campaigns have a lot of money in Joint Fundraising Committees which didn't have to file reports but can be transferred at any time, so COH figures are incomplete.
Notable Super PACs:
In total, $163 million was spent on IEs favoring Trump or opposing Kamala, and $104 million was spent on IEs supporting Kamala or opposing Trump.
FF PAC (D): $36.9 million raised (mostly dark money), $77 million spent (nearly all on IEs), $84.2 million cash on hand
American Bridge PAC (D): $27.8 million raised, $12.3 million spent ($10.5 million on IEs), $15.5 million cash on hand
MAGA Inc. (R): $25 million raised, $90 million spent ($88.2 million on IEs), $59.4 million cash on hand
Other major GOP Super PACs (i.e. Musk's America PAC) report quarterly.
House & Senate Committees & Super PACs:
DCCC: $22.2 million raised, $27 million spent ($4 million on IEs, $950,000 on coordinated expenditures, $5.1 million transferred to state parties), $87.3 million cash on hand
DSCC: $19.2 million raised, $31.6 million spent ($21.8 million on IEs, $2 million to state parties). $47 million cash on hand.
House Majority PAC: $11.6 million raised ($3.8 million small-dollar), $7.4 million spent, $109.5 million cash on hand
NRCC: $9.8 million raised, $12.3 million spent ($1.4 million to state parties, $1.2 million on coordinated expenditures), $70.8 million cash on hand
NRSC: $19.1 million raised, $26.6 million spent (4.9 million on IEs, $4.3 million on coordinated expenditures, $1.5 million to state parties), $43.6 million cash on hand
When it comes to New York, I would like to know more about what the state’s Democratic Party is doing to win as many House races as possible. Are they making significant GOTV efforts and, if so, which ones? Are they making a sincere effort to compete with Minnesota’s 80 percent turnout rate? What about efforts to register new voters?
In short, any sign of less party dysfunction in the State of New York would be most welcome?
Oh, one more thing: Has New York sorted out its vote-counting process? It’s been embarrassing in election after election!
RIP to Daniel Evans, the conservative environmentalist who served as governor and senator from Washington. He was the last living senator born in the 1920s, a dozen of whom have died in the 2020s. That leaves Nicholas Brady, 94, GHW Bush's treasury secretary who briefly held Lautenberg's seat before his first tenure, as the oldest living senator.
You'd think, but we've had Jocelyn Burdick, Slade Gorton, Mark Andrews, Roger Jepsen, Walter Mondale, David Gambrell, John Warner, Bob Dole, Jim Broyhill, Jim Buckley, Lauch Faircloth, Dick Clark, and now Dan Evans die in the past five years. The 13 oldest living senators having 100% mortality in half a decade is startling, aided slightly by covid, but yeah, it's Brady at 94, followed by Rudy Boschwitz, Fred Harris, and Mack Mattingly at 93.
Looking a little more closely, it is remarkable how uniform senators lifespans' have become (warning, perhaps slightly morbid). It's not surprising that their lifespans have increased even as Americans' lifespans have essentially plateaued over the past 30 years, given that the vast majority of them are among the top 10% of Americans economically. Still, it's stark:
53 of the 71 senators born in the 1920s (75%) made it to at least 80, and 48 (68%) made it to at least 85, capping out at Jim Buckley's 100 and 41 (58%) passing in the 10-year span from 86 to 95, with an assassination (Bobby) and a plane crash (Tower) accounting for two of the six that didn't make it to 70.
69 of the 79 senators born in the 1930s (87%) made it to at least 80, and as long as we don't lose Tom Harkin in the next few months, 58 (73%) will make it to at least 85, with a suicide (John Porter East) and a plane crash (Heinz) accounting for two of the four who didn't make it to 70.
73 of the 83 senators born in the 1940s are alive, with only Jack Reed and David Perdue yet to hit 75, and 38 of a possible 74 having passed the 80-mark, with a plane crash (Wellstone) accounting for one of the three deaths before 70.
Kay Hagan (66, due to a tick-transmitted virus), is the first and so far only one of the 137 senators born in the 1950s or later to die.
Some historical context of how stark and rapid the change is:
31 of the 55 senators born in the 1910s (56%) made it to 80 and 21 (38%) to 85, with an assassination (Jack) accounting for one of the 15 deaths before 70.
Similarly, 39 of the 72 senators born in the 1900s (54%) made it to 80 and 27 (38%) to 85, with a suicide (William Knowland) accounting for one of the 21 deaths before 70.
Meanwhile, the oldest living former member of the House is Frank Guarini (D-NJ) who serrved from 1979-92. Born in August 1924, he's currently the only living Congressional centenarian.
Second is Merwin Coad (D-IA) who served from 1957-62 and turns 100 on the 28th. Third is G. William Whitehurst (R-VA), who was born in March 1925. served from 1969-86, and who was one of my professors in graduate school at Old Dominion University in the late 1990s. I have an autographed copy of his book "Diary of a Congressman".
Coad's also the last surviving member of congress from the Eisenhower years. He, Lucien Nedzi (99), and Alec Olson (94) are the last surviving members from the Kennedy years.
Nedzi is the fourth oldest living former member. Fifth is Roscoe Bartlett (R-MD), the only one of the top 20 I was ever able to vote for, or in my case against, as in 2012 redistricting put my area into his district with the explicit purpose of flipping the seat Democratic. Subsequently Bartlett moved to West Virginia and for over a decade has lived there "off the grid".
Could see this in either a pessimistic or optimistic way.
Optimistic: polling results are good enough in both states to merit the investment.
Pessimistic: polling in Montana is going poorly enough that senate dems want more investment in "backup" seats to have a better chance of holding onto the majority.
I'm going to remain skeptical of Florida but I'm always up for being proven wrong about that... Texas I don't think is there yet for us, but Cruz is a uniquely loathsome incumbent that gives us an opening.
If the money's there, and it seems to be, it couldn't hurt. Better spent in Texas and Florida than pretending that funneling more money beyond the already $100 million saturating Montana will have any effect.
Heavier investments should also be made in state legislative races where Democrats want to prevent Republican super-majorities, and where they have a chance to gain Democratic super-majorities. Likewise, there are some really important state supreme court races. Yet another are of focus should be important Secretary of State and election board races.
All too often, much of this flies under the radar. The investments are likely to be extremely cost effective!
National and local campaigns complement each other. And both drive turnout.
I agree that GOTV operations and high turnout are key, nationally as well as locally, but people need to be made aware of how to vote in down-ticket races. Bear in mind also that e.g. judicial candidates are *not* necessarily labelled by party everywhere.
Edit: Added the word "not" in the last sentence, which I accidentally omitted.
I think you miss my point; I am all about the ground campaign(in my day as a professional campaign manager, we called it 'the coordinated campaign'); basically meaning the entire Democratic slate was a unified entity, but rest assured it was driven monetarily from the Governor\President downward; the grunts were on the ground and the commanders were at the top
I hear what you are saying and respect your extensive experience. But today, I just don’t think this is necessarily as top-down as you’re suggesting.
Also, 2024 is unique in that there is a stunning amount of organic organizing and spontaneous grassroot effort going on – more so than ever. This amazingly varied network, many of them totally independent groups/organizations, and not necessarily even linked to specific candidates, are not easily described by the "grunts-and-commanders" model.
Yeah, it's probably best for it to die, as long as the Archbishop of New York is always a conservative abortion-prohibitionist, and the Catholic Church would have to change a lot for that to change. But still, a like 100-year tradition.
Not everyone outside of the Midwest is going to be familiar with the Evangelical Lutheran Church of America (ELCA). And while I am not a member of the ELCA, a LOT of people I know are. Here are some important bullet points.
1) In spite of "Evangelical" being in the name, the ELCA is considered to be a Mainline Protestant religion
2) ELCA Lutheran are absolutely nothing like similarly named Lutheran - Wisconsin Synod, and Lutheran -Missouri Synod. The latter two are absolutely batshit crazy fundamentalists, though are much fewer in number than the ELCA.
3) While not as outwardly and universally liberal as United Church of Christ, or the Unitarian Universalist Church, the ELCA membership overall is quite liberal.
4) the Upper Midwesterners o Nordic ancestry make up the bulk of ELCA members, and up until being irreligious became even remotely socially acceptable, saying "I'm Lutheran" was/is a thing secular people say when pressed by other religious people when being a non-believer isn't socially acceptable, so a nontrivial number of self identified ELCA Lutherand are punctually agnostic / non believers.
For the Omaha-area audience, I imagine.
Could be national. Or it could be Big Ten areas only. Harris has been all over Big Ten football games too. While not every state in the region is competitive, enough of then are to justify things like Big Ten Network ad buys.
She's national; all over highly rated NFL games today (money well spent I might add)
One election I'm interested in downballot is Massachusetts' Question 1.
If passed it would specifically state that the State Auditor has the power to audit the state legislature. The currently elected auditor was rebuffed by the legislature when she tried to audit them, then the state AG refused to back her up.
My interest is threefold:
(1) I want to live in MA, so I care more about their nuts & bolts politics than I do most states.
(2) It's absurd to me to imagine that an elected office of State Auditor isn't allowed to audit an entire branch of the state government. The arguments put forth by the legislature are unconvincing.
(3) MA's legislature is underachieving considering the balance of power and ideology of the median state voter. Anything that puts even a little bit of pressure on them to be better is of interest to me.
On more standard partisan politics, I really want to see how Texas and Alaska end up in the presidential race plus AK-AL and TX-Sen. I'm optimistic about our prospects in each state in the medium term and want to see what this year's data points suggest for their trends.
An Emerson College poll (for the right-wing Pioneer Institute) found Question 1 up 80-6:
https://pioneerinstitute.org/wp-content/uploads/ECP-Pioneer-Institute-Report-Aug.-2024.pdf
The legislature is notoriously opaque. Even things like votes on legislation aren't public record. Even if the case to vote 'no' were more convincing, that alone would convince me to vote 'yes'.
An interesting tidbit from the same Emerson poll:
"In recent years, the number of international students at U.S. colleges and universities has declined. Do you believe the U.S. should do more to attract foreign students to our colleges and universities?"
The results deviated sharply on racial lines :
White 23-55
Asian 64-19
Black 50-36
Hispanic 42-42
The overall result was essentially the same for all education levels.
Unsurprisingly, whites are the most racist and xenophobic.
Glad to see it isn't even remotely close. I already expected it to pass but I do worry that voters could get confused (I'm lazy and haven't looked up the ballot wording) and vote no as a result.
I suspect the actual result will be a little closer, since the wording the Pioneer Institute used is different than what's on the ballot, but it should still win in a landslide.
Ballot Question:
This proposed law would specify that the State Auditor has the authority to audit the Legislature.
A YES VOTE would specify that the State Auditor has the authority to audit the Legislature.
A NO VOTE would make no change in the law relative to the State Auditor’s authority.
(Remarkably clear and concise, which is unusual for MA questions)
PI poll question:
The job of the State Auditor is to audit state agencies, report on how well they are functioning and make recommendations for improvement. In Massachusetts, the legislature is exempt from these audits. The current State Auditor is seeking to gain the ability to audit the legislature. Do you approve of this?
(Seems to be pushing for a 'yes' answer in my view)
Yeah, that's easy to understand, for a ballot measure.
It's absolutely crazy that the auditor is prevented from auditing the legislature! I'd have to think that ballot measure will pass in a landslide.
Florida Senate and Florida State lege
Hopeful for a rebound. 2022 in Florida was so depressing compared to the rest of the country.
Horrible turnout statewide; the Republicans did nothing special
Interested in the competitive New York House races. If there has been slippage in New York, it should manifest itself in these districts.
There's been slippage in the NYC suburbs. Hopefullly we can claw back NY-4
Cuomo + Hochul + Adams + Jacobs has been bad news for Dems and progressives in NY. You'd think eith both Vongressional Dem leaders from NY, the state party would not be such a train wreck, but it is.
At least the IDC is no more.
I am generally optimistic about the House, but I think +1-2 is it out of NY. I'd love to be wrong.
Even that would mean +2 or 3 over 2022, as we already got NY-3 back and are unlikely to lose it this year.
Yes. NY 4 and NY 22.
What about NY-19? Shouldn’t Riley have a good chance to defeat Molinaro?
They have a shot in 19 and 17 but their best shots are in 4 and 22.
It's hard to believe Hochul is more hated by people in NY state than Trump, but according to the latest Siena poll that the case! Hopefully Hochul gets primaried in 2026 before she causes more damage in a midterm.
That -is- hard to believe, but I suppose that's because Republicans hate her because she's a Democrat but Democrats don't like her because she's ineffective and not liberal.
That, and 'more widely disliked' doesn't necessarily equate to 'more hated'
Point taken.
In terms of the House I'll go local with Kaptur in OH-9, & Sykes in OH-13.
Outside of that the open seats (VA-7, CA-47, MI-08, MI-07) and Peltola in AK. Plus Perez in WA-3.
Spanberger, Porter, Slotkin, and Kildee are the incumbents not running.
At the congressional level, CA-27 and CA-41. If Dems flip both, I think they’ll be held by Dems for quite some time.
CA-41 is moving away from Ken Calvert as the demographics in the district do not favor him. He's facing a similar situation as what Darrell Issa had faced heading towards the 2016 election back in CA-49 then.
The chaos with the Temecula Unified school board is bound to be setting a tone going up the ballot of it. Upsetting high propensity, highly educated voters is bad dharma.
Basically, same goes me on left-shifting/suburban R-held seats in general. If we manage to beat Fitzpatrick, for example, the R's would probably nominate some frothing-at-the-mouth fascist on future cycles and we'd just hold the seat.
The recent PPIC poll showed Dems up 14 in the *swing* seats in CA. If true we’re picking up Rollins, Whitesides, and a handful of others.
Plausible
On a general level, I'll be interested to see (after months of breaking down results by district) how far candidates in state legislative races manage to outrun their presidential nominee, both percentage-wise and in raw votes. With just 57 full and 28 partial chambers covering 42 full- and 2 half-states, plus specials, up for election, it's not a perfect measure, but it's the best measure we get of where we are on the path to the demise of split-ticket voting. It's also interesting seeing the portion of voters that bother voting/are willing to vote in uncontested races.
Democrat Kamala Harris leads Republican Donald Trump by four points in Pennsylvania, a new Spotlight PA poll of likely voters in the critical swing state shows.
The vice president won 50% support among those surveyed, while the former president secured 46%. The two other presidential candidates who will appear on Pennsylvania’s Nov. 5 ballot — Jill Stein of the Green Party and Libertarian Chase Oliver — polled at 1% and less than 1%, respectively.
https://www.spotlightpa.org/news/2024/09/kamala-harris-donald-trump-pennsylvania-poll-results-economy-jobs/
PR Gov. The island has been bouncing back and forth between parties and third parties have been gaining ground. There seems to be a credible Non-PIP (independence) 3rd party candidate who could break the disfunctional hold the two entrenched parties have. Meanwhile, the pro-statehood party nominated a pretty conservative option who would be the party's first female governor.
SC01. Nancy Mace isn't the most popular republican and while I expect her to win I'll be curious about the margins. Charleston is growing like crazzzy. Could be competitive again by end of decade.
Michigan---whatever district Tim Walberg is now. He's been even more whack than normal. If there's any return of WWC voters, we'd see it here.
How in the hell did Mark Robinson ever become a viable candidate? Your thoughts?
#1. He's the incumbent Lieutenant Governor. #2. North Carolina elected Jesse Helms to the US Senate no fewer than FIVE times. The attitude of "elect this candidate because "own the libs"/"drive liberals crazy"" is well embedded into the Tar Heel State. Especially in rural parts.
I actually meant BEFORE he became the incumbent; clearly an own goal by the Republicans; wow, this guy is like the goose that laid the golden egg for our side(I would still argue in favor of Stein but this race ended the moment this clown was nominated)
Laid an egg is right!
Are you a local/Wolven Sort? I know somebody of our ilk with a very similar name.
And yeah, the unbounded cray-cray of the NCGOP primary electorate knows few bounds. The Superintendent of Education nominee is somehow even crazier than Robinson.
Tokenism got him the nomination to his current role. And in his current position as LG, he was a natural choice for running for a promotion, plus tokenism again.
The most important traits for a republican candidate in the eyes of republican primary voters is the ability to be obnoxiously loud, confident, wrong, and cruel.
It is unsurprising that an electorate that filters for toxic traits will have candidates that are found to have toxic histories.
Well, bragging about shooting her daughter’s dog didn’t work out so well for Kristi Noem.
Not for VP, but do you think it will make her lose if she runs again in South Dakota?
Not just VP; I think she also failed to keep herself on any shortlist for a cabinet position in a second Trump Regime.
I know far too little about South Dakotan politics. What are your thoughts?
I'm not knowledgeable about SD politics, but my guess is that it won't hurt her. I'd love to hear from someone who's more likely to know, though. As do Cabinet, who the hell knows what a demented Trump who's angry at the world might do if he had the chance?
I think she is termed out in 2027.
Noem is an example of my point.
Republicans in South Dakota selected for a candidate that would be as cruel and as ignorant as they could find. They went for someone like Noem instead of the type of conservative that people are still willing to invite to Thanksgiving dinner. That made it more likely that their governor was the type of person to brag about killing a pet dog. Her issues are the direct result of what the republican primary electorate filters for, just like Robinson.
It's SD so she's unlikely to truly suffer at the ballot box if she runs for office again, but it did kill her national ambitions.
The question ultimately becomes how did he become Lt. Governor because that title alone makes someone a viable candidate if they choose to run for governor.
He handily won the Lt. Gov. primary but he also ran against 6 people who had some elected experience, including someone who had statewide experience. In a 2-person race, my guess is he probably loses. And then as for the general election, In the general election he ran against a seemingly unoffensive state rep, but the state also had a competitive presidential election, gubernatorial election and US Senate election which allowed him to fly under the radar.
And the campaigns against him obviously lacked the quality of opposition research the Stein campaign has.
Jon Tester’s Senate race in Montana, which will determine which party controls the chamber. Tester is losing and I’m not sure Dems across the country are paying enough attention. How can we help?
Nor sure Tester is losing; I thought the polls were unclear? Jon Tester should consider inviting Tim Walz to campaign with him. It’s not money that Tester lacks – an absurd amount of money is being spent on this Senate race.
Remember the 2022 Midterm Elections? RealClearPolling’s Senate prediction was 53 Republicans, a gain of three seats! How did that work out?
https://www.realclearpolitics.com/epolls/2022/senate/elections-map-rcp-projection.html
RealClearPolling is a very conservative, almost propagandist website. Granted, conservative doesn’t have to mean inaccurate – but in this case the above is a good indication. Unlike 538 or Nate Silver, they do not rate or weigh the pollsters – and RealClearPolling throws an astounding number of bad polls into their average.
Today, many pollsters are really not in the polling business at all. Instead, they have found extremely cost-effective ways to influence the media narrative! That disturbing fact gets far too little media attention.
Back to Montana...
Aaron, as you point out, there is a paucity of public polls for Montana. The two Republican-leaning polls you cite favor Sheehy; another previous poll showed Tester with an advantage. This race is close to a tossup, at most lean Sheehy. Jon Tester could definitely use some help, but I still think he has a reasonably strong chance of winning re-election. (And let’s not write off Deb Mucarsel-Powell in Florida!)
A more fitting comparison is North Dakota in 2018, another race where Republican-leaning polls went unanswered. I recall some clever but ridiculous spin coming from Heitkamp backers in 2018 that counterpunched the polling showing Cramer leading without actually producing numbers that showed a different outcome. Tester's people have yet to stoop to that level of spin, which tells me they either don't plan to insult our intelligence or can't even find a starting point to base any possible spin about Tester's standing. I projected a double-digit Tester loss late last year and the tea leaves continue to point in that direction. It's impressive that he was able to defy gravity as long as he did.
I think we agree that we want more polls – and more reliable polls – of this Montana race.
Agreed on all except double digits, which there's no evidence for so far.
How much will you bet?? Double digits?? Make the wager
I'll bet you a gift subscription to this site right now; do we have a wager?
Gift subscription to the website? Is that even a thing? What's the value of it? I don't really care to get into the business of Romney-style "bets" on political predictions but I bet you'd have been just as confident predicting that Heitkamp and Bullock wouldn't have lost by double digits, so you may want to rethink your oveconfidence. Plenty of people on this site still owe us the "shoes" they promised to eat if certain outcomes materialized that actually did.
RCP is Republican
What kind of additional attention do you want?
At this point the polling is more favorable towards Allred, Powell, and perhaps even Dan Osborn, so the main question is whether those contests should take priority or if we just have more confidence in Tester as an incumbent.
Allred should certainly be placed on equal footing, but there's little need for 'priority' with as much cash as has been flowing.
Allred and Mucarsel Powell are in very expensive states, so they could probably use whatever help they can get.
And Lucas Kunce in the MO-SEN race. Per Newsweek, a recent poll is showing he’s 4 points behind Josh Hawley, a big leap considering where he was months ago.
Of course, this is one poll but it’s also an internal for Kunce’s campaign.
Missouri is fool's gold.
Nope! Kunce's rallies are getting packed attendees. Not at all fool's gold race.
That was his internal from GQR Research. I will add tho that there was also the recent Change Research poll that showed Kunce only down by 5 and potentially tied. Either way, fool's gold or not, the race is at least fairly competitive and it doesn't hurt to invest and build up infrastructure to reach out and engage voters. The goal shouldn't just be to win, but to compete and show that you have a presence and care enough to listen to voters.
I think the goal should be maximizing the chance that lightning strikes, while knowing it's a 1-2% shot. If the money is available.
This is arguably the most important race in the country
Ted Cruz & Rick Scott are more beatable than people realize.
Donating/volunteering will greatly help Colin Allred & Debbie Murcasel-Powell pull off the upset(s)!! 💙🇺🇲
They are not, simply because their states require an investment of $40-50 million to do so. That’s why Schumer is not prioritizing them. But at some point if MT is lost (and we’re consistently up in the other 6-7 key states) you have to go for broke (literally).
We passed the $40 million mark in TX investments a few months ago. But I'm unsure how great our investment in FL will be (it stood at $15M a few months ago).
As a Floridian, she's fighting; we'll continue to work and see
August Fundraising
Presidential committees:
Harris for President: $189.6 million raised, ($99.3 million directly ($66.2 million from contributions under $200), $90 million transferred from fundraising committee). $173.8 million spent ($137 million on ad buys & production, $6.4 million on payroll). $235.5 million cash on hand.
DNC: $68.7 million raised, $84 million spent ($18 million transferred to state parties, $5 million each transferred to DCCC and DSCC, $10 million on canvassing). $50.4 million cash on hand.
Donald J. Trump for President 2024 Inc.: $44.5 million raised, $61.3 million spent ($47 million on ad buys and production, $10.1 million on direct mail). $134.6 million cash on hand.
RNC: $40.4 million raised, $60.2 million spent ($28.2 million transferred to state parties). $79.3 million cash on hand.
Save America: $2,137 raised, $2.4 million spent ($1.8 million on legal fees). $2.1 million cash on hand.
Note that both campaigns have a lot of money in Joint Fundraising Committees which didn't have to file reports but can be transferred at any time, so COH figures are incomplete.
Notable Super PACs:
In total, $163 million was spent on IEs favoring Trump or opposing Kamala, and $104 million was spent on IEs supporting Kamala or opposing Trump.
FF PAC (D): $36.9 million raised (mostly dark money), $77 million spent (nearly all on IEs), $84.2 million cash on hand
American Bridge PAC (D): $27.8 million raised, $12.3 million spent ($10.5 million on IEs), $15.5 million cash on hand
MAGA Inc. (R): $25 million raised, $90 million spent ($88.2 million on IEs), $59.4 million cash on hand
Other major GOP Super PACs (i.e. Musk's America PAC) report quarterly.
House & Senate Committees & Super PACs:
DCCC: $22.2 million raised, $27 million spent ($4 million on IEs, $950,000 on coordinated expenditures, $5.1 million transferred to state parties), $87.3 million cash on hand
DSCC: $19.2 million raised, $31.6 million spent ($21.8 million on IEs, $2 million to state parties). $47 million cash on hand.
House Majority PAC: $11.6 million raised ($3.8 million small-dollar), $7.4 million spent, $109.5 million cash on hand
NRCC: $9.8 million raised, $12.3 million spent ($1.4 million to state parties, $1.2 million on coordinated expenditures), $70.8 million cash on hand
NRSC: $19.1 million raised, $26.6 million spent (4.9 million on IEs, $4.3 million on coordinated expenditures, $1.5 million to state parties), $43.6 million cash on hand
I'm liking our COH numbers across the board
When it comes to New York, I would like to know more about what the state’s Democratic Party is doing to win as many House races as possible. Are they making significant GOTV efforts and, if so, which ones? Are they making a sincere effort to compete with Minnesota’s 80 percent turnout rate? What about efforts to register new voters?
In short, any sign of less party dysfunction in the State of New York would be most welcome?
Oh, one more thing: Has New York sorted out its vote-counting process? It’s been embarrassing in election after election!
RIP to Daniel Evans, the conservative environmentalist who served as governor and senator from Washington. He was the last living senator born in the 1920s, a dozen of whom have died in the 2020s. That leaves Nicholas Brady, 94, GHW Bush's treasury secretary who briefly held Lautenberg's seat before his first tenure, as the oldest living senator.
Are you sure? That seems a few years young to be the oldest living former U.S. Senator. Most of the time the runner up even is at least 96.
It's seems like a lot of the oldest ones have been dying off a lot
You'd think, but we've had Jocelyn Burdick, Slade Gorton, Mark Andrews, Roger Jepsen, Walter Mondale, David Gambrell, John Warner, Bob Dole, Jim Broyhill, Jim Buckley, Lauch Faircloth, Dick Clark, and now Dan Evans die in the past five years. The 13 oldest living senators having 100% mortality in half a decade is startling, aided slightly by covid, but yeah, it's Brady at 94, followed by Rudy Boschwitz, Fred Harris, and Mack Mattingly at 93.
Looking a little more closely, it is remarkable how uniform senators lifespans' have become (warning, perhaps slightly morbid). It's not surprising that their lifespans have increased even as Americans' lifespans have essentially plateaued over the past 30 years, given that the vast majority of them are among the top 10% of Americans economically. Still, it's stark:
53 of the 71 senators born in the 1920s (75%) made it to at least 80, and 48 (68%) made it to at least 85, capping out at Jim Buckley's 100 and 41 (58%) passing in the 10-year span from 86 to 95, with an assassination (Bobby) and a plane crash (Tower) accounting for two of the six that didn't make it to 70.
69 of the 79 senators born in the 1930s (87%) made it to at least 80, and as long as we don't lose Tom Harkin in the next few months, 58 (73%) will make it to at least 85, with a suicide (John Porter East) and a plane crash (Heinz) accounting for two of the four who didn't make it to 70.
73 of the 83 senators born in the 1940s are alive, with only Jack Reed and David Perdue yet to hit 75, and 38 of a possible 74 having passed the 80-mark, with a plane crash (Wellstone) accounting for one of the three deaths before 70.
Kay Hagan (66, due to a tick-transmitted virus), is the first and so far only one of the 137 senators born in the 1950s or later to die.
Some historical context of how stark and rapid the change is:
31 of the 55 senators born in the 1910s (56%) made it to 80 and 21 (38%) to 85, with an assassination (Jack) accounting for one of the 15 deaths before 70.
Similarly, 39 of the 72 senators born in the 1900s (54%) made it to 80 and 27 (38%) to 85, with a suicide (William Knowland) accounting for one of the 21 deaths before 70.
Meanwhile, the oldest living former member of the House is Frank Guarini (D-NJ) who serrved from 1979-92. Born in August 1924, he's currently the only living Congressional centenarian.
Second is Merwin Coad (D-IA) who served from 1957-62 and turns 100 on the 28th. Third is G. William Whitehurst (R-VA), who was born in March 1925. served from 1969-86, and who was one of my professors in graduate school at Old Dominion University in the late 1990s. I have an autographed copy of his book "Diary of a Congressman".
Coad's also the last surviving member of congress from the Eisenhower years. He, Lucien Nedzi (99), and Alec Olson (94) are the last surviving members from the Kennedy years.
Nedzi is the fourth oldest living former member. Fifth is Roscoe Bartlett (R-MD), the only one of the top 20 I was ever able to vote for, or in my case against, as in 2012 redistricting put my area into his district with the explicit purpose of flipping the seat Democratic. Subsequently Bartlett moved to West Virginia and for over a decade has lived there "off the grid".
https://politicalwire.com/2024/09/21/senate-democrats-push-leaders-to-expand-map/
A "small but vocal number of Senate Democrats" are pushing for more investment in Florida and Texas in particular.
I'm hoping but only if internals show a real path
Could see this in either a pessimistic or optimistic way.
Optimistic: polling results are good enough in both states to merit the investment.
Pessimistic: polling in Montana is going poorly enough that senate dems want more investment in "backup" seats to have a better chance of holding onto the majority.
I'm going to remain skeptical of Florida but I'm always up for being proven wrong about that... Texas I don't think is there yet for us, but Cruz is a uniquely loathsome incumbent that gives us an opening.
If the money's there, and it seems to be, it couldn't hurt. Better spent in Texas and Florida than pretending that funneling more money beyond the already $100 million saturating Montana will have any effect.
I agree.
I agree we have the money; Montana is still winnable but saturation level is probably close(if not already exceeded)
Heavier investments should also be made in state legislative races where Democrats want to prevent Republican super-majorities, and where they have a chance to gain Democratic super-majorities. Likewise, there are some really important state supreme court races. Yet another are of focus should be important Secretary of State and election board races.
All too often, much of this flies under the radar. The investments are likely to be extremely cost effective!
I don't agree; we really need to focus nationally; imo if the turnout is driven nationally, then the locals will benefit
National and local campaigns complement each other. And both drive turnout.
I agree that GOTV operations and high turnout are key, nationally as well as locally, but people need to be made aware of how to vote in down-ticket races. Bear in mind also that e.g. judicial candidates are *not* necessarily labelled by party everywhere.
Edit: Added the word "not" in the last sentence, which I accidentally omitted.
I think you miss my point; I am all about the ground campaign(in my day as a professional campaign manager, we called it 'the coordinated campaign'); basically meaning the entire Democratic slate was a unified entity, but rest assured it was driven monetarily from the Governor\President downward; the grunts were on the ground and the commanders were at the top
I hear what you are saying and respect your extensive experience. But today, I just don’t think this is necessarily as top-down as you’re suggesting.
Also, 2024 is unique in that there is a stunning amount of organic organizing and spontaneous grassroot effort going on – more so than ever. This amazingly varied network, many of them totally independent groups/organizations, and not necessarily even linked to specific candidates, are not easily described by the "grunts-and-commanders" model.
I am talking about the money aspect; apologies for not being more clear
https://politicalwire.com/2024/09/21/kamala-harris-to-skip-al-smith-dinner/ I'm a little surprised. Is this the end of its relevance?
Hopefully.
Yeah, it's probably best for it to die, as long as the Archbishop of New York is always a conservative abortion-prohibitionist, and the Catholic Church would have to change a lot for that to change. But still, a like 100-year tradition.
Is she sending a surrogate?
I looked at the source article: https://www.cnn.com/2024/09/21/politics/al-smith-dinner-kamala-harris-catholic/index.html?cid=ios_app It doesn't say anything about either candidate sending a surrogate.
I was thinking maybe Walz; however, I think that event is way past its sell date
A quick web search shows that Walz was brought up Catholic and converted to Lutheranism - specifically, the Evangelical Lutheran Church in America.
I left out the context, which is that I was thinking maybe he is a Catholic. He was but no longer is.
Not everyone outside of the Midwest is going to be familiar with the Evangelical Lutheran Church of America (ELCA). And while I am not a member of the ELCA, a LOT of people I know are. Here are some important bullet points.
1) In spite of "Evangelical" being in the name, the ELCA is considered to be a Mainline Protestant religion
2) ELCA Lutheran are absolutely nothing like similarly named Lutheran - Wisconsin Synod, and Lutheran -Missouri Synod. The latter two are absolutely batshit crazy fundamentalists, though are much fewer in number than the ELCA.
3) While not as outwardly and universally liberal as United Church of Christ, or the Unitarian Universalist Church, the ELCA membership overall is quite liberal.
4) the Upper Midwesterners o Nordic ancestry make up the bulk of ELCA members, and up until being irreligious became even remotely socially acceptable, saying "I'm Lutheran" was/is a thing secular people say when pressed by other religious people when being a non-believer isn't socially acceptable, so a nontrivial number of self identified ELCA Lutherand are punctually agnostic / non believers.
In Germany, all Lutheran churches are called Evangelisch. Good post.
My religious journey is the same.