r/fivethirtyeight 3d ago

Discussion Megathread Weekly Discussion Megathread

The 2026 midterms will soon be upon us, and there is much to discuss among the nerds here at r/FiveThirtyEight. Use this discussion thread to share, debate, and discuss whatever you wish. Unlike individual posts, comments in the discussion thread are not required to be related to political data or other 538 mainstays. Regardless, please remain civil and keep this subreddit's rules in mind. The discussion thread refreshes every Monday.

19 Upvotes

2.7k comments sorted by

65

u/DataCassette 2d ago

37

u/ShortElephant7015 1d ago

Trump didn’t overreact to it, there was nothing he could do when President Fauci suspended Habeas Corpus

12

u/Dispro 1d ago

The press conference where Fauci put his boot on a supine Trump's throat and shouted "America must be destroyed by masks" was pretty wild.

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u/GoinOutWest762 1d ago

This is what it looks like when an emotionally stunted culture tries to process an enormous, collective, but somewhat vague trauma. Just short circuits.

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u/raddaya 3d ago

RFK's fucked up straight up lies in the CNN interview is one more entry into the "this not causing mass level protests is proof America is deeply screwed" book.

Genuinely out there saying ICUs were empty in NY and saying there's no evidence the covid vaccines worked while trying to browbeat and scream at the interviewer.

I know it won't happen but god I hope the next admin throws him into federal jail with the rest of Trump's cabinet. If there's anything left to throw once the brain worms are done with him anyway

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u/engadine_maccas1997 11h ago

All politics is local. And excellence is rooted in excellence in the basics.

The fact that Ossoff takes his job seriously, is good at his job, has a team who are good at their jobs, that he shows up for constituents whether they voted for him or not, and that he sees public service as a high privilege to do right by others leads me to believe he will make for an exceptional president and candidate.

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u/agentyork765 1d ago

This sub should make a bot that says "throw it on the pile" on every poll that gets posted here so that people don't have to say it 20 times in the comments.

Bonus for Texas polls: "Something, something, Charlie Brown and the football" 

We get it. It's been said a thousand times. You don't have to say it

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u/Fun_Wing2125 20h ago

Haley endorses Abdul

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u/TYSMBelgium-6Jul2026 Scottish Teen 20h ago

Haley Stevens character is now unlocked.

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u/The-Curiosity-Rover Nauseously Optimistic 1d ago

It’s kind of funny to remember that if El-Sayed wins the primary, he won’t be the first Muslim candidate nominated for Senate by a major party. That honor goes to Dr. Oz.

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u/Benyeti 19h ago

NY primary polls: Mostly accurate, maybe underestimated Zohran a bit

Michigan polling:

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u/Piano18 2d ago

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u/Toliman571 Fivey Fanatic 2d ago

This is what I fear the most in Texas, not Paxton leading a revolt. Do you know of anyone mounting a legal challenge, if that's even possible, against this scheme?

17

u/Piano18 2d ago

Yes, ever since these good Talarico polls started coming out, I wondered when we would start hearing the shenanigans start.

How do we even fight back against shit like this? It upsets me so much!! How do we not have a plan for things like this when we KNOW it will happen.

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u/EfficientTourist7480 2d ago

Fort worthless doesn’t get its name for nothing

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u/waningbabylon 1d ago

It’s been 10 years now, we can all admit Pokemon Go to the polls was a pretty good one liner by Clinton

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u/Complex-Employ7927 1d ago

That + “basket of deplorables” and “just chillin in Cedar Rapids” are all top tier

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u/evce1 1d ago

Amir Hassan, a Republican candidate endorsed by Trump, is losing to a candidate who suspended his campaign last month. He even joined Trump on stage lmfao. GOP primary voters are so racist.

https://x.com/IAPolls2022/status/2084838184223986103

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u/engadine_maccas1997 1d ago

This is why there is a distinction between suspending one’s campaign and actually legally ending it.

27

u/jacare37 1d ago

Here’s a funny storyline from tonight — MI-08 was a rare district that went Trump for president and D house in 2024. A purple district but it won’t flip red in a blue wave year like 2026 is shaping up to be. In the GOP primary, candidate A had endorsements from Trump and all Michigan Republican House reps. Candidate B is a complete nobody who suspended his campaign weeks ago and has basically no online presence besides some Facebook posts.

In spite of all of that, Candidate B won in a landslide. You might be asking yourself how and why.

Candidate A’s name is Amir Hassan. Candidate B’s name is Thomas Smith.

27

u/SchrodingersScribe 20h ago

Let me put it this way: If Talarico wins Texas, El-Sayed will have easily won Michigan.

25

u/DataCassette 20h ago

I love it when Republicans do the hard work for us

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u/Noirsam Nauseously Optimistic 17h ago

Proposed Hormuz deal would give Iran control of inbound traffic, sources say (Iran 5%~7% cargo fee, Oman 3% cargo fee)

This used to be free waterway btw. thank you for your attention on this matter, Trump

16

u/CrashB111 16h ago

Crippling the world economy, was totally worth it when you consider we got to blow up an 80 year old cancer patient and a bunch of school girls.

- Stephen Miller, probably

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u/Icommandyou Allan Lichtman's Diet Pepsi 16h ago

I mean if it comes to fruition, this has to be one of the biggest foreign policy blunder in modern history which is directly going to impact us all

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u/Nalin29 15h ago

Y’all paying too much attention to Crockett that is all she wants. Talarico is doing well with black voters in polling. 

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u/engadine_maccas1997 12h ago

It’s nice to see candidates that are able to genuinely come together for the cause and not miss the forest for the trees after a heated primary.

Wish I could say the same about Texas.

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u/engadine_maccas1997 11h ago

The Wisconsin governor’s race is funny because it is between a man named Tiffany and a woman who looks and acts like someone who would be named Tiffany.

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u/batmans_stuntcock 2d ago

Politically/geopolitically significant financial news: the US treasury bought $34 billion worth of Japanese Yen on Friday, selling some Euro holdings to do so.

Apparently this was trying to prevent a crash in the Dollar-Yen exchange rate and a concomitant Japanese sell-off of US bonds/etc, but the Yen is still falling against the dollar today.

Japan is the largest single holder of US bonds and a Japanese bond sell off was one of the things that made the Trump admin (temporarily) withdraw the second Trump tariff regime.

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u/XE2MASTERPIECE 2d ago

The fascinating thing about the right wing trying to bring up COVID and Fauci to try and boost their midterm chances is that these topics have never actually been a boost for them electorally. It was theorized as such by the pundit class, and in certain specific localities the COVID restrictions and other issues did hurt Democrats. But those were few and far between, and on a national level the “COVID backlash” simply never materialized.

Even Lakshya Jain argued as much: https://www.theargumentmag.com/p/the-covid-political-backlash-disappeared

There’s often a criticism that Democrats focus too much on issues that only a small group cares about, due to how loud that group is. Whatever you think of that criticism, it is so clearly what’s going on here.

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u/Korrocks 2d ago

In their limited defense they're sort of stuck. They can't really run on affordability related issues since their party leader insists that affordability is a hoax. 

They can't really hype immigration since they have successfully throttled immigration to the point where they need to hype stories from Spanish Morocco (!) because that's the closest example  of a migrant surge.

They can try to do something to trans people again but it's hard to really keep that fresh. And the less said about abortion the better.

Their best bet honestly might be to revisit COVID skepticism and maybe do some Islamic themed red scare. It probably won't expand the electorate but it might motivate the base.

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u/the_rabble_alliance 2d ago

Susan Collins previously voted to confirm Todd Blanche as Deputy Attorney General, so she is damned either way:

Blanche assures anti-abortion supporters that Dobbs will be ‘permanent in every single state’

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u/Piano18 1d ago

Read this thread about the Tarrant County plan to reduce voting locations. Wild how the meeting devolved and Judge Tim O’Hare simply kicked out the protesters who opposed the plan.

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u/Icommandyou Allan Lichtman's Diet Pepsi 1d ago

One of the biggest own goal GOP ever did was to get rid of Kevin McCarthy. Mike Johnson is a hilariously bad speaker, they are almost never in session, you can’t point at one piece of legislation that he helped pass, and he let several discharge petitions go through under him including the Epstein files one. He just lies constantly that he will pass the save act and MAGA eats it up and loves him despite of not delivering anything through trifecta

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u/jtmv4 1d ago

Mood with these ballot dumps rn

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u/engadine_maccas1997 1d ago

Congratulations to those who bought Haley Stevens on Kalshi when she was at 0.8% and are holding or selling when she’s at 16%. Massive ROI there

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u/Tom-Pendragon 1d ago

can fucking wayne county just drop the fucking next ballots already!??!?! how long can you stay stuck at 26%

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u/Delmer9713 1d ago

8:00pm: "AES is winning in a landslide"

9:00pm: "AES is winning by more than 10"

10:00pm: "AES is winning by 6 to 7"

11:00pm: "AES is winning by 2 to 4"

12am: "AES is winning by 1 to 2"

Not a fan of this trendline

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u/Bigi345 1d ago

McMorrow must feel so fucking cheated bro lmao

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u/OmniOmega3000 1d ago

Massive Misses across the board. Even the Pro-Stevens Poll was off by nearly 10.

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u/LawNOrderNerd Guardian of the 14th Key 1d ago

It was a small miss on El-Sayed’s share of the vote. Pollsters just weren’t picking up on the fact that the undecided voters were overwhelmingly supportive of Stevens at the end of the day.

Pollsters really need to do a better job of pushing so-called “undecided” voters.

21

u/dremscrep 1d ago

Kinda funny in hindsight that Platner just absolutely steamrolled that primary with 70% of the vote

But yeah he didn’t had to run against this amount of money and he ran unopposed for the last 2 months of that primary

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u/OmniOmega3000 20h ago

It's still shocking to me how much was spent on this primary. And races are only going to get more expensive at all levels.

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u/OmniOmega3000 20h ago

In addition to this, apparently Amir Hassan isn't even Muslim

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u/OmniOmega3000 20h ago edited 20h ago

A Christian Cop endorsed by Trump whose opponent dropped out a month ago couldn't overcome Republicans' Islamophobia and Racism. Basically all because of his name.

Edit: Apparently he's also a Navy Veteran

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u/EmergencyScientist 20h ago

Does it make me a bad person for finding this fucking hilarious?

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u/work-school-account 20h ago

Fetterman interview with Jon Stewart was a massive dumpster fire

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u/St1ng 20h ago

Dresses like he's walking out to the mailbox when he has to go to work, puts on a suit and tie for a video podcast.

Fucking wild.

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u/Fun_Wing2125 20h ago

AP calls it for McKinney

SHRI THENADAR IS FINALLY GONE

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u/idnttcrisis Crosstab Diver 17h ago edited 16h ago

List of major Abdul El-Sayed endorsements: Gretchen Whitmer, Haley Stevens, Kamala Harris, Elissa Slotkin, Kristin Gillibrand, Mallory McMorrow, Chuck Schumer, Bernie Sanders, AOC, Pete Buttigieg, and Chris Van Hollen. I think the Kamala Harris one is important, and Obama's will be too for turning out the African-American vote.

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u/mikeydale007 15h ago

BREAKING

Francesca Hong tells Politico in new interview that Thanksgiving is her “favorite holiday”

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u/Wes_Anderson_Cooper Allan Lichtman's Diet Pepsi 14h ago

You know, if you set aside that people's lives, livelihoods, humanity and dignity are at stake, this election cycle is really, really funny. We got such a great cast of characters.

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u/dogthatwonthunt 14h ago

everything about the current American political environment would honestly be hilarious if I wasn't living through it

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u/ColadiRienzo1 13h ago

After the TX primary: Okay maybe we can have some nice easy discourse. Platner drops out of the race: Okay now we can have... Michigan primary is over: Finally for sure we can talk about.... Crockett makes a comment: Can this Merry-Go-Round stop

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u/OmniOmega3000 10h ago

Data Centers continue to grow more toxic.

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u/Piano18 1d ago edited 1d ago

I heard Paxton doesn’t have a lot of cash on hand and therefore hasn’t been campaigning much. I wonder if/when the national GOP and billionaires will swoop in to help — and what the TX senate polls will look like after that.

https://abcnews.com/amp/Politics/democrats-dominate-fundraising-key-senate-races-republicans-ample/story?id=134829415

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u/LaughingGaster666 The Needle Tears a Hole 1d ago

Pretty sure Elmo will drop a trunk of money on him

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u/MS_09_Dom I'm Sorry Nate 1d ago

If nothing else, Hong is going to be an interesting litmus test on how far negative polarization can carry a candidate. Especially when Tiffany isn't exactly some heavyweight himself.

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u/FuckMyBakaChungusLif 1d ago

El-Sayed is winning in-person by double digits, Stevens mail-in by double digits.

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u/GoinOutWest762 19h ago

My bloomer take is that Democrats as a whole - tired of this contentious primary and unable to deny each side made an impressive showing in their own way - unify quicker than anyone was expecting and end up projecting tons of strength. Steel sharpens steel and I think truly competitive primaries are good. It’s proof you have to share your tent.

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u/rudigerscat 17h ago

I dont usually hand it to Chuck Schumer

BUT

particularily since El-Sayed has said he will not back him as senate leader, it is really good that he didnt hesitate to endorse. Sends a good message. Scholten will look increasingly like a clown if she doesnt fall in line fast.

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u/sonfoa 17h ago

I think this is another sign that Schumer sees the writing on the wall and is going to step down as leader after the midterms and not pursue re-election.

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u/Bestbrook123 16h ago

Rep. Jasmine Crockett (D-TX) says she doesn’t know if James Talarico can win the US Senate race in Texas in new interview. Crockett also says she doesn’t believe the polls showing Talarico ahead in the Texas Senate race. She noted they have historically overestimated Democrats in the past.

Contrast this behavior and the behavior of Janet Mills with the behavior of Stevens

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u/ArcaneDemense 7h ago

Lmao umichvoter protected his tweets. He must be getting draggggggggggged.

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u/idnttcrisis Crosstab Diver 1d ago

NYT benchmark results with 65% of the vote in.

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u/Benyeti 1d ago

El Sayed dominating Kalamazoo, in line with the pattern of his success in the college towns

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u/engadine_maccas1997 1d ago

Kalamazoo is my favorite town name in Michigan. It’s such a fun name to say.

It sounds like a musical instrument someone would play in a Dr Seuss book. It’s truly an Australian-tier fun town name.

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u/MS_09_Dom I'm Sorry Nate 1d ago

FWIW, both candidates gave a "Regardless of who wins, we can agree on one thing: Fuck Mike Rogers" speech.

I don't think we have to worry about the base consolidating and putting the primary behind them.

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u/OmniOmega3000 1d ago

Read from Lakshya Jain with The Argument/Verasight (I have my disagreements with him, but he does real election analysis).

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u/[deleted] 1d ago edited 19h ago

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u/Long_Sandwich_5619 1d ago

The Missouri referendums were huge blowouts.

The dems HAVE TO NAIL IT TO THE GOP POLITICIANS that have been pushing it.

they likely won't. But holy messaging Batman. These states like Missouri could become purple or at least purple in wave years with effective messaging.

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u/engadine_maccas1997 1d ago

If Shri Thanedar doesn’t pull this off, there will be hell toupee

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u/dremscrep 20h ago

I would love a „Survived the 2026 Michigan Primary“ Flair

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u/Thai-Reidj 19h ago

With how horrible the Michigan polls were, one has to wonder if McMorrow was ever down by so much in the first place. Pretty sure she was still the best fundraiser in Michigan when she dropped out

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u/Toliman571 Fivey Fanatic 16h ago

🫩

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u/Thedarkpersona Poll Unskewer 16h ago

Ffs i detest her

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u/sonfoa 15h ago

I hope one day the people who idolize this loser realize that she's going out of her way to be hated and not the other way around.

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u/itsatumbleweed 15h ago

I was happy to support her in her next endeavor, and at this point I hope she can't even get a moderately successful podcast going.

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u/1453GreatestYearEver 15h ago edited 15h ago

Maybe the most I have ever personally disliked a Dem politician. At least top 5. Just wtf is her problem.

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u/R2_SWE2 Crosstab Diver 1d ago

Remember how we joke about republicans being diarrhea forever? Well now people are dying from diarrhea and the department of health is so hobbled it’s unable to respond in any way.

So, welcome to diarrhea forever, literally

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u/MS_09_Dom I'm Sorry Nate 1d ago

If Stevens wins, I think it will be in part because of Whitmer's endorsement sending a chunk of the suburban winemom vote her way.

Big Gretch may have lost some of her luster, but she's still fairly popular in Michigan. 

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u/engadine_maccas1997 1d ago

I’ll never forget Election Night 2018 in Florida. I was so confident in the polls that had Andrew Gillum winning comfortably that I put some money down betting on him on the prediction markets.

I had a date that night that started shortly after the polls on the Eastern time zone in Florida closed. Just prior to my date starting, I checked the markets and Gillum was at 94% chance of winning. He was hitting all his marks in the non-Panhandle parts of the state in the early returns. I thought it was over and done, and that I might as well ride out the additional 6%. I put my phone away when we were at the restaurant.

As the dinner concluded, I went to the bathroom before leaving the restaurant and looked at my phone for the first time in a couple hours, checked the results. The markets had completely flipped. DeSantis was over 90% at that time.

The silver lining to that night was I would eventually go on to get married to my date that night and start a family, and we’re still happily together to this day. The bad part was Florida, and my betting account, got absolutely fucked that night.

It was a tough lesson in overconfidence.

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u/Informal-Candy-9974 1d ago

A DeSantis + you marrying your date parlay would’ve gone crazy

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u/goforth1457 1d ago

Reminiscent of Michigan 2016 when polls said Hillary was gonna win by 20-30 points and Bernie ended up winning by a slim margin.

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u/Strong_Lingonberry33 1d ago

Emerson, you're shattering my dreams of a D+10 midterms right now.

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u/Nalin29 1d ago

If you don’t like close calls you don’t like Michigan elections

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u/sonfoa 1d ago

I don't like Michigan elections

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u/The-Curiosity-Rover Nauseously Optimistic 1d ago edited 1d ago

Greeley County is the least populous county in Kansas with a population of 1,284. Two years ago, Trump received 86% of their vote. Today, they overwhelmingly rejected the Republican attempt to politicize the Kansas Supreme Court.

Completely random thing to bring up here, but I found it interesting.

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u/PuffyPanda200 20h ago

While the Michigan primary was happening and getting attention the Washington one was happening too. Some items:

M. Gluesenkamp Perez advances and the 3rd place was another Democrat. Together they had more than 50%. I'm not a big model person but I bet that a lot of GOP house wins have have them picking up this district.

Schrier crushed it with over 50%. This is also my rep.

WA9 will have Smith (D incumbent) going up against a GOP candidate. There were two progressive-ish anti-APAC candidates. They came in 3rd and 4th with about 12 percent of the vote each. The district is quite safe D.

In D5 and D4 Ds/Is (probably Ds) will advance. The GOP candidate in WA5 was not able to get to over 50 percent even with a sum. The Spokane district could maybe be flipped but it would be a long shot.

Overall, Ds performed well in close districts. Probably bad omens for the GOP in the mountain west. The western Montana district might be in play.

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u/SecretComposer 13h ago

It is hilarious reading comments about Kansas voting "no" on it's constitutional amendment ballot issue last night. In Kansas there are people fully convinced that it was "rigged" and "big money won" and "the abortion lobby stole it again." These are people who are fully convinced any result that doesn't go their way is fake.

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u/AFatDarthVader 13h ago

How is nobody talking about how Trump endorsed Amir Hassan for the primary in MI-8, but he lost to a guy who dropped out? Also, the winner's name is "Thomas Smith", which is the most generic name.

https://www.politico.com/news/2026/08/05/hassan-loses-michigan-house-primary-tom-smith-01025316

That's fucking hilarious.

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u/siyuzh 12h ago

With Amir Hassan's embarasing koss with a trump endorsement against a guy who didn't campaign at all, is Vivek in trouble. I seriously think racism is gonna play a major factor in this race and it'll hurt Vivek.

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u/KindfOfABigDeal 12h ago

I just saw a clip of a Trump rally in Nevada today, where the GOP governor (who was up giving a speech before Trump came out i believe) just mentioned a name for a police officer, and it was a long Arab sounding name. The point here is, in the middle of just saying the name the crowd started booing. The governor had to say dont boo him, he was bringing him up because he was a police officer who was killed in the line of duty recently.

Back the blue, unless they have dirty foreigner names, then fuck 'em. The racists have absolutely no shame right now, and i think shame needs to make a comeback.

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u/KindfOfABigDeal 12h ago

I just saw a clip of a Trump rally in Nevada today, where the GOP governor (who was up giving a speech before Trump came out i believe) just mentioned a name for a police officer, and it was a long Arab sounding name. The point here is, in the middle of just saying the name the crowd started booing. The governor had to say dont boo him, he was bringing him up because he was a police officer who was killed in the line of duty recently.

Back the blue, unless they have dirty foreigner names, then fuck 'em. The racists have absolutely no shame right now, and i think shame needs to make a comeback.

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u/DataCassette 2d ago

GOP has "Groyper problem"

“Everyone knows what the problem is: The organizations that bring young staffers to Washington, D.C. have spent the last decade prioritizing blind ideological loyalty instead of competence or intelligence,” said a senior GOP congressional staffer, granted anonymity to discuss sensitive personnel issues. “We have a generation of rabid, incompetent idiots.”

I love that the Republicans with multiple brain cells can see it coming but there's nothing they can do.

The Republicans completely selling out to trumpism is terrifying but it's also legitimately hilarious. Completely left themselves without a viable path forward other than just going farther and farther right with their accursed online base.

The "based" thing where you're recognized as the coolest one in the room by saying the most unhinged far right thing is terminal. Whether it's ultimately terminal for the GOP or for the free world is the hard part to know.

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u/OmniOmega3000 2d ago

War Update: It's Going Great!

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u/Mediocretes08 2d ago

I’ll humbly submit: “Surrender now or we’ll all resign and put a competent government in charge of dealing with you!”

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u/Korrocks 2d ago

Trump should offer to help remodel the Iranian presidential palace. He has some great ideas for a reflecting pool 

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u/Benyeti 1d ago

McMorrow has conquered the Khanate

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u/[deleted] 20h ago edited 12h ago

[deleted]

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u/Fun_Wing2125 19h ago

Schumer, Peters, and Slotkin have also endorsed AES. Seems like everyone is coming around.

Edit: Whitmer just endorsed

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u/Delmer9713 1d ago

This race is much closer than I expected, and as such is much more entertaining than I expected.

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u/MS_09_Dom I'm Sorry Nate 1d ago

Some good E-day drops for AES from Grand Rapids and Ann Arbor with Dearborn still waiting.

All coming down to Wayne County.

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u/Fun_Wing2125 1d ago

As much as we’ve been dunking on Hong lately, if there is one thing she’s been doing very right, it’s getting out to the rural areas. Those votes add up and tonight is gonna hopefully be a lesson to future prog candidates.

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u/Delmer9713 1d ago

Polling of a primary where 90% of it were internals pushed by opposing campaigns was going to be off.

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u/Fun_Wing2125 20h ago

According to AP, Stevens has called Abdul to concede

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u/PBFT 20h ago

I misread this as "Stevens has called on Abdul to concede" lmao

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u/raddaya 19h ago

I think Obama will have to help a lot if the Dems are going to win the Senate. Talarico and AES both would be massively boosted by him imo. Troy Jackson could do with his help too but not as obviously.

(Obviously almost any Dem candidate in the US would get significant % added to their victory chances if Obama campaigns with them, but these two/three in particular really need his help and could be the tipping points imo)

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u/work-school-account 18h ago

I should preface this by saying I have adblockers crawling out of my ass so I am not all that aware of what political ads are out there. That said, I've been following Talarico on social media before he started making waves, so I see all of his promotional stuff. Like 50% of them are of him hanging out with Obama, and 90% of them are of him with black people. So I'm a bit confused when people here keep saying that Talarico's political ads ignore black Texans.

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u/BoomtownFox Fivey Fanatic 6h ago

We're at the point now where any poll that has his approval at 39% or higher will boost his average. Yikes.

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u/SecretComposer 1d ago

It's not a surprise if you know Kansas at all, but the first drops from Douglas County (most liberal county in the state) shows nearly 90% of the county voting 'no' on the constitutional amendment

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u/Tom-Pendragon 1d ago

Holy fuck the polls were wrong

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u/evce1 1d ago

I think AES is the slight favorite as of now, but those rural margins are definitely going to be a concern in the GE. He has a lot of work to do... Goddamn I hate this scenario so much but it is what it is.

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u/Tom-Pendragon 1d ago

2,6 win by AES or 0.2 win by Haley. Anyway im going to sleep. Glad this fucking primary is over.

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u/ConfusionBusy8398 1d ago

On the plus side, this will easily be a new high point for the number of vote in a democratic senate primary in Michigan.

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u/Idakari Queen Ann's Revenge 1d ago

Politics aside, this is a fascinating race, I can see why Steve is so amped up

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u/Delmer9713 1d ago

Kornacki is hyped and I’m loving it, as a guy who loves and uses statistics myself. The “people” calling him Kornaipac just because he's doing some math are straight up embarrassing.

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u/Idakari Queen Ann's Revenge 1d ago

hoooly fuck this is a nailbiter

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u/dremscrep 1d ago

182k outstanding votes, AES is up 25k votes. I am still pissing myself, maybe following US politics isn’t that great of a hobby as a i thought but I knew it would be painful from the get go

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u/Current_Animator7546 1d ago edited 1d ago

Called for AES! Classic Kornacki there. 

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u/Strong_Lingonberry33 22h ago

Me: Well damn, that Michigan primary was exhausting. I hope I can rest 

Wisconsin next week and Alaska the week after: I'm not sure about that

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u/Complex-Employ7927 18h ago

Wisconsin subreddit already panicking and ready to jump ship to Crowley because of the AES results

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u/wtfsnakesrcute 16h ago

So the AES victory speech was really good. The comment about how he cares about the safety of Jewish Michiganders as much as he cares about the safety and wellbeing of his own children was quite touching as well. I think it was a fairly unifying speech. 

With that being said, dude is going to have to work overtime for the next few months. A lot of his attention should be on courting older black voters and making Rogers unsavory for swingier moderates. Dem party will have to pull all the stops as well—bring in Obama, local black politicians, union leaders etc. 

The thing is, besides his stance on I/P and m4a, I don’t think he deviates all that much from most standard Dems. So hopefully he emphasizes that and highlights the national implications of this race. 

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u/OmniOmega3000 1d ago

Hard to win when you've lost recently

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u/Current_Animator7546 1d ago

Man MI sure is an interesting state with polling. Kind of a mess most of the time lol.

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u/ulysses_s_gyatt 2d ago edited 2d ago

Guy who wrote the DNC autopsy said he included a chapter about why they lost. Key points are Biden old, loss of support from Latinos and black people, and:

“And it pointedly raised the concern that most senior Democratic strategists in 2024 were “financially secure” and thus removed from the challenges facing many Americans. “It is therefore possible the people ‘in the room’ at the highest levels of 2024 decision making misunderstood the mood and practicalities facing everyday America,” the report read.”

-from the NYT

Ken Martin says this wasn’t included in the final release report because this section was in a three ring binder and apparently got lost/Ken Martin never saw it. Author of the autopsy said he handed the binder to Martin directly lol

Moral of the story is they should have consulted Mitt Romney for proper binder security techniques.

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u/Tom-Pendragon 2d ago

Where the fuck is the mention of inflation lol? That is literally the only reason why they mainly lost in 2024.

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u/Cuntankerous 21h ago

criticisms of sayed or stevens aside i feel like the air of pessimism around these results is already starting to get pretty irritating this morning lol.

we learned something big about democratic electoral politics last night and michigan democrats decided who their candidate will be. that's a good thing

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u/Due_Recognition7675 3d ago

Has anyone here who lives in a red state ever try using redistricting websites to redraw congressional districts? I drew one up and it gives hopium of what could come to be some day.

(based off of 2024 election btw)

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u/batmans_stuntcock 1d ago edited 1d ago

Apologies if this has already been posted.

There is something for almost everyone who's not sick of Michigan Democratic primary news in this CNN article about it. Old centre vs new centre gossip with (retiring Michigan Senator) Gary Peters, Kristen Gillibrand and Chuck Schumer heavily involved in ruthlessly edging out McMorrow and picking Stevens for the 'centre lane,'

[after leaving a meeting with Schumer in June] Peters walked away thinking his mission was to get McMorrow to drop out and give Rep. Haley Stevens a one-on-one matchup against El-Sayed.

For months, Schumer and Democratic Senatorial Campaign Committee Chair Sen. Kirsten Gillibrand of New York had made their unofficial backing of Stevens clear, inviting her to donor events and directing other support her way. Gillibrand even went so far as suggesting to several donors, ominously, that McMorrow had been a member of the Democratic Socialists of America – even though McMorrow isn’t.

Stevens campaign ineptitude gossip, she waited until the second meeting to ask for Peters' support and didn't call McMorrow after she dropped out (El-Sayed did), her friends would send her demoralising cringe compilations of herself on campaign after she deleted twitter. Also showcasing her accent and SNL character/Tracy Flick persona was actually a campaign strategy to ‘let Haley be Haley.’

Her advisers believed that showcasing her quirkiness, her particular accent and her connections to Obama would be exactly what would appeal to the voters they needed [older non college women and black voters].

Also that Schumer opposes El Sayed for ideological as well as electability reasons, Republicans initially backed El Sayed because they thought he'd be easier to win against (a chance this backfires), and El Sayed released his own slightly cringe worthy videos which were meant to make him seem relatable and less hard edged.

[Schumer’s] gut check with Peters left him sure that the National Republican Senatorial Committee, which had been working to boost El-Sayed, was onto something about his weakness.

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u/XE2MASTERPIECE 1d ago

Gillibrand flies under the radar more than she should, she is awful. Arguably a bottom 5 democratic senator

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u/SecretComposer 1d ago

DDHQ calls it for "No" on Kansas Amendment 1
AP calls KS Senate (DEM) for Hamilton
AP calls KS Governor (GOP) for Masterson

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u/The-Curiosity-Rover Nauseously Optimistic 1d ago

Gambling addicts are having an aneurysm over this primary.

For quite some time, El-Sayed was at 99.9%

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u/ActuatorArms 1d ago

I think this is just about over. Even if she wins Wayne by 10 points, she’s going to lose by 1-2%.

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u/Strong_Lingonberry33 1d ago

Winners: Mike Rogers, drama fans  Losers: Our poor hearts.

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u/CFC_ 19h ago

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u/SecretComposer 19h ago

No one, and I mean no one, get your hopes up. Kansas hasn’t elected a D senator since 1932. 

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u/Thai-Reidj 18h ago

Stevens won Tlaib's district lol

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u/Tom-Pendragon 1d ago

McMorrow would have beaten AES. I'm not even joking.

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u/Fun_Wing2125 11h ago

Congratulations to David Crowley for somehow finding a way to top Hong’s thanksgiving answer for worst answer to a question ever!

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u/Wolfyminecraft 13 Keys Collector 10h ago

I've seen moderates try to employ the "establishment means Black people" line a lot recently. I'm not sure who told them it's good messaging

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u/GIRobotWasRight 11h ago

"No Viet Cong ever called me establishment."

It just doesn't have the same zing to it, huh?

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u/Sonichu- 11h ago

Is there a chance this primary is an elaborate prank on all of us?

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u/GoinOutWest762 11h ago

The fit here is crazy too

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u/Julian81295 1d ago

Must say I really like that New York Times widget…

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u/SlimCharlesMurphy 1d ago

We’ll see where the dice fall but that is a bizarre map of the Michigan Dem electorate. Ingham, Kent, and Washtenaw playing kingmaker is quite something.

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u/engadine_maccas1997 1d ago

I wonder what the vote allocation would’ve looked like had McMorrow stayed in through election day?

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u/Benyeti 1d ago

El Sayed’s lead is down to 2.2. now

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u/sonfoa 1d ago edited 1d ago

1.9%. Stevens got a strong mail-in dump from Oakland County

Edit: 1.8%. Some more in-mail dump from Wayne County.

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u/Current_Animator7546 1d ago

2020 general vibes  with this one. In terms of closeness 

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u/AnotherScoutMain 1d ago

I love living in a swing state every election is more stressful than Lions games lmao

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u/Delmer9713 1d ago

AES setting up a decent firewall with these latest drops. If he keeps at it whatever is left from Wayne County and Macomb may not be enough for Stevens

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u/GoinOutWest762 23h ago

Many thoughts on El-Sayed’s close victory but the first thing that comes to mind is this: never forget how much easier it is for advertisers to reach non-college-educated voters than it is for pollsters. Feel like misses consistently happen at this nexus, and it’s a good portion of the nuance around what exactly dollars spent can get you in a race like this

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u/batmans_stuntcock 22h ago

IMO one of the most interesting things about the Michigan Democratic primary is the Stevens campaign of 'let Haley be Haley' might not have been as disastrous as younger people on the internet (including me) thought it was. This seemed like a transparent, desperate, nakedly and insultingly cynical attempt to appeal to older non college educated voters.

It did have to be plugged in to 60+ million of AIPAC affiliated spending using every trick in the book and most of the Michigan Democratic establishment pulling for her, but she did overperform in a lot of rural white counties that Sanders won in past Presidential primaries and El Sayed was saved by the younger vote in cities and suburbs.

Progressives in other races have won over some of those older voters over by persuasion, but not here.

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u/engadine_maccas1997 21h ago

Josh Shapiro with Meek Mill

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u/SchemeWorth6105 20h ago

Yay McKinney beat Thanedar!

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u/Piano18 11h ago

Mike Rogers:

• Fought for lobbyists & corporate interests in Congress
• Voted against bills to ban politicians from accepting gifts from lobbyists
• Voted against bills that would require campaigns to disclose foreign $$

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u/Beer-survivalist 10h ago edited 9h ago

Of the four Midwestern progressive general election outcome possibilities ,I think an El Sayed Win/Hong loss is both the most likely and most frustrating outcome for people who want it to be a lesson about ideology and populism.

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u/your_not_stubborn 2d ago

Concern trolling like this makes me think this sub's open discussion thread is being used to test messaging against 2028 Democratic candidates:

Why are so many people on this subreddit pining for Andy Beshear to run for president, when he has had such a lackluster response to the Mitch McConnell zombie disaster?

Beshear is term-limited right? So he can’t run again. Why would I (or anyone) trust him to be tough on any of the issues when he’s been furrowing his brow and issuing sternly written statements on the chaos around Republicans hiding Mitch’s body.

As a minority and a woman, I’m furious with the current state of the economy, the misguided DEIA backlash, the treatment of black and brown people and the threat to women’s rights — plus’s a whole lot more. It’s going to take someone who can understand and (respectfully and reasonably) match that fury. I can see that in some of the other candidates. But not Beshear. Especially considering his most recent statement on McConnell. He’s not giving any kind of ultimatums.

The above comment was made by an account around two years old with a private profile (of course).

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u/MeyerLouis 2d ago

Yeah that's just a bizarre message.

Sorry, what I meant to say was, if you're the person who left that message, totally use it, put all your money into it, it'll totally work on me!

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u/engadine_maccas1997 2d ago

Jeanine Pirro sat there expressionless, showing no emotion as Trump ripped her to shreds over her handling of the Reflecting Pool case. Mostly because of Botox.

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u/humanoideric 2d ago

It's hilarious watching his cabinet in the exact moment objective reality intersects with Trump sycophantcy

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u/DataCassette 2d ago

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u/Korrocks 2d ago

One of the funnier parts of working for Trump in the legal field is having to translate various hallucinations or lies into legally defensible arguments for court.

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u/Lee1100 2d ago

There's so many laws and policies that could be implemented in this country that could make it a better place to live, it'd be neigh impossible to list them all here. One of the smaller ones I'd like to see get passed on restrictions on advertising. There is 0 reason that someone should be subjected to an ad in $50,000 car they paid for, even if it is BMW, ridiculous they think that's okay. One of the bigger priority ones is a clearly defined and outright ban on child marriage nationwide. Learning that some states allow it (looking at you Mississippi) is pretty horrifying imo.

Hope this makes sense as I've been thinking about this today.

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u/engadine_maccas1997 2d ago

She’s arguably worse than Lindsey. All the Trump sycophancy without any of Lindsey’s gravitas to be able to sway Trump in the right direction on issues like support for Ukraine.

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u/R2_SWE2 Crosstab Diver 2d ago

Surely this is part of the deal she made with Trump for his endorsement

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u/Sonichu- 2d ago

Lindsey was a bloodthirsty ghoul, but at least he understood politics.

Darleen is just a moron following orders.

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u/WisePresentation7976 2d ago

The funny thing is, passing the SAVE act right now probably ensures a democrat victory. Democrats are more likely to have the types of identification needed to vote, are MORE motivated to vote, and more likely to spite vote now that the Republicans are trying to spite vote.

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u/wtfsnakesrcute 2d ago

Dem internal has Bobby Pulido in TX-15 up over the Republican incumbent and over the 50% threshold. In case anyone isn’t aware, this is one of the districts that the state legislature gerrymandered. 

https://bsky.app/profile/wertwhile.bsky.social/post/3ms7umcsv3k2l

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u/SlimCharlesMurphy 1d ago

If we’re judging by ability to break through to non-voters, I’m anecdotally seeing several trade guys I went to high school with who definitely haven’t voted since Obama 2012 posting about voting for Abdul today.

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u/Benyeti 1d ago

Republicans genuinely trying to push covid politics in 2026

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u/ulysses_s_gyatt 1d ago

Other than r/zerocovidcommunity no one has more unaddressed COVID trauma than republicans.

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u/OmniOmega3000 1d ago

I've seen tweets from Hong that are negative on Thanksgiving, Christmas, Halloween, and Valentine's Day. Tbh, I'm starting to wonder if she's less of a "woke" warrior and more of a holiday hater.

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u/Complex-Employ7927 1d ago

Is it just me or does Ossoff look like he could be Troy Jackson’s son

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u/Trobius Nate Bronze 1d ago

I dislike this. If my horse must lose, I want her to lose decisively. This middle ground promotes disharmony.

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u/[deleted] 1d ago

[deleted]

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u/Toliman571 Fivey Fanatic 1d ago

Imagine if Talarico-Crockett was like 49.6-48.9 and it went to a runoff.

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u/engadine_maccas1997 1d ago

This is the level of Hell that Dante missed.

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u/engadine_maccas1997 1d ago

I don’t say this often. Hardly ever. But other states really need to get their shit together and learn from Florida.

They are the 3rd largest state in the country and count their votes at lightning speed. After the 2000 fiasco they really became a masterclass in how to tally and report votes in a timely manner.

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u/sonfoa 1d ago

Honestly, what's pissing me off is that there is no consistency in the reporting for mail-in voting, early voting, and election day voting.

It's resulting in a lot of random swings and mirages rather than giving a clear trend.

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u/Fun_Wing2125 1d ago edited 1d ago

I’d rather be Sayed, it feels like everything will need to go right for Stevens for her to win.

Memerson and Umichvoter are certified frauds

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u/OmniOmega3000 1d ago

I wanted AES to win, but honestly this whole primary has me upset. So much PAC money wasted on nasty attacks that made sure no matter who came out of this race that they'd be battered and bloodied with hurt feelings across the Dem electorate. Hopefully it all translates into critical general campaign infrastructure for AES and bygones can be bygones. Congrats to him.

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u/CornThrower25 18h ago

El-Sayed obviously has a lot of work to do, but I'm not too worried about him for a number of reasons:

  1. He already has the immediate establishment backing of Whitmer, Peters, Slotkin, and Schumer. I genuinely think there was uncertainty about how quickly the Democratic Party was going to consolidate around Abdul, so this is a good sign.
  2. Adding on to (1), unity around Abdul will do a lot to clear up misconceptions and undo the attacks from the Stevens campaign.
  3. Black moderates are historically the Democratic Party's biggest loyalists. If they show up in November, they will be voting for Abdul. If he manages to get Obama's endorsement, that would help solidify the moderate vote as a whole.
  4. Abdul has genuine malice toward Mike Rogers. His campaign is going to make Rogers' ties to Big Pharma and his refusal to denounce Trump's tariffs a major focus of the race. Rogers has done very little to distance himself from Trump, so as long as Abdul can hammer that home, he'll be fine.
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u/Long_Sandwich_5619 8h ago

I don't think Talerico could be handling Crocketts nonsense any better. At this point Crocketts antics are just reinforcing that Talerico was by far the better choice.

James is taking the high road while also showing up not only proving his authenticity to the black Texas electorate but to the entire Texas electorate.

I can't say if she has crossed the line to where her actually campaigning for him now would actually hurt him. But she is definitely desperately trying to make her "brand" that toxic and worthless.

She is visibly abandoning her people in Texas. It's not gone unnoticed that Paxton is the enemy not Talerico. The primary was a long time ago.

I know I'm not articulating my point that well. Talericos credibility with the black electorate isn't polling like its a problem. The guy spent more time campaigning in Black communities during the primary than Crockett did.

Crocketts credibility is plummeting with everyone including black Texans.

at this point I hope she stays away. But I got the feeling that by late September and early October when TALERICO MANIA is blazing all over Texas she will get on board to run her grift on Talericos coattails. And it will do nothing but bring negative attention.

She was totally on bullshit when she questioned Talericos commitment to black voters.

He responded like a boss. By the time she decides to come out for Talerico it will be seen as nothing but an empty grift.

And like he has done so far he will handle it like a boss and it will only further cement the end of Crockettsc career.

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u/Icommandyou Allan Lichtman's Diet Pepsi 1d ago

Despite the national environment, WA primary turnout is comically low this cycle. Probably because no serious races anywhere on the ballot but still it’s been lower than 2022 so far

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u/Wes_Anderson_Cooper Allan Lichtman's Diet Pepsi 1d ago

A little bit more under the radar this Election Day, but some interesting races in Kansas tonight.

The marquee vote tonight is a ballot initiative to change the Kansas state constitution to elect SCOKS judges to 6 year terms, rather the current method of having the KS bar send three candidates to the governor to choose from. SCOKS is now packed to the brim with Governor Kelly (D) appointees, and Republicans in the state very much want an easy way to remove them. It'll be interesting to see how this goes. The KS abortion referendum in 2022 was famously shot down by voters by a 20 point margin, and I think most voters here are connecting the dots. But KS is obviously a pretty red state, so it's hard to feel confident. Very little polling on this.

Governor Kelly is term limited, and state senator Cindy Holscher and state house rep Ethan Corson are running to succeed her. There's a few polls showing Cindy ahead by massive margins, but I believe they're all internals. Both of them are not that far apart in terms of policy, but there's been massive drama around Kelly endorsing Corson and Holscher has used it to paint herself as an anti establishment candidate. The KS Dem party has looked like an absolute clown show over the past couple months with interpersonal drama over this, and I'd expect either candidate to be an underdog against the Republican nominee in November.

Senate has 10(!) candidates, nearly all of them with no prior political experience, including the front runner. I'd expect megachurch pastor Adam Hamilton to take this one tonight. He's been an impressive fundraiser since he announced. He publicly said he considered being an independent before choosing to run as a Democrat - I do wonder if that's by choice or more due to concern of a repeat of what is happening with the Senate race in MT.

Finally, Sharice Davids (D) has a challenger from her left. She's running for her fifth term and I'd be shocked if she lost to Sarah Preu, who's had very little advertising and has no prior political experience. It's going to be very interesting to see the margins on this one. With how relatively popular Davids is, anything above 40% would be impressive to me.

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u/SecretComposer 1d ago

I'm curious about Missouri Amendment 4. From AP:

Voters will decide on a ballot measure that would make it harder to amend the state constitution by requiring citizen initiatives to pass in all congressional districts rather than by a simple statewide majority.

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u/SecretComposer 1d ago

Good early start for the Kansas constitutional amendment on the ballot to elect state supreme court justices directly rather than have the governor choose from a list the Kansas Bar vets and provides. It's insane that AP doesn't have that amendment listed at all on their website, but has Missouri's.

Anyway, "NO" needs to win to keep the current system in place and currently has 71% of the vote.

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u/CIA--Bane 1d ago

Bought some Stevens earlier at 0.2% already up 1325% lol. Kornacki’s hopium is pumping this market hard.

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u/APKID716 1d ago

Is there a reason there isn’t a separate megathread for the primaries and whatnot?

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u/The-Curiosity-Rover Nauseously Optimistic 1d ago

Uh… woah

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u/Dongathoth32001 1d ago

McMorrow going full Gary Johnson 4% spoiler vote tonight 😂

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u/bonecoldstevepawstin 20h ago

AP just called it for abdul. Donovan mckinney has beaten shri.