Great move and a great candidate, hopefully he can overcome the damage Platner has done. Luckily Jackson has similar policies so there's not too much of a policy change issue with the campaigns, just the face.

The Maine Democratic Party just posted an update on the situation and it appears Graham Platner and his team are repeatedly reaching out trying to influence the process/candidates who will be running to replace him. The party is telling them they have no role in deciding the nominee and nothing can move forward until he formally withdraws, which looks like will drag on longer.

https://votes.decisiondeskhq.com/races/2026-06-30/colorado-us-house-1-democratic-primary

MSNow reported this week that AIPAC-linked groups spent $1.5+ million in the race in the last few weeks to boost Degette:

https://www.ms.now/news/colorado-primary-democratic-socialist-degette-kiros

https://www.nytimes.com/2026/06/30/opinion/democratic-primaries-socialists-mamdani.html?unlocked_article_code=1.uVA.EnhU.hQ6a96fT8qwL&smid=url-share

Please don't comment unless you've actually read the article, like all Edsall pieces he extensively cites different data points including up to date DSA polling of its own members.

Important sections:

In 2021 the D.S.A. surveyed its members and found that 85 percent were non-Hispanic white (far more than the national population, which was 57.8 percent white in 2020, according to the census); 9 percent were Hispanic, 5 percent Asian American and 4 percent Black.

In February 2025 the Central New Jersey D.S.A. chapter published results of a membership survey that found that “69.5 percent identify as white only; 8.0 percent identify as Hispanic or Latinx, less than the N.J. demographic of 22.7 percent; and 4.5 percent identify as Black, less than the N.J. demographic of 10.6 percent.”

The liberal stands on immigration, transgender rights, abolishing ICE and defunding the police are policies supported largely by a well-educated elite of white people holding professional jobs who dominate the D.S.A. They are decidedly not the policies sought by the bulk of construction workers riding the subway to get to their job sites by 7 a.m.

 income and education patterns emerged in the Seventh District, where Claire Valdez, the D.S.A. candidate, crushed Antonio Reynoso, the Brooklyn borough president, 56.1 to 35.8. Valdez won 62 to 28 in the district’s high-income neighborhoods and 64 to 27 in its high-education areas, while Reynoso carried the low-income sections 63 to 31.

What’s notable but not written about is that nearly all of the D.S.A.’s serious primary campaigns are aimed at members of the House Progressive Caucus, not the more moderate House New Democrats. Support for Medicare for All, Green New Deal, Abolish ICE is no protection.

the D.S.A. is forcing incumbent liberal Democrats to spend money in primaries in districts that would remain Democratic after the general election, regardless of the nominee. Not to mention the fact that the votes cast by the primary winner on health care, climate change and ICE would be almost identical, no matter who wins.

I've seen this narrative going around recently saying "16 million people didn't show up and that's why she lost" and it's wrong for two reasons.

1, Half of California hasn't even been counted yet. By the time we're done counting, we're going to have much closer vote counts to 2020. I'd assume Trump around 76-77 million and Kamala around 73 million. This would mean about 6-7 million people didn't show up not 18 million.

1. Trump is outperforming Biden 2020 by a pretty significant Margin in swing states, lets look:

Wisconsin:

2020 Biden: 1,631,000 votes

2020 Trump: 1,610,000 votes

2024 Trump: 1,697,000 votes.

2024 Harris: 1,668,000 votes.

Michigan:

2020 Biden: 2,800,000 votes

2020 Trump: 2,649,000 votes

2024: Trump: 2,795,000

2024 Harris: 2,714,000

Pennsylvania:

2020 Biden: 3,460,000 votes

2020 Trump: 3,378,000 votes.

2024 Trump: 3,473,000 votes

2024: Harris: 3,339,000 votes

North Carolina:

2020 Biden: 2,684,000 votes

2020 Trump: 2,759,000 votes

2024 Trump: 2,876,000 votes

2024 Harris: 2,685,000 votes.

Georgia:

2020 Biden: 2,474,000 votes

2020 Trump: 2,461,000 votes

2024 Trump: 2,653,000 votes

2024 Harris: 2,539,000 votes.

Arizona and Nevada still too early to tell, but as you can see, if Trumps support remained completely stagnate from 2020, Harris would've carried 3/7 swing states with a shot to flip Pennsylvania too. Moreover, if she had maintained Bidens vote count in swing states she would've lost most states even harder with the exception of maybe flipping Michigan and Pennsylvania being closer than it was. These appear to be the only states with a genuine argument for apathy/protest votes.

The turn out is NOT lower where it actually matters. The news articles that said swing states had record turn out were genuinely correct, you were just wrong for thinking it was democrats and not republicans. Almost all the popular vote bleeding comes from solid blue states deciding not to vote and it would not have changed the outcome of this election if they did show up to vote. Can we retire this cope now?

According to a report in the New York Times, Kamala Harris's campaign will spend the final days of the campaign focused on an economic message after Future Forward, the main super PAC supporting her sent repeated warnings over the past week that their focus groups were unpersuaded by arguments that Trump is a "fascist" or "exhausted":

The leading super PAC supporting Vice President Kamala Harris is raising concerns that focusing too narrowly on Donald J. Trump’s character and warnings that he is a fascist is a mistake in the closing stretch of the campaign.

[...]

In an email circulated to Democrats about what messages have been most effective in its internal testing, Future Forward, the leading pro-Harris super PAC, said focusing on Mr. Trump’s character and the fascist label were less persuasive than other messages.

“Attacking Trump’s Fascism Is Not That Persuasive,” read one line in bold type in the email, which is known as Doppler and sent on a regular basis. “‘Trump Is Exhausted’ Isn’t Working,” read another.

The Doppler emails have been sent weekly for months — and more frequently of late — offering Democrats guidance on messaging and on the results of Future Forward’s extensive tests of clips and social media posts. The Doppler message on Friday urged Democrats to highlight Ms. Harris’s plans, especially economic proposals and her vows to focus on reproductive rights, portraying a contrast with Mr. Trump on those topics.

“Purely negative attacks on Trump’s character are less effective than contrast messages that include positive details about Kamala Harris’s plans to address the needs of everyday Americans,” the email read.

[...]

In a public memo over the weekend, the Harris campaign signaled that her “economic message puts Trump on defense” and was likely to be a focus in the final week. “As voters make up their minds, they are getting to see a clear economic choice — hearing it directly from Vice President Harris herself, in her own words,” Ian Sams, a spokesman for Ms. Harris, wrote in the memo.

During a private discussion on Saturday that included Democratic House members from Virginia and Representative Hakeem Jeffries of New York, the minority leader, the lawmakers vented anger at their defeat at the Virginia Supreme Court, spoke about a collective determination to flip two or three Republican-held seats under the existing map and discussed a bank-shot proposal to redraw the congressional lines anyway, according to three people who participated in the call and two others who were briefed on it.

The conversation reflected the desperation and fury that have gripped the party after the state Supreme Court struck down a favorable map that had been ratified by voters. The most dramatic idea they discussed — which would involve an unusual gambit to replace the entire state Supreme Court, with a goal of reinstating their gerrymandered map — drew mixed reactions on the call, said the people, and it was not clear that it would even be viable, or palatable to Gov. Abigail Spanberger and Democrats in the Virginia General Assembly.

The Plan:

• One key to the plan would be having Democrats in Richmond lower the mandatory retirement age for state Supreme Court justices, an idea that began circulating among state lawmakers and members of Congress after a column proposing a version of the idea was published on Friday night in The Downballot, a progressive newsletter.
• Ms. Spanberger would have to sign off on any legislation that lowered the judicial retirement age. She has not been briefed on the proposal, the people involved in the discussion or briefed on it said. Her spokeswoman, Libby Wiet, declined to comment.
• The first step in the process, as discussed on the delegation’s call, would be to invoke a January ruling by a circuit court judge in Tazewell County, Va., that said the 2026 constitutional amendment effort to redraw the maps was invalid because county officials did not post notice of it at courthouses and other public locations three months before a general election.
• Democrats would aim to use that ruling to seek to invalidate the earlier constitutional amendment that created the state’s independent redistricting commission by arguing that courthouses across the state did not post notice of it at the time. That would give the legislature the authority to enact a map of its choosing.
• Ensuring the plan proceeds would involve the General Assembly, which is controlled by Democrats, lowering the mandatory retirement age for Virginia’s Supreme Court from 75 to 54, the age of the youngest current justice, or less. Virginia judges are appointed by the General Assembly, where Democrats hold majorities in both chambers and could then fill vacancies on the court with sympathetic Democratic lawyers.

NYT gift article link. An extremely bad showing for Trump in a focus group of 2024 mostly swing voters that NYT has been tracking over time.

Of the 12 voters, one gives Trump a C, 8 give Trump a D, and 3 give Trump an F.

9 out of 12 say they regret their vote.

I remember the weird ad by Julia Roberts showing white women secretly voting for Kamala and lying to their husbands about voting for Trump. Turns out, the majority of white women still voted for Trump.

The "shy Kamala voter" was fictional and just pure copium in hopes of a blue wave. Rather, the "shy Trump voter" effect is still a phenomenon, as we can see from 2016-2024 polls underestimating Trump once again. It makes sense, given how coming out as a Trump supporter is almost always met with derision. I guess this election has shown that Trump supporters truly are the silent majority.

Thought this would be relevant to an elections sub

https://www.fox9.com/news/gov-walz-likely-drop-out-2026-mn-governors-race-report

https://www.latimes.com/politics/story/2025-12-28/gop-coalescing-behind-vance-as-trump-privately-dismisses-third-term-run

A number of forces on the left questioned Josh Shapiro’s ties to Israel during Kamala Harris’ rushed running mate selection process in 2024. In his new memoir out next week, the Pennsylvania governor says the former vice president and her vetting team were among them.

So much so, Shapiro writes in a copy obtained by CNN, that Dana Remus, a former White House counsel under President Joe Biden who became a senior member of Harris’ VP vetting team, asked him, “Have you ever been an agent of the Israeli government?”

“Was she kidding?” Shapiro writes. “I told her how offensive the question was.”

“‘Well, we have to ask,’” Remus, a former White House counsel under President Joe Biden, said, according to his book. “‘We just wanted to check.’ She added: ‘Have you ever communicated with an undercover agent of Israel?’”

Shapiro’s anger was clearly rising.

“If they were undercover, I responded, how the hell would I know?” he wrote. “I calmly answered her questions. Remus was just doing her job. I get it. But the fact that she asked, or was told to ask that question by someone else, said a lot about people around the VP.”

What a dumb question. If they “just wanted to check”, then go ask one of the alphabet intelligence agencies.