US midterms
The US midterms are approaching. The result of the Michigan Democratic primary leaves me wondering if Dems are best placed to take back Senate with left wing candidates or MOR candidates? Is this likely to be more state specific? I try following US politics from north of the border but I as a Canadian I don't quite have as much of a dog in the fight.
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I think that's probably chaotic good rather than evil.
The one senate seat I am interested in is Texas. It appears Talarico (D) is leading, but it may not be enough to flip the Senate. Still, it might suggest the hold of the Republican party is breaking up.
Purple Texas has been coming in the next election cycle for at least a couple of decades now. I hope Talarico wins but I'm not going to expect it.
Agree with @Nick Tamen -- it depends on the state, and it depends on the candidate. The general framing of the question as progressive vs moderate isn't helpful because the reality is that in the most progressive of states you still need moderate Democrats to vote for your candidate, and same the other way around. Plus every state has its own quirks.
The map and current polling predict the Republicans will hold onto the Senate. To win, Democrats will need to have the right person for each state, and they will need an enormous blue wave, which is to say that in the localities where they expect to win -- the cities and counties where they are strong -- they need to win by very large margins, not moderate ones. This is within the realm of possibility, but it is not likely.
Looking at the map, Democrats need to hold onto all the seats they currently hold (one of which is a toss-up) and win four more. If they only gain three, the Senate will be 50-50 with JD Vance casting the tie-breaking vote. Republicans hold 23 of the 35 seats up for election.
The Dems will likely flip the open seat in North Carolina that Thom Tillis is retiring from; the polling all points that way, outside the margin of error. The Democratic candidate for this open seat is the former two-term governor, Roy Cooper, who's relatively moderate, well known, well thought of, and going up against Michael Whatley, former Republican National Committee chair who's never been elected to anything.
Then there are the toss-ups. They need to win three of these four:
Maine -- kind of a weird state, electorally, with more Democrats registered than Republicans despite being white, rural and kinda poor, has voted Dem for president since 1992, voted in an Independent senator in 2012 and a Republican in 1996 who are both still in office, and has variously elected Democrats, Republicans, and Independents to the governorship.
Incumbent R Susan Collins - moderate, has previously out-performed pre-election polling, but voted to confirm Bret Kavanaugh to the Supreme Court after he spewed some bullshit about respecting the precedent of Roe v Wade, which he helped overturn.
D Troy Jackson - progressive populist and former logger who won big representing in the Maine legislature a rural area that went for Trump; a good candidate for this state, but getting a late start as the original Dem nominee dropped out after credible sexual assault allegations surfaced (his Nazi tattoo was apparently not a disqualifier for enough people).
Ohio -- been getting redder and redder, has gone for Trump in the last three presidential elections:
Incumbent R Jon Husted (appointed when JD Vance became VP -- this is a special election for the last two years of the six-year term) -- not accused of wrongdoing but was a defense witness in the criminal trial of two energy executives that ended in a hung jury, so he might have to testify against in September. Also not as well known as his opponent, as he was lieutenant governor, and no one ever knows who they are.
D Sherrod Brown -- another progressive populist, formerly held the other Ohio Senate seat but lost in 2024. Harris might have helped drag him down when she lost Ohio in 2024; though he lost he got more votes than she did. Brown is probably the only Democrat who can win state-wide in Ohio.
Alaska -- a little weird in that more than half the registered voters have no party affiliation -- but usually votes Republican. The state legislature has been Republican dominated for 30 years and they've voted for exactly one Democratic presidential candidate ever, but they'll elect Democrats to state-wide office from time to time. Also, this is an open primary -- all candidates from all parties will be on one ballot in a ranked-choice election. The incumbent and the Democratic challenger discussed below are the only two who have raised money. Top four go to the November ballot.
Incumbent R Dan Sullivan -- honestly the only thing I know about this guy is that there's another Dan Sullivan running as a Republican in this race, possibly to fuck with the whole thing though he swears up and down this is not the case.
D Mary Peltola -- formerly Alaska's sole Congressional Representative (first Alaska Native elected to the House), the last Democrat to win state-wide. She is a moderate Blue Dog Democrat and a good candidate for this state.
Michigan - swing state, bellwether
Open seat, currently held by a retiring Democrat -- this is a Democratic seat they need to hold.
R Mike Rogers -- lost a 2024 Senate race by less than half a percentage point, former FBI officer, lots of the usual Republican bullshit here -- said Trump lost in 2020 until it was more advantageous to say Trump had won. Last held elected office in 2015.
D Abdul El-Sayed -- progressive populist -- are you seeing the trend? Charismatic. He was outspent 9-to-1 and still won. He would be the first Muslim in the US Senate, which is not the uphill climb it used to be, given that Israel's popularity is fast waning and that Michigan has the largest mosque in North America -- Muslims are still very much a minority there, but they're no longer newcomers. The Democratic establishment wasted no time today uniting behind him.
There are a couple of other possibilities, but Democrats would need a blue wave on the order of a tsunami to take these seats:
Iowa -- used to be a swing state, now pretty solidly red
Open seat, held by a retiring Republican.
R Ashley Hinson -- has won several times against Democrats in a very competitive Congressional district.
D Josh Turek -- moderate, calls himself a "prairie populist," has won several times against Republicans in a Iowa House district that is very red.
Texas -- demographics make Texas feel like it should be a swing state, but Latino voters aren't as reliably Democratic as white commentators think they should be, plus Republicans from places like California keep moving there.
The incumbent Republican lost in the primary to Trump-endorsed Ken Paxton, a far right asshole and state attorney general who was impeached by Republicans in the Texas House but not convicted.
D James Talarico -- a Presbyterian seminarian who speaks Bible, very helpful in Texas, has a background in education, and is a state legislator. He seems like a fairly liberal guy running as a populist, condemning both billionaires and the sclerotic Democratic machine. You'd think this would be a slam dunk, because Paxton is a truly corrupt bad guy and Talarico is a decent human being, but it's not. Paxton is saying Talarico is not a man's man, and shit like that can work.
I can’t add much, but I will add a little: The polls and the environment look good for Cooper, but I’m not counting on anything until it’s all over.
Prior to being a two-term governor, Cooper was a four-term attorney general, which is an elected office in North Carolina. He was unopposed one of those races for AG. When he was first elected governor, he defeated the incumbent Republican. During Covid, he generally maintained a 60+% approval rating for how he was handling things, though there was certainly political opposition.
Current registration statistics in North Carolina are roughly 29% Democratic, 30% Republican, .6% Libertarian, .06% Greens, and 40% Unaffiliated.
While North Carolina has, except in 2012, consistently elected Democratic governors since the 1980s (and has only had three Republican governors since Reconstruction), Obama in 2008 was the only Democratic presidential candidate to win the state’s electoral votes since Jimmy Carter, and we’ve only had two Democratic US senators this century.
So yeah, not taking anything for granted.
Thanks to you both. I know what I’m hoping and praying for.
I was rooting for Crockett against Talarico in the D primary. I think I'm more in agreement with Talarico on the issues, but Crockett seemed to have more serious ideas about how to address those issues, I'm speculating at least partly because of her legal background.
NY-03 Long Island. This is an open seat, the result of the Santos fall out. Suburban trending Democratic. Opponents Mazi Pillip Probable Republican vs Tom Suozzi
NY-22 Central NY Brandon Williams (R) narrowly won. Has been redisticted. Syracuse suburbs make this a top target. Opponent will be Sarah Klee Hood
NY-19 Hudson Valley. Mark Molinaro (R) the incumbent, but this region has swung back and forth for a decade. Jos Riley, the opponent.
CA-13 Central Valley. Held by John Duarte (R) Extremely close 2022 margin. Latino turnout will be decisive. (more on this below) Adam Grey, opponent
CA-22 Central Valley. David Valadao (R) has it, but historically competative; split ticket district. Ruby Salas opponent
CA-27 Los Angeles County. Mike Garcia (R). Very narrow win. Suburban shifts matter. George Whitesides, opponent.
AZ-01 Phoenix suburbs. David Schweikert (R). Very narrow win. Suburban vote key. Marly Simms opponent
AZ-06 Tuscon suburbs Juan Ciscomani (R) Competitive district with changing demographics. Kristen Engel opponent
CO-03 Western Colorado. This is an open seat formally held by Lauren Boebert who moved out of district. Boebert narrowly won the last three times. Juff Hurd (R) vs Adam Frisch (D)
NE-02 Omaha. Don Bacon (R) Has long been a swing district. Tony Vargas opponent.
PA-01 Philadelphia suburbs Brian Fitzpatrick (R) A Biden leaning district. Ashley Ehasz opponent.
MI-10 Detroit Suburbs held by John James (R). He won last term by only 1,600 votes. Consistently a toss up. Carl Marlinga, opponent.
(Based on Cook Political Report and Sabato's Crystal Ball)
I think many Latinos who voted for Trump during the last election are feeling betrayed.
Democrats will only have to win four of these seats and keep all their current seats to flip the house.
I had thought my district would be in play. People here are very angry at Baumgartner, but Trump is pouring a lot of Disaster funds into Spokane. It appears safe R now.
As background, North Carolina’s Republican-controlled-thanks-to-gerrymandering legislature redrew congressional districts after the most recent SCOTUS Voting Rights Act decision. (The North Carolina Constitution prohibits mid-decade redistricting of legislative seats, but not of congressional seats.) The newly drawn districts were seen as likely to move North Carolina from a 10 Republican–4 Democrat delegation to an 11 Republicans–3 Democrat delegation.
But at least one reasonably well-respected political forecaster—Sabato’s Crystal Ball—has moved two North Carolina districts from “Leans Republican” to “Toss-Up.”
One of those districts is NC-11, which is essentially western North Carolina. The district (as redrawn) includes Asheville, which has typically leaned blue, while the rest of the district leans red. It is currently represented by Chuck Edwards. The Democrats have nominated Jamie Ayer, a fourth-generation farmer who calls himself a “mountain Democrat,” and who is from a family long active in Democratic politics. (His brother is in the state legislature, as was his father, and his grandfather was a member of Congress.)
Edwards was running for reelection but has now withdrawn after being censured by the House Ethics Committee.
We don’t know who the GOP will choose as a replacement nominee, and it’s hard to predict how this will affect the race. Part of what Ager could attack Edwards on was Edwards’ failure to help secure adequate federal aid for Hurricane Helene relief. But on the other hand, Republicans are having to try to find a new nominee, and that new nominee won’t have the advantage of incumbency.
Meanwhile, the other district moved to the “Toss-Up” category is NC-01, in the northeastern part of North Carolina. This is a mostly rural district with a large African American population. It is currently represented by Don Davis, an African American Democrat.
This was the district that fell victim to the gutting of the Voting Rights Act. While it includes the only (I think) rural counties in North Carolina that tend to vote Democratic, this was the district redrawn to give Republicans an eleventh spot in North Carolina’s congressional delegation. The Republican candidate is Laurie Buckhout, a retired military officer who served briefly as Assistant Secretary of Defense for Cyber Policy in the second Trump administration.
It’s going to be interested to see how these two districts play out.
Right, so the "moderate vs progressive" framing is wrong, no matter which side someone is arguing for, because it's populists who are winning. Because Trump scrambled everything, and now I'd add because Trump is extremely unpopular and the electorate is very unhappy. Dems' populist rhetoric has massively increased, when it used to come from mainly just from Bernie Sanders and Alexandria Ocasia-Cortez (may I live long enough to see her as President or Speaker of the House).
I'd point out also that a moderate in California might look very progressive in Mississippi. And we ended up with a moderate (by our standards) Democratic candidate for governor after the "progressive" guy had to quit the race due to allegations of sexual assault. So that's all relative -- again, the important thing is that the candidate be suitable for the place they're running.
I'd have to look up the demographics to be sure, but without doing that I'd guess yes, the Lower Midwest and Mountain West are generally more white. Whether they're more conservative is a different question. I wouldn't automatically say the South is less conservative because of its large Black population. Black people vote pretty uniformly for Democrats in the South because Republicans there are so effing racist -- they don't really have a choice. I have thought for a long time that if Republicans weren't so racist they could pick up a lot of Black and Latino votes. But Black and Latino people simply aren't free to be conservative, even if they might have conservative inclinations.
About urbanization: Yes, metro Atlanta is huge, and Georgia has two Democratic Senators, but it's still a swing state. The other large urban areas in the South are in Virginia (pretty blue), Florida and Texas (purple but gerrymandered all to hell, so red). The largest urban area in the South outside those states is Charlotte, NC -- @Nick Tamen can say more about it if he wishes, but my partner had to live there several times for work, and he said it was like living in a big suburb, not a city ("had" to live there -- he hated it -- he's from a part of New Jersey near New York City, so like me he has a certain point of view). (List of US urban areas by population here if anyone is in.
Indeed. Unlike some of my more left-wing Democratic correspondents, I don't think that LC's endorsement of Harris pushed many people away from the ticket, but it didn't do much to draw people in, either. I'm open to correction on this, but apart from political junkies, my guess is she's pretty much a non-entity to most voters.
I can definitely see that, though it has changed some.
And I think politics in Charlotte have changed. For a long time, it was a fairly Republican city, but as Charlotte was and is a major banking and financial center, it was more than Chamber of Commerce-type Republicans rather than social conservatives. It has become more blue recently.
Urban areas in North Carolina lean blue, and have (working from memory rather than looking it up) local governments that are mainly Democratic. As I noted above, North Carolina currently has four Democratic members of Congress—one is from a district with a sizeable African American population, one is from Raleigh/Wake County, one is from Charlotte/Mecklenburg County and one is from Durham/Durham County. Greensboro/Guilford County would probably elect a Democrat too, but the legislature made sure that wouldn’t happen by splitting the city and county among three congressional districts.
From outside it looked like it was easy to take as evidence in support of the "uniparty" hypothesis or, in less conspiratorial terms, an indication that the difference between establishment Democrats and Republicans was not vast.
Yeah, I would say more evidence of a uni-establishment than a uniparty.