It’ll soon be August 2nd. Then it’ll be August 2nd. And then it’ll be past, and maybe some news will blow in through the door, riding a rogue tumbleweed.
- In New York, the latest Emerson College poll finds incumbent Senator and Majority Leader Schumer (D) leading challenger and radio pundit Joe Pinion (R) 53% – 31%.
- In Missouri, as if that election is not enough of a dumpster fire, independent John Wood claims to have collected and filed enough signatures on petitions to make the November ballot. It seems likely that this enhances the Democrats’ chances in this election, as Wood claims to be a lifelong Republican, but it’s hard to be certain. And it may not be enough. Especially with Trump’s endorsement of “ERIC”. On the other hand, the dumpster fire was damped down by the GOP when they selected relative-to-Eric-Greitens moderate and current Missouri Attorney General Eric Schmitt over Greitens, who came in third, and second place finisher Rep Vicky Hartzler (R-MO). Schmitt must still contend with the results of a bitter primary and the presence of Mr. Wood on the ballot. Meanwhile, Trudy Busch Valentine, who is politically inexperienced, a nurse, and heir to the Anheuser-Busch fortune, won the Democratic side of the Senate primary. The safe bet in this contest is Schmitt. A May poll from A-rated SurveyUSA showed Schmitt with a 13 point advantage over Valentine, but a lot has happened since then. We need a new poll.
- Is Senate Majority Leader Schumer’s decision to do a deal with Senator and Minority Leader McConnel (R-KY) in order to pass the Honoring Our PACT Act a mistake? After all, it seems to make a nice club for Democrats to use on Republicans. However, there are some problems with that reasoning. If it’s not passed, then veterans may choose to blame both sides, so in this way the Democrats get some extra points; and not many actual Republican candidates in the Senate voted No, maybe two by my informal count, so its usefulness was somewhat problematic. I think Schumer has simply wrung a few more drops from the rag.
- Wisconsin incumbent Ron Johnson (R) either knows more than I do about the electorate, or is committing political suicide-by-voter. From Madison.com: Saying programs like Social Security and Medicare suffer from improper oversight, U.S. Sen. Ron Johnson on Tuesday called for turning every government program into discretionary spending programs, meaning Congress would have to allocate funding for the programs each year. You don’t need to listen carefully, the shrieks from the AARP should be REALLY LOUD. It’ll be fascinating to see how the first poll of Johnson vs Barnes turns out.
- In Arizona Blake Masters, political novice, endorsee of the former President, and funded by Peter Thiel, won the GOP Senate primary and will be challenging incumbent Senator and retired astronaut (US Navy Captain, ret.) Mark Kelly (D). Arizona has been shifting from a strong Republican state to a more ambiguous status over the last five years, with Kelly winning a special election two years ago over the appointed Senator McSally (R), who exhibited a record and presence that had a lot in common with Senators Perdue (R-GA) and Kelly Loeffler (R-GA), both of whom also lost in that year. Masters seems emblematic of the next stage of the GOP toxic culture evolution, sending arrogant candidates into contests that are certain that, if they lose, the loss indicates cheating rather than simply losing, dependent on one or two “strong-men” rather than any personal appeal of their own – and perish the thought of a demonstrated personal competency in government! Even the anti-abortion waltz or anti-gun control jig is optional; one must snuffle up to the strong men of the party, an extreme example of what I’ve been predicting for years. Anyways. Waiting for the first poll, but I suspect independents will be so repelled by Masters that it’s Kelly in a walk. Kelly was thought to be vulnerable, so this may be another dodged meteorite by the Democrats. Sorry ’bout that.
- The biggest news out of the August 2nd primaries was Kansas’ voters rejection of a proposed state Constitutional Amendment to permit the Kansas legislature to ban abortion in some form, as I discussed here. Kansas is considered to be safely Republican, despite the Governor being a Democrat, so this rejection is a surprise – a 20 point surprise. Adding to the significance, kos of Daily Kos has some new information, although he doesn’t source it: “That means at least 75,000 Republicans voted no, plus the overwhelmingly majority of the 160,000 voters who came to vote only on this amendment and didn’t vote in either party’s primary.” There are two facets here, the first being that voters will come out simply to vote against threats to their (or their partners’) abortion rights, and secondly that a good portion of the moderate-to-conservative base resent the loss of those rights. In the latter case, this may result in a failure to vote for a candidate, or even switching a vote to an opponent or using the write-in option. While Republican pundits, as well as candidates such as Senator Johnson (R-WI) and Adam Laxalt (R-NV), have been trying to claim the Dobbs decision overturning Roe will have little impact in November (see the Daily Kos link, above), it appears that every election featuring a fervently anti-abortion candidate will be impacted, just as every left-leaning pundit, and many independent pundits like myself, suspected. The conservative tendency towards an epistemic bubble, as well as a fixation on improper metrics (the Justice Thomas mistake, to coin a phrase), seems to be leading them not towards victory in November, but a shocking failure against a bumbling Democratic Party that still has not addressed its failures in managing the transgender issue.
Previous irreligious thoughts regarding the election here.
