THE INCREDIBLE SHRINKING PARTY?
So is Chris Hayes right?
Just look at Starr County, Texas, which sits on the U.S. border with Mexico and has the highest proportion of Hispanic residents compared to any county, according to the 2020 Census.
Starr County famously flipped to Trump in the last election after more than a century of voting Democratic. He won it by 15 points, and it was widely seen as evidence of the president’s strength with Hispanic voters.
If you looked just at the percentages of last night’s Senate runoff in Starr County, you would say Trump is still dominating. His candidate beat Cornyn there by nearly 50 points.
But what’s that percentage based on? How many Republicans actually voted in that runoff? The answer: virtually none.
Only 90 votes were cast out of more than 36,000 registered voters in the county, according to the Texas secretary of state’s office. In that same county, in a single Democratic primary for a local judge back in March, more than 13,000 Democrats turned out to vote.
That’s why Democrats are suddenly a lot more optimistic about flipping that Texas Senate seat — and possibly the Senate itself.
My bold. Hayes may be speaking to my confirmation bias, but I do think he has a data-based point – Texas Republicans are at least not excited by the Party’s candidates, although it’s important to note comparing a primary runoff with a primary is comparing Granny Smith to Haralson. Apples.
Both parties are in trouble.
It’s also important to keep in mind that the composition of the electorate in terms of age for a given State is important, as well as whether folks are still enthused to vote based on Boomer issues, or if they’re willing to step back and re-evaluate.
We may see the Republicans collapse in many locales this November, followed by the Democrats, assuming the latter continue to exhibit behaviors contradictory to liberal democracy.
THE ANCHOR WEARS AN UGLY TIE
President Trump remains a potent weapon against the, er, Republicans. According to the Wall Street Journal,
More than a dozen Republican senators have privately urged top Trump aides to drop the fund [aka the “slush fund” for January 6th insurrectionists] since its creation last week, said people familiar with the outreach, including Sen. Lindsey Graham of South Carolina, who is usually supportive of the president’s efforts.
Trump’s influence, inside and outside the Republican Party, continues to wane, as can be measured by his increasingly loud tones.
South Carolina Republicans defied President Donald Trump and blocked a redistricting measure that would have drawn out the state’s lone Democrat, Rep. Jim Clyburn.
The move Tuesday all but kills their chances of flipping that seat for 2026. It’s possible the GOP will still draw out Clyburn before 2028.
A procedural vote to end debate on the map early failed in the state Senate 24-20, with 12 Republicans joining all Democrats. The state Senate then voted to adjourn until June 10, effectively ending any hope of redistricting before the midterms.
It’s a massive pivot from just two weeks ago, when GOP Gov. Henry McMaster chose to call a special season to redraw after pressure from Trump and the White House. Now, Republican lawmakers who defected in South Carolina could face the same fate in 2028 as Indiana lawmakers who rebuked Trump — and then lost their primaries to MAGA-aligned challengers. [Politico]
With voting already having begun, it was madness to continue with the plan, as some Republicans noted. Trump will resent the implication that reality can limit him.
At one time, President Trump was thought to have a special connection to the people, of whom he said he especially loved the ignorant voters. As his voters are discovering, President-as-Amateur is a losing hand. The Democrats, despite their very real problems, at least have a better economic record than do the Republicans, from inflation to stock market to, yes, government deficits, although the Biden Administration did cloud that particular legacy.
And so Senate Republican candidates are facing a dicey challenge in this election cycle, or so it appears to me. But the Democrats are not far behind.
THE PELL MELL DASH
Go Roadrunner? Here come the Coyotes!
- The more-than-respectable University of New Hampshire’s The Pine Tree State Poll gives political novice Graham Platner (D) a 9 point lead over incumbent Senator Collins (R) in Maine. Is the youth of Maine rising up to expel the boomers from their political dominance?
When asked for the most important reason they support their preferred candidate in this race, likely Democratic primary voters most often say it is because of their preferred candidate’s understanding or empathy (18%), 15% say their candidate has the best chance of winning the general election, 10% mention their policies, 9% say their candidate represents change, 7% each say their candidate is a fighter or is strong or cite their politics or ideology, and 6% each cite their authenticity or honesty or their character. Forty-two percent of Mills supporters say they support her because of her past experience, while half of Costello supporters (50%) say they support him because he is preferable to alternatives.
Mr. Platner has 21% in the empathy column, which makes him #1. But is empathy the best metric for measuring a candidate for the Senate? It’s a question worth considering.
Yet, it’s not even clear that Mr Platner will be the Democratic nominee to go up against Senator Collins. As MS NOW notes, Governor Mills (D) may have publicly withdrawn from the race due to finance problems, but her name has not been removed from the Maine ballot as of this writing.
More importantly, Platner may have problems adhering to traditional morality, which is hardly a new problem for politicians, but still may serve to alienate supporters in the primary, as well as the general, elections.
A top Democrat on Sunday expressed “concerns” about Maine Democratic Senate candidate Graham Platner in the wake of reports that he exchanged sexually explicit texts with multiple women, which his wife said she flagged to his campaign.
Asked about the controversy on ABC News, Sen. Cory Booker, D-N.J., said, “Yeah I have concerns. That guy has questions to answer and that’s what campaigns are for.”
The oyster farmer and Marnie Corps veteran’s wife, Amy Gertner, informed a senior campaign aide last summer that he had exchanged sexual messages with several women, according to The New York Times and The Wall Street Journal. [MS NOW]
If you prefer brevity, Erick Erickson just calls him a Communist.
The same University of New Hampshire poll as above gives Platner a 66 point lead over Mills, and that’s no typo. It seems unlikely that Gov Mills, unfunded and quite elderly, will overcome that sort of lead.
The primary word here is seems.
The Maine primary election is 9 June.
- Setting the stage, Rep Mike Collins and retired football coach Derek Dooley are in the Republican primary run-off scheduled for 16 June. This is for the Georgia Senate seat.Is Rep Collins (R) Erick Erickson’s pick to go against incumbent Senator Ossoff (D)? No.
Mike Collins, should Georgia voters choose him to challenge Jon Ossoff, is not going to win the general election because Mike Collins’s policy is to hire white nationalist adjacent staff and insane lose canons who people are legitimately scared of. The horror stories from people about Brandon Phillips continue to pile up. One person tells me he legitimately fears for his family because of the guy, and Mike Collins never did anything about the guy, despite knowing Phillips is trouble.
Erickson must be beside himself with frustration, since he reportedly lives in Georgia and is close up and personal with the political scene.
Incidentally, I shan’t call that a hit-piece, because I am not in a position to judge, and while I have relatives in Georgia, they’re not political. Call it a message of concern, perhaps. But Dooley? Surely Senator Tuberville (R-AL, er R-FL, maybe R-somewhere else?) is a cautionary tale about putting sports-associated folks with no experience in politics & governing into the Senate or any other position of high responsibility. And before my kind reader reminds me of former pro wrestler Governor Ventura (I-MN), for whom I voted, ol’ Jesse had carefully picked up applicable experience by being elected mayor of Brooklyn Park prior to his gubernatorial campaign. He had a reasonable plan and worked the plan.
Back to Erickson, he did badmouth Democratic candidates in other States, but that’s par for the course. I think it’s significant, though, when someone condemns their own people.
But unknown pollster, at least for me, JMC Analytics is giving Collins a 16 point lead over Dooley in the primary runoff, 55%-39%.
- JMC Analytics also presents a poll on the Republican primary in Iowa and awards a 61%-22% lead to Trump-endorsed Rep Hinson (R) over state Senator Jim Carlin (R).
- In Texas, the pollster Texas Public Opinion Research gives James Talarico (D) a 3 point lead of 47% – 44% over AG Ken Paxton (R). It also gives Talarico a net favorability rating of +7, while Paxton is at -19, and incumbent Senator Cornyn (R) should be dismayed by a horrifying -31 points.Paxton also has his first campaign ad out, where he touts his accomplishments as a humanitarian and … just kidding. Sorry if you squirted Wild Turkey out your nose. Here’s Shefali Luthra’s report on the matter in TPM:
Republicans are focusing on one question in one of November’s top races: Is the Democrat a real man?
Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton, who clinched the GOP’s nomination for U.S. Senate on Tuesday night, released a new ad Wednesday —his first of the general election — accusing his opponent, state Sen. James Talarico, of being too “low-T for Texas.” “Low-T” is a reference to testosterone levels and often used as an insult by influencers in the so-called manosphere, who say low testosterone makes someone weaker. …
“It isn’t new to the ethos of America — the masculine as everything — but it is much more politically forward now thanks to Trump than it used to be,” said Monika McDermott, a political scientist at Fordham University who studies masculinity in politics. “Now it’s the game plan of most Republicans to try to play on having the more masculine party and being able to claim that liberals and progressives are weak and feminine and not masculine enough for America.”
Sounds pathetic to me, but perhaps Texans respond to such nonsense. I suppose the Democrats can be expected to do no better, highlighting Paxton’s lack of a moral sense. Or maybe they won’t. Democrats are often criticized for not being combative enough. But the Houston Chronicle just issued an endorsement of Talarico on that theme, which I cannot read directly because I use an ad-blocker and refuse to learn how to turn it off. I’ll use the lefty Daily Kos to dig out a quote:
Paxton voters know their guy reeks of moral rot. That he somehow earned millions while in public office. That his office delivered sweetheart deals in cases of child sexual abuse.
Paxton’s dismal ethics are only surpassed by his rank incompetence. His office has a track record of fumbling on sex-trafficking cases. And while other Republicans join the bipartisan movement to tackle unaffordable health care, Paxton works to fire “woke doctors.”
Looking over the rest of the endorsement, they’re not playing nice. The Republicans of Texas are apparently a disappointment to the Chronicle. But are newspaper endorsements still important?
- Minnesota Lt Governor Peggy Flanagan (D) won the DFL (Democratic–Farmer–Labor) Party endorsement from the DFL convention by acclamation over the 30-31 May weekend, but this is not the same as winning the primary election. Her DFL rival, Rep Angie Craig (D), announced that she was skipping the convention and would participate in the primary election regardless of the convention result. Flanagan also received the endorsement of the Senator she desires to replace, Tina Smith (D).
- Also in Minnesota, for their Senate candidate to replace the aforementioned Tina Smith, the Republican Party endorsed someone unfamiliar to me, former Navy SEAL Adam Schwarze. He does not appear to have electoral experience. I will repeat myself: Party endorsement is not a synonym for winning a primary election. Michelle Tafoya (R) is reportedly planning to oppose Schwarze in the primary election.The Minnesota primary election is 11 August.
- Finally, for the pro-active reader, if Senator Klobuchar (D-MN) wins her gubernatorial race this season, she’ll have to resign her seat in the Senate, and then appoint a replacement. This was back a month or three, but Governor Walz (D-MN) has already stated, “I would rather eat glass than [serve in the Senate].” So that’s one Minnesotan disqualifying himself from the position.
And back to the grind for me. Tomorrow is primary day for a few states. Results will follow.
