REPUBLICANS SHOULD HAVE A CASE OF NERVES
Because the generic CNN Congressional poll gives the Democrats an 8 point lead.
Because their Party has quite a few dubious characters, such as Representatives Edwards and Miller, and there’s more than just them. Think Gaetz, Bondi, and others.
And Trump doesn’t have a magic wand.
THAT TIME AT THE BALLPARK WHEN A SINGLE HOME RUN WAS HIT AND …
… no other score. Yep, happened to me on a date. Haven’t gone to a ballgame since. Oh, and here’s the news:
- Third time … leaves me feeling a bit weirded out. But, yes, it’s happened.
The Democratic Senate nominee in South Dakota ended his campaign Tuesday following calls from party activists to exit the race and leave independent Brian Bengs as the main competitor against Republican Sen. Mike Rounds.
Julian Beaudion, a former state trooper, cited “extraordinary personal challenges,” including a house fire, financial struggles and “intimidating threats to drop out of this race,” as reasons for his decision.
He said in a statement posted to social media that he has no plans to endorse either Bengs or Rounds. [Roll Call]
First, let me state that I’m appalled that intimidating threats are occurring; we need to track down and imprison the perpetrators. Scaring folks out of the political process is not to be tolerated.
Second, and for new readers who’ve not paid attention to political activity for the upcoming Senate elections, this is the third instance of a Democratic nominee dropping out of a three way Senate race. The two prior States have been Nebraska and Idaho; in Montana there’s a three way contest, but the Democratic nominee, Rep Alani Bankhead, protests that former UMontana president Seth Bodnar (I) has discriminated against women, and she’ll never drop in his favor, so a fourth will have to come from elsewhere.
- The Kansas City Star of Kansas has endorsed Pastor Adam Hamilton (D) in the Democratic primary; he has ten competitors. Hamilton can add that endorsement to that of former Kansas Gov. Kathleen Sebelius.
The presumptive Republican nominee is the incumbent, Senator Roger Marshall (R).
[A day later] And now we have primary results from 4 August. Senator Marshall won the Republican primary with roughly 80% of the vote. His opponent was Pond Naramore, who appears to be a moderate Republican, although I don’t have an On The Issues summation for him. That an unknown such as Naramore attracted 20% of the vote against a powerful incumbent says something, but nothing too significant, I suspect.
In the Democratic primary the victor is Pastor Adam Hamilton in a badly fragmented vote; his percentage of the Democratic primary vote was only 34.9%. The remainder of the vote was spread among his ten competitors, with second place going to Christy Davis with 14.1% of the vote.
I’d ask if the Democratic side of the slate can pull together, or if there is resentfulness of the late-comer Pastor, but here’s the important numbers: Senator Marshall outpolled the entirety of the Democratic primary field, and substantially. While using raw primary numbers for analysis of an upcoming general election is often highly misleading, right at the moment Marshall seems to be in a commanding position, despite his association with President Trump.
Yet, professional forecasters have added a degree of uncertainty to their forecasts, according to the Kansas Reflector, moving from solid ‘R’ to likely ‘R’.
- According to Ballotpedia as of this writing, South Carolina’s special primary election to replace the late Senator Lindsey Graham (R) on the general election ballot still has five candidates, including Senator Darline Graham (R), who is his sister, and the notorious Mark Sanford, former governor of South Carolina, as well as former Representative of South Carolina’s 1st district.
KTBS reports two polls were released last week:
Graham led the poll from the Trafalgar Group released Friday with 27%. Norman and U.S. Rep. Russell Fry each snagged 17%.
Norman led the poll from the Emerson College Polling Center released Thursday with 22%. Graham was next at 19%.
The same report has the Republican count at nine, not five, but I think that’s a mistake. The special primary is scheduled for 11 August.
- In a rare Alabama Senate poll, by a pollster of whom I’ve not heard, named yes. every kid. foundation., Rep Barry Moore (R) leads Everett Wess (D), 47% – 32%. (If you like details, follow the link and then click on the second View Fullscreen big blue button.)
Analysis of this poll is foolhardy, as I don’t know quality of the pollster, but I cannot help but note that a 15 point Republican lead is a far cry from the last Senate race in Alabama. In 2022, now-Senator Katie Britt (R) defeated Will Boyd (D) by 36 points. Has Alabama shifted twenty points towards the center?
Or is Wess a more appealing candidate? Or even Moore a less appealing candidate?
Pun intended.
- Texas Southern University, in the same range as other polls from academic institutions in Texas, gives James Talarico (D) a 47% – 45% lead over Ken Paxton (R), with a margin of error of ±2.83 points, so realistically it’s a tie. Talarico has a roughly 18 point lead in the net viewed favorably part of the poll, which makes me wonder how easily Paxton might attract more votes compared to his rival.
The Texas Pulse Poll (Texas A&M) has a similar result of a four point lead, 47% – 43%, as does 254 Labs/YouGov, 48%-45%.
Old-time blogger Paul Waldman has an observation on the race:
Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton, after ousting incumbent Sen. John Cornyn in the Republican primary, is in a tight race with state Sen. James Talarico. At first, Paxton and his allies focused on defining his opponent as “low-T Talarico” — a radical left-wing ideologue bent on sapping the testosterone from manly Texas men. But last week Paxton changed tunes, introducing an economic plan with new and expanded tax breaks for things like health care, child care and housing. The accompanying ad sounds the same notes you’ll hear from most of the Democrats running for office in this election. “Washington is making it harder than ever to get ahead,” he says in the ad. “And the American Dream is slipping away as the cost of everything from housing to health care rises.”
Wait — doesn’t Trump say we’re living in a “golden age” of boundless prosperity? [MS NOW]
Will Trump take this betrayal by a candidate he’s endorsed lying down? In view of today’s job report, might he have to?
It also occurs to me that, if Ken Paxton does win, how long will it take for him to start agitating for Senatorial immunity for crimes committed in office?
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On The Issues: Senator Mark Warner (D).
In Virginia the 4 August primary yielded Senator Warner (D), unopposed in the primary, as the Democratic nominee, and Bert Mizusawa (R) as the Republican nominee. Mizusawa is a retired US Army major general and has relevant degrees and work experience, according to Ballotpedia. His victory was with 51.5% of the vote, so the Republicans seem fragmented. I heard nothing of substance concerning this primary; the last Republican Senator from Virginia was George Allen, serving 2001-2007, so it’s not impossible that Warner could lose.
- The Iowa Senate race is tight, with an Emerson College poll giving Rep Hinson (R) a 47.5% – 45% lead over Josh Turek (D). I found the name recognition portion of the poll interesting, as nearly 10% of respondents had not heard of Mr Turek, while only 4% had not heard of Rep Hinson. It suggests there may be some room for Turek to pick up some undecided’s votes.
A recemt Fox News poll had given Turek a four point lead.
- On 6 Aug the Tennessee primary elections determined the incumbent, Senator Haggerty (R), will compete with challenger Marquita Bradshaw (D), who won with 54.7% of the Democratic vote. She’s an environmental activist who has not held political office, despite running in the 2020 and 2024 Senate races. She won the primary in 2020, upsetting the favorite.
Despite being unopposed, the Senator outpolled the entire Democratic field of five hopefuls by nearly double, 623,538 to 333,605. Bradshaw has quite a cliff to climb, and there may not be enough Tennessee independent voters hauling on that rope to get her to the top.
- KSTP/SurveyUSA have a new poll out for Minnesota showing Rep Craig (D) leading Lt Governor Flanagan (D) in the race for the Democratic nomination for Senator Klobuchar’s (D) Senate seat by 2 points, 42% – 40%, and I can attest they continue to go at each other hammer and tongs in commercials. My personal favorite is that Rep Craig is a puppet of “crypto-pharma.”
On the Republican side, Michelle Tafoya is even more dominant than the previous report claimed, leading 48% – 13% over Royce White.
- The North Carolina GOP nominee for the North Carolina Senate seat, Michael Whatley (R), has apparently been nominated for the Nevada governor’s seat as well by President Trump. Yeah, don’t ask me.
- Senator Ossoff (D) of Georgia has picked up some endorsements:
In the span of three days, former Republican U.S. Sen. Jeff Flake of Arizona, Valdosta Mayor Scott James Matheson and Tifton Mayor Julie Smith all announced they are backing Ossoff’s reelection campaign over Republican nominee U.S. Rep. Mike Collins. [CBS News]
Not that I think he needs them.
- And in Michigan, the favorite of pundits everywhere, on 4 Aug Dr. Abdul El-Sayed (D) did beat Rep Haley Stevens (D) for the Democratic nomination for the to-be-open Senate seat in this State, 48.5% – 47.5. As it happens, Mallory McMorrow (D) also won 4% of the vote, so some may argue if she had withdrawn from the race officially, rather than unofficially, Stevens might have won. I think the more realistic conclusion is to admit it’s impossible to know who that 4% would have voted. McMorrow had indicated disdain for Party leader Schumer, so we might conclude El-Sayed would have received those votes, but the On The Issues summations of El-Sayed and Stevens are close to identical, although El-Sayed has a paucity of data behind it.
Rep Stevens has immediately pivoted back to the campaign trail:
“I want to congratulate Abdul El-Sayed on winning the Democratic nomination for U.S. Senate. He is a doctor, a community health official, a Rhodes Scholar, and a dedicated Michigander. I am proud to offer my support as he takes on Mike Rogers in the general election.
Notably, most of the polls did not mirror these results. Emerson College’s last poll gave El-Sayed a 15 point lead, Tavern Research a 10 point lead, Mitchell Research a 14 point lead – you get the point. Will this unreliability carry over to the general election? There’s a conversation here at the Times, but it’s behind a paywall for which I have not paid for access.
BETTIN’ ON A NEW PARTY?
Honestly, as tempting as it may be, no, I’m not. Successfully founding and running a Party is a very difficult operation, and I don’t see that happening just because some independents are considered to be competitive.
That said, the Big Tents both parties claim to pursue are double-edged swords. OK, mixed metaphor. But my point is this: get enough special interest groups together and alignments of interests becomes difficult. Individuals find they have to be pro-choice, pro-transgender, this, that, the other thing, and some political folks can’t do it. Or, if they’re evangelical Christians then they must be pro-life and hate the ‘baby-killers,’ burn books deemed offensive, disbelieve climate change, and some more etcs.
Independents often discard these requirements, or mix selections to satisfy their moralities, their ambitions, their desires. If they happen to have a collection of such that matches the voters’, they may win. From this, the Parties may or may not adapt. While both Parties seem quite rigid today, tomorrow may bring a change because it’s better to adjust than become a political irrelevancy, which is a well-loathed fate by most politicos.
The simple fact that 3-4 independents look competitive suggests the post-season could be quite interesting, once some facts have been established beyond dispute. I look forward to that.
