ADMIN NOTE
No more brevity, as the brace came off as anticipated, and the surgeon was pleased with the healing progress. I think I’m back to typing at my old speed, which is no great shakes but still better than hunt & peck, aka the seek and ye shall find technique, as my Dad used to call it.
VALUING INDEPENDENCE
For those voters who understand and value the importance of Senators being independent of Party directives, also known as the gibberish of President Trump, in our form of government, it may be cheering to see Senate Majority Leader Thune (R-SD) orchestrating some counter-moves to President Trump’s foolishness with regard to Trump’s War, tariffs, and nominations.
As to the latter topic, Trump’s designation of Bill Pulte as Acting Director of National Intelligence (DNI) certainly needed a rebuke, since the only qualification Pulte possesses is championship-level sycophancy towards Trump; he has no national intelligence experience. Since Trump values loyalty and physical appearance (“right out of central casting”), not merit or competency, above all else, he selected Pulte, who has used his previous and still-current position of Director of Federal Housing Finance Agency to attack Trump’s political enemies, such as now-former Fed chairman Powell.
Thune wants a proper DNI, as do the Democrats, and reauthorization of the controversial Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act (FISA) is being held up as a leverage tool. Presumably, word reached Trump that Pulte was unacceptable, and persuaded him to nominate US Attorney for SDNY Jay Clayton, but then he withdrew the nomination and is letting Pulte run the agency until the Senate approves a voter ID bill of which Trump is overly fond.
So far as I know, Clayton also lacks qualifications required by law, so this all may be a moot machination. However, Clayton has not caught my attention for stunts on par with Pulte’s clumsy bluster.
All that is to note that GOP Senators up for reelection do seem, at least in part, to be trying to separate themselves from the incompetent President.
ALIENATION?
Still, they need to worry about alienated voting groups, like this:
The last time President Trump faced a midterm election, in 2018, congressional Republicans were dragged down by his unpopularity and lost more than three dozen House seats.
But even in defeat, the bottom never truly fell out for the Republicans that year — the party actually gained ground in the Senate — as working-class white voters largely kept their faith in Mr. Trump’s economic know-how.
Today, that once-deep reservoir of good will has largely evaporated.
Blue-collar white voters are, for the first time, seriously doubting Mr. Trump’s handling of the economy. A review of polling by The New York Times shows an extraordinary swing on that issue among white voters without college degrees between his first midterm election and now. [The New York Times]
I’ve seen similar reports for farmers as well. The relevant GOP Senators may have to campaign aggressively in rural areas, and have prominent disagreements with President Trump, to break that association of the President and his persistent foolishness with the Senators. But what to do for blue collar workers in general is not so clear. There’s little time for cleaning up the economy.
FOLLOW THE TRAIL OF BREADCRUMBS
- The 16 June primary runoff elections in Alabama yielded Everett Wess as the winner of the Democratic primary, defeating Dakarai Larriett. Mr. Wess appears to have little electoral experience.
On The Issues: Rep Barry Moore (R-AL).
The Republican side of the primary season has been a raucous affair as inexperienced Jared Hudson was seen by some pollsters to be leading Rep Barry Moore, but in the end Rep Moore won rather easily, 55.8% – 44.2%, although I suspect many observers were shocked that even a primary was necessary. So it’ll be Wess vs Moore, with expectations being an easy victory for Moore. President Trump’s endorsement of Rep Moore should be a light burden in Alabama.
Further, Moore is a favorite of the cryptocurrency industry, whose super PAC is spending $9.8 million on pro-Moore ads. I’ll skip the joke about printing money to give away, I’m sure someone would howl that it’s not true. Yes, I do have vague concepts on cryptocurrency implementations.
Notably, while Democrats saw 339,903 votes in the primary election, only 89,585 made the effort for the runoff. Comparable Republican numbers are 481,952 and 310,529, suggesting much greater enthusiasm. Which way will independents lean? Probably Republican.
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On The Issues: Rep Collins (R-GA).
The 16 June primary elections in Georgia gives Erick Erickson some reflux as Rep Collins defeats former football coach Derek Dooley in the Republican primary for the Senate seat, 55.9% – 44.1%. It’s not a bad showing by Mr Dooley, but given the Senatorial performance of Senator Tuberville, another former football coach, and the babblings of failed GOP nominee Herschel Walker in 2022, neither of whom had any experience in elective office, the Georgia GOP voters showed some wisdom in picking someone with experience, even a far-right candidate like Collins. But that’s a very small amount of wisdom, as this strategist emphasizes:
“If you went to a laboratory and tried to create the worst general election candidate for this state and environment possible, you couldn’t do better than Mike Collins,” a prominent Georgia Republican strategist, granted anonymity to speak candidly, told MS NOW.
“He has a ton of personal baggage and won’t be able to raise money. He possesses the unique ability to offend female voters with that personal baggage but also with the hardest right abortion stance you can have. He will lose the Atlanta metro in unprecedented fashion, and we have to hope he doesn’t take everyone else down with him.”
Or go read Erickson. I suspect that, absent black swan events, Senator Ossoff’s (D-GA) seat is now safe.
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On The Issues: Rep. Kevin Hern (R-OK).
The 16 June primary elections in Oklahoma yielded Rep Hern (R) as the Republican nominee for the to-be-open Senate seat of appointed Senator Alan Armstrong (R-OK), garnering 67.3% of the Republican primary vote. The Democrats had a less definitive result, as nurse N’Kiyla Thomas, with 45.2% of the Democratic vote, and lawyer Jim Priest, with 23.9% of the vote, advanced to a primary runoff to be held 25 August. Neither appears to have elective experience. The Libertarian candidate will be Sevier White, although whether he will fill a key role in this election is not yet clear, and may not be clear until after the general election is finished.
Rep Hern (R) should be considered the odds-on favorite for the general election in November.
- I didn’t anticipate writing about the Massachusetts Senate primary, but now Suffolk University has released a poll which shows Senator Markey (D) leading likely Republican primary winner John Deaton (R) 55% – 30%, and Markey’s primary rival, Rep Seth Moulton (D), leading Deaton by even more at 54% – 26%.I confess I’ve not been paying attention, since I see Massachusetts as safe for the Democrats, and so it remains. But is Senator Markey safe, or, having been in various elective offices since 1973 and being 79 years of age, is he burned toast? Is Moulton making inroads with his questions about transgender rights when it comes to sports? For primary voters, that seems unlikely – but we shall see.
- In Michigan pollster Mitchell Research, fairly respectable in 2024, gives Democrat Abdul El-Sayed a 42% share of the Democratic primary election for Senator, while fellow Democrat Rep Haley Stevens has a 33% share, and Mallory McMorrow, who disavowed Party leader Senator Schumer a few weeks ago, has been reduced to a 6% share. I noticed the number of participants in the survey is a relatively low 409, resulting in a margin of error of a largish ±4.85. The primary is 4 August, a long ways off.
- SurveyUSA was a highly respected pollster in 2024, with a 2.4/3 FiveThirtyEight rating, so this KSTP/SurveyUSA[1] poll of Minnesota voters is of interest:
Former sportscaster Michele Tafoya is easily in front right now in the Republican primary for U.S. Senate.
Tafoya received 36% of the vote today, far ahead of the 15% for Royce White and 7% for GOP-endorsed candidate Adam Schwarze. However, 27% are still undecided.
That Mr Schwarze, the candidate endorsed by the attendees of the GOP convention, is failing this badly demonstrates a potential gap between GOP devotees willing to give up a weekend to attend a convention, and the more casual member of the Minnesota GOP base.
Results for Democrats in the same poll …
[Rep Angie] Craig garnered 41% of the vote, ahead of the 36% for Lt. Gov. Peggy Flanagan, who won the DFL endorsement. Roughly 18% of respondents are still undecided while 6% support another DFL candidate.
I appreciated the demographic breakdown:
- Craig received nearly half the vote from men while Flanagan leads slightly among women.
- Younger voters favor Flanagan slightly while older voters, especially 65+, skew toward Craig.
- Unsurprisingly, more liberal voters are backing Flanagan while moderates favor Craig.
Can Rep Craig maintain her appeal to moderates? Independents will mostly skew moderate. Lt Governor Flanagan and Rep Craig have been going at it hammer & tongs in commercials, seems to me as a Minnesotan who doesn’t seek out politics but has them thrust upon him, and there will be some damage to whoever wins the nomination.
And then the general election result? Let me draw an analogy, again from the same poll …
MyPillow CEO Mike Lindell is ahead of the field in the Republican primary for governor.
The businessman and staunch ally of President Donald Trump is getting 27% of the primary vote today. House Speaker Lisa Demuth garnered 22% of respondents’ votes, with GOP-endorsed Kendall Qualls at 17%. Roughly 24% of likely Republican voters are still undecided.
Lindell is a conspiracy theorist and gabbling lunatic who appeals to those from the victimhood cult. If that characterizes much of the Minnesota GOP, it’s quite likely some portion of the GOP portion of the electorate will stay home on Election Day, convinced either that the dark powers have deprived them of their chosen candidate, or that the candidate is unrepresentative of their views.
Minnesota primary election day is 11 August, and don’t mistake the limited number of candidates listed above as the totality; both sides have more than these listed. And, no, I don’t recognize any of those names, but I come from an age of pseudonymous social media, so my lack means little. Good luck to all of them, and I hope they accomplish whatever it is they’re trying to accomplish, so long as it’s not illicit.
- In Montana the left’s hopes to turn back Kurt Alme’s (R) bid for the Senate seat may have suffered a setback:
When Alani Bankhead, the Democratic nominee for Senate in Montana, announced that she would hold a news conference Monday afternoon, many fellow Democrats hoped she would announce that she was dropping out.
The idea was to make way for an independent candidate, Seth Bodnar, who is seen by many as more electable than Ms. Bankhead in a heavily Republican state.
Ms. Bankhead did not play ball.
“If dropping out was the right move to pave the way for a better candidate, I would absolutely do it,” Ms. Bankhead said in a defiant speech. “But Seth Bodnar is absolutely the last person on the face of the Earth I would ever drop out of this race for.” She added: “I am never dropping out. Ever. Ever.” [The New York Times]
Ms. Bankhead finds her offense in … two-year-old news that the university had settled a sex-discrimination lawsuit during his tenure. Mr. Bodnar had “established a pattern of dismissing and discriminating against women,” and he should “read the room and back out,” Ms. Bankhead said.
- Maine’s Senator Collins (R), up for reelection against oyster farmer and former Marine Graham Platner (D), regrets nothing, apparently:
NEWS CENTER MAINE: This is the first reelection campaign that you’re run since the Supreme Court overturned Roe v. Wade. I was hoping you could talk to me a little bit about your vote to confirm Kavanaugh and whether you regret that?
SUSAN COLLINS: I do not regret that vote.
Do Mainers dislike Justice Kavanaugh? Or is this an irrelevancy?
- Is this, net, good or bad for Nebraska Senate candidate Dan Osborn (I)?
On Friday [19 June?], CNN’s KFile team reported that Dan Osborn, the Democratic-backed independent Senate candidate from Nebraska, recalled calling ICE on replacement workers hired after his union went on strike in 2021, despite heavily criticizing the agency throughout his campaign. [Mediaite]
Independent voters who are against mass migration may approve Osborn’s behavior, along with union members and moderate Republicans; progressive Democrats may disapprove, but moderate Democrats may approve. Scabs, the colloquialism for replacement workers, seems a problematic topic in left politics.
- In Wyoming, the Democrats have a second candidate running in the Democratic primary, Billy Benavidez. He does not appear to have experience with elective office, and is using the well-worn I’m new around here approach to the election.
For the record, Rep Hageman (R), the presumed favorite in the Republican primary, has four competitors. There are no polls in this race, as of yet.
ON THE MARQUEE
The next Senate voting opportunity comes on 27 June for Louisiana’s primary runoffs for both Republicans and Democrats, followed by Colorado’s primary election on 30 June.
