SHORT CYCLE
Due to the short news cycle for the South Carolina and Maine Senate races, Campaign Updates are anticipated to be issued more quickly than I had planned.
… AND LITIGATE, LITIGATE, LITIGATE!
President Trump’s continual claims that the media is against him may have come to a climax in the last few days, as the UK’s Daily Mail reports:
Major broadcast networks, including ABC and NBC, did not air Donald Trump‘s highly anticipated speech on election integrity, prompting the president to call for the revocation of their licenses.
Trump addressed the nation in televised remarks on Thursday night, announcing that the White House was planning to release documents claiming that China illegally accessed voter files to manipulate the 2020 presidential election.
Reports surfaced ahead of his speech that the topic would reignite election-interference claims, and the networks opted to air it on their streaming services rather than on their prime-time channels.
Trump called out ABC and NBC during the live remarks, claiming they decided not to air it ‘because of the fact that they don’t like the topic because they know how corrupt our system is and they don’t want to reveal it.
‘They and others in the media are part of a plot. They want to continue this fraud for whatever reason. They want to keep it going. They want to protect the radical left,’ he continued.
Unfortunately for the President and his allies in the Senate, he comes off sounding like a petulant child denied the attention he craves, not a responsible adult, and that’ll damage certain GOP Senate candidates. This’ll add to Democrats’ optimism, earned or not. Why do I say ‘earned or not’?
A Washington Post-Ipsos poll finds voters favoring Democrats by three points among registered voters overall, but the margin grows among those who are most motivated to vote. [WaPo]
Against this mob of fourth-raters, the Democrats should have a far larger margin. The fact that they don’t, as I’ve said before, suggests they haven’t got the hang of being in touch with the voters.
More on my thoughts on the President’s speech are here.
OFF TO THE RACES, ON TO VICTORY, RIGHT TO MICKEY D’S, LEFT TO YOUR HEART’S DESIRE!
Last issue is disgustingly ephemeral.
- South Carolina Senator Darline Graham (R) has been endorsed and encouraged by President Trump to run for the Senate seat she’s been appointed to in the Republican primary; as of this writing, she’s said nothing officially about doing so [Later: she has answered in the affirmative]. The primary is 11 August.Incidentally, Darline Graham is married but does not use her husband’s name, according to Wikipedia, so I’ll use Senator Graham to reference her.
We do have a poll for the special election primary, and it’s from Emerson College Polling:
So far, Senator Graham is not leading the pack, but this may be due to a lack of familiarity with her on the part of voters. The endorsement of the President, in one of the most conservative States in the Union, may move her up the ladder, although his pick for governor, Pamela Evette (R), lost in the primary, and is now a candidate for Senator Graham’s seat. The leader is Rep Ralph Norman (R), who decided to run for Governor and lost the primary, which is also true of Rep Nancy Mace (R). [Later: Rep Mace has dropped out.]So far, it looks like a real wild-card situation for the South Carolina GOP, and, not having an insider’s views, I don’t know that they should be able to do better. The late Senator’s death was ill-timed.
- WaPo is reporting the Maine Democratic Party is converging on Troy Jackson, a Maine legislator, as their replacement of Graham Platner. Making progress, yeah? Maybe not:
Troy Jackson, a powerful Maine legislator now running for Senate, once angrily threw a water bottle in a meeting after he couldn’t persuade a lawmaker to vote his way.
He yelled at another lawmaker, prompting her to post on social media that straight men were “too emotional” to be in politics. And he cursed and shouted in a meeting with the speaker of Maine’s state House, until she kicked him out of her office.
During the six years Jackson presided over Maine’s Senate, until he left office in 2024, his temper was a feature of his leadership, and one that Democratic lawmakers discussed among themselves as a problem and even raised with the governor.
Just can’t stay away from the bad boys? I’ll tell you what, if Senator Collins wins re-election, I know of an entire state Party that should be dissolved.
- Michigan Senate candidate Abdul El-Sayed has picked up the endorsement of progressive Senator Warren (D-MA). Notably, the Senator said,
“He’s growing a movement of working people all across Michigan,” Warren says of El-Sayed in a video announcing the pick. “Michiganders deserve a senator who will fight for you, not for special interests running millions of dollars in TV ads to buy this seat.” [MS NOW]
Which is virtually a declaration of war, internecine war, much like that of the Republican Party’s brutal internal fights. I’ve noticed progressives tend to be out of touch with the voters and, for that matter, the ways of liberal democracies. We may eventually see the Democratic Party break in two, between moderates and progressives. The social dynamics of such a split may put the Democrats of any variety in a permanent minority.
I put a split at a 10% probability.
Meanwhile, rival Rep Haley Stevens (D-MI) has the endorsement of the Congressional Black Caucus. I don’t know how much weight they swing with voters.
- Senator Moody (R) of Florida leads Alexander Vindman (D) 50% – 40% and State Rep Angie Nixon (D) 50% – 42%, according to a University of North Florida poll.
