THE PEELING OF THE ROTTEN BANANA HAS BEGUN
Or so it seems to me. Concurrently, there’s a feeling of a threatening wave about to come down on all of us. The changes that a Republican reformation might wrought could be highly important.
A REMINDER
MoE means Margin of Error; pollster ratings are taken from Silver Bulletin.
THE PEELS ARE FOUND HERE?
Either that or wood shavings from the last edition.
- In Kansas Pastor and perhaps future-Senator Hamilton (D) has picked up another Republican endorsement, this from former Governor Mike Hayden (R):
I ran for office for the first time when I was only 28 years old because I felt the person representing my community in the legislature was failing to fight for the needs of our state.
Today, I am endorsing Adam Hamilton for the U.S. Senate for the same reasons. [The Wichita Eagle]
That’s the second of that particular sort. Senator Marshall (R) may have made some enemies in his own Party. This is particularly important:
We also need a senator who understands compromise and bipartisanship are not weaknesses, but strengths. …
Adam’s experience as the pastor of the largest United Methodist church in the country — a church that is made up of equal parts Republicans, Democrats, and Independents — makes him uniquely prepared to go to Washington and bring people together around the solutions we need to solve our nation’s biggest problems, whether it’s the Farm Bill or reducing the national debt.
Everyone needs to help cleanup after the toxic personalities in Congress are kicked out, and there’ll be enough compromise to enrage ideologues on both sides.
- In Maine, Marist Poll (A- with a slight Democratic lean) gives Troy Jackson (D) a 51% – 47% lead over incumbent Senator Collins (R) with a MoE of ±3.8 points.
The Maine People’s Resource Center’s (B/C with a slight Democratic lean) latest poll gives Troy Jackson (D) a lead of 49.3% – 46.5% with a MoE of 3.8%, so a statistical tie.
- Sometimes I think Donald J. Trump is a false-flag operator working for the Democrats:
President Donald Trump took a sundown fight with Sen. Tom Cotton public on Saturday.
The president posted on social media what appeared to be the Arkansas Republican’s cell phone number, expressing anger over the senator’s opposition to legislation making daylight saving time permanent. [MS NOW]
How will this help Senator Cotton (R) fend off challenger Hallie Shoffner (D)? Or is the play to gin up sympathy for the helpless Senator from Arkansas?
- Yeah, false flag operator. See, Senator Husted (R) of Ohio can’t be happy with him, either:
President Donald Trump defended the unpopular data centers that power the artificial intelligence industry as he campaigned in Ohio on Saturday with a vulnerable Republican senator who is trying to overcome voters’ concerns about the hulking complexes.
Speaking shortly after Sen. Jon Husted, Trump decided to address the prickly topic.
“We want them,” Trump said of data centers. “Look, there’s so much money to be made for Ohio, you can’t just turn them off. They’ll go to China.” [San Juan Daily Star]
It’s as if he’s visiting Carthage with a bag of salt over his shoulder.
- CROCODILE TEARS PRACTICE: Texas AG and Senate candidate Ken Paxton (R) has a complaint to register:
Ken Paxton is less than a month out from the conclusion of a D.C.-outsider campaign for a Texas U.S. Senate seat that he privately admitted is being run by Washington.
“I’ve never been in a race where I felt less control over the campaign and, like, what issues are going to matter because it’s all coming — you know — from D.C.,” Paxton said during a small fundraising event last month, according to an audio recording obtained by POLITICO from a person in the room who does not support Paxton, and verified by another attendee.
“I don’t control message or what we’re doing.” [Politico]
It’ll be interesting to see if Texans respond to what appears to be weak whining. It doesn’t help Paxton that President Trump, professional false flag participant as noted above, is calling for a debate:
Trump’s call for Talarico to “immediately report to a Debate Stage” — meant as a jab at the Democrat’s absence — put the spotlight instead on Paxton, who has not publicly accepted any invitations for an onstage faceoff. [The Texas Tribune]
Unknown pollster Texas Public Opinion Research gives Talarico a 45% – 40% lead, with a MoE of ±3.4 points.
- A note of concern is sounding in South Carolina:
The main super PAC supporting Republican Senate candidates plans to inject $5 million into the South Carolina campaign as an “insurance policy” to help GOP nominee Darline Graham, a source familiar with the move tells Axios. [Axios]
This may turn out to be critical.
Graham won that primary over Rep. Ralph Norman with 52% of the vote after getting help from Trump. It left some bad feelings with Norman, who endorsed her but briefly suggested he would mount a write-in campaign for the Nov. 3 general election.
There is a price to be paid for manipulation, if the manipulated notice. I think South Carolina will be a very close race. Steve Benen has more here.
- Is Mississippi’s Senator Hyde-Smith (R) electorally vulnerable?
Now Colom, the 43-year-old district attorney for several counties in northeast Mississippi, has top Democratic officials and donors increasingly hopeful that he could pull off the inconceivable and use this year’s poor political environment for Republicans to win a Senate race that just a few months ago was nowhere to be found on the party’s 2026 plans.
Colom’s campaign against Sen. Cindy Hyde-Smith (R) remains a long shot for the party, especially because Democrats are not as flush with campaign cash as they were in past elections and face a growing list of expensive targets in the fight to take back the Senate. [WaPo]
Is the Senator panicking in response? This sure sounds like a smear.
Republican Sen. Cindy Hyde-Smith suggested that supporters of her Democratic challenger in the upcoming U.S. Senate race may have been involved in a 2023 shooting targeting her. …
In the recording, Hyde-Smith can be heard discussing a “guy who shot at us” with another person. A spokesperson for her campaign confirmed that she was referencing an October 2023 shooting near her home in Brookhaven. The U.S. Capitol Police, which investigated that shooting, did not return calls or an email to comment on the status of that investigation. [Clarion Ledger via yahoo! news]
The lack of polling in this State makes assessing the Mississippi races a difficult proposition in this Election of Rejection & Change.
- The gap in the New Hampshire Senate race may be stretching. Saint Anselm College (A/B with a slight Republican tilt), working for the AARP, gives Rep Pappas (D) the lead over former Senator Sununu (R), 51% – 44%. Among independents, he leads 57% – 37%. This is the profile I expect to see among victorious Democrats in swing States. AARP commentary here.
Rasmussen Reports (B+, strong Republican tilt) estimates
The latest Rasmussen Reports national telephone and online survey finds that, if the election were held today, 49% of Likely New Hampshire voters would vote for Pappas, while 44% would vote for Sununu.
- In Iowa Suffolk University (A- with a slight Democratic tilt) has taken a measurement and gives Josh Turek (D) a 48% – 44% lead over Rep Hinson (R), which is a reversal of fortunes, at least on Suffolk University’s track. Money quote:
The most recent poll showed Turek is leading 58%-30% among those likely voters who consider themselves independents, …
- Michigan Senate nominee Abdul El-Sayed (D) is attracting a lot of attention.
Kash Patel’s FBI slammed Michigan Senate candidate Abdul El-Sayed in a wildly partisan, and likely illegal, propaganda video Tuesday.
In a two-minute video posted on social media, the supposedly nonpartisan agency decried “democratic socialist leaders” for calling to defund the police. The video included footage of multiple Democrats calling to defund the police, including former Vice President Kamala Harris, current and former Representatives Alexandra Ocasio-Cortez, Cori Bush, and Ilhan Omar, and, of course, El-Sayed, who is running for office in November’s midterm elections. [The New Republic]
Keeping in mind this Administration’s lack of allegiance to truth, I would be very hesitant to believe anything from Patel.
Former Rep Rogers (R), El-Sayed’s opponent and avid Trump ally, is suddenly stepping on Trump’s toes.
Michigan Senate Republican nominee Mike Rogers broke with President Trump on Wednesday over the trade war with Canada, the latest step to distance himself from the administration’s economic agenda in the tight battle against progressive Democrat Abdul El-Sayed. [The Wall Street Journal]
The data center-happy President may also dislike this:
Trump imposed a 50% tariff on roughly $20 billion worth of Canadian goods this summer, which Rogers defended as necessary for Michigan manufacturing. In recent months, Rogers called for a quick end to the war in Iran and a one-year statewide moratorium on new data-center construction, both of which he had previously defended.
I wonder if GOP internal polling shows El-Sayed building a lead?
Quantus Insights (B/C, substantial lean to the Republicans) would disagree. They estimate El-Sayed’s lead is within their MoE, which is a ridiculous ±7.8 points, at 47.6% – 46.5%.
- Mason-Dixon Polling & Strategy (A-), working for NBC6/Telemundo, estimates Senator Moody’s (R) lead over State Senator Angie Nixon (D) to be a substantial 50% – 40% in Florida. This race is near finished, I’d say.
- YouGov (B, Democratic lean) is giving Dan Osborn (I) a 48% – 47% lead over Senator Ricketts (R) in Nebraska, with a MoE of ±3.3 points. Among their findings is a distaste for political parties: 43% of respondents have a Very unfavorable view of the Democratic Party, 42% the same for the Republicans. As Democrats make up only 26% of the respondents, this has some dire implications for the Republican Party.
THE TIDE MAY BE GOING OUT
Political analysts are beginning to acknowledge the imminent clubbing of the seal we call the Republican Party. Here’s a summary of the Cook Political Report:
Senate contests in Kansas, New Hampshire and North Carolina shifted toward Democrats, with top election prognosticator Cook Political Report predicting the party could now pick up six seats in November. [Forbes]
It’s a bit out of date and it cites the poorly rated St. Pete’s Polls (C+), but it remains a usefully conservative summation, appropriate when election politics and prediction is your dinner ticket. Unlike me, a working dude spewing out analysis based on 40 years of casual observation.
But since I’m the writer of this missive, I will say that I expect calamity will befall the Republicans in a month or so, a prediction which I’ve been making ever since it became clear the GOP Congressional caucus is principally made up of amateurs, far right hard-liners, and self-interested grifters who don’t know the first thing about legislating.
Add in their submissive attitude to a President whose narcissism, arrogance, confidence, and consistent failures are rivaled only by each other, and it wasn’t hard to predict this disaster. The real variable, in fact, is the Democrats. How bad are they? Will they be perceived as being effective?
Their tactical position, of course, is poor, but I think they’ve done OK at highlighting the profound failures of the Republican Party. Is that the perception of the electorate?
We’ll have to wait to find out.
FIN
Unless Florida’s inclinations suddenly change, I do not anticipate reporting on Florida; I see it as a Republican safe seat, although polls of Florida are scarce and generally not predictive of final results.
