aNow that the primaries are half finished and mostly tabulated and decided – for those not paying attention, Rep Cawthorn (R-NC), a member of what I’ll informally call the Young Right-Wing Crazies Caucus, was successfully primaried by state Sen. Chuck Edwards (R-NC), despite a late endorsement from former President Trump – an overview of the upcoming elections to the Senate seems appropriate.

For those just rising from their stone couches, the Senate is split 50-50, with VP Kamala Harris (D) providing the deciding vote when necessary, which is reportedly quite often. The Democrats, who have the advantage of defending only 14 seats to the Republicans’ 21, and of facing a Party from which an attempted insurrection was sparked, and which then failed to condemn it, would in normal times be heavily favored. However, their own missteps may be crippling them.

Let’s start with brief discussions of possible factors, nation-wide, in this election cycle.

Inflation is a favorite topic of right-wing pundits. At 8% or so, it sounds terrible, although I think the Turks would swoon to have such an inflation rate, seeing as their’s is apparently over 70%, although I wonder at interpreting the source article.  On sober assessment, much of inflation, particularly of fossil fuels, is owed to Putin’s War (the invasion of Ukraine by Russia), but often blamed on the Biden Administration.

And don’t be fooled by claims that the United States is “energy independent.” Our fossil fuel companies are, truthfully, international companies hooked into an efficient international transit industry for a fungible product. An impact in one part of the world, such as Europe cutting off Russian oil supplies, will inevitably ripple all through that network. We produce and export more fossil fuel than we import, it’s true, but that doesn’t isolate us from price impacts.

Lack of achievement, traceable to Republican refusal to even permit debate on legislation that is not trivial nor Ukrainian aid, makes it hard for individual Senators to distinguish themselves in the area of achievements. Some, like Senator Cruz (R-TX), have learned how to run their mouths and distinguish themselves that way, but, given the low quality of his analysis and rhetoric, it’s hardly impressive.

The Afghanistan withdrawal, which left thirteen Americans dead, as mandated by former President Trump, may have some impact. While, on analysis, it’s difficult to see how President Biden could have changed his reaction without violating treaties signed by the former President, most Americans saw chaos, rather than an amazingly efficient withdrawal. While Senators had little to nothing to do with the incident, it may impact some contests.

Gun-related homicides, of which the Buffalo, NY, and Uvalde, TX massacres are leading examples, and the weak or, in at least one instance, utterly incoherent Republican responses, may influence voters who are also parents.

The sexual assault scandal of the Southern Baptist Convention (SBC) may have an effect on the voting patterns of a group that has been conservative for decades. While the evangelical proportion of the electorate has been shrinking for much of that time, they’ve been a potent voting bloc throughout the South.

But will this continue? The revelation that the SBC has been suppressing reports of sexual assaults by member pastors, not been disciplining those pastors effectively, nor reporting them to the police, and not supporting the victims, may shake the evangelicals to their roots. After all, it’s been these same pastors and leaders who’ve led the charge, mostly surreptitiously, but even overtly, against those evil, God-forsaken liberals. The realization that they’ve been mislead in this area may lead to reevaluations in all areas, even including abortion.

Might the bloc fracture and begin evaluating the political leadership potential of liberals? Some evangelicals, while remaining in the sect, may vote Democratic for the first time in their lives.

Political mismanagement by the Democrats tends to have more impact than the same by the Republicans, perhaps because Democrats of the far left are more often advocates for social change in a nation that is probably best described as center-right.

But advocates is a weak word these days. As I’ve noted before, the far left has shown a thread of autocracy in their approach to, ahem, advocacy, perhaps most notably in their utter botch and continued disregard for taking responsibility in the management of the transgender issue. Note that I speak extremely precisely here: I am not addressing the issue of transgenderism itself, but the political management of it. Its sudden appearance in Federal regulations, sans discussion and debate, with an autocratic flare, may be the deciding factor in why the Democrats are not expected to do well this November. If this seems nonsensical, compare to the discussions and debates concerning gay marriage, which began in 1992. Gay marriage was legalized nation-wide in 2015, meaning we had some 23 years of debate and discussion first. Was there equivalent debate of transgender issues? So far as I and others can tell, there was none. And that’s a serious abrogation of the liberal democracy model, which is far more important than most realize.

But other issues come under this heading: the disastrous Defund the police! slogan, since discarded and repudiated by moderate elements of the Democrats, but not all of the far-left; advocacy for Modern Monetary Theory, which, to most folks, including me, sounds like wishful thinking nonsense; ill-advised use of terminology that sounds much like socialism to new immigrant-citizens adverse to socialism, such as Cubans and Venezuelans; and attacks, both rhetorical and real, on historical figures revered by most Americans, such as George Washington, Benjamin Franklin, et al, without regard to historical context and, in some cases, simple historical facts.

I think these all unsettle independent voters who might otherwise be inclined to vote for the Democrats. This, despite the comparison of a thread of autocracy to the Republican Party’s blanket of autocracy.

I calls them as I sees them.

The January 6th Insurrection investigation, which I think is the great wildcard of the election, has had its first television appearance. This gives the independents a chance to learn just what transpired on the eponymous date. If they are paying attention, and don’t treat this as just more entertainment or settling of political grudges, this may change the balance of some races; it’s even possible that a Trump endorsement may go from a much sought after political fob to an anchor hanging from the necks of those who’ve received it.

But that still remains to be seen.

Many of these issues will doom the Democrats to not hold onto a 50-50 split Senate, which VP Harris tips towards the Democrats, or the House of Representatives.

Or so goes the common wisdom.

On the other hand, Senator McConnell, leader of the GOP in the Senate, has to, and does, worry about the quality of the Republican candidates, who tend to be fourth-raters with extremist views, and about the base, who think competency means corrupt, and moderation and humility is not better than arrogance and extremism. Such views do not impress most independents, who are the pivot of the election. Nominating an abortion extremist, or someone with bizarre views on life such as this guy, or a 2^nd Amendment absolutist, will not go over well with independents who are otherwise looking for reasonable alternatives to Democrats.

Is it an opportunity for a new third party? That’s a tough, tough sell, but the presence of Senators Sanders (I-VT) and King (I-ME) in the Senate suggests it’s not impossible for voters to think outside the box. Jennifer Rubin of WaPo thinks the promisingly named Moderate Party has a chance. I could see Evan McMullin and many other former GOP members joining such a party, along with some conservative Democrats. But it’s almost certainly too late for this election cycle.

So with no further ado, here’s my mini-analyses of the 2022 Senate contests.

Index

| Alabama | Alaska | Arizona | Arkansas | California | Colorado | Connecticut | Florida | Georgia | Hawaii | Idaho | Illinois | Indiana | Iowa | Kansas | Kentucky | Louisiana | Maryland | Missouri | Nevada | New Hampshire | New York | North Carolina | North Dakota | Ohio | Oklahoma | Oregon | Pennsylvania | South Carolina | South Dakota | Utah | Vermont | Washington | Wisconsin |

Alabama

Long time member of the Senate Richard Shelby (R) is retiring at the end of the 2022 term, but this is Alabama and hardly seems a pickup opportunity for the Democrats.

Except, this is  the Alabama GOP, the same Alabama GOP that nominated Judge Roy Moore for a special election to fill an empty Senate seat in 2018, and thereby handed that Senate seat to Doug Jones (D), who subsequently lost it to Tommy Tuberville (R), which may be another illustration of the state of the Alabama citizenry.

Primaries have been held, with now-Trump-endorsed Katie Britt and Rep, and former Trump endorsee, Mo Brooks making it to the runoff. Neither seem to have the scandal necessary to gives the Democrats a chance, although Brooks is slightly entangled in the January 6th insurrection imbroglio. Were he to win the runoff, and then the January 6th committee reveal some gross misconduct on his part, it might be enough to make him vulnerable, if GOP voters were to stay away in disgust. If if if, eh?

Among the Democrats, Will Boyd has won the primary overwhelmingly. His electoral experience is confined to losing campaigns, which should come as no surprise in Alabama; otherwise, he appears to be a college denizen, having a number of academic degrees, in engineering as well as theology. Will that be good enough?

Looks for the Republicans to retain this seat, absent a major scandal.

Alaska

Alaska is using an unusual jungle primary from which the top four vote-getters progress to the general election.

But let’s be honest. The incumbent is Senator Lisa Murkowski (R), and this is Murkowski-land, as her father also served as an Alaskan Senator and Governor. The far-right of the Alaska GOP may hate her, they may not endorse her, Trump may see red every time he hears her name, but she won as a write-in candidate in 2010 and could probably do the same again this time around.

The Republicans will retain this seat, as the Democrats are not running a candidate and have endorsed Murkowski, and I don’t think it’s a bizarre ploy. The other Republican candidates are simply far more extreme than the incumbent, and they’d rather see her back in the Senate than one of her competitors. Senate Minority Leader McConnell (R-KY) is supporting her in the face of Trump’s campaign to be rid of her.

She’s the favorite.

Arizona

The incumbent Senator Mark Kelly (D), winner of the special election to replace Senator McCain (R) after his death, faces his first traditional election. He has no primary opponents, so he’s been free to campaign against whoever the GOP has in the primaries.

But he suffers from lack of accomplishments, a common affliction in this age of team politics. If he’s done anything in the Senate, it’s escaped my admittedly scanty notice.

But does that leave the door open in purple Arizona? The primary to select his opponent from the GOP has not yet occurred, and to my eye there is no projected winner. State Attorney General Mark Brnovich, a civil engineer with no electoral history by the name of Jim Lamon, and similarly inexperienced, but endorsed by former President Trump’s and financed by billionaire Peter Thiel, Blake Masters are on offer.

Senator Kelly, outside of his political career, had careers as an astronaut and a Navy captain, which may serve him well in this race; his two of his three potential opponents do not seem to have much more to point at than adherence to the former President, and Brnovich is scorned by the same former President.

If Kelly can persuade Arizona independents that he’s not a leftist radical, he should be able to win. Communications is critical for victory.

Arkansas

Senator John Boozman (R) is up for his second reelection, or third term, as Senator from a State that, as of now, has a Federal delegation made up of two Republican Senators and four Republican Representatives. He’s endorsed by former President Trump.

No drama? Wrong.

Primary rival Jake Bequette may be pushing Boozman, and while I’ve found nothing really on his positions, he’s reported to take far-right positions. However, Boozman’s On The Issues summary shows him to the right of Bequette as a far-right extremist himself, and in any case, Boozman prevailed in the May 24th primary.

What does this mean? Given that some GOP voters refuse to vote for primary rivals when their favorite loses, this might give a strong Democrat a chance to take the seat. However, as this article implicitly notes, the Democratic opposition is weak. A possible opportunity for the Democrats, thrown away.

California

Senator Alex Padilla (D), who was appointed to take the place of Senator Harris (D) when the latter won the VP slot of the United States in 2021, is now gunning for outright election. The Republican nominee is Mark Meuser, who advanced via the non-partisan primary, and …

… has criticized California’s response to the coronavirus pandemic and even went so far as to file more than 20 lawsuits against Gov. Gavin Newsom for his emergency restrictions.” [Fox40]

I’ve been unable to find an On The Issues entry for Meuser.

Unless a black swan flies overhead, it’s Padilla all the way, despite his lack of obvious accomplishments during his time in the Senate.

Colorado

Senator Michael Bennet (D) is running for reelection for a second time. In 2016 he gained 50% of the vote, defeating Republican Darryl Glenn by 6+ points. Can he do it again? There’s no obvious reasons why not. He faces no primary opponents, Biden won the state by 13 points, and none of the names in the Republican primary ring a bell, much less strike fear in the hearts of liberals, at least not that I have heard.

That said, American politics is full of upsets and surprises. Both Bennet and Biden need to get on their campaign horses and get the message out.

Connecticut

Senator Richard Bloomenthal Blumenthal (D) will be defending his seat, but not against primary opponents. And how do his Republican opponents look?

The first snapshot of Connecticut’s U.S. Senate race shows Sen. Richard Blumenthal, a two-term Democrat, with leads ranging from 10 points to 16 points in matchups with Republicans Themis Klarides, Peter Lumaj and Leora Levy. [MSN]

Unless something unforeseen occurs, Bloomenthal Blumenthal should be reelected.

Florida

The race in Florida, featuring incumbent Senator Marco Rubio (R) vs, in all likelihood, Rep Val Demings (D), should be one of the hotter races in the Senate this year. The Democratic propaganda line has repeatedly claimed that Demings is ahead or, at least, within striking distance of the two-term, three-term wannabe, incumbent.

And, quite honestly, to my independent ear, Rubio has seemed woefully out of touch, even somewhat incoherent, recently. When the Miami Heat of the NBA included an announcement during the game following the school massacre in Uvalde, TX, urging fans to call on their local and Federal representatives to pass “common-sense gun laws,” Rubio’s response was deeply flawed, for those who cared to soberly think:

The @NBA doesn’t like to talk about the billions they make from a China that enslaves Uyghur Muslims and harvests their organs

But they have no problem politicizing a horrific tragedy in America pic.twitter.com/VUXpOBbw7j

— Marco Rubio (@marcorubio) May 26, 2022

Designed to enrage, rather than provoke discussion, Rubio’s attempt to hide behind the stage magician’s magic hand is not impressive to my mind.

But I don’t live in Florida. Concerning Demings, I’ve heard little. Some polls are out, such as this one. It may depend on how well Democrats can turn out the vote.

Georgia

Georgia’s Senatorial race is decidedly one of the most interesting races to analyze. The Democratic incumbent and winner of a special election in 2020, Senator and Rev Raphael Warnock, pastor of the very church at which MLK, Jr. preached, will face recent overwhelming winner of the GOP primary, former NFL star (and Minnesota Viking) Herschel Walker.

First, it’s worth noting that former President Trump is not urging the MAGA crowd not to vote, so that drag on the Republican candidate is not present, unlike when Warnock won the special election to initially fill the seat in 2020.

Warnock has been accused of various ill-doings, none of which seem to stick, so they might be just the usual political mud flinging. He doesn’t appear to have any particular Senatorial accomplishments to which to point, since political polarization brought on by GOP toxic team politics, as well as Senator McConnell’s (R-KY) steadfast insistence of never permitting a debate on most legislation, unless it’s trivial or aid to Ukraine, makes such accomplishments quite the trick to achieve. Still, a man of the cloth should hold some sway over Georgia independents.

Walker has his share of negative reports as a burden as well: accusations of domestic terrorism by an ex-wife, for which Walker claims he’s “accountable;” in his business dealings, he apparently tends to claim more than he actually does, and has been associated with ethically questionable businesses – or even businesses that don’t exist. He’s also acknowledged mental illness, a brave thing to do.

But that’s the past, and many conservative voters will give him a pass for past mistakes. The United States loves a good, redemptive story. So do I. But how about today?

Today, it’s not clear that he’s even functional. His response to the Uvalde, TX school massacre wasn’t evasive, it didn’t cling to the magic of owning a gun, it wasn’t like any other Republican response.

It was utter gibberish, and so was his followup.

And, yet, polls show Warnock and Walker neck and neck, so far as I can make out.

Raw Story has a report from prior to the primary that claimed Georgia GOP officials were terrified that Walker would win the primary, thus dooming their hopes to retake Warnock’s seat. How do they feel now, with Walker unable to meet the challenge of even saying “Prayers and thoughts?” Or will the magic of football dominate in Georgia, as it did in the Alabama election of former coach Tommy Tuberville (R) in 2020?

The general election in Georgia will say a lot as to the seriousness of the electorate.

Hawaii

Democratic Senator Brian Schatz will be running for reelection, having been appointed to his seat in 2012, and winning outright election in 2016 … by 51 points.

There seems little to worry Schatz in his reelection bid.

Idaho

Much like the Hawaii race, incumbent Idaho Senator Mike Crapo (R), recent winner of his primary, seems to have an assured reelection, having won his previous election in 2016 by 39 points.

Illinois

Senator Duckworth (D) will be defending her seat for the first time, having won in 2016 by 15 points, upsetting incumbent Mark Kirk (R). I have not found any excitement in press coverage concerning Senator Duckworth, and she lacks primary opponents, while the Republican collection of candidates do not appear to be remarkable. The primary is June 28, which may clarify the race’s points of interest, or it may simply clarify who Duckworth will be thumping.

Indiana

Deep in Republican land, Senator Todd Young (R) is defending his seat against Mayor Thomas McDermott, Jr. (D). Young won this then-open seat in 2016 by just less than ten points, which may be misleading as he beat the son of a former Senator, Evan Bayh, son of Birch Bayh. Does McDermott have the same name recognition, being the mayor of Hammond, IN, for 18 years? I’ve not found any polls saying so, or measuring the race. The Cook Political Report says Young is outpacing McDermott in fund-raising. And, it’s Indiana.

I figure it’s Young all the way until I hear otherwise.

Iowa

Senator Grassley (R), all 88 years of him, is running for reelection. He was challenged in the primary by State Senator Jim Carlin (R), who seemed optimistic that Grassley is vulnerable, but he failed.

But Carlin may be right. As I’ve noted before, Senator Grassley has sadly devolved into either dementia or just simple mendacity. Iowans, like most American voters, like honesty in their candidates, and if Grassley cannot manage honesty then he may be ousted.

The Democrats surprisingly passed over former Rep Abby Finkenauer (D-IA) to select inexperienced retired Admiral Mike Franken, who does have some experience from working in Senator Ted Kennedy’s (D) office. Perhaps Iowans will respond well to someone with a military background. Grassley is an ally of the former President, so if Trump finds himself in legal trouble, it could reflect poorly on Senator Grassley.

But I sense this is one of those unexpected pickup opportunities that will somehow slip out of the Democrats’ hands.

Kansas

Incumbent Jerry Moran (R) is being primaried by something of an oddity: Joan Farr, who is also running for Senator from the state of Oklahoma.

Yeah, no kidding.

She’s also written a book, How to Run for Office as an Independent Candidate – on very little $$!, so I have to wonder if this is a stunt.

The Kansas primary is on August 2, but I doubt that Kansas is likely to send a Democrat to the Senate unless Moran becomes as electorally repulsive as Kris Kobach (R-KA), who is notorious for losing the 2018 Kansas governor’s race to Democrat and then-State Senator Laura Kelly, thus once again proving Kansans do have a limited appetite for extremist Republicans, having previously rejected, in 2017, then-Governor Brownback’s (R-KA) radical tax reduction plan by replacing his legislative allies with moderate Republicans and Democrats, and then revoking his plan, much to his horror.

Senator Moran’s (R-KS) On The Issues summary.

But by the handiest measure of extremism, Moran’s TrumpScore, he is not particularly extremist. Absent a disastrous scandal, and in view of the fact that Moran won election in 2016 by 30 points, look for Moran to win reelection. His On The Issues summary, though, shows more of an extremist outlook, and is more complete than an arbitrary list of votes.

Still, look for the Democratic challenger to have an uphill climb.

Kentucky

Incumbent Rand Paul (R) won in 2016 by nearly 14 points, and in Republican Kentucky that might be the end of the story.

But if I were a Rand Paul partisan, I might have some concerns.

First, the Democratic nominee is former State Senator Charles Booker, who ran a close second in the Democratic primary in 2020 to challenge Senator McConnell, and is considered a well-known and popular Democrat in Kentucky.

Second, Senator Paul has arguably been acting erratically and against the interests of the United States and Kentucky for years, with his latest cause being the delay of assistance to Ukraine in Putin’s War; indeed, it almost appears that Paul is a Putin partisan. And Americans have little patience with traitors.

Now, it is true that Paul is emblematic of the amateur that is semi-revered in Republican politics. A graduate of Duke Medical School, beginning in 1999 he was certified as an ophthalmologist by an organization of his own creation, the NBO, which was also run by Paul, his wife, and his father-in-law. This sounds very much DIY and brave and all that rot, but is obviously open to fraud. In fact, an unfavorable reading of the cited article suggests a certain petulance on his part.

In any case, a vigorous and insightful campaign by Booker has the potential to yield a surprise for the Democrats. Paul is hardly an impregnable political force. He’s really more of a goof. The question is whether or not Kentuckians realize that.

My money says they don’t.

Louisiana

Deep in Republican land, Senator John Kennedy (R) is popular and appears to not be facing any opponents of stature from either Party. Expect another six years of the smarmy guy from Louisiana.

Maryland

Democratic Senator Chris Van Hollen’s future is unclear, at least to me. If he were challenged by Maryland Governor Larry Hogan (R), at least some polls have suggested he would lose. However, the Republican effort to recruit Hogan to run have failed, leaving behind a bunch of names with which I’ve no familiarity.

Van Hollen, having won in 2016 in an open seat contest by 25 points, has to be the presumptive favorite.

Missouri

Missouri’s Senator Roy Blunt (R) is retiring after this Congress, which puts his seat up for grabs. In normal times, Blunt would be succeeded by another Republican, perhaps one of his staff members.

This isn’t normal times.

As Kansas (governor) and Alabama (senator) have demonstrated in recent years, if the GOP nominates a sufficiently repulsive personality, such as extremist Kris Kobach, or alleged sexual predator Judge Roy Moore, moderate conservative voters will walk away and give the seat to the Democrats. Candidate and former Governor Eric Greitens (R), who was forced to resign for his alleged sins, may fit the profile, as he was accused of sexual assault of a woman, not his wife, who was tied up in his basement at the time. He claimed it was a consensual encounter, but resigned anyways.

And now he’s a leading contender for the GOP nomination.

Past behavior is no guarantee of future behaviors, of course. Missouri voters may be convinced the accusations, which also included campaign finance irregularities, were all a political scam, and vote him into the Senate.

I must say, not being a fan of the other Missouri Senator, Josh Hawley (R), that’d make quite a pair chewing up Senator salary funds.

But if the Democrats can field a strong contender, this may turn into quite a race. The problem is that phrase: strong contender.

The primary is August 2, and it could be quite interesting.

Nevada

Democratic Senator Catherine Cortez Masto is the incumbent and is considered to be in some danger of losing her seat to whoever wins the Republican primary, which recent polls suggest will be Adam Laxalt, a former Nevada Attorney General; the primary is this Tuesday. However, her position with the Latino community appears strong, and general polls suggest a great deal of indecision.

Conventional wisdom has Masto losing, but I suspect, absent the black swan of doom, Masto will win this with surprising ease.

New Hampshire

The incumbent is Democrat and Senator Maggie Hassan. In her 2016 race, she upset incumbent Kelly Ayotte (R) by .14%, a painfully close race. Nor is New Hampshire a traditional Democratic stronghold.

And, finally, opinion is mixed. Crowd Wisdom, which is unfamiliar to me, believes Hassan is well-positioned to win reelection; conservative National Review, in an older article, thinks she’s in trouble. With the primary in September, Hassan’s opponent is undetermined.

We’ll just have to wait to see if the Republicans pick a strong or weak candidate.

But it must be noted in that popular Governor Sununu (R-NH), when asked to run for the Senate, declined the opportunity. Rumor suggests he sees little opportunity in the Senate for accomplishment, which is real pushback on the strategy of Senator McConnell.

This is a gift to the Democrats. Can they capitalize?

New York

Incumbent Senator and Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer (D) has been facing the Mountain of GOP intransigence, the Lake of Manchin and Sinema Obtuseness, and the Abyss of Biden clumsiness, but he’s running again anyways. Weaker men would call it a career.

On the other hand, and hand in hand with Speaker of the House Pelosi (D-CA), they defeated former President Trump’s desperate attempts to force the government into bankruptcy. Schumer has a lot of good to point at.

So his path to remain in his seat includes reminding independents of his defeat of the former President, the insuperable obstacles he’s faced as Majority Leader, and what happens if he’s replaced by a Republican. Fortunately, none of his primary or general election opponents seem to have much for name recognition, and New York is generally Democratic for state-wide campaigns. Look for Schumer to retain his seat.

North Carolina

In purplish North Carolina incumbent Richard Burr (R) is vacating his seat after accusations that he may have violated ethics rules concerning stock trades made with privileged information. As the primary has come and gone, we know that the two major party candidates are former State Supreme Court Justice Cheri Beasley (D), who easily won her primary, and Rep Ted Budd (R), who won the GOP nomination in a come from behind overwhelming victory, following endorsement by former President Trump.

Which way to bet? Democrat Beasley definitely has a hill to climb, and the few polls out so far have varying results, from a 2 point mound to an 8 point ugly hill. But there’s still a few months for the campaigns to work their respective magics.

The other two hinges of this race may also be that of current President Biden and former President Trump. If Biden sharpens his message and his performance, independent North Carolina voters may decide to vote for Beasley as a proxy for Biden. If Biden’s Administration continues to struggle with domestic issues and fails to communicate its more-than-solid performance regarding Putin’s War, then North Carolina independents may hold their noses and vote for the Trump-endorsed Budd. Even disaffected voters for the losers of the primary – primarily former Gov Pat McCrory (R) – may vote for Budd.

But if Trump comes out of the January 6th Insurrection hearings that are currently being televised smelling like an arrogant autocrat, independent North Carolina voters may take their fury out on the Republicans by voting for Beasley.

Time will tell.

North Dakota

It’s North Dakota. Have North Dakotans become disaffected with the Republican Party when I wasn’t looking?

No.

It’s incumbent John Hoeven (R) in a walk. Assuming he survives the upcoming primary.

Ohio

Incumbent Rob Portman (R) is retiring from the Senate, and the major parties are putting forth Rep Tim Ryan (D) and J. D. Vance (R), retired Marine, lawyer and author of Hillbilly Elegy.

J. D. Vance’s On The Issues summary.

Vance has not held elective office, but he has worked for Senator John Cornyn (R-TX) and state Senator Bob Schuler (R-OH), so he at least knows what’s going on. He won the party primary with merely 31.3% of the GOP vote, so there may be some question as to whether the Josh Mandell partisans, his closest rival with 24.3% of the vote, will be willing to vote for Vance, or if the battle was bitter enough to outrage them. Balancing this is an endorsement, in April, of Vance by former President Trump. However, an endorsee who only won a plurality of the vote does raise some questions about the candidate’s overall popularity with the GOP. Complicating the question is the fact that Vance transitioned from a Never Trumper to a Trump sycophant, suggesting his lust for power influences his judgment, and that he’s a right-wing extremist. The On The Issues summary of his positions, to your right, reinforces that impression.

Rep Ryan (D) is completing his twentieth year as a member of the House of Representatives, albeit for two different Ohio districts. His length of service suggests he knows how to get elected in a reddish state, although gerrymandering may also be at work here. However, he’s more than a bit to the left of moderate, as can be seen to the left.

The only poll I’ve found so far suggests Vance is up by 2 points, which is within the margin of error. In an opinion piece by Jennifer Rubin of WaPo, she quotes Matt Bennett:

Matt Bennett, of the moderate think tank Third Way, explains: “Voters in places like Ohio will have a clear choice in the Senate race: a principled moderate who has eschewed the radicals in his own party and is entirely focused on making life better for the people of the state or a completely phony proto-populist who decided that the only way to win high office as a Republican is to bend the knee to Donald Trump, lie constantly, and focus on culture war tropes and racist nonsense.”

Not exactly a nuanced, neutral view – or Vance is one mighty scumbag.

Look for this to be one of the big battlegrounds of the 2022 Senate cycle.

Oklahoma

The incumbent is James Lankford (R), who won his 2016 race by 43.1 points. He’s being primaried, but the opponents do not appear to be a serious threat, and neither do the Democrats.

It’s Oklahoma. It’ll be Senator Lankford, again, in 12 months, barring a black swan scandal.

But it’s a two-fer! Long-time Senator James Inhofe (R) will retire prior to the end of his current term, on the day that new Senators are sworn in; the special election will be held on November 8, 2022, Election Day.

The parties are putting forth former Rep Kendra Horn (D), who lost to Stephanie Bice (R) in her reelection bid in 2020, and is the default winner in the primary, while there’s a host of GOP candidates awaiting the late June primary balloting, chief among them former EPA Administrator and entrant in the Most Scandals Ever contest Scott Pruitt, and Rep Markwayne Mullin, perhaps best known for his desperate attempts to gain former President Trump’s endorsement. With a TrumpScore of 93%, he may not be sycophantic enough to overcome Pruitt’s service to the former President.

But it’s more than likely that either one of them will beat Horn in highly conservative Oklahoma. Unless the former President does, in fact, fall from grace in the near future.

Oregon

Senator Ron Wyden (D-OR) has had 26 years in the US Senate, and he’s gunning for another six years. In 2016 he won reelection by an overwhelming 23 points. Do have the Republicans have a selection which will appeal to the power-holding independents?

I don’t think so. The winner of the GOP primary is Jo Rae Perkins, who won with only 33% of the primary voters, indicating dissension in the ranks. Her electoral experience consists of running for and failing to win elective office. Most importantly, her On The Issues chart, to the reader’s right, indicates a far-right partisan unlikely to appeal to independents.

Absent the black swan, this is incumbent Wyden’s in a walk.

Pennsylvania

Toomey may not have had the mouth of Senator Cruz, but he’s arguably farther right than the most disliked member of the Senate.

The race for the open seat of retiring far-right Senator Pat Toomey (R) is possibly the most intriguing and damaged competition of the 2022 races for Federal seats, including the House seats. Indeed, it’s damn near a soap opera.

The Republicans opened with a field led by the Trump-endorsed and prominent PA Republican Sean Parnell, who was defeated in 2020 for an open House seat in a Republican-leaning district by moderate Democrat Conor Lamb. Probably due to the endorsement, Parnell’s future looked promising, but on or around Nov 23, 2021, he withdrew from the race entirely after losing custody of his children to his estranged wife after being accused of hurting both wife and children, which he denied.

Mehment Oz’s On The Issues summary.

With a prime member of the PA GOP’s Steel Curtain suddenly out of the running, Dr. Mehmet Oz, also known as TV’s Dr. Oz, a surgeon who dispenses medical advice on television, joined the race a few days later. Does he have a residence in Pennsylvania? He does in a few other States, but not Pennsylvania. He holds dual citizenship with the USA and Turkey, has been accused multiple times, credibly, of dispensing inferior medical advice, as well as flip-flopping on positions. Nor is he a moderate that would appeal to moderates, as his On The Issues summary, to the left, indicates. I do have to wonder how accurate it is, though, as he has no prior elective experience, only statements.

But he’s not the only opportunist, as David McCormick also joined the fray in January of 2022. A Wall Street inhabitant, he also has a military background and served in positions in government.

But wait, there’s more! As the primary date neared, comparative unknown Kathy Barnette, breathing far-right fire, surged in the polls and seemed to be positioning herself to slide by the two leaders, Oz and McCormick, by using her ideological appeal and even a diss of the former President. That latter tactic may have been a mistake.

In the Republican primary showdown, the counts, recounts, and litigation took quite a while to resolve, but Dr. Oz slipped past McCormick by a mere 951 votes in the end. Barnette faded badly, but at least she didn’t start screaming about vote rigging, unlike this defeated candidate in Arizona.

Among the Democrats, the contest counted four entrants in the end, but the real contest was expected to be between the aforementioned Rep Conor Lamb, coming off of one giant-killing in 2020, and Lt. Governor John Fetterman, who, at 6′ 9″ tall, is a credible giant, bald, and covered in tatoos.

But I think anyone who has seen Fetterman on stage or read his responses to Republicans over the years is well aware that he’s a charismatic individual who comes across as authentic, much like Jesse Ventura did during his successful run for the Minnesota Governor’s seat as an independent in 1998.

But there was more drama to come, as Fetterman ended up in the hospital just a few days before May 17, Primary Day in Pennsylvania. Initially reported as a mild stroke, brought on by ignoring medical advice, it turned out to be much more serious. Would that affect the primary?

Oh, it probably did, but Rep Lamb’s giant-killing ways still came to a stop with a surprising 32 point loss to the Lt. Governor.

But will Fetterman’s campaign’s decision to underplay his medical condition affect some voters? Some – maybe many – appreciate knowing medical details of their political representatives – even if FDR had polio and didn’t advertise it. That was an era when medical problems were far more common, and political candidates were expected to persevere and hope the divine would carry them through. That’s not today.

John Fetterman’s On The Issues summary.

Fetterman, unlike Oz, has relatively little to worry about in the scandal department, or at least so far as we know, unless Oz can somehow find a way to attack Fetterman’s support for fracking, a position which will make Democrats deeply uneasy, but will appeal to a certain class of Pennsylvanians. Oz would be wise to forget that target, because Oz will be the target of many unhappy revelations, at least for those who haven’t followed his career. Pennsylvania famously went for Biden by 1.17% in the 2020 Presidential election, and, even more importantly, far-right retiring Senator Toomey won in 2016 by only 1.5 points – against a relative unknown. If the Democrats had a better-known candidate in 2016, Toomey might have spent the last 5.5 years watching from the sidelines. Fetterman may be that candidate.

Fetterman’s health and opacity makes this pick a bit of a wildcard, but I still like Fetterman’s chances. Look for the Democrats to pick up this seat, especially if McCormick’s partisans were embittered losing to Mehmet Oz.

South Carolina

Incumbent Senator Tim Scott (R) is running again. Having won in 2016 by 23 points, and not stepped in any potholes since then, I expect to see Senator Scott in the Senate again a year from now.

South Dakota

Incumbent Senator John Thune (R) is running again. In 2022, he won by 43 points, and there’s little reason to believe the South Dakotan and high ranking Republican leader in the Senate, and who won 73+% of the votes in the GOP primary, won’t be victorious again come this November.

No matter how much the former President hates him.

Utah

In what would otherwise be considered another limp Republican state, incumbent Senator Mike Lee (R) is facing an actual credible challenge, not from the Democrats, but from independent Evan McMullin.

McMullin has not held elective office, but has worked as chief policy director for the House Republican Conference, a credit of, perhaps, dubious worth, given the tremendous mess the GOP has for most policy issues; prior to that, he was a CIA officer. He ran for President in 2016, and in Utah he hoovered up 21.5% of the vote, which I personally think is a marvelous result.

The incumbent, Mike Lee, still faces a primary, which does not appear to be much of a challenge, and then McMullin, who has been extraordinarily endorsed by the Democrats, and Lee will have their go. McMullin is definitely a conservative, but the sort that is a Never Trumper, while Senator Lee is an ally of the former President. Lee has certainly stuck his foot in his mouth a couple of times, exhibiting views that seem sophisticated and insightful, but they were neither, simply convenient to his defense of the former President and the policy positions of the Republicans. By being allegedly deceptive about his role in the January 6th riot, he’s angered his hometown media, namely The Salt Lake Tribune.

It’s Lee, but it’ll be close, close enough that bad news for Trump could see McMullin into the Senate.

Vermont

Democratic incumbent Senator Leahy is retiring at the end of this term, so it’s a free-for-all for this seat. The primary is August 9th. At present, the scant polls suggest Democratic Rep Peter Welch is in a commanding position, but there are still months to go.

But President Biden won Vermont by 35 points. I expect we’ll see a Democrat win this seat.

Washington

Tiffany Smiley’s On The Issues summary.

Long time incumbent Democratic Senator Patty Murray is running again. In 2016, she won by a commanding 18 points, but here in 2022 some sources are trying to talk up a challenge by Tiffany Smiley (R). Smiley’s a moderate, which suggests she may appeal to Washington independent voters, but Murray is a known and presumably comfortable quantity. The sources are, I think, wishful rather than realistic. This poll gives Murray a commanding lead.

Look for Murray to retain her seat.

But I think the real point of interest is that Washington uses a “top-two” primary system. All qualifying candidates, regardless of party affiliation, are listed on the primary ballot, and the top two vote-getters then move on to the general election. This has the potential to remove extremists, conservative and liberal, who are not palatable to the general voter, leaving at least one of the top two to be of a moderate mien; if there is no incumbent, then both may be moderates.

But it depends on a sufficient turnout. If Smiley is, in fact, promoted to the general election, that suggests that the far-right extremists, despite the racket they make, are only a small portion of the general conservative faction of the American electorate.

Wisconsin

Republican incumbent Ron Johnson (R) is running for reelection, and in so doing breaking a vow to only serve two terms. I don’t think that matters much to his partisans, and probably not to the Wisconsin electorate.

But it’s of a piece with the story of Senator Johnson. Over the last two or three years, he’s been slowly descending, in the eyes of this independent, into the depths of dementia or, at best, exceptionally poor judgement. He’s promoted vacuous, false claims of cures for Covid-19, crank conspiracy theories, election-denying attacks on our election system, ridiculous anti-Democrat memes, unjustified diminutions of the effects of what appears to be the imminent overturning of Roe v Wade, and generally seems to have a screw loose.

I’m not kidding. This isn’t vituperation; he is simply that bad.

Will he even survive the primary? There’s a long list of Republicans on the primary ballot, eager to take him down, and that suggests a widespread recognition that the Senator is a liability and not an asset in the US Senate. However, I have not found any polls for Johnson and his intra-party rivals.

Nor have I for the Democrats among themselves.

However, I have found a couple of polls of Johnson vs selected Democrats, namely Lt. Governor and former State Assemblyman Mandela Barnes, who comes out even, and former State Assemblyman Tom Nelson, who comes out with a 4 point advantage.

Johnson won reelection in 2016 by 3+ points, but this time around he has an extra burden to bear: the Wisconsin GOP. They have proven to be a pack of Trump sycophants and extremists, having wasted millions of dollars on recounts and incompetent, even infantile investigations, and demanded Wisconsin Speaker of the House Robin Vos revert the 2020 Presidential election results, which would be illegal, as Vos himself recognized. He was booed for telling the truth. All of these fourth-rater blunders have been well-advertised by an outraged Wisconsin media.

Between that and Johnson’s outright non-mainstream and irrational behaviors, it’s hard to see the independents voting him back to the Senate again. If the Democrats select a reasonably strong candidate and Johnson beats his rivals in the primary, I expect the Democrats to tip this state.

And that’s it. I’m too tired to count, but my impression is that, as one might expect given the imbalance in seats to defend, the Republicans have two-four more seats that may be taken by Democrats (or, in Utah, independent Evan McMullin) than do the Democrats have at risk. Worse yet, it’s hard to pick which Republican is at worst risk, the empty seat in Pennsylvania, Senator Johnson in Wisconsin, or even Senator Grassley in Iowa.

Months to go, scandals to come. I hope you enjoyed my analyses.

The end is nigh. Sing it, kitty! In other news …

• A rated Monmouth University Poll’s last survey of Pennsylvania’s Senate race gives Lt Governor Fetterman (D) a 49% to 44% lead over Dr. Oz. How broken is this race? Will Oz pull it out? Even thrash Fetterman? Emerson College may be indicating that, giving Oz a 48% to 46% lead. Susquehanna Polling and Research, B+ rated, believes Dr. Oz has a lead of 47.6% to 46.6%, or another dead heat. Remington, more on them below, has Dr. Oz ahead 47% to 44%, while B+ rated Suffolk University, while finding their recent debate may have hurt Fetterman due to his stroke-affected performance, gives Fetterman a 47% to 45% lead, or too close to really call. Notable: The contest is up for grabs, the survey shows, with an unusually high 19% of independents undecided, even as early voting has opened. 19% of independents are undecided? Are you yanking my starter cord? Or is this article from WaPo, quoting Dr. Oz as saying Senator McConnell runs the party and not the former President, a deal-breaker for MAGA voters in PA? Daily Kos’s Joan McCarter seems excited about it.
• B rated Remington gives Arizona Senator Kelly (D) a 48% to 47% lead over challenger Blake Masters (R) in Arizona. On RealClearPolitics, Remington Research Group has (R) after their name, which appears to mean they’re Republican leaning. If so, Kelly may have a somewhat larger lead than shown here. For instance, A+ rated Siena College just gave the Senator a six point lead. But GOP linked Insider Advantage makes it a dead heat at 48%.
• B/C rated University of Arkansas has issued a poll for the Arkansas Senator Boozman (R) vs Natalie James (D) race, but there are no numbers in the document. The RealClearPolitics link for it, though, claims Boozman now has a 33 point lead. While not surprising, it’s disappointing in that the two previous available polls gave Boozman a much more surprisingly slim 13 point lead. But University of Arkansas does not have an impressive rating, either.
• GOP linked Insider Advantage gives Florida Senator Rubio (R) a 51% to 45% lead over Rep Val Demings (D). This seems broadly consistent with other polls. Although this guy claims to have interviewed a Florida pollster who says Crist (D, formerly R) leads Governor DeSantis (R) in the Florida gubernatorial contest by six points, which would be a real outlier. I don’t doubt either of the guys, I just don’t believe the result, not only because most other polls show DeSantis way out ahead, but this guy gets his results from online polling.
• A rated SurveyUSA has Georgia Senator Warnock (D) up 49% to 43% over challenger Herschel Walker (R), while Republican pollster Remington turns the lead around, Walker 49%, Warnock 45%.
• Emerson College suggests the Kansas race has broken open, with Senator Moran (R) leading 54% to 33% over challenger Mark Holland (D). As Moran’s On The Issues page suggests he’s a rabid anti-abortionist, this is a little on the unbelievable side. I guess we’ll find out in five days.
• The Trump – McConnell feud continues in the GOP. This sort of thing, common in organizations that have as foundational principles arrogance, self-regard, greed, idolization of wealth, and etc, often leads to failure to reach organizational goals, and sometimes the dissolution of such organizations. Whether that happens here remains to be seen.
• GOP linked Trafalgar continues the Saint Anselm’s College findings by giving Don Bolduc (R) a small lead over New Hampshire Senator Hassan (D), 47% to 45.7%. Just call it a dead heat. However, trekking in outlier land, UMass Lowell’s Center for Public Opinion gives Senator Hassan a 51% to 41% lead. That’s huge. And out of line with other pollsters. But Lowell’s is a B+ rated pollster, so sneezing is out of the question.
• The latest Marquette Law School Poll, A/B rated, gives Wisconsin Senator Johnson (R) a 52% to 46% lead over Lt. Governor Mandela Barnes (D). Another six years of dread stupid rumors? Say it isn’t so! However, A+ rated Siena College gives Johnson a much smaller 47% to 45% lead, or technically a dead heat. And in this poll Johnson isn’t over the 50% hurdle.
• Remington is giving J. D. Vance (R) a 48% to 43% lead over Rep Ryan (D) in Ohio. And there’s Baldwin Wallace University, B/C rated, giving Ryan the advantage at 50.2% to 46%, which I don’t call an outlier, but I lay in bed at night debating the point. From The Center Square regarding this poll, Notable: Vance’s memoir Hillbilly Elegy that detailed his family’s crisis in Appalachian Ohio surrounding opioid addiction along with other economic and socioeconomic issues became wildly popular and led to a movie. To Sutton, “airing dirty laundry” of the region could create problems for Vance with voters in the area. “J.D. Vance became very well know because of his memoir and has been seen as a great success,” Sutton said. “But if you’re from these communities dealing with these issues, you look at your brethren here and he aired the dirty laundry. For the folks that live in those areas he committed a cardinal sin. I think those folks in those areas are either voting for Ryan or sitting this race out. So, one of the things I’m going to be looking at is the vote gap between those who vote for DeWine and those who vote for Vance.” I look forward to hearing if this hypothesis proves out.
• Emerson College gives North Carolina Rep Ted Budd (R) a 50% to 45% lead over Cheri Beasley (D). Balancing them, B- rated Civiqs has these two nominees tied at 49%, with a margin of error of ± 4.9 points.
• Finally, SurveyUSA shows Trudy Busch Valentine (D) closing the gap too slowly and too late in Missouri, as Eric Schmitt (R) leads 50% to 41% to replace the retiring Senator Blunt (R). A previous poll showed a 12 or 13 point lead, I forget which.

Last time? I spilled something on it. Here it is.

What’s out lying in the backyard? You go look, I’m curled up in a chair. Meanwhile …

• The Cortez (D) vs Laxalt (R) contest in Nevada has been one of the closest in the nation. And then along comes the pollster University of Nevada-Reno, unknown to FiveThirtyEight, and they award a 52% to 39% lead to … Senator Cortez. With a margin of error of … it’s not entirely clear.  ± 4 points. A sudden jump from a dead heat to a thirteen point lead? Or is this the Mother of all Outliers? Do they know more about Nevadans than the out-of-state interlopers pollsters? Stay tuned.
• The Florida contest of Senator Rubio (R) vs Rep Demings (D) is another of the hottest contests in the Senate this cycle. But now the University of North Florida, an A/B rated pollster, is giving the Senator a surprising 54%-43% lead, with a margin of error of a largish ± 4.7 points. Notable: “The surprise in these numbers is that a statewide race in Florida is closer to a blowout than a recount,” said Dr. Michael Binder, PORL faculty director and UNF political science professor. “Florida has become a red state; it will likely take an exceptionally weak Republican candidate for Democrats to win statewide — and Rubio is not a weak candidate.” Rubio’s weakness on immigration legislation nearly a decade ago suggests otherwise, and his responses to recent events have been nearly as bad as Georgia candidate Herschel Walker’s. If Demings is blown out, Democrats nation-wide had better take a close look at themselves. Or is this just another outlier poll?
• Georgia Senate candidate Herschel Walker (R) is either profoundly put-upon by nefarious characters, to borrow my Arts Editor’s phrase, or he doesn’t believe in self-restraint. Why do I say this? Here we are, less than two weeks out on Election Day, and another woman has claimed that Walker pressured her into having an abortion years ago. The timing of the accusation is certainly suspicious, but on the other side of the pivot is Walker’s history of sincere, steadfast mendacity. Simply typing that sentence should convince every Georgia voter to either vote against Walker or stay home; the blot on their honor in the event of an actual vote, not to mention the fortunes of Georgia in the US Senate, are too hideous to contemplate. In the area of polls, A rated Monmouth College is out with their latest poll, giving Senator Warnock (D) a 49% to 44% lead if I do my math properly, with an unusually large margin of error of ± 5 points. Notorious GOP-optimistic pollster Rasmussen Reports, still B rated, has Walker ahead of incumbent Senator Warnock (D) 48% to 43%, with a margin of error of ± 3 points. This is outside the range of most other pollsters’ numbers. We may be experiencing the Night of the Outliers, folks. Anyone tracking Roger Corman’s activities these days?
• Kansas‘ list of resources doesn’t seem to include polling – yes, there was one, see the link – but a recent article on Democratic challenger Mark Holland can be dug up with a minimum of effort. Notable, besides his optimism: “We don’t need to apologize for being Democrats,” Holland told Steve Kraske in an Oct. 11 interview on KCUR’s Up To Date. “We have a better message on health care, a better message on public education, a better message on wages, a better message on guns, a better message on women’s rights.”
• In Pennsylvania’s Senate debate, Dr. Oz’s (R) response to a question concerning how to regulate abortion has fallen with a thud to the floor, or at least so Democrats believe. Oz’s statement? “I don’t want the federal government involved with that at all,” Oz said. “I want women, doctors, local political leaders letting the democracy that’s always allowed our nation to thrive to put the best ideas forward so states can decide for themselves.”
  Republicans are convinced that Lt Governor Fetterman’s (D) difficulties with audio processing, stemming from his stroke, have convinced swing voters that voting for a snake oil salesman is a better choice than a dedicated public servant. GOP-aligned Insider Advantage follows through by giving Oz a rare lead in their recent survey, 47.5% to 44.8%. Insider Advantage’s B rating is better than SSRS’s C rating, which we saw on the last update giving Fetterman a six point lead. Which is the outlier?
• Alabama still has no polls that I can find, but pastor Will Boyd (D) believes he has a chance against Katie Britt (R) in this conservative state where they use accusations of being ISIS supporters against each other in the primaries. Boyd explains his optimism in this News19 report from last month. Notable: But Boyd, the former college professor lists reasons for his optimism. It starts with voter enthusiasm, he says. He told News 19 that national polling data shows voter enthusiasm is on the side of Democrats. It seems unlikely. But how can we predict if someone stole all our goats there are no polls?
• Hey, finally Illinois gets another poll, this time from Emerson College, which is A- rated. Senator Duckworth’s (D) lead is down to 10 points, 49% to 39%, meaning challenger Salvi (R) still has a hill to climb in this last week and a half or so.
• North Carolina is another hot Senate race, but not outlying here: Marist Polls, A rated, has the race as a dead heat at 44% among registered voters, but a four point lead, 49% to 45%, among those definitely planning to vote, for Rep Budd (R) over Cheri Beasley (D). Notable, because they say so: Among independents, Beasley receives 40% to 39% for Budd. A notable 17% are undecided. A 31-point gender gap exists, with a majority of men (53%) favoring Budd and a majority of women (51%) favoring Beasley.

When you just need that dollop of out of date news from XX22, you can go here.

The updates are thick and fast. Like mud off a bicycle tire.

• Wisconsin has had a couple of polls of late. Marquette Law School Poll, A/B rated, gives Senator Johnson (R) a 52% – 46% advantage over Lt. Governor and challenger Mandela Barnes (D), a quite large six point gap. B/C rated Clarity Campaign Labs has a substantially different finding of a one point lead for challenger Barnes, 48% – 47%, with a margin of error of ± 3.3 points, aka a statistical dead heat. On the news front, the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel, the largest newspaper in Wisconsin, has condemned the incumbent, Senator Johnson (R), in no uncertain terms: He’s an election falsifier who recklessly promoted lies about the 2020 presidential race long after it was clear Donald Trump lost. He’s a science fabulist who suggested, without evidence, that the COVID-19 vaccines could make the pandemic worse and who repeatedly touted unproven remedies for the disease — from Ivermectin to mouthwash. They want to see the back of Johnson’s head, the sooner the better, and for the same reasons everyone would like to see him gone. To my mind, he doesn’t know how to conduct himself as a Senator and responsible adult. Who can possibly vote for him?
• Along with polls, Nevada gets to have, well, what is it called? Scandal? Gossip? Whatever it is, this intro paragraph in The Nevada Independent summarizes it nicely: Fourteen members of Republican Senate candidate and former Attorney General Adam Laxalt’s family announced Wednesday that they would collectively endorse his Democratic opponent, incumbent Sen. Catherine Cortez Masto, in the heated race for Nevada’s U.S. Senate seat. … “We believe that Catherine possesses a set of qualities that clearly speak of what we like to call ‘Nevada grit,’” the letter said, adding that “no further comments will be made, as we believe this letter speaks for itself.” They won’t actually spit on his shoes, since he is family, but if your own relations would rather see your opponent win than you, perhaps it’s time to reconsider your life philosophy. But this is not an unique event; six of current Arizona Representative Paul Gosar’s (R) siblings have recommended against votes for him. Gosar is among the most extremist of the Republicans in Congress.But there’s more! Kerry Eleveld on Daily Kos comments on, inter alia, Nevada’s polling difficulties:
  

  But Nevada is also notoriously difficult to poll, partially due to the concentration of Latino voters who are just as notoriously difficult to poll. In fact, during the 2010 midterms, then-Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid was famously left for dead by pollsters, who anticipated little to no Latino participation would lead to a drubbing by GOP insurgent candidate Sharron Angle. Instead, Latino voters turned out at a record rate of 16% (despite accounting for just 12% of the state’s registered voters at the time), propelling Reid to a 6-point victory.

  The mention of the late Senator Reid (D) makes this a bit dated, but possibly still relevant. Eleveld is convinced that a recent Trump rally in Nevada will rekindle Senator Masto’s supporters’ willingness to vote, and may well be the reason she wins in November, if that does happen. She only has a little time left.

• Emerson College gives Ohio Republican J. D. Vance a 1 point advantage over Rep Ryan (D). Notable: Men are breaking for the Republican candidate and women are breaking for the Democratic candidate in the US Senate Election; men for Vance over Ryan 53% to 40%, while women for Ryan over Vance 49% to 39%. A higher share of women are undecided at 11%, compared to 6% of men. Gonna be close, it sounds, but if the undecided counts are to be believed, Ryan may pull this one out.
• The former President will have to remain unhappy with South Dakota, as the latest SDSU Poll shows Senator Thune (R) now across the 50% threshold with a 53% – 28% lead. Challenger Brian Bengs (D) backslides three points, just to add to the injury – I think those three points were attached to separate toes on his left foot when they departed for Senator Thune. It’d be the upset of the election cycle if Bengs pulls this one out of witches’ pot. On another note, for those of us interested in the gubernatorial contest, Governor Noem’s (R) reelection lead has improved a point to 45% – 41% over Jamie Smith (D). As the margin of error is ± 4 points, technically it’s still a dead heat, but it appears that Noem is the way to bet. But it’s hard to ignore the voter dissatisfaction in conservative South Dakota with the governor.
• I may have been premature believing voters’ worries over Pennsylvania Lt Governor and Senate candidate Fetterman’s (D) health, by which I mean the stroke he suffered just a day or two before PA Primary Day, were and are minor, or the far-right is desperate to change a few minds. Erick Erickson’s post here illustrates the general conservative tactic of spreading worries, necessary or not, concerning Fetterman’s recovery from his stroke; it also contains a clip of the  NBC News interview with Fetterman, illustrating his problems processing sounds. Erickson also, not so subtly, strokes the fires of tribalism by framing the entire issue as Us vs Them, rather than an honest analysis of the issue. Catch it? On the other side, WaPo contributes an article on the characteristics of recovering from a stroke, and how Fetterman’s recovery is typical and does not involve damage to his judgment, only to auditory processing; the latter can be circumvented using closed captioning by a specialist in such things. Erickson is adamant that “the left” is furious that “the right” knows about Fetterman’s problems, a fury that hasn’t washed over me, yet. Maybe I don’t read the right rags^[1]. Then there’s the tribalism, Erickson’s forever trying to keep his side together.But this is an honest conundrum for the Fetterman-leaning, responsible voter, because we’re supposed to select the person we believe will best represent our State, whether it’s in the House or the Senate. To that voter, I would say the following. First, his main opponent, Dr. Oz Mehmet (R), is utterly unacceptable. Any long-term member of the skeptics’ community can give you a number of examples of his snake-oil practices as a TV celebrity who happens to be a medical doctor, illustrating his inferior ethics and general unsuitability for a seat in the highest elective body in the land. But electing Fetterman carries a significant risk that he’ll become incapacitated, rather than recover; the timing of his stroke was exceptionally unfortunate for him and the Democrats. So what happens in the event of incapacity? Dr. Oz, by virtue of coming in second in this contest, does not automatically become Senator if Fetterman becomes cognitively disabled. Instead, and I’ll grant that I’m no lawyer, but the general pattern is that the Governor will appoint a replacement Senator and schedule a special election. Some States require the appointed replacement come from the same Party as the one who cannot serve, and, if so, then there’s your answer. If that’s not true, then who’ll be the Governor? At the moment, that’s up in the air, but the election is leaning quite heavily to the Democrat, Josh Shapiro. You’ll have to trust that he wins in November, and that his judgment is good, but that’s not nearly an impossible argument to make. I’d say that if you’d vote Fetterman if his health was good, vote Fetterman now. If he needs to be replaced, the odds are good that his replacement will be someone who shares his ideology, if not his charisma.

  In other Pennsylvania news, Trafalgar’s latest poll gives Fetterman a 47.1% – 44.8% lead over Dr. Oz. Recall that Trafalgar tends to lean conservative, so this lead may be larger than it appears. Or not. It’s hard to say, what with conservative firms doing better in 2020 than neutrals and liberal firms, but the candidate list is positively littered with extremists on the conservative side which may not deserve, in the end, the same compensation as was awarded in 2020 and prior elections, as well as issues that lean towards the liberals on the balance.

• In the expected comedown from the OH Predictive Insights poll, pollster InsiderAdvantage, B rated, gives Arizona Senator Kelly (D) a 46% – 41.6% lead over challenger Blake Masters (R), with Marc Victor (L) at 5%. The margin of error is projected to be ± 4.2 points. The OH Predictive Insights poll had Kelly up by 13 points. In other news, something stronger than rumor has it that Trump minion Peter Thiel will be contributing to the Masters’ campaign soon.
• A new poll from A rated Marist Poll in New York gives Senator and Senate Majority Leader Schumer (D) a 54% – 34% lead over challenger Joe Pinion (R) among registered voters, and a 52% – 39% lead among those voters who are definitely going to vote. Pinion isn’t showing signs of traction.
• GOP-linked pollster Trafalgar, A- rated, has a new poll out on the Georgia Senate race, giving Senator Warnock (D) a 46.3% – 44.8% lead over challenger Herschel Walker (R). With a margin of error of ± 2.9 points, this is a statistical dead heat, and a far smaller Warnock advantage than that measured by the last poll, a Quinnipiac University Poll effort giving Senator Warnock a 7 point lead with the same margin of error. The differing results reflect, I think, adjustments made by the pollsters for factors they cannot otherwise rid themselves of. Think of the problems NASA had with the Hubble Space Telescope mirror. It’s the same thing, but different.
• Finally, A- rated Public Policy Polling finds a 14 point lead for Senator Duckworth (D) of Illinois, 50% – 36%, over challenger Kathy “only I can beat Duckworth!” Salvi (R). The latter is not making progress and might be best served by preparing an apology letter for her intemperate claim, because she’s not going anywhere.

The last snow squall of news is here.

¹ Some younger readers may not be aware that “rags” is old jargon for newspapers, most of which are fading out as they lose the competition with the Web, with a few notable exceptions such as WaPo, The New York Times, The StarTribune, and a few others. Our societal losses due to this phenomenon is not comprehended by most people who are not journalists, and I’m not a journalist, so I’m not qualified to really tell you what you’ve inadvertently lost, but I’ve talked about it before. And it makes me sad to lose such an apropos bit of jargon, as newspapers often physically incorporate rags in their final form. Another bit of jargon is Ink-stained wretch, which is even more enjoyable.

Unbelievable stamina in these polka dancers, I gotta say. Oh, we’re talking political races? Not nearly as much fun.

• The next televised January 6th hearing is scheduled for today. There’ll be more than a few candidates wondering if the news will be damaging to them – or their opponents.
• Republicans are tipping their hand that, if they win control of the House, they plan to blow up the government if President Biden doesn’t signoff on their legislation, and this may swing more votes to the Democrats. They must remind voters of the costs to them of a non-functional government. While this is more House than Senate focused, it helps bring into high relief the extreme methods that extremists, given partial power, may employ to achieve their ill-considered goals. Like, say, depriving Ukraine of support in their existential war with Russia.
• Georgia, the most popular State in the Union, features a Quinnipiac University Poll, A- rated, showing Senator Warnock (D) still leading challenger Herschel Walker (R), and by a hefty 52% – 45% gap, with what appears to be a ± 2.9 point margin of error. On the other hand, the most recent Atlanta Journal-Constitution/Georgia News Collaborative poll gives the Senator only a 46% – 43% lead, within the margin of error of ± 3.1 points. Apropos nothing in particular, if you take Erick Erickson’s denigrative comments concerning the Senator seriously, then the Georgia race may be even more broken than the Pennsylvania race, as Walker’s mendacity and gibberish is surely unworthy of a vote, while Erickson insists on believing that abortion is baby-killing, and therefore Warnock is a fake Christian. Sigh.
• According to Politico, Senator Lee (R) of Utah has asked for the endorsement of fellow Utah Senator Mitt Romney (R), which seems a bit pathetic. He must be seeing his close ally, the former President, going down in flames, and is worried he’ll get caught by his flight scarf as he tries to jump out the cargo hatch of the Trump Airliner. Rumor has it that Romney turned him down, which should be no surprise, given the mutual antipathy of Romney and the former President. Close allies need not apply?
• I understand Senator Kelly (D) and challenger Blake Masters (R) of Arizona recently had a debate. It must have gone poorly for Masters, because OH Predictive Insights, B/C rated, now gives Kelly a shockingly large 46% – 33% lead, and Libertarian (that’d be ‘L’) Marc Victor (L) gains a huge 15% of the vote. I confess to not seeing the debate, of course, so I can only guess that conservative independents, perhaps horrified at Masters’ performance, now favor Victor. Still, like good science, I wait confirmation by independent pollsters. I must say, though, that, in November, if Victor were to manage a second place finish, leaving Masters in third, the schadenfreude cast towards the former President and his minion, Peter Thiel, might overwhelm the magnetic bands protecting the Earth from infernal cosmic rays, killing all of us. But it’d be worth it.
• The first poll of the California Senate race is in, and unsurprisingly SurveyUSA, A rated, gives Senator Padilla (D), appointed to fill VP Harris’ seat when she resigned to join the Executive Branch, a 22 point lead over challenger Mark Meuser (R), 56% – 34%. Not only does Meuser not have much time to erase a tremendous deficit, his opponent is past the 50% mark. He’ll have to change a lot of minds and get all the undecideds. Seems unlikely. Incidentally, this race and poll covers both the special election, for the term lasting until January 3rd, 2023, and the general election, for the term starting January 3rd. A comparison to Harris’ 2016 election would be apples and oranges, as Harris beat another Democrat in the general election.
• Louisiana’s first poll is also in, conducted by A- rated Public Policy Polling, and gives Senator Kennedy (R) 53% of the vote, while in second place is Luke Mixon (D) with 16%. This result, if repeated in November, would permit Senator Kennedy to avoid a runoff, as this is a jungle primary state. Impressive? Kennedy won with slightly more than 60% in 2016, so he’s not improved on previous performance – but unlikely to lose this time around, either. Just to force a runoff, Mixon would have to persuade 4% of the Kennedy portion of the electorate to change their minds, or at least stay home.
• Nevada’s Senator Cortez Masto (D) may be back in the lead, according to B+ rated Suffolk University, 45.6% to 43.6%, ahead of challenger Adam Laxalt (R). Call it a dead heat, maybe even a dry heat. It’s Nevada, after all. But if the next poll, if there is one, shows Masto’s lead growing, it’ll suggest she’s connected to the Hispanic community successfully. That’s an utter necessity for her.
• Remember Democratic-aligned pollster Center Street PAC giving Rep Tim Ryan (D) an improbably large eleven point lead in Ohio? B+ rated Cygnal just gave his opponent, J. D. Vance (R), a two point lead of 46% – 44%. Our signal has improbable amounts of static. Ahem. That was inadvertent, I assure you. Anyways, there is a catch here, much like with Center Street PAC: Cygnal is characterized as a GOP polling firm, by a web site named American Greatness. I suspect the real answer lies somewhere near the middle of that range.
• The latest Sooner Poll, C+ rated, shows Senator Lankford’s (R) lead in Oklahoma over Madison Horn (D) has shrunk to 52% – 40%. In the prior poll, Horn’s portion of the poll was only 35%, while Lankford’s was still 52%, so that’s a 5 point gain, leaving Horn still with quite a mountain to climb. Or will Oklahoma voters be negatively impressed by Lankford’s plan to strip away drug price benefits that were just passed? I think a 12 point lead, including 2 that have to be convinced to leave Lankford, is too hard to do in three weeks or less, but the game isn’t over just yet.
• The Sooner Poll also covered the Senate special election contest in Oklahoma between Rep Mullin (R) and former Rep Kendra Horn (D), and Mullin’s lead has shrunk from 12 points to 9 points, 51-42. Mullin’s number shrank by a point, which is not adequate – five would be better. Can the former Representative pull the upset? I doubt it, I doubt it strongly. But, again, it’s not outside of the realm of possibility.

Here’s the smoking hole in the Earth from the last time I did this. Sorry ’bout that.

Godzilla wipes out Tokyo. Of course. The kaiju have to sign up in advance to do that. In other news:

• In a baffling move, incumbents up for reelection Lankford (R-OK), Rubio (R-FL), and Lee (R-UT) are sponsoring a Senate bill named Protect Drug Innovation Act, which is “To repeal prescription drug price control provisions of the Inflation Reduction Act.” As this part of the Inflation Reduction Act is both popular and beneficial to the elderly segment of the electorate, this seems an unnecessary risk on the part of these Senators. But can Schumer perform a bit of aikido on them? He might grant it discussion and a vote, against their expectation, thus gathering material for their and other Senate races to benefit their opponents. That, however, would require confidence in how members of his own caucus would vote.
• Senator Hassan (D) of New Hampshire continues to hold a lead over challenger Don Bolduc (R), according to A/B rated Saint Anselm College. They give her double the lead that conservative-leaning Trafalgar has accorded her, a lead of six points, with a margin of error of ± 3.3 points. Notable: In a successful tactic sure to be become more widespread in coming cycles, Democratic groups spent millions of dollars to help secure the nominations of explicitly pro-Trump Republican candidates. These nominees now face a general electorate in which 52% of voters have a strongly unfavorable opinion of the former president. Saint Anselm is premature in this conclusion. The fact you got who you wanted doesn’t guarantee victory. In fact, an extremist is more likely to interfere, post-election, in a destructive manner with the inauguration. And some GOP state parties are entirely controlled by extremists who want little to do with GOP moderates, so ensuring the nomination of a moderate may be more productive. This point seems less applicable to Democrat state parties, as lefty extremists have not seen the success of their far-right counterparts. The domestic cultural history just isn’t there.
• CBS News Polls/YouGov are giving Senator Johnson (R) of Wisconsin a 1 point lead over Lt. Governor Barnes (D), 50% – 49%. Call it a dead heat. Notable: Republicans appear to have a turnout advantage. They are four points more likely than Democrats to say they’re definitely voting this year, and Johnson supporters are ten points more likely than Barnes backers to say they’re very enthusiastic about voting. Enthusiastic to vote for Johnson, who runs around threatening old, stable social net programs while spewing conspiracy rumors. My neighbors to the East are decidedly an odd bunch, but I’m not surprised, given their recent election habits.
• Former President Trump’s Make America Great Again Inc super PAC is finally getting involved in four hot races, Pennsylvania and Ohio, as well as Georgia and Arizona. But will these political ads inspire voters to vote for his candidates – or motivate them to vote for the Democrats?
• It occurs to me that candidate Herschel Walker (R) of Georgia is not only endorsed by the former President, but was personally recruited by the former President. Walker failing to beat Senator Warnock (D) would be a tremendous blow to the political prestige of the former President, and given how Walker’s reputation is in tatters, there’s a real chance that Walker will not only lose, but actually be routed, despite Trump’s late efforts. It’s up to Georgia voters to decide if Walker is up to the job of Senator.
• Speaking of Georgia, Emerson College has Senator Warnock (D) up by two points, 48% to 46%, over Herschel Walker (R). Notable, maybe: Since the August Emerson Georgia poll, Warnock’s support increased four points and Walker’s support decreased by two points. If Emerson is as accurate as their A- rating suggests, then that’s significant, but as the gap is less than their margin of error of ± 3 points, and even the best pollsters don’t always get it right, it sounds more like just noise in the signal.
• Alaska Senator Murkowski (R) has gained support from a new super PAC named Country First, created by retiring Representative and member of the January 6th Committee Adam Kinzinger (R-IL). He did threaten to stay in politics, remember. But will word of this support play positively or negatively with the Alaska electorate? Beats me.
• Utah’s Evan McMullin (I) has also gained Country First’s support; again, I don’t know if this is a positive or a negative for the candidate. And Utah has a new poll, again from Deseret News/Hinckley Institute of Politics, but conducted by B rated pollster Dan Jones & Associates (a detail which I’d missed before), showing challenger McMullin (I) losing ground as Senator Lee (R) leads 41% – 37% with a margin of error of ± 3.46 points. Notable: It looks like 8% of those surveyed are looking at other candidates, and, significantly, 12% are undecided. That’s where McMullin’s gold is located, in that group of undecided. He doesn’t have to convince Lee voters to change their minds, which can be difficult. But it’s not good that McMullin lost two points of support relative to Lee. Also notable: [The survey] found 97% of those surveyed say they are likely to vote, including 83% who say they will definitely vote. … According to the poll, Utahns who identified themselves as moderates represent the highest percentages of undecided voters. While McMullin is heading in the wrong direction, he’s not lost yet, and there are still plenty of votes to scoop up, and voters who may be inclined his way. I suppose the question will be whether moderates think McMullin is acceptable, or if he’s too conservative for their taste.
• Iowa finally has a new poll, but it’s bad news for challenger Admiral Mike Franken (D). Emerson College gives Senator Grassley (R), full of mendacity and confusion, a 49% to 38% lead, with a margin of error of ± 3.1%. Do I sound disappointed in my neighbors to the south? I’d like to give them more credit than this. But, as I said, I figured this race would get away from the Democrats.
• A rated Marist Poll gives Colorado Senator Bennet (D) a 48% to 41% lead over challenger Joe O’Dea (R). While this race is not out of reach, O’Dea must be aware of Bennet’s proximity to the magical number of 50%. These numbers are much like previous polls, suggesting O’Dea cannot find traction. It’s a pity, since he appears to be a moderate, and the failure of a moderate may be food for the extremists.
• If you’re interested in tactics, WaPo’s Jennifer Rubin thinks Rep Ryan (D) just gave a master class in a debate with J. D. Vance. The Ohio race may be the nation’s closest Senate race this cycle, although Wisconsin is giving it a run for its money.
• I just noticed FiveThirtyEight is recognizing Center Street PAC as a partisan pollster for the Democratic Party – see the tool tips on the above link. Please discount their polls by at least several points.

Last time I did this, something terrible happened. I forget what.

Sweet thistles planted, we hope to harvest them by the time the horses come home from the fields, dragging the farmers behind them. In other news:

• Remember Michael Steele’s Pink Wave remark? Here’s some tentative evidence for it, via Kerry Eleveld on Daily Kos: Two Civiqs tracking polls suggest that Republicans and Donald Trump are in a newly precarious position with both independent women and men, but likely for different reasons. Not dispositive, but interesting. Visit the link for more information.
• Filed under SOMEONE WAS LISTENING: Following the Politico report that national Democrats are failing to spend on the close race in North Carolina, the Senate Majority PAC, aligned with Senate Majority Leader Schumer, is now … reserving an additional $4 million in TV ads in the race, according to spending figures shared first with NBC News. I think North Carolina is a prime pickup opportunity in the Senate for the Democrats, not only this cycle, but in 2026, when Senator Tillis’ (R) term comes to an end. Cheri Beasley (D) winning this cycle would certainly give the Democratic candidate in 2026 some needed momentum.
• A CNN Poll gives Arizona Senator Kelly (D) a 51% – 45% lead over challenger Blake Masters (R). CNN gets a B rating from FiveThirtyEight. Margin of error is thought to be ± 4.4 points.
• Another CNN Poll calls the Nevada race of Senator Cortez Masto and challenger Adam Laxalt a dead heat. The actual numbers show Laxalt up by two points, 48% – 46%. Margin of error is thought to be ± 4.7 points. Can Masto re-energize the Hispanic vote?
• An InsiderAdvantage poll in Georgia gives Senator Warnock (D) a 47% – 44% lead over scandal-ridden challenger Herschel Walker (R). As the poll has a margin of error of ± 4.2 points, that suggest this race is a dead heat. InsiderAdvantage has a B rating from FiveThirtyEight. But there’s also gossip: Walker Campaign Political Director Taylor Crowe has been fired, reportedly for leaking information to the media. And another poll, by A rated SurveyUSA, gives Senator Warnock a 50% – 38% lead over Walker. This seems seriously out of line with other polls, but SurveyUSA is A rated, so it must be taken seriously. Walker’s campaign is burning, are Republican officials paying attention? Or have they given up?
• Lt. Governor John Fetterman (D) continues to lead challenger Dr. Mehmet Oz (R) in Pennsylvania according to a Monmouth University poll, 48% – 43%. Notable: Few specific reasons emerge in describing reluctance to support the Democrat, but it is worth noting that only one probable Fetterman voter in the poll mentioned health concerns as a reason they might not support him. Fetterman’s misstep at primary time, when he suffered a stroke, is apparently not a big deal.
• Oh, yeah, add California to the list of Senate seats for which no polling apparently exists.
• Colorado Senator Bennet (D) leads challenger Joe O’Dea (R) 50% – 41%, according to B rated Data for Progress. It’s margin of error is ± 3 points, but I have to wonder: … conducted a survey of 1,005 likely voters in Colorado using SMS and web panel respondents. Is this really a reliable survey method? I admit I’m not up on Internet methodology. If it’s accurate, O’Dea is running out of time to persuade independent Bennet voters to change their minds.
• Politico via MSN: Senate Republicans’ campaign arm is pulling millions of dollars in spending from New Hampshire’s race to shore up other candidates across the board, as Democratic incumbent Maggie Hassan continues to poll ahead of her challenger. Much like Senators Kelly, Cortez Masto, and Murray, Senator Hassan was considered an opportunity for a Senate seat pickup by Republicans. Apparently, Republican leaders are finding extremist candidate Don Bolduc is not an effective force in New Hampshire. His flip-flopping, however, has been impressive. Too bad the Olympics didn’t make it an Olympic sport, eh?
• Oregon is finally getting a Senate poll, and it’s Emerson College Polling, giving incumbent Senator Wyden (D) a 51% – 32% lead over challenger Jo Rae Perkins (R). Six years ago Wyden won by 23 points, so a 19 point lead is no surprise at all.
• Indiana’s Senate race now has a second poll, and there may be something going on here. ARW Strategies is giving Senator Todd Young (R) only a two point lead over challenger Mayor Thomas McDermott (D), 39% – 37%, in a race for a seat that Young won easily by ten points six years ago. The problem? ARW is unknown to FiveThirtyEight, so it’s difficult to judge whether or not this poll should be taken seriously. ARW thinks Todd will end up winning easily, but if McDermott is this close with four more weeks to go, and a lot of undecideds still available, this may be an upset in the making.

When the sweet thistles were harvested, we buried the link to previous news in a bale of it, completely by accident, and then dug for hours to find it. Here. Brush off the debris first or –

Rumors of dragons abound, chasing maidens and gophers about. Quite pestilent. In other news, their prey keep running for office.

• Politico has an article on the potentially defective strategy employed by national Democratic organizations insofar as advertising goes for the Senate race in North Carolina.
• Emerson College gives Senator Murray (D) a 51% – 42% lead over challenger Tiffany Smiley (R) in Washington’s Senate seat race, which are numbers similar to other recent polls. The margin of error is ± 3.4 points.
• In Arizona a CBS News/YouGov Poll shows Senator Kelly (D) leading challenger Blake Masters (R) 51% – 48%, with a margin of error ± 3.8 points. This is a smaller margin that most other recent numbers. YouGov is rated B+.
• A Mason/Dixon Poll has Senator Rubio (R) of Florida leading challenger Rep Demings (D), 47% – 41%. Mason/Dixon is A- rated, so this must be of strong concern for Demings.
• In case you were wondering, North Dakota, Oregon, Hawaii, Louisiana, Idaho, and Kentucky remain unpolled with regard to their Senate races, at least that I can find. Bah.
• There is an overview of Oregon candidates for Senate available, though. I kinda liked the truck driver; the Green Party candidate seemed naive.
• Trafalgar continues to go against the grain by giving Senator Hassan (D) a slim 3 point lead over challenger Don Bolduc (R), 48.2% to 45.0%, in New Hampshire. Other pollsters are awarding larger gaps, and thus more credit to New Hampshire voters.
• In Ohio, unknown and perhaps suspect Center Street PAC gives Rep Ryan (D) a shocking 49% to 38% lead among “likely voters.” An 11 point lead in the Ohio race is out of line with other pollsters, some of which have shown Vance with a lead. Is Center Street PAC’s methodology flawed, or do they know something that escapes the other pollsters?
• Politico analyzes House special elections and comes up with this: The race in New York’s 19th District wasn’t unique. A POLITICO analysis of turnout data before and after Roe v. Wade was struck down in June shows that voters in rural counties were less motivated to cast ballots than those in more Democratic-leaning suburbs and cities after the Supreme Court decision. Though special elections are not a crystal ball, that could spell potential trouble for the GOP if the trend continues to the midterms in November, because rural voters, who overwhelmingly supported former President Donald Trump, are a key constituency for Republican candidates. As ever, though, past performance is no guarantee of future performance. And it raises an important question: why is their turnout lower? Have the rural women, realizing that all forms of abortion, and possibly even medical birth control, are suddenly endangered, but unable to persuade themselves to vote Democrat, simply staying home? One would think that, having “won” the stripping of Constitutional protection of abortion rights via Dobbs, they’d realize now they need to take a second step.
• SDSU (South Dakota State University) Poll, unknown to FiveThirtyEight, gives incumbent Senator Thune (R) a 51% to 31% lead over challenger Brian Bengs (D) in South Dakota. That’s overwhelming and leaves only the shouting, no doubt by former President Trump, who had vowed to have Thune primaried and out of politics, so this’ll be another failure for Trump, even if he endorses Bengs. Not impossible with the Trump Lump of Hatred, but his endorsement power isn’t what he thinks it might be. The only surprise in the poll is that Gov Kristi Noem (R), thought to have Presidential ambitions and be more popular than Thune, is actually in a close race, leading 45 to 42 over challenger Jamie Smith (D). That’s within the margin of error. It’s an idle question, as I doubt Noem’s performance will impact Thune vs Bengs, but did Noem’s poor decisions vis a vis Covid impact this election?
• Peter Welch (D), vying for the open Vermont Senate seat, leads competitor Gerald Malloy (R) by an astonishing 62% – 28% margin, according to the UNH Survey Center, which is rated B-. That’s an abyss in politics, and more fingers than I currently possess. For comparison, the only other poll I’ve found for the Vermont Senate race is by Trafalgar, and has Welch also leading the relatively moderate Malloy, but by less than 8 points. This is a bit crazy.
• This is neither final nor of direct effect for the November elections, but Senator Sasse (R-NE), a former Midlands University president, has reportedly been offered the same job at the University of Florida, and has accepted. There are still a few steps to be taken by the University of Florida. Assuming all goes well, Sasse would resign his seat by the end of the year. Does this have immediate meaning? No. His seat will be filled by appointment by a Republican governor, Pete Ricketts, and the in-fighting in Republican ranks may be quite entertaining if Ricketts is not wisely expeditious. But, eventually, a special election will need to take place, and that will give Nebraska Democrats a chance to make some noise, inspired by Kansas Democrats.

The dead snapdragon news is here. Dragons snapping their fingers, it’s quite a sight, but they’re so competitive that they just can’t get the synchrony right.

Here’s my telescope. It shows me visions of the future by staring at old images of stars.

• Susquehanna Polling and Research (SPR) suggests incumbent Marco Rubio (R) is leading challenger Rep Val Demings (D) by three points, 47% – 44%, for the Florida Senate seat. SPR is a B+ rated pollster, according to FiveThirtyEight, so this may be accurate. Margin of error is 4.3%, so this is exceedingly close. And the poll was taken prior to the most recent Trump news. Will the negative Trump news affect the race as we run towards November?
• Senator Ron Johnson (R-Wisconsin) appears to be a flip-flopper – or has received orders from on high, as he’s no longer supporting the same-sex marriage bill intended to safeguard gay marriage that he earlier said he would support.
• Approval of President Biden will be a drag, or an uplift, in the Senate races. How’s he doing? The chart from Civiqs via Joan McCarter, there on the right, indicates Biden is becoming less and less of a drag. And with almost two months left, he still has time to improve further.
• Senate Candidate and State Rep. Krystie Matthews (D) in South Carolina has apparently been caught on a recording device disparaging her constituents. The South Carolina Democratic Party is calling for her to leave the race. While, granted, her odds were poor against incumbent Senator Tim Scott (R), who appears to be quite circumspect and is reportedly very popular in South Carolina, pissing on your constituents is the mark of an amateur lacking a vision of good politics. Matthews disputes the reports, claiming context has been stripped – one of my pet peeves, for new readers – so it’s hard to say if, in the end, what she said is all she said, or if there are mitigating circumstances. If the latter, circumspection is a skill she needs to learn.
• Pennsylvania continues to host the most broken Senate race this year as CNBC uncovers the fact that candidate Oz Mehmet (R) … owns stock in Thermo Fisher Scientific, a supplier of the drug hydroxychloroquine, and McKesson, a distributor of the anti-malaria medicine. As Mehmet touted hydroxychloroquine’s use for treatment of Covid-19 without evidence of efficacy, this casts grave doubts on his qualifications for public service. No doubt free market advocates would dispute the assertion that it’s inappropriate to tout treatments for which there is no evidence of efficacy under the outdated slogan, Let the markets decide!, but the fact of the matter is that even when employed outside of the public sector, aspirants to positions of public service are expected to exhibit moral behavior consonant with the positions they seek.
• Emerson College is confirming Trafalgar’s polling in Arizona, reporting Senator Kelly’s (D) lead over challenger Blake Masters (R) is 47% – 45%. Arizona’s long been conservative, but Masters is no John McCain (R), the esteemed late and long-time Senator from Arizona.
• Sometimes relying on Internet search engines isn’t good enough: back on July 19th, Chris Chaffee won the Republican nomination for the Senate seat of Senator Chris Van Hollen (D) of Maryland. Color me third-rate, eh? Chaffee won with a mere 21.3% of the Republican votes, suggesting a weak candidate. Senator Van Hollen won his primary with 78.7%, which is not overwhelming, but still miles better than Chaffee. Incidentally, Van Hollen reported suffering a stroke back in May. No polls are in evidence, so I consider Van Hollen the presumptive favorite until notified otherwise.
• This Tuesday features the last of the primaries for this cycle, including the New Hampshire primaries for selecting the Senate candidates.

Older observations in expected appalling taste are here.

They said it was impossible, then another they crossed an elephant with an amoeba. No typo there, “another they” is right. And, now, in other news …

• Democratic pollster Impact Research , aka ALG Research, a “B/C” rated pollster by FiveThirtyEight, gives Rep Tim Ryan (D) a 50% – 47% lead over lawyer/author J. D. Vance (R) in the race for the open Senate seat in Ohio. This is within the margin of error. Make of that what you will. You’ll find the salt shaker behind the ersatz ketchup bottle.
• A working dude like me simply doesn’t have time to do eye opening research; I just mess around with a general sense of how the electorate is leaning, and how that electorate is perceiving, or will perceive, certain events of political significance, such as the Dobbs decision, the January 6th Insurrection, or Palin’s loss in Alaska. Therefore, I really appreciate this WaPo article by Jennifer Rubin on the chances of Cheri Beasley (D) in North Carolina’s Senatorial race. The contrast between her and her opponent, Rep Ted Budd (R), is instructive, and I hope his anti-veteran vote in the House becomes well-known in the State.
• An AARP poll gives Senator Masto (D) of Nevada a 44% – 40% lead over challenger Adam Laxalt (R), which is more or less in line with other polls. AARP polling is not known to FiveThirtyEight.
• Colorado’s incumbent Senator Bennet (D) has an 11 point lead, 46% – 35%, over challenger O’Dea (R), according to Public Policy Polling. This pollster gets an A- rating from FiveThirtyEight. It suggests Bennet has a solid lead with two months until Election Day.
• 

  Senator Todd Young’s (R-IN) On The Issues summation.

  A poll taken by Change Research for the McDermott (D) campaign shows him trailing incumbent Indiana Senator Young (R) by three points. As Change Research is only rated a B- pollster by FiveThirtyEight, it may not be sensible to take this poll seriously, especially in the absence of any other Indiana polls, and, as the Young campaign points out, it was an online poll, always a negative sign. On the flip side, though, Young won his 2016 race by roughly ten points, and defeated a member of the politically prominent Bayh family, for those of us who remember the late Senator Birch Bayh (D-IN). Challenger McDermott doesn’t have that kind of political pedigree, although he is a successful, longtime mayor of the city of Hammond, Indiana, and has the additional credential of being a Navy veteran. If we stipulate the poll to be accurate, a three point deficit (and 2.62% margin of error!) is indicative of something unexpected happening in one of the more conservative States of the Union. It suggests that the the question is whether Young’s vote for the recent gun control bill has him in trouble with far-right gun rights absolutists, or if his position on abortion has him in trouble with voters deeply troubled by the Dobbs decision. Young’s On The Issues summation suggests he’s one of the more moderate members of the Senate’s GOP caucus, but whether that’s bad or good in Indiana may depend on the weather in Indianapolis. In the end, I think, mostly because this was an online poll, it’s not worth getting excited just yet. It might have even been a fishing expedition, designed to draw in someone like A rated Fox News polling without actually paying for their service, or perhaps lure money from the national Democrats who hope to finance an upset win. We need a more authoritative poll before I speculate further.

• A- rated Emerson College Polling gives Lt. Gov. John Fetterman (D) a 48% to 44% lead over Dr. Mehmet Oz (R) in Pennsylvania, which is conspicuously less than other polls. Has something changed, or is this an outlier? Did the Oz campaign’s reminder to voters concerning Fetterman’s stroke just prior to primaries hit home?
• 

  Tiffany Smiley’s (R) On The Issues summation.

  Previous, if scarce, polls of Washington State’s Senate race of incumbent Murray (D) vs challenger Smiley (R) had shown Murray with an overwhelming lead over her moderate Republican rival, except for one outlier produced by a dubious pollster. But now Trafalgar has released a poll showing Murray leading 49.2% to 46.3%, which is within the margin of error. Trafalgar is rated A- by FiveThirtyEight, so it’s unlikely to be polling incompetence. Has Smiley’s moderate policy positions taken their toll on Murray? Possibly Smiley was unfamiliar to voters prior to this poll, but now they know and like her? The word went out to the far-right extremists that they support her or get out of the Republican Party? Or perhaps President Biden’s college debt forgiveness program, as predicted by some right-wing pundits, is negatively impacting Democratic opponents? It could, despite Trafalgar’s reputation, just be an outlier. Ah, so many options! The next couple of polls from respectable sources should be quite interesting. But if we’re to believe Smiley’s On The Issues summation diagram at right, she’s at least not a denizen of Clinton’s fever-swamp far-right. My buck-ninety-eight is on Washington voters discovering Smiley is not the MAGA-radical they expected the Washington GOP to nominate, with a consequent willingness to give her a chance. Murray, who has turned down debate invites, had better get off her ass and participate, or this will turn into an avoidable upset.

No, I don’t have a link for the amoeba story! Stop asking! Read this link to previous news, instead!

They were hiding in rabbit holes, but now they use rhino holes.

• TargetSmart claims in a Tweet – so this that as you will – new voter registrations in States with poor abortion rights protections have surged among the young woman group. The implied raising of the importance of politics and governance in the younger portion of the electorate is not only significant for the 2022 election, but will carry forward into future elections. It may even apply to generations too young to vote in the 2022 election, but still paying attention. The SCOTUS conservatives’ “victory” symbolized by Dobbs may mark the beginning of a very long occupation of minority status by the Republican Party, regardless of its composition, in the United States. More analysis of TargetSmart’s claims by Laura Clawson on Daily Kos here.
• New Hampshire’s Senator Hassan (D), despite not having an opponent as of yet, does not do well in a Saint Anselm College poll. It’s more than a little difficult to see her losing to these far-right extremists, but I suppose anything is possible.
• A profile of Oklahoma candidate in the special election to replace the retiring Senator Inhofe (R), and former Rep, Kendra Horn (D) is here in Roll Call. Its descriptions of Oklahoma Republicans reminds me of those of Kansas Republicans, arrogantly certain of themselves even after their Constitutional Amendment was shot down. But that doesn’t mean Horn will be winning this fall.
• Colorado’s Senator Bennet (D) has an eight point lead over challenger Joe O’Dea (R), according to a poll by McLaughlin and Associates from a couple of weeks ago. That is not as good as the previous poll result of a twelve point lead for Bennet. The problem? McLaughlin and Associates gets only a “C/D” rating from FiveThirtyEight. The link to the poll notes that McLaughlin and Associates has ties to the Republican establishment, which may skew their results as they try to please their patrons. Even the linked article mentions this. I still think Bennet should win this race, but I’m not sure I’d accord this result much credibility. A WaPo report suggests O’Dea is a moderate Republican, which may make Bennet’s job a little tougher.
• Unlike the unknown pollster Center Street PAC, A- rated Emerson College Polling has J. D. Vance (R) leading Rep Tim Ryan (D) in Ohio, 45% – 42%, in its first poll of the Ohio Senate race, suggesting Ryan has a hill to climb and that the seat from Ohio remains in doubt.
• Incumbent Senator Ron Johnson (R-WI) reportedly wants to invest Social Security funds in … the stock market! I don’t have access to the original article, but I just have to wonder what happens to those Social Security checks when the market crashes, and what would happen to the market if a large blob of money was invested. In fact, it all sounds like madness to me. However, don’t confuse this with the Bush 43 plan to privatize Social Security, which was explored in detail and rejected.
• Harry Enten, former FiveThirtyEight-ite now with CNN, confirms Senator McConnell’s fear that many Republican Senate candidates are disliked by the electorate using polls. Of course.

The previous book of Senatorial doom is here, right down that rabbit hole, two to the left. Right. Up.

Mere speculation and completely made up guesswork: That’s how Republicans appear to be defending the former President. But enough of the sideshow, let’s go see the Senators! Can you tell the Minnesota State Fair is imminent?

• New Hampshire’s incumbent Senator Maggie Hassan (D) may not yet know her general election opponent, which will be determined in a Sep 13 primary, but if the three GOP candidates who showed up for a debate last weekend are the top candidates, and participant Don Bolduc, a retired brigadier general, leads the pack by quite a lot, then the New Hampshire Republican Party is unlikely to snap up Hassan’s seat in November. Brandishing far-right positions such as abolishing the FBI as well as the 17th Amendment, which would make the state legislatures responsible again for selecting Senators – evidently because trusting voters is too much for this crew – they are emblematic of a GOP that has been RINOing its way to the right in a blind fury of power madness and, I suspect, will go right off a cliff in November, screaming, yet again, of a stolen election, wearing their badge of righteousness on their sleeves, while leaving the cloak of humility in the closet. Ahem. Putting the soapbox away now. Sorry about that.
• In the first poll for any Senate contest I’ve seen since the FBI visit to Mar-a-Lago, University of North Florida reports that Florida incumbent Senator and Trump ally Marco Rubio (R) now trails challenger Rep Val Demings (D) by four points, 48%-44%, among registered voters; that 4 point gap is greater than the margin of error. University of North Florida polls are rated “A/B” by FiveThirtyEight, so there may be some credibility in this poll. I’d like to see several polls from different sources coming to the same conclusion before thinking Rubio’s likely to lose, but I will add Rubio to the list of endangered Republican Senators.
• Speaking of endangered Republican seats, Jennifer Rubin notes a report from  The New York Times that the National Republican Senatorial Committee (NRSC) is cutting advertising budgets in Pennsylvania, where Democratic Lt. Gov. John Fetterman reportedly has a large lead over Republican and neophyte Dr. Mehmet Oz, Arizona, where Senator Mark Kelly (D) is facing extremist and political neophyte Blake Masters (R) and reportedly has a fourteen point lead, and, surprisingly, Wisconsin, where Senator Ron Johnson, whose sanity could easily be questioned, will be facing off against recently selected candidate and Lt. Gov. Mandela Barnes (D) [later note: See more on Barnes vs Johnson below]. If the NRSC is ceding Wisconsin, that’s huge news and is beginning to make the potential Senate gains for the Democrats look shocking – and confirm my thesis that the American electorate has little patience for extremists, who now make up most or all of the Republican Party, regardless of where we are in the election cycle. Democratic would-be extremists, take note and shut up.
• Alaska’s primary has yielded the following promotions to the general election: incumbent and Trump-hated Senator Lisa Murkowski (R), Trump endorsee Kelly Tshibaka (R), followed at some distance by Patricia Chesbro (D) and a player to be named later. This is rather better for the Senator than predicted, strengthening my suspicion of a victory for her, barring black swans. Remember, this is a Ranked Choice Voting state (RCV), which works to moderates’ advantage, and Murkowski may be the most moderate Republican Senator out there.
• 

  Senator Thune’s (R) On The Issues summation. Yep, he’s about to fall off the edge of the world there, isn’t he?

  If I’m to believe this poll, South Dakota citizens mostly reject abortion extremists who try to outright ban abortion, although they may disapprove of abortion itself. It’s that nuance that makes me doubt this suggests this is trouble for incumbent Senator John Thune (R), regardless of the magnitude of his extremist measurement from On The Issues. Show me a couple polls with Thune trailing challenger Brian Bengs (D) and I’ll change my tune, although satisfying noted Thune-hater DJ Trump would be a bit galling.

• In the first poll in Wisconsin since primary voters selected incumbent Senator Ron Johnson (R) and Lt. Governor Mandela Barnes (D) as the last additions to the 2022 Senate race in Wisconsin, and the first Wisconsin poll since the Mar-a-Lago visit by the FBI, Marquette University Law School Poll, an “A/B” rated pollster according to FiveThirtyEight, gives Barnes a seven point lead, 51%-44%. While this may fluster the timid pundit pool, it’s what I hoped to see when I wrote about the burdens Johnson is carrying: a history of conspiracy theories, possible dementia, and the overwhelming weight of the Wisconsin GOP, who appears to be exceptionally lost in the wilderness, probably not to return until most of the membership is ejected and former members invited to rejoin.
• It seems unlikely, but keep in mind that Senator Inhofe’s (R-OK) seat will lack an incumbent defender in November, and his seat in red, red, red Oklahoma may be in danger if favored successor wannabe Markwayne Mullin (R), who has not yet won the primary runoff scheduled for August 23, continues putting his foot in his mouth with such statements as
  

  “We saw this media frenzy about supposedly classified information — where was this same media frenzy when there was 33,000 classified emails on a server in a bathroom with Hillary Clinton?” Mullin asked, indignantly. “Why didn’t they raid that bathroom?” [TPM].

  Since there were 133 classified emails and Secretary Clinton delivered the email server up on request, unlike the former President and his stolen documents, Mullin is now vulnerable to charges of lying by his challengers, primary runoff mate T. W. Shannon (R), and if he slips by Shannon, general election challenger Kendra Horn (D). As noted before, it’s worth keeping half an eye on this Oklahoma contest. I suppose a poll is unlikely until after the runoff. I’m such a member of the Instant Gratification Generation.

• Summarizing current Democratic status: Seats probably lost: None. Seats I currently consider to be in danger: None. Seats that had been thought to be in danger a few months ago, but now no longer so considered: Arizona, Georgia, Washington, New Hampshire. Not enough data: Colorado, Nevada.
• Summarizing current Republican status: Seats probably lost: Pennsylvania, Ohio. Seats I currently consider to be in danger: – Florida, Iowa, North Carolina, Wisconsin. If things break just right, Republicans may also lose: Missouri, Kansas, Utah (to independent Evan McMullin), Kentucky. Not enough data: any seat currently held by a Republican for which no polls of relevance available. There’s blood in the water, folks.

More flubs concerning Senate races are here.

Power prancers to the left, power prancers to the right!

• A-rated, by FiveThirtyEight, Fox News has issued one of those generic Congressional polls that finds the faceless Democratic and Republican candidates to now be tied in preference. In May it was a seven point Republican lead, June a three point lead, ditto July. If September sees Democrats ahead, Republicans had better buy new handkerchiefs for blotting their foreheads. Or waving surrender, given their unfortunate alliance with the former President, and Biden’s surging success, which will soon, I suspect, be followed by a surge in his approval numbers.
• The Green Party achieved its goal in North Carolina as a Federal judge ordered their Senate candidate, former Marine Matthew Hoh, had qualified to be on the ballot in November. While Democrats worry that he’ll peel off voters who might otherwise vote for their candidate, Cheri Beasley, in the long run Hoh’s presence on the ballot indicates a certain electoral openness to ideas that, if not yet espoused by Democrats, may in the future. The process of introducing new ideas to voters is an important step in the democratic process – perhaps the most important step.
• Also in North Carolina, the Republicans face a similar problem in Libertarian Senate candidate Shannon Bray, but it may actually be more serious. The Republican candidate, Trump-endorsed Rep Ted Budd, may discover that the Trump endorsement is rapidly becoming a disadvantage. When conservative North Carolina voters, repulsed by his association with the former President, consider Democratic candidate Beasley unacceptable, Bray may attract their vote as an acceptable protest vote against both Budd and Beasley. Like many Democratic candidates nation-wide, Beasley would then benefit from the rapidly declining reputation of the former President.
• Iowa Senate candidate Mike Franken (D), take note:
  

  “Are they going to have a strike force that goes in with AK-15s [sic] … ready to shoot some small business person in Iowa?” — Sen. Chuck Grassley (R-IA) speculates on what the IRS will do with their increase in funding from the Inflation Reduction Act.

  I say to Franken, Go on stage, play that clip, stare soberly out at your audience, and ask, “Is this the hysterical Senator you want representing you in Washington?” Do it at a debate if you can.

• In Georgia, not all Republicans approve of Herschel Walker’s run for the Senate. Republican Accountability PAC (RAPAC) has announced an ad campaign targeting Walker and other extremists running under the Republican banner. Walker’s endorsement by the former President is already a threatening sign of disaster, so this may just be piling on. Ahem. Sorry. For more analysis, here’s Rebekah Sager on Daily Kos.
• 

  Bob McDermott’s On The Issues‘ summation.

  The nominees for the Hawaii’an Senate seat have been determined as of Aug 13th, and the top two are incumbent Senator Brian Schatz (D) and Republican and State Representative Bob McDermott. As can be seen to the right, McDermott appears to be a moderate Republican, but Schatz still appears likely to win the seat again. There are three other nominees making the ballot, representing the Aloha Aina Party, the Greens, and the Libertarians, but they seem unlikely to affect this contest.

• Is Senator Rand Paul (R) of Kentucky kneecapping himself with this Tweet? The espionage act was abused from the beginning to jail dissenters of WWI. It is long past time to repeal this egregious affront to the 1st Amendment. Repeal the Espionage Act – The Future of Freedom Foundation. The Espionage Act has been mentioned in connection with the FBI visit to Mar-a-Lago. While Kentucky is considered a solidly Republican state, this may be a tool that his challenger, Charles Booker (D), can use against him.
• John Bridgeland, Chief of Staff for retiring Senator Rob Portman (R) of Ohio, announces his support for … Rep Tim Ryan (D).
  

  

  Senator Portman’s On The Issues summation.

  The 2022 election for U.S. Senate in Ohio calls the question on what kind of representatives we seek and nation we want to be. I have the privilege of knowing both candidates and am forming “Republicans for Tim Ryan.”

  Senator Portman (R) is no moderate, so this is quite a statement by Bridgeland, who presumably shares most or all of his boss’ positions. Just how bad does Ryan’s opponent, J. D. Vance, have to be to elicit this shocking response from a right-winger?

Previous absurd gestures concerning the Senate campaign are here.

Yes, there’s a news stream. It’s behind the old Potter place. Why do you ask?

• In Connecticut, as they await the August 9th primary, a Republican-sponsored poll gave this result: McLaughlin’s poll for Jordan found [incumbent Democratic Senator] Blumenthal with an 11-point lead over his closest Republican challenger, Themis Klarides, similar to the results of an Emerson College poll conducted for WTNH in May. But respondents were unfavorable when asked if Blumenthal “deserves” to be reelected. [WSHU] Maybe not all politics is local, but a big chunk qualifies.
• 

  Senator Moran’s On The Issues summation.

  The Democratic nominee for the Kansas Senate seat currently occupied by Senator Moran (R) is minister and former mayor Mark Holland. He is thought to have little chance, but here’s an “among the voters” piece from KCUR. On The Issues rates Senator Moran as quite the extremist, which may enhance Holland’s chances. My latest on Kansas here.

• Bad news continues in Pennsylvania for Dr. and candidate Mehmet Oz (R), as his opponent for the open Senate seat, Lt. Gov. Fetterman (D), has won another poll. A Center Street PAC poll show Fetterman ahead 52% – 38%. A key observation that will apply to many Republican candidates: Almost all voters know Oz, but they don’t like him. Oz’s un-favorability levels are staggering among unaffiliated voters and Democrats, and his Favorability among Republicans is barely above neutral. This suggests a huge disconnect between PA GOP primary voters and the general electorate, but then voting for the inexperienced fool’s gold hawker Oz in the first place, apparently based on his endorsement by former President Trump, demonstrates the deeply fallen nature of the PA GOP.
• Center Street PAC remains a polling organization of unknown quality, but it’s worth noting that their latest Ohio Senate poll, a Republican seat in which the incumbent is retiring, has Rep Tim Ryan (D) leading lawyer and author J. D. Vance (R) 49% – 38% among likely voters. If SurveyUSA or another A-rated pollster released numbers like that for reddish Ohio, I’d be happy, as Vance is not really qualified for the seat. For the moment, it merits a contingency “if accurate”, but suggests Republican arrogance may be turning off Ohio voters. This would be another invalidation of the Republican wave thesis that has been such a favorite among the timid pundit set.
• A-rated SurveyUSA has a poll out showing that the Missouri Senate race between State AG Schmitt (R) and former nurse and heiress Valentine (D), taken in late July, prior to the primary that selected each, has Schmitt up by six. As noted before, a poll prior to that one showed Schmitt with a thirteen point lead. How about a poll since the primary? For reference, in 2018 Senator Hawley (R) won his general election by roughly six points.
• In North Carolina and the competition for an empty Senate seat, currently held by Republicans, Cheri Beasley (D) is finding the climb steep against Rep Ted Budd (R). She’s down by 5 points, according to a Civitas poll. FiveThirtyEight does not appear to rate Civitas, so it’s difficult to gauge this poll’s credibility.

Previous allegations, unsubstantiated as they are, are here.

People who like prominences. Maybe.

• The Manchin-Schumer suckering of Senator McConnell (R-KY) and the Senate Republicans on the reconciliation bill – here’s Steve Benen’s summary of the incident – may be the gift that keeps on giving. In revenge, the Republicans unexpectedly killed the all-but-passed Honoring Our PACT Act, which is a Veteran’s healthcare bill related to “burn pits,” a military base hazard. This can be expected to excite questions on the campaign trail, even for Republican Senators who voted to pass it on the second try. Now it appears codification of gay marriage at the Federal level may be endangered, according to Senator Collins (R-ME), and that won’t go over well with the gay community, a group that otherwise has been slowly moving towards a more conservative political viewpoint, or with supporters of justice for all Americans. What will be Republicans’ next target that can be turned on them during the campaign?
• In Wisconsin, all serious Democratic candidates except Lt. Governor Mandela Barnes have dropped out of the primary, leaving Barnes as the likely Democratic nominee for Senator Johnson’s (R) seat in the Senate, although it’s worth noting that not all the drop outs are official and the primary, as of this writing, is still scheduled to occur. On the Republican side, Senator Johnson and David Schroeder are in the primary. I should think it’ll be Johnson vs Barnes in the general election, and Johnson will have a hill to climb. But how big a hill?
• Lt Governor Fetterman’s (D) lead over Dr. Mehmet Oz (R) in the Pennsylvania race to fill Senator Toomey’s (R) soon-to-be-empty Senate seat is up to 11 points, at 47-36, according to a Fox News poll. Is it safely a Democratic acquisition yet? And when will former President Trump dis-endorse Oz for failing to take a lead? The former President is so desperate to look successful that he might end up endorsing … deep breath … Democrat Fetterman! Not kidding, either.
• Famed statistician Nate Silver thinks New Hampshire incumbent and candidate Senator Hassan (D) has a good chance of winning reelection, but knows that New Hampshire can be quite swingy and hard to predict.
• In North Carolina, local political experts believe the Beasley (D) vs Budd (R) contest to fill a future empty Senate seat currently occupied by Senator Richard Burr (R) to be too close to call. If President Biden manages to repair his national approval rating between now and November, it may be enough to push Beasley over the top, beating Trump-endorsed Budd. I expect Biden to, in fact, recover in the polls with his recent legislative victories, clarified messaging, and inevitable Republican bungling.
• The latest Fox News poll in Georgia gives Senator Warnock (D) a four point lead over challenger Herschel Walker (R), which is within the margin of error. Fox is A-rated by FiveThirtyEight. Notice how Warnock’s lead bounces from a couple of points to ten points, there’s nothing guaranteeing a victory for either nominee.

Tomorrow is the August 2nd primaries, which should answer one or two more questions, mostly in Arizona. Slightly out of date previous amateur analysis is here.

What? More news?

• Professor Richardson reminds me that Senator Grassley (R-IA) made noises about presiding over the counting of Electoral Votes on January 5th, 2020, and thus replacing VP Mike Pence, who had already made clear that he had no intention in participating in the former President’s alleged illegal scheme to stop the counting of the Electoral votes. This was later walked back by Grassley’s staff. Why is this important? His opponent in this year’s election, Mike Franken, might be well advised to use this information to tie Grassley to the disgraced former President, who is taking destructive body blows from the House investigating committee. If Grassley is successfully associated with a scheme to overturn a democratic and fair election, Iowa voters may decide they’ve had enough of Grassley.
• The release of the report LOST, NOT STOLEN: The Conservative Case that Trump Lost and Biden Won the 2020 Presidential Election, by various main-line conservatives who exhaustively analyze and reject all the Trumpian claims concerning the 2020 Presidential election, may or may not have an impact on the Senate elections featuring Trump allies.
• Yay, Nevada has a poll: Senator Cortez Masto (D) leads challenger Adam Laxalt (R), 44-41, with 6 points more planning to vote independent, and 9% are undecided. This is an Emerson College Polling result; FiveThirtyEight considers Emerson College Polling to be an A- outfit. This lead seems precarious.
• Yay, Washington has a poll, too: Senator Murray (D) leads challenger Tiffany Smiley (R) by 18 points, according to SurveyUSA. This pollster gets an ‘A’ grade from FiveThirtyEight. Smiley has quite the hill to climb. Interestingly, she rates as a moderate, at least according to By The Issues (see Washington link, above), so I’m not sure if the far-right extremists refuse to vote for her, and/or if the independents are so disgusted with the Republicans that she’s catching the blowback.
• Georgia continues to get lots of coverage: the Georgia AARP conducted a poll showing incumbent Senator Warnock (D) leading challenger Herschel Walker by three points, 50-47. Those are high numbers for this early in the race. I have no idea if Georgia AARP polling is respectable or not.
• I somehow missed that newcomer Natalie James (D) won the Democratic primary and thus the right to challenge incumbent Senator John Boozman (R) in Arkansas. No polls noted as of yet, so no new drama.
• In Iowa, a Des Moines Register/MediaCom poll gives incumbent Senator Grassley (R) an eight point lead, leaving challenger Michael Franken (D) quite a hill to climb. However, FiveThirtyEight admits to no knowledge concerning this pollster, so it’s difficult to guess as to its accuracy. Franken’s challenge is certainly less than Grassley’s 35 point average victory margin.
• Finally, my current summary of seats in danger. Democrats: Senator Masto in Nevada may be the most in peril, with a 3 point lead over Adam Laxalt, although Warnock of Georgia may or may not be in trouble, and a few Democrats remain unknowns due to unconcluded GOP primaries, such as Kelly of Arizona. Republican seats in danger or worse: Pennsylvania (incumbent retiring), Ohio (incumbent retiring), North Carolina (incumbent retiring), Johnson of Wisconsin, maybe even Lee of Utah, shockingly Missouri (incumbent retiring), and Iowa, as Senator Grassley may only be up by five – eight points and has potentially very bad news looming on the horizon.

Previous, old, tattered updates here.

Trouping ever onwards…

• State Senator Burt Jones (R-GA), now running for Lt. Governor of Georgia, was apparently a fake elector, and now Republican strategists are squirming, as his opponent is using this against him in their contest. Why does this matter in an update on Federal Senate races? Because the Republican strategists worry it may cause collateral damage to other races on Election Day – including the Warnock/Walker contest.
• This Alaska Daily News article claims Alaska Democrats are “supporting” Patricia R. Chesbro, who appears to have little political experience. Earlier reporting had Alaska Democrats endorsing incumbent Senator Murkowski (R). I think it’s still Murkowski’s to win or lose. WaPo reports that a recent Alaska Survey Research poll (FiveThirtyEight rating: B/C) shows Murkowski winning in the new Alaska non-partisan primary top four to a RCV (ranked choice voting) system. Trump-endorsed Tshibaka would lead the first two rounds of the RCV, but in the third, as the two more liberal candidates were eliminated and their voters’ second and third choices were counted, Murkowski wins by several points, just as I suspected would happen with RCV – the extremists end up losing. And then she would be deafened by shrieks of outrage from Tshibaka and Trump. Unknown to FiveThirtyEight pollster Ivan Moore has similar results for Murkowski.
• WaPo has a summary of interviews with anonymous GOP strategists here. It looks as if Senator McConnell’s (R-KY) concerns about candidate quality are justified. I did find it interesting that Senator Grassley (R-IA) did not come up as a potential weak candidate, despite his longevity in the Senate. I suspect that is a swamp too far for the strategists, most of whom don’t appear to realize the January 6th televised hearings are happening, with concomitant collateral damage to Trump allies such as Grassley a good possibility.
• Speaking of, the seventh televised meeting of the House Committee investigating the Jan 6th insurrection will deal more damage to close Trump allies who happen to be running for the Senate, as well as other positions. Just how much is, of course, hard to say.
• In Florida, a Center Street PAC poll shows incumbent Senator Rubio (R) ahead of likely Democratic challenger Rep Val Demings by 5-8 points, depending on how you want to size it up. Jacob Perry of Center Street PAC thinks Rubio could be in trouble. Let me see Demings making progress up that hill and maybe I’ll agree with him, otherwise its Rubio in November, no matter how tired he looks and incoherent he sounds. Man, it’s like Sauron is munching on his soul or something.
• Jennifer Rubin in WaPo expands on the theme of damage to Trump’s Senate allies by noting that the two former Trump supporters who testified yesterday to the House January 6th investigatory committee serve as examples and warnings to Trump supporters nation-wide. But how many Trump supporters are watching the hearings? Not many, I’d guess. Now, if Fox News happens to put them up on the screen without meddling with them…. nyah. I don’t see this as working out.

Earlier updates here.

Later observations.

• The GOP decides to hold hostage America’s future in the semiconductor business, or at least so it’s portrayed by a left of center blog. Is this a big ol’ club for the Democrats or the Republicans? The Democrats have a more difficult message to convey, but potentially more devastating. I thought about writing a hypothetical thank you letter for the Democrats to Senator McConnell (R-KY), who is the lead hostage-taker, but thought better of it.
• Herschel Walker’s (R-GA, or what state is he from anyways?) campaign in Georgia for incumbent Senator Warnock’s (D-GA) Senate seat was already struggling, so this isn’t going to help matters at all, if these alleged campaign leaks are not fiction: “He’s lied so much that we don’t know what’s true,” the person said, adding that aides have “zero” trust in the candidate. Three people interviewed for this article independently called him a “pathological liar.” [Daily Beast] But will the independents and Republicans of Georgia pay attention to the feet of clay? Meanwhile, a new poll from Data for Progress, a ‘B’ performer in FiveThirtyEight’s book, has Walker up by two points. The previous poll showing Warnock up by ten was by ‘A-‘ performer Quinnipiac University Poll.
• New pollster Center Street PAC, which appears to be a non-partisan, but maybe Republican, anti-extremist organization, has a poll out showing Rep Tim Ryan (D) leading J. D. Vance (R) by 9 points, 43-34, in the race for Ohio’s open Senate seat, to be vacated in January by retiring Senator Portman (R-OH). As Center Street PAC is new, it’s hard to know if this is significant or not. FiveThirtyEight has no listing for them in its slightly-out-of-date ratings of pollsters. I’ll take it with a grain of salt and a chaser of liquid egg, please. Another poll by Impact Research, commissioned by Rep Ryan’s campaign, shows Ryan with a two point lead, or a statistical tie. Once known as ALG Research, Impact gets a B/C rating from FiveThirtyEight. Another shot and some liquid egg, again.
• NeverTrumper conservative Chris Truax recommends the Democrats ignore the overturning of Roe v. Wade, due to the moral ambiguity of abortion in the minds of some citizens. Instead, he suggests that there is a leaning towards banning contraception by the GOP, and that could be the winning issue for the Democrats. There is not enough evidence, yet, to support or refute his view concerning abortion, but early polls suggest refutation. Nevertheless, in some districts contraception may be a better issue, and in some or even most districts these two issues could constitute a 1-2 punch. If the GOP is truly interested in banning contraception, this would be more evidence of their essential failure to understand democracy, as I discussed previously here.
• A Franken-sponsored poll shows the retired Admiral Franken, a Democrat, within five points of incumbent Senator Grassley (R) in Iowa. The same article supplies the information that Grassley’s average margin of victory is 35 points, which makes Franken’s poll results impressive, if accurate. That said, 49% of respondents say they’re voting Grassley, which makes the hill in front of Franken quite steep. The conductor of the poll, Change Research, is unknown to FiveThirtyEight.

Earlier updates can be found here, against my better judgment.

Another loathsome addition to this line of classics …

• There’s both worry and action concerning the candidacy of disgraced former Governor Eric Greitens for the GOP nomination to the open Missouri Senate seat, as the Missouri Stands United PAC, controlled by former Missouri Senator John Danforth (R), is spending heavily in support of the independent run of John Wood. It’s interesting that Danforth is ignoring the other Republicans in the primary race and is going with Wood. Are the Republicans simply too far-right for the retired Senator? He has no obvious entry in On The Issues, so a graphic representation of his own standing is not available. The Missouri race is rapidly becoming an unexpected bonfire in this Republican stronghold. Personally, I’d like to see Greitens win the nomination and then get his butt kicked by Wood or the Democratic nominee, as that would expose the far-right extremism that has taken hold of the GOP. However, that would not expose the underlying toxic culture of the GOP, and I’m not sure anything would. Processes are hard to expose.
• Arizona Republicans appear to lean far to the right, unlike, say, the Colorado GOP, as young, inexperienced, Trump-endorsed, and Thiel-funded Blake Masters has a big lead in a weekend poll among Republicans. This may be good news for incumbent Senator Kelly (D).
• Speaking of Colorado, an early June poll is now available and shows Senator Bennet (D) leads his GOP challenger, John O’Dea, by 12 points, but 28% of the respondents were undecided.
• Trump remains a popular bit of kitsch for the GOP, as many unendorsed candidates, at all levels of government, are sending out campaign literature referencing the former President, to the extent that Trump’s lawyers are being kept busy calling campaigns and sending out cease & desist letters. Will this continue if he’s indicted? If he looks worse and worse in the televised January 6th Committee hearings? Are these campaigns inadvertently attaching anchors to their candidates’ ankles? So far, I think the lack of good judgment will continue in the MAGA base, and so the misleading advertisements will also continue, even if this article claims small-dollar donations are dropping off, a trend attributed to inflation pressures and exhaustion. They’re probably right.
• When I wasn’t looking New York canceled its GOP primary for the US Senate, leaving pundit Joe Pinion as the survivor for whom everyone else presumably withdrew. His political experience appears scant, consisting of a single failed run for a State Assembly seat a few years back. While the The Buffalo News likes him, I do not think incumbent Senator Schumer (D) need worry about losing this race. And that’s how it starts, sometimes, not worrying.

More in this series of updates…

• The savior of the Missouri GOP? A top investigator for the January 6th panel, John Wood, has resigned his position and is making an independent run for the open Senate seat in Missouri. Proclaiming both parties as too extreme, while he’s been a life-long Republican, Wood thinks he can get the job by appealing to the common-sense independents and Party members alike. If he can pull this off, he may become one of the most powerful members of the Senate as a swing-vote member with no iron-bound Party loyalties. And he’ll be a savior because the Missouri GOP won’t have to suffer the abject humiliation of being responsible for Eric Greitens as Senator. But Wood is a long shot, and in fact is not yet on the ballot. Assuming he makes the ballot, he may end up splitting the conservative voters and handing the election to the Democrats, but once again If only the Democrats can field a strong candidate.
• Utah incumbent Senator Mike Lee (R) won his primary on June 28th, but an incumbent only winning 62% of the GOP voters’ ballots suggests discontent in the ranks. As his general election rival is Evan McMullin (I), who has picked up the Democrats’ endorsement, more out of desperation to derail the far-right Senator, Lee may be skating near open water. Lee appears aware of the danger, as his post-victory speech was conciliatory towards the disaffected Republicans, the AP reports.
• I somehow missed the fact that, in Nevada, Adam Laxalt won the GOP primary to win the right to challenge the allegedly-vulnerable incumbent Senator Catherine Cortez Masto (D), and, while he attained a majority victory, it was only 56%, so if that was a bitter battle, he may have lost some GOP support already. Cortez Masto, on the other hand, won her primary with 90% support. I haven’t seen any polls yet, but Laxalt may start down a strike, as The Nevada Independent acquired a recording of Laxalt making anti-abortion remarks: Earlier this month, Republican U.S. Senate candidate and former Attorney General Adam Laxalt called the 1973 Roe v. Wade decision “a joke” and said it’s “sad” that Nevada is not anti-abortion. That will not endear him to the independents who value the availability of abortion medical procedures.

Hopefully there’ll be nothing over the Fourth of July weekend. But just in case …

Yes, you’re right: a bug on the wall.

The latest updates, taken best with your favorite cartoons…

• SemDem on Daily Kos has a fascinating article on Ukrainian-Americans and the Republican fight to, apparently, alienate this reliable Republican voting bloc. It reminds me that fourth raters can often be identified by how often they step on their dicks – and then don’t admit it.
• Republicans, feeling their oats after SCOTUS overturned Roe v Wade with Dobbs v Jackson Women’s Health Organization, are now talking about a nation-wide abortion ban. That’s unlikely to go down well with most Americans.
• An early post-Dobbs poll of generic Democrats vs Republicans show the Democrats have flipped the balance to their side of the teeter totter, 48-41. What that means in an already polarized environment is not clear, although it may mean the House will remain under the sway of Democrats. And it’s only one week. Show me four polls with similar results and I might pronounce it as significant.
• Senate candidate J. D. Vance (R-OH) thinks pregnancies, even those from rape, are an inconvenience. In what promises to be a hotly contested race against experienced Rep Tim Ryan (D) for an open Senate seat, will outraged Republican and independent women voters dump him by the side of the road, rather than in Ohio’s soon-to-be-empty Senate seat? And, even more importantly, will those outraged women continue to be outraged when it comes to voting for their Congressional Representative? Down-ballot damage can be a bitch.
• The surprise sixth televised hearing of the January 6th investigatory panel certainly demonstrates a President desperate to retain power, laws, rules, and traditions be damned. But what impact will this have on the various Senate races? Stay tuned.
• In Colorado, the June 28th GOP primary resulted in John O’Dea winning the GOP nomination to face Senator Michael Bennet. For those paying attention, it appears the Colorado GOP has a taste for relatively moderate candidates, rejecting such specimens as indicted elections clerk and candidate for Colorado Secretary of State Tina Peters. Incidentally, Peters then denied that her own primary lost loss, claiming it was rigged. Toss her in the bin with all the other whiners.
• The June 28th primary for the Oklahoma Senate seat held by incumbent James Lankford (R) has resulted in the selection of Lankford (68% of GOP primary voters selected him) by the Republicans and inexperienced Madison Horn (37%) by the Democrats. While a plurality win like Horn’s isn’t usually significant for the easy-going Democrats, Lankford’s majority victory is, perhaps, surprisingly weak; in 2016 he did not even face a primary opponent. But the far-right in Oklahoma is disappointed that he didn’t vote against counting electoral votes on January 6, 2021. That 32% of GOP voters desired someone other than an experienced Senator, possibly because his TrumpScore is only 86.8%, may indicate a fracture in the Oklahoma GOP, but is it great enough to let Horn slip through? I doubt it, but I’ll hold my breath until polls come out.
• In the special election to replace Oklahoma Senator Inhofe (R-OK) for the final four years of his term, Rep Markwayne Mullin attained the primary runoff with 43.7% of the GOP voter ballots, while T. W. Shannon, with a less impressive 17.5%, will be in the other slot. As noted before, former Rep Kendra Horn (D-OK) will meet the winner of the runoff, who I expect will be Mullin. Does Mullin’s plurality indicate weakness? Does his attempts to attract former President Trump’s attention bring doubt upon his campaign, now that Trump appears to be in serious legal trouble? Probably not. But it’s worth keeping half an eye on this contest.
• Former EPA Administrator for President Trump, and stricken with multiple scandals during his tenure, Scott Pruitt (R-OK) came in fifth in the primary for the special election to replace Senator Inhofe (R-OK). This is more noteworthy than it sounds, as Pruitt tried to campaign on the scandals to his advantage, and failed. At least portions of the GOP have little patience for naked power-seekers. Sorry about the visual.
• In Georgia a new Quinnipiac University Poll shows incumbent Senator Warnock (D) with a ten point lead (±2.5 points) over challenger and former NFL star Herschel Walker (R). This is particularly of interest: In today’s poll, Democrats (97 – 2 percent) and independents (62 – 33 percent) back Warnock, while Republicans (93 – 7 percent) back Walker. First, independents are leaning to the Democrats, which may explain Georgia resident and leading right-wing pundit Erick Erickson’s panicked public posts over the last couple of days. Second, the Republicans are strongly in Walker’s corner, which suggests they’d rather have power than a reasonable representative. I consider Warnock to be far more reasonable than Walker, who gets kudos for being forthright concerning his mental illness – but that’s not an excuse for speaking gibberish concerning the Uvalde tragedy, but more a reason to sit out the election, or vote for Senator and Pastor Warnock.
• With a slogan unfortunately reminiscent of at least one slogan of failed and disgraced former President Trump, “the only Republican who can defeat Tammy Duckworth in the fall,” Kathy Salvi won the Republican primary in Illinois, and the right to challenge incumbent Senator Duckworth (D). Potentially hampering her effort is the fact that her plurality victory consists of winning 30.5% of the GOP primary vote. If the losers’ supporters are embittered, as sometimes happens in GOP contests of late, then Salvi will have a very difficult hill to climb.
• Krystie Matthews (D-SC), a member of the South Carolina House of Representatives, won the right to challenge incumbent Senator Tim Scott (R-SC), emerging from a primary runoff in which she had to come from behind. No polls seem to be available just yet, but it’s South Carolina, so I expect Senator Scott to win another term.

Previous update here.

Since the last update …

• Wisconsin Senator Johnson (R) was apparently involved in the January 6th insurrection in that he was asked to deliver two slates of fake electors to VP Mike Pence (R) during the ceremonial count. A Pence aide told Johnson’s aide to not make the delivery. When asked about this on Wednesday, Johnson pretended he was on his phone. How this will affect the general election remains to be seen.
• Also in Wisconsin, the previously mentioned large number of GOP challengers to Senator Johnson in the primary have shrunk to one, Doug Schroeder. Some test polling by Marquette University indicates Johnson is down by only modest amounts to the most likely winners of the Democratic primary.
• In Missouri, candidate and disgraced former governor Eric Greitens’ lead in the Republican Senate primary has the Republican leadership thoroughly spooked, to the extent that they’re trying to sabotage it. Which is not unprecedented, I feel sure. I think the part the Republican leadership is missing is that someday soon, due to the toxic team culture they’ve long engendered, they’ll be replaced by Greitens lookalikes.
• Congress has managed to pass a modest gun bill. Its significance for the Senate elections? Now Republicans cannot be credibly accused of ignoring the deaths of children in favor of their ideology, or so they think. It’s important to note that of the fifteen Republican Senators who voted for the bill, only two, Young of Indiana and Murkowski of Alaska, are up for reelection, and of these two, only Murkowski is running a real risk. Four of the thirteen remaining Senators are retiring at the end of this Congress, which I believe is all the Republicans who are retiring, and so they’re not endangering their careers. The remaining nine face, at worst, a delayed reaction in two+ or four+ years, unless the extreme step of a recall is orchestrated by the far-right gun rights absolutists. Those Republicans who voted NO and are up for reelection will face uncomfortable questions over the matter, as will Young and Murkowski over their YES votes, and the importance of that will vary from State to State.
• With regards to those Republicans voting YES on the gun bill, it may be worth tracking their political donations over the next few years to see if there’s any impact.
• Roe v Wade was overturned. While I haven’t, and won’t, read the opinion, because I’m tired of being irritated with Alito’s broken logic from last time, I will note that conservatives are trying to calm the waters. I don’t know if it’s working, but after reading Erickson’s piece (partial – I won’t listen to him) and O. Carter Snead’s forced, shallow piece, I doubt many pro-choicers will be convinced. But it may have quite some impact on some close Senate races if non-political independents who normally don’t vote are so infuriated that they turn out and vote. This may or may not show up in polling, and it may simply not occur. But there is potential.

If I’d only waited a day for the June 21st primaries to complete. Sigh….

• In Alabama, Katie Britt defeated crushed Rep Mo Brooks in the Republican primary runoff yesterday. Britt has former President Trump’s endorsement, but quite possibly only because Trump despises Rep Brooks for a social faux-pas of a comment he made in connection with the January 6th insurrection investigation. Minus a scandal or black swan event, or perhaps Brooks shrieking about election rigging, Britt should easily defeat the Democratic candidate, Will Boyd, and Alabama will continue to have a far-right Senator.
• Senator Crapo (R) of Idaho will be facing David Roth (D), who appears to have little political experience and little chance of winning. This was determined back in May and I was just a bit flippant about Democratic chances in Idaho. I fear I remain flippant.
• North Carolina’s Beasley-Budd race has a poll I missed yesterday, as WRAL/SurveyUSA’s poll from a week or so ago shows Beasley up by 4 points, 44% to 40%, the first lead for the former NC Supreme Court Justice. How much of this is Trump’s, Biden’s, or the candidate’s influence is difficult to tell. It has to be encouraging for the Democrats of North Carolina, in any case, and should give them some impetus.

There, all caught up. Yeah, sure I am.

Some updates of interest:

• In California, VP Kamala Harris’ (D-CA) appointed successor, Senator Alex Padilla (D), will be facing attorney Mark Meuser (R), as expected, in Padilla’s first elective race for this seat. As this is a jungle primary, with the top two advancing to the general election, the primary also functions as a poll – at least for my purposes, which is to stay informed. The results: Padilla has 53.5% of the vote, while Meuser was well behind him at 14.3% of the vote, but no one else in the field had more than 6.7% of the vote. [Yahoo! Entertainment] Padilla just has to avoid stepping in potholes.
• In Georgia, the ability of a gibberish-spewing candidate to potentially successfully compete against a sitting Senator and pastor of a storied church continues as Senator Warnock (D) is tied with Herschel Walker (R) in a recent poll. Color me gobsmacked. Are Georgians really that lacking in self-respect?
• Something I didn’t know, courtesy a concerned, or maybe panicked, post by Erick Erickson: In Missouri, the primaries do not have a runoff if no one reaches 50% in a given race. One election, the winner moves on to the general without regard to the percentage of ballots won. And that means disgraced former Republican Governor Eric Greitens, currently leading in the GOP primary for the Senate nomination (June 8th on RealClearPolitics) by 6 points with 26% of those polled could win outright. But this Greitens ad may have thrown the Republican Senate primary into doubt, as it could alienate undecideds. Absent a strong Democratic contender, I do not think the Senate seat is in danger of slipping from Republican hands, but this is yet another, expected sign of a political party that, having lost its guardrails against extremism, is proceeding to eat itself, and won’t stop until only its own tail protrudes from between its fangs.
• North Carolina appears to feature a close race between Trump-endorsed Rep Ted Budd (R) and former State Supreme Court Justice Cheri Beasley (D), as MSN reports from ten days ago: The most recent polling for the Senate contest was conducted by Civitas/Cygnal on behalf of the John Locke Foundation, a conservative think-tank. That survey showed Budd ahead by only 2 percent, well within the poll’s margin of error of plus or minus 3.95 percent. The Trump-backed Republican was supported by 44 percent of likely North Carolina voters compared to 42 percent that backed Beasley. Carried out from May 21 to 22, the poll included 600 respondents. That and another poll also cited were awfully darn small, though. Wait for bigger polls or bigger gaps before pinning your political identity on the results of this race.
• BayNews9 reports that incumbent North Dakota Senator John Thune Hoeven (R) won his primary easily and will face engineering professor and political newcomer Katrina Christiansen (D). This seems to change little in the political calculus.
• The Utah primaries have not yet been held, but the most likely matchup has been polled, and shows incumbent Senator Mike Lee (R) with a slight lead over Evan McMullin. Let’s wait a month and see if Senator Lee has incurred the wrath of Utahn voters, or merely a frown.
• Like Utah, Vermont primaries have not been held, but in this race for an open seat currently held by the Democrats, Rep Peter Welch (D) reportedly polls at 62%, while the likely Republican candidate, former U.S. Attorney Christina Nolan, was favored by only 27%. I hadn’t heard of any Republican expectations of a pickup of the Vermont Senate seat, and that’s probably just as well.

Updates as warranted. No warranties apply.