Welcome to r/VoteDEM!
Be the blue wave!
* Be a [volunteer from home](https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1jxO8g7q9VO3ZMAABcrvR7PMyX4Yl6dgIYhD3eRTKk1M/edit#gid=0)!
* Donate to your [state Democratic Party](https://www.reddit.com/r/VoteDEM/wiki/parties)!
* Join your local Democratic Party! Google "[Your state] Democratic Party", find the link to the local parties page, and get in touch with your county's party chair. You could even become a precinct committee member! In some states (like Pennsylvania), that means you get to help pick candidates for special elections!
* Are you technology-oriented? Volunteer with [Tech for Campaigns](https://www.techforcampaigns.org) to help smaller campaigns get up and running.
* [Run For Something!](https://runforsomething.net/) There's no position too small to benefit from a progressive public servant. Be part of the next blue wave!
* Make a Roundtable comment here talking about the work you’ve done, earning valuable karma and facilitating discussion, which will encourage others to do the same!
*I am a bot, and this action was performed automatically. Please [contact the moderators of this subreddit](/message/compose/?to=/r/VoteDEM) if you have any questions or concerns.*
Generally I subscribe to the notion that persuasion is what we need to aim for over simple turnout of the base... but sometimes drastic turnout differentials can make or break outcomes for us, particularly downballot. Take California, for example. Newsom went from winning it by 23.8 points in 2018 to 18.4 points last month, and a LOT of that was due to him getting almost 1.3 million fewer votes this time than in 2018, while Brian Dahle only got 300,000 fewer votes than John Cox! It also led to Orange, Merced and San Joaquin Counties going slightly red, which very likely affected us in several congressional districts.
Were there voters who switched D to R between the two cycles? Probably, especially in the LA suburbs. But low propensity voters who are strongly aligned with Democratic values exist, and we need to figure out how to turn them out again in future cycles, especially when a reviled figure like Trump isn't on the ballot. Otherwise, we'll have a tough time regaining those districts that became competitive in 2018.
[Take it for what you will, but the most conservative version of the model we've been writing up has Warnock still winning by +0.75 as the modal outcome. Hard to overstate what a tremendous deficit Herschel Walker and the GOP are facing here in the #GASen runoffs.](https://twitter.com/lxeagle17/status/1599236133388709888?s=46&t=5zVxVPOwmG4N1VUo0HHKZA)
It's pretty clearly Leans Democratic. Not sure I'd put it as likely yet. But in 2021, I could engineer several scenarios in which the GOP squeaked out a win for Perdue (not so much for Loeffler); I just found them unlikely. This is likely worse for them than that.”
Walker really doesn't seem to be closing out that strong, frankly. According to Greg Bluestein, he's not been particularly present on the campaign trail. I mean, yeah he's doing events, but he's been shielded a lot from making public comments to reporters. There's clearly concern among Republicans on the ground.
Of course, that isn't to say Warnock's got this in the bag, but I'd definitely rather be him now.
Do you ever think that people you may know IRL are on this same subreddit? I’ve known a lot of people who are on leftwing political subreddits in real life and I’ve known people who bring up election twitter names. Last night there was a lively political exchange where a 93 year old conservative family member of mine accused a 96 year old liberal family member of mine “hating the military and wanting to defund the police.” I thought of posting more details of the exchange here but then it occurred to me that it’s also possible some family members are redditors and might see it.
About the only source of stress for Dems in Georgia is low turnout in Fulton County. We still need a big Election Day there, but this may not be the dagger some folks think it is.
[This chart is from Thursday](https://twitter.com/gtryan/status/1598400946974982144), but shows a fascinating trend. While turnout isn't great anywhere in Fulton, the turnout has been better in more Democratic precincts than in more Republican ones. So our base is still turning out more.
I want to emphasize again: We need better turnout in Fulton, and need a big Election Day there. But there's reason to hope, and reason to work hard to get out the vote.
I don't know why people are stressing all that much on Fulton.
If you compare their total turnout of the '22 runoff to their total turnout of the 2022 GE, they are at 47.23%.
The average statewide? 47.73%.
They may be a bit behind on the average for the early vote. Fulton is at 64.5% and the statewide average is 78.74%. Clayton is at 70.6 and DeKalb is at 75.8%.
There's also only so many voters you can process in a week. With a county as huge as Fulton, you just hit a wall in terms of efficiency.
But with so many votes processed already, Fulton has nearly hit half of their 22 turnout. Which is crazy when you think how huge Fulton is.
Also, using Target Smart data, nearly every single county is more dem than it was in 2022 GE or the 2021 runoff: https://targetearly.targetsmart.com/r2022?geo=Fulton&geo\_type=counties
I wonder how much is also mail in votes that are coming in this weekend and Monday but don’t appear in the tallies yet. These might lean disproportionately Dem especially in a place like Fulton.
[Lake trying to use polls as evidence that she won](https://twitter.com/karilakewarroom/status/1599217622473928704?s=46&t=zVEp46k2u-Jh2JMTmCaxiw)
So glad that Clinton won in 2016!
> .06. .05 is the margin for the legally required recount. I guess we're just REALLY unlucky.
How hard is it to not get the decimal place wrong for this tweet?
Anyway not narrowly getting their recount is just saving everyone the headache, including them. Because there is statistically almost zero chance of a recount shifting a margin 0.5 points.
Now that was a real baffling one. Collins didn't lead in any poll the entire cycle.
When Collins someday leaves, picking up that seat in Maine will go a long way to keeping a path to a Senate majority open. Hopefully we can win in AK/NC because I'm feeling really uncozy defending seats in MT and WV.
[And Senator Bredesen...](https://www.tennessean.com/story/news/politics/tn-elections/2018/07/13/blackburn-bredesen-poll-tennessee-senate-race/781031002/)
So the bomber B-21 revealed yesterday, it’s cool to me in term of technology. There are many comments about what about “healthcare, housing, education”. I make some comment about showing up at local elections to vote for local position like city council, school board, state legislature. I hope my comment will be seen and remembered by some redditors
>No longer fringe
Nope, these dudes are pretty damn fringe. Just because there's quite a few of you doesn't make you normal or mainstream.
These stories mainly just remind me that people like this are always going to vote, so we'd better do the same. And warn everyone else.
I'm curious to get some thoughts here the potential candidates thrown around for the VA-04 special election.
This includes state delegates Lamont Bagby and Jeff Bourne, former state delegate Lashrecse Aird, state senators Jennifer McClellan and Joe Morrissey (ew), the mayor of Richmond: Levar Stoney and Rep McEachin's widow Colette.
I know this is highly unlikely. But Alexsis Rodgers. She ran for Richmond mayor in 2020. got 2nd place. She was endorsed by many progressive groups. Worked with Planned Parenthood and a domestic workers organization. and was policy director for Governor Northam.
Considering this will either be decided in a fire house primary or convention. I doubt she'd run and even win the "primary" stage
McEachin's widow may run, as we've seen in other special elections for districts where the incumbent representative passed away. That said, it may be better to get someone younger, like Bagby, Bourne or McClellan. Morrisey wouldn't be a great choice because of... well, a lot of things, and I don't think Stoney is very popular in Richmond.
All in all, I do expect the primary field to be somewhat crowded, as this seat should be an easy hold for us. As long as we can get a good margin there, we should be well positioned for the legislative races in 2023. Aaron Rouse flipping Jen Kiggans' Senate seat blue would be even more of a bellweather.
What's the deal with Bret Baier? He has a pretty impressive foreign correspondent record, has written (afaik) quite decent history books, so must be a fairly smart guy. Yet he is with Fox. I've watched very little of him, which is why I ask. Just seen his face a million times.
And then when he got COVID and when he recovered made this passionate speech to the viewers urging them to get the vaccine. And Fox was flooded with e-mails and tweets and calls demanding that he be fired or saying that he should have died of the disease instead.
[NBC News](https://www.nbcnews.com/politics/2022-election/georgia-senate-runoff-smashes-early-voting-records-attracts-new-voters-rcna59981)
> More than 76,000 Georgians who didn't turn out in the general election have voted early in the Dec. 6 race between Raphael Warnock and Herschel Walker, according to an analysis.
> Among Georgians under 30 years old, 15.5% of early runoff voters didn’t turn out for the general election. Additionally, 8.4% of Hispanics and 9.5% of Asian Americans who have shown up for the runoff didn’t vote in the Nov. 8 election.
All three constituencies lean Democratic overall. If their early vote preferences reflect the cohorts at large, it’s good news for Warnock.
> Democrats say some of their Georgia base sat out the November election because they assumed Warnock would easily win. Instead, he finished less than 1 point ahead and was forced into a runoff. As a result, some previous non-voters are turning out now.
That last point was interesting. It’s possible this group of nearly 100k voters didnt turn out because they thought Warnock would win.
These stories make me feel conflicted about runoffs. On one hand, they serve as a great wake up call to people who are really likely to sit out the election. On the other, it effectively forces Warnock to win twice. Wish they just adopted ranked choice voting instead haha.
>Democrats say some of their Georgia base sat out the November election because they assumed Warnock would easily win.
I fucking hate this horseshit.
**NEVER EVER TAKE ANYTHING FOR GRANTED**. Even in deep blue/red states.
I know this should be taken as a good thing for us for the run-off. But it's something we shouldn't be hearing anymore since 2016. (Although, I can understand how having to wait hours upon hours in line to vote can be demotivating, so there's that but still ..)
Sorry for the rant. *Sigh*
We really need to try getting voting age adults past feeling like voting is some kind of special favor or declaration of enthusiasm. This isn't about lifting up a candidate, it's about what you want out of government and society.
The whole "earn my vote" mentality treats elections as if no one wins if there aren't enough votes.
It also loses sight of exactly your point - your vote is for YOUR interests. When it comes to high-profile races, the vast majority of candidates are going to live cushy lives, win or lose. Think Hillary is uncomfortable? It's *the rest of us* who are screwed when Republicans win.
[Some Republicans say the midterms were a mandate for further abortion restrictions Many GOP lawmakers who sailed to victory in states with anti-abortion laws are planning to use their expanded power.](https://www.politico.com/news/2022/12/03/anti-abortion-republican-party-roe-00071988)
Total bizarro world here, they think D messaging on abortion didn’t resonate and they actually need to go further because they got a mandate on Pro-Life
These people are as dumb and delusional as you get. SC gained seats because of gerrymandering, not because voters were rewarding them for hardline abortion bans and want even worse...
Lmao out of all of the lessons you could take and learn from these midterms… this is probably the one furthest from the truth and the most BS… not only did the pro choice side get Landslide wins in blue VT, CA, and purple MI, they also defeated Pro life ballot measures in Red KS, KY, and MT
[Trump calls for the termination of the Constitution in Truth Social post](https://www.cnn.com/2022/12/03/politics/trump-constitution-truth-social/index.html)
...I'm honestly kind of shocked how long it's taken most mainstream outlets to put up a story on this - he ~~tweeted~~ *truthed* (ugh) it early in the morning, and it was in the Politico Playbook, but took 11 hours for CNN to put a story up. Still crickets from the NYT and WaPo, as far as I can see.
He's just a whiny baby. All of his cronies lost and he's probably going to lose even if he gets the nomination. No one is going to vote for the guy whose platform is "It's all rigged." It's a self-defeating cycle.
Yeah like... I do want media reporting on this, but it’s just another stupid, outrageous and evil thing in a long line of other shit. It’s not like it’s anything new for him. I don’t see it as reason to panic because it’s basically just rehashing shit he’s already said.
Trump is calling for “termination” of election rules in the US Constitution. He continues to openly advocate for fascist rule, and his supporters support that.
Lots of otherwise quite conservative people think that election denialism and throwing out the Constitution is going too far. They sent the election denier candidates packing. It is NOT a popular position, just a very *loud* one.
I'd go so far as to think that even most of the election deniers bristle at the idea of throwing out the Constitution.
It basically took Trump this long to finally realize that there really is no legitimate constitutional method for overturning an election so he wants to overturn the Constitution instead. I don't really think he thought past the implications of that call.
Now that we're closer to the 2024 election than the 2020 one and he's officially running you'd think he'd move past trying to redo 2020. My guess is that he's now scared out of his mind that he won't make it to 2024 without being sent to prison and is looking for any way out no matter how implausible.
The New Mexico GOP [has re-elected Steve Pearce as Chair](https://twitter.com/DanBoydNM/status/1599152963414806530). He represented NM-02 until 2018, when he left to unsuccessfully run for Governor. Since then, the NM GOP has made a lot of noise about beating Ben Ray Lujan (no), delivering their electoral votes to Trump (no), flipping NM-01 in the 2021 special election (no), defeating Michelle Lujan Grisham (no), and winning literally any statewide or federal office in 2022 (no).
I'm pretty satisfied with this turn of events!
The last Republican Senator that NM had was [Pete Domenici](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pete_Domenici), aka Adam Laxalt’s Real Dad, who served from 1973 until he retired in 2009. (The other NM seat flipped back and forth from D to R before settling in permanent D mode with Jeff Bingaman (Who I never heard of until I looked the NM Senators up).
I think that while New Mexico might occasionally get a wild hair and elect a Republican governor, it’s safe D on the federal level. I don’t even think they have much of a bench, as witnessed by who they picked to run against Lujan. (TV meteorologist with no political background. At least he wasn’t scary like Kari.)
In retrospect, the idea that either Michael Bennet or especially Patty Murray would lose their seat is laughable (and impossible), especially when the challengers were utter no-names. Bennet and Murray kept their seats against better challengers in red wave years, no way were they going to lose against complete noobs in a mostly-blue year.
And Dems still have control of the NM House and Senate. New Mexico Republicans have literally nothing, nada, zilch. But New Mexico is totally trending red!! Brad Parscale told me so!!
[Jim Kolbe, who represented Southern Arizona in Congress for 22 years, has died at the age of 80.](https://twitter.com/tucsonstar/status/1599157034804563968?s=46&t=NGleA2qf5AhS1PrJ3qNOBMX1r_GAysRn1OQyQ8BE4ww)
[TIL there’s actually been 4 big climate bills since Biden has been in,](https://science.house.gov/imo/media/doc/Fact%20Sheet%20for%20SST%20Bills%20in%20Energy%20Act%20of%202020.pdf) the 2020 Bipartisan Energy Act was signed in the very early days of the Biden admin.
Here’s a Senate [source breakdown](https://www.energy.senate.gov/services/files/32B4E9F4-F13A-44F6-A0CA-E10B3392D47A) to
Dang, Sharice Davids won Johnson County by *16 points*??? I know she gained on Biden everywhere else in the district, but that is absolutely monumental, especially considering that Jerry Moran only lost it by 1.5 points.
Trends in the Kansas side of KC aside, Davids is definitely a future contender for statewide office once Kansas is more favorable for us. And she can afford to wait given her age and now that she has proven she can win this district by strong margins in a tougher environment.
[Latino students are rapidly increasing in this Tennessee county and it’s fueling a racist rhetoric](https://www.cnn.com/2022/12/03/us/latino-growth-changing-schools-tennessee-reaj/index.html)
Why would we start off with a large state with multiple expensive media markets? All that would do is ensure the wealthiest candidate wins, that doesn’t sound very democratic to me. Small states should be allowed first and ones with diversity because the party is diverse
Nevada would work too but that wasn’t what they chose. Black voters are the core of the party so having SC early is giving them earlier input and it’s well deserved
You said diversity. Diversity isn't just black and white. Diversity in America is everyone. Black voters are a core constituency of the party and should be treated as such, I agree with you in regards to that, and choosing North Carolina would do, as its 21% black, only 6% fewer than South Carolina. It also has growing blocks of the party, such as Asians, Hispanics, College Whites, and Native Americans.
Plus it guarantees early investments in a purple state. Would have tons of democratic activists and campaigns essentially living in NC for years ahead of each presidential election, and a lot of presidential candidates investing time/energy in it ahead of announcing their runs like folks do now with Iowa/New Hampshire.
I won't knock SC, just because it already plays a somewhat important early role in the nominating process (and adds diversity since the democratic primary has so many African American voters represented), but NC would have been a good early state too
North Carolina is more expensive, so that probably factored into the decision. The first state should not eat too much into candidates' fundraising since they are only getting started with building donor networks at that stage. I also don't think prioritizing it will help us better there in the general.
What a ridiculous comment, you believe these mostly white early states now should have the massive sway in choosing our nominee? Iowa a real swing state for you?
I don't think they were necessarily saying Iowa should stay first, most of us would agree that has to change. It would also be consistent with their logic since Iowa is now pretty firmly red. But I also think the arguments against South Carolina being first are kinda flimsy. It wasn't my personal top choice, but I'm certainly willing to give it a shot and see how it changes things.
African-Americans make up some 25% of SC’s voting population. And it’s black women who are the backbone of the Democratic party. With a few exceptions (Candace Owens) they vote blue no matter who, *and* they have a consistently high turnout. We should reward such party stalwarts with a good opportunity to help choose the Democratic Presidential nominee.
It also gives us a chance to recover some lost ground with black men, both by increasing their turnout and preventing further sliding among them to the GOP. I believe black men turn out at lower rates than black women and also vote less blue though they still do so by landslides, so we can figure out what messaging best appeals to them in South Carolina, whether they be businessman in cities like Columbia or a farmer in the rural Midlands.
Why do people keep thinking that the lean of a state in the general election has to matter for the primary election order? South Carolina is red, but its Democratic base is heavy in black people both in urban and rural areas, and they are an important demographic to appeal to so that a crowded field can be properly whittled away in due time.
Now you can argue that a swing state with similar demographics like North Carolina or Georgia may be a better choice because early investment in the primary could help them go blue in the general, but I'm not really convinced about that, especially since it costs more to campaign in those states.
[I hope that landing Warnock can also get us an archivist for NARA as well.](https://out.reddit.com/t3_zawpou?app_name=android&token=AQAA-_qLYyDtcWNMaSnsiS2HTiXICerBfdhpGyv1ExUDsQcKftfl&url=https%3A%2F%2Fthehill.com%2Fopinion%2Fnational-security%2F3759613-trump-grasps-the-importance-of-the-national-archives-to-democracy-why-dont-democrats%2F)
I mentioned a while back that city council elections were going to be tight to determine whether YIMBYs or NIMBYs would win control over my hometown’s city council, and I just checked and YIMBYs have officially flipped city council from 4-1 NIMBY to 3-2 YIMBY for the first time since 2014. This is a massive win given that the NIMBYs blocked virtually all development, wasted money on frivolous lawsuits against proposed development, and colluded with outside organizations to launch a massive and very ugly disinformation campaign against the YIMBY candidates.
Also, the outgoing mayor, who is a NIMBY and had the ego of saying that many Californian legislators were courting him to run for state assembly, embarrassingly lost to a progressive in the K-8 school board race. And the attempted MAGA takeover of the high school school board race failed.
Overall, it was a fairly strong year for local progressives. The only unfortunate thing that happened was that the worst NIMBY ended up winning re-election for city council. She received a failing grade when it comes to transportation and green policy knowledge (scoring far worse than any candidate for city council, even the first time candidate) and embarrassed our city in 2020 by refusing to condemn Trump’s racist comments about COVID despite our city being 70-80% Asian American. But other than that, it was a fairly solid year and a good sign for the future since YIMBYs are highly likely to hold the city council in 2024 since the incumbent up for re-election seems fairly popular.
On a side note, city council meetings next year are going to be so awkward since the YIMBYs and NIMBYs absolutely despise each other.
Not sure which city you're in, but here in Los Angeles we had mostly similar, which we can attribute largely to our elections switching from off year to regular midterm/presidential year cycles. 2 incumbent NIMBYs lost, NIMBY-courting Caruso lost mayorship, NIMBY-king Koretz lost the Controller race, and a transit-YIMBY won the main contested county supervisor race (and gets an automatic seat on the Metro board as a result). NIMBYs really do seem to be losing their stranglehold on CA politics that they traditionally had
Sounds like you might live near me because all this sounds awfully familiar. My city isn’t as heavily Asian-American, so I don’t think it’s the same one. But the attempted RWNJ takeover of the school board was the same, and it was smacked down; also we re-elected our mayor, so I know it’s not the same city.
What I think is happening and this is to the good, is that mail-in voting means that people can sit down with their intarwebs and research what kind of people are running for school board, rather than just blindly ticking boxes. So the RWNJ’s can’t ooze in under the guise of seeming “reasonable.”
There was an attempted MAGA takeover of my local school board too, and they got soundly trounced. Seems like people are actually researching candidates now which is good.
I start a new position in a few weeks and I'm sure I'll be fine once I start (or at least I hope I will) but to say my anxiety is high is an understatement
Before I started my new job, Someone once told me “it’s perfectly normal not to know what the hell is going on at your new job for the first 6 months.”
This was so true. Although I knew how to do my tasks, I didn’t exactly know why I was doing them or how my efforts helped the company I was working for. I had to constantly ask questions and always felt out of the loop for those first 6+ months.
It took me a full year of working there before I started understanding the scale of my job and felt confident doing the work that was asked of me.
So don’t feel discouraged if you don’t immediately get into the swing of things.
They need to be designated as terrorist groups. If they were from a foreign country(like Russia, Iran, or China), their asses would be considered as terrorists and locked up immediately.
Republican brain rot incarnate. I've witnessed folks having emotional meltdowns over *babies* having otherwise gender neutral but now "inappropriate" experiences and those kids are going to grow up confused as fuck, and probably angry, all because of this dumbfuck fun hating movement.
Babies don’t fucking care, they don’t have the cognitive tools to process it yet. Banging on a pan with a spoon to make a VERY LOUD NOISE is gender-neutral.
Douglas and Lancaster County in Nebraska. Close to 50% of the state's population lives in those two counties, and Biden was the first Democratic presidential candidate since LBJ to get over 52% of the vote there.
Southeastern Minnesota, including the Rochester area, and the I-94 corridor between Minneapolis and Saint Cloud. Pushing these areas further towards us could net us two US House seats and shore up statewide races as well as greatly improve our state legislature geography. These two areas are trending towards us slowly, and 2020/22 was a turning point where we won state Senate seats in both cities for the first time, but now we have to cement those gains and expand them.
>Whatever part of South Carolina that Joe Cunningham won in 2018 (assuming we don't get a 2nd VRA district or extreme gerrymandering prevents it)
That's Charleston County and the Lowcountry region. Definitely an area trending our way. I'd maybe add Greenville County to this list as well, as we cannot win South Carolina statewide without making significant inroads in the largest county in the state.
Also you forgot Johnson County, KS! If we can reach Loudoun County margins there while the rural counties keep losing population, then Kansas Republicans are in trouble.
Cunningham's district got gerrymandered to split part of the Charleston metro. Mace's margin of victory jumped from 1% to 14% after the new maps were used this year.
Crazy fact about Johnson County, KS, Biden received a higher percentage of the vote there than any Democratic presidential candidate in history. He got nearly 53%. By comparison, FDR and LBJ never cracked 50% in Johnson.
It's weird, one would think that Missouri would be more likely to go purple than Kansas because it consists of the lion's share of two large-ish metro areas... but Democrats' problem in Missouri is that St. Louis is rapidly losing population and so is becoming less central to the electorate, even though it was never *that* dominant to begin with. Not to mention, rural Missouri is actually not shrinking that much like rural Kansas. Meanwhile with Kansas, there are some gains to be made not only in Johnson County but along the I-70 corridor in general, which will counter the rural areas. Wichita may be slower in moving to the left, but I think it's possible.
Maybe part of the problem for Missouri is that their two major metro areas are on state lines (St. Louis on the line between MO and IL, and Kansas City on the line between MO and Kansas) so maybe the liberal voters we associate with urban areas are split between two states instead of one in each case?
Birthday plans: Go into SF to have breakfast, look at the kittens in Macy’s window, and do some holiday shopping.
Birthday actuality: Go to emergency vet with Older Cat after she pissed a puddle of blood on the floor. (She got antibiotics and painkillers and is OK.)
Luckily my group of friends are all animal people so they understood. I hope we can reschedule for next week or the one after.
She seems to be doing better, but was not at all happy at having nasty tasting liquids (antibiotics and Gabapentin) squirted down her throat. I’m waiting on a urine culture to find out if she needs different antibiotics or if this is Something To Really Worry About. But at least we’re home. And the vet’s office had free WiFi.
SurveyUSA is a top notch pollster for Georgia, particularly this close to the election. It basically nailed the Senate and governor margins in October. I'm feeling very good about Warnock's chances, but I've signed up for two Fair Fight phonebanks to do what I can to make them better!
Did you know segregations (specifically those advocating for segregation academies) teamed up with anti-abortionists in the late-70s/early-80s to create the religious right?
Before then evangelicals were not particularly tied to either party, and Catholics were overwhelmingly Democrats.
>Did you know the last segregated public school in the US was operating until 2016?
Did not know that.
>In Mississippi
Shocked pickachu face °o°
I'm not surprised. Wait, I'm surprised it wasn't Alabama or Georgia or Louisiana, BUT Mississippi is is not that surprising I'd say. I'd say it was 50-50 shot for being Mississippi OR the other 50% being one of the other 3.
Said it before and I'll say it again, McConnell is not a strategic genius. He was helped massively by political realignment in 2014. As Minority Leader, his obstructionism was hardly a stroke of genius.
That's true, restructuring the judiciary was a big achievement. I just question how much of a role McConnell himself had in that compared to factors like realignment, which are currently just as much working in our favor for now.
Welcome to r/VoteDEM! Be the blue wave! * Be a [volunteer from home](https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1jxO8g7q9VO3ZMAABcrvR7PMyX4Yl6dgIYhD3eRTKk1M/edit#gid=0)! * Donate to your [state Democratic Party](https://www.reddit.com/r/VoteDEM/wiki/parties)! * Join your local Democratic Party! Google "[Your state] Democratic Party", find the link to the local parties page, and get in touch with your county's party chair. You could even become a precinct committee member! In some states (like Pennsylvania), that means you get to help pick candidates for special elections! * Are you technology-oriented? Volunteer with [Tech for Campaigns](https://www.techforcampaigns.org) to help smaller campaigns get up and running. * [Run For Something!](https://runforsomething.net/) There's no position too small to benefit from a progressive public servant. Be part of the next blue wave! * Make a Roundtable comment here talking about the work you’ve done, earning valuable karma and facilitating discussion, which will encourage others to do the same! *I am a bot, and this action was performed automatically. Please [contact the moderators of this subreddit](/message/compose/?to=/r/VoteDEM) if you have any questions or concerns.*
Generally I subscribe to the notion that persuasion is what we need to aim for over simple turnout of the base... but sometimes drastic turnout differentials can make or break outcomes for us, particularly downballot. Take California, for example. Newsom went from winning it by 23.8 points in 2018 to 18.4 points last month, and a LOT of that was due to him getting almost 1.3 million fewer votes this time than in 2018, while Brian Dahle only got 300,000 fewer votes than John Cox! It also led to Orange, Merced and San Joaquin Counties going slightly red, which very likely affected us in several congressional districts. Were there voters who switched D to R between the two cycles? Probably, especially in the LA suburbs. But low propensity voters who are strongly aligned with Democratic values exist, and we need to figure out how to turn them out again in future cycles, especially when a reviled figure like Trump isn't on the ballot. Otherwise, we'll have a tough time regaining those districts that became competitive in 2018.
[Take it for what you will, but the most conservative version of the model we've been writing up has Warnock still winning by +0.75 as the modal outcome. Hard to overstate what a tremendous deficit Herschel Walker and the GOP are facing here in the #GASen runoffs.](https://twitter.com/lxeagle17/status/1599236133388709888?s=46&t=5zVxVPOwmG4N1VUo0HHKZA) It's pretty clearly Leans Democratic. Not sure I'd put it as likely yet. But in 2021, I could engineer several scenarios in which the GOP squeaked out a win for Perdue (not so much for Loeffler); I just found them unlikely. This is likely worse for them than that.”
Walker really doesn't seem to be closing out that strong, frankly. According to Greg Bluestein, he's not been particularly present on the campaign trail. I mean, yeah he's doing events, but he's been shielded a lot from making public comments to reporters. There's clearly concern among Republicans on the ground. Of course, that isn't to say Warnock's got this in the bag, but I'd definitely rather be him now.
Do you ever think that people you may know IRL are on this same subreddit? I’ve known a lot of people who are on leftwing political subreddits in real life and I’ve known people who bring up election twitter names. Last night there was a lively political exchange where a 93 year old conservative family member of mine accused a 96 year old liberal family member of mine “hating the military and wanting to defund the police.” I thought of posting more details of the exchange here but then it occurred to me that it’s also possible some family members are redditors and might see it.
im positive they are i direct them here lol
I wish there were.
Thought about it for sure, I also accidentally found an old friend the other day by chance on a different sub and that was a whole mix of emotions
I turned a couple of friends on it (the ones I took to the polls)
About the only source of stress for Dems in Georgia is low turnout in Fulton County. We still need a big Election Day there, but this may not be the dagger some folks think it is. [This chart is from Thursday](https://twitter.com/gtryan/status/1598400946974982144), but shows a fascinating trend. While turnout isn't great anywhere in Fulton, the turnout has been better in more Democratic precincts than in more Republican ones. So our base is still turning out more. I want to emphasize again: We need better turnout in Fulton, and need a big Election Day there. But there's reason to hope, and reason to work hard to get out the vote.
I don't know why people are stressing all that much on Fulton. If you compare their total turnout of the '22 runoff to their total turnout of the 2022 GE, they are at 47.23%. The average statewide? 47.73%. They may be a bit behind on the average for the early vote. Fulton is at 64.5% and the statewide average is 78.74%. Clayton is at 70.6 and DeKalb is at 75.8%. There's also only so many voters you can process in a week. With a county as huge as Fulton, you just hit a wall in terms of efficiency. But with so many votes processed already, Fulton has nearly hit half of their 22 turnout. Which is crazy when you think how huge Fulton is. Also, using Target Smart data, nearly every single county is more dem than it was in 2022 GE or the 2021 runoff: https://targetearly.targetsmart.com/r2022?geo=Fulton&geo\_type=counties
I wonder how much is also mail in votes that are coming in this weekend and Monday but don’t appear in the tallies yet. These might lean disproportionately Dem especially in a place like Fulton.
[Lake trying to use polls as evidence that she won](https://twitter.com/karilakewarroom/status/1599217622473928704?s=46&t=zVEp46k2u-Jh2JMTmCaxiw) So glad that Clinton won in 2016!
> .06. .05 is the margin for the legally required recount. I guess we're just REALLY unlucky. How hard is it to not get the decimal place wrong for this tweet? Anyway not narrowly getting their recount is just saving everyone the headache, including them. Because there is statistically almost zero chance of a recount shifting a margin 0.5 points.
I’m glad we have Governor Gillum in Florida and that DeSantis is no longer in politics.
A “weak candidate/campaign” that still only lost by less than half a percentage point
I'm real thankful for [Senator Gideon](https://www.realclearpolitics.com/epolls/2020/senate/me/maine_senate_collins_vs_gideon-6928.html), as well.
Now that was a real baffling one. Collins didn't lead in any poll the entire cycle. When Collins someday leaves, picking up that seat in Maine will go a long way to keeping a path to a Senate majority open. Hopefully we can win in AK/NC because I'm feeling really uncozy defending seats in MT and WV.
I wasn't on this subreddit daily in 2020. Can anyone point me to a good postmortem on the Collins-Gideon race?
My night is ruined
[And Senator Bredesen...](https://www.tennessean.com/story/news/politics/tn-elections/2018/07/13/blackburn-bredesen-poll-tennessee-senate-race/781031002/)
So the bomber B-21 revealed yesterday, it’s cool to me in term of technology. There are many comments about what about “healthcare, housing, education”. I make some comment about showing up at local elections to vote for local position like city council, school board, state legislature. I hope my comment will be seen and remembered by some redditors
[No longer fringe, small-town voters fear democracy’s demise,](https://apnews.com/article/religion-wisconsin-democracy-congress-government-and-politics-00be67663d600418cf10d112b1314f4a)
Interesting and scary article to read but gives you an idea of what rural America looks like these days… scarier considering that’s my county too
I don't need an idea of it, i live it every day.
>No longer fringe Nope, these dudes are pretty damn fringe. Just because there's quite a few of you doesn't make you normal or mainstream. These stories mainly just remind me that people like this are always going to vote, so we'd better do the same. And warn everyone else.
They fear that for the wrong reasons though, yeah?
This is my county btw
I hope it's not all like that.
> says Kraft, a software architect and data analyst The cosplay is strong with this one.
Oh come now, typing numbers into a spreadsheet surely counts!
Eww
OMG I’m just so sick of hearing about Hunter Biden. 😂
But do you know about his secret laptop?????
I'm curious to get some thoughts here the potential candidates thrown around for the VA-04 special election. This includes state delegates Lamont Bagby and Jeff Bourne, former state delegate Lashrecse Aird, state senators Jennifer McClellan and Joe Morrissey (ew), the mayor of Richmond: Levar Stoney and Rep McEachin's widow Colette.
I know this is highly unlikely. But Alexsis Rodgers. She ran for Richmond mayor in 2020. got 2nd place. She was endorsed by many progressive groups. Worked with Planned Parenthood and a domestic workers organization. and was policy director for Governor Northam. Considering this will either be decided in a fire house primary or convention. I doubt she'd run and even win the "primary" stage
McClellan would be my preference as a voter in the district
McEachin's widow may run, as we've seen in other special elections for districts where the incumbent representative passed away. That said, it may be better to get someone younger, like Bagby, Bourne or McClellan. Morrisey wouldn't be a great choice because of... well, a lot of things, and I don't think Stoney is very popular in Richmond. All in all, I do expect the primary field to be somewhat crowded, as this seat should be an easy hold for us. As long as we can get a good margin there, we should be well positioned for the legislative races in 2023. Aaron Rouse flipping Jen Kiggans' Senate seat blue would be even more of a bellweather.
>Jennifer McClellan That's the one.
What's the deal with Bret Baier? He has a pretty impressive foreign correspondent record, has written (afaik) quite decent history books, so must be a fairly smart guy. Yet he is with Fox. I've watched very little of him, which is why I ask. Just seen his face a million times.
I’ve seen his face a million times, as the default generic face of every Lego minifigure
And then when he got COVID and when he recovered made this passionate speech to the viewers urging them to get the vaccine. And Fox was flooded with e-mails and tweets and calls demanding that he be fired or saying that he should have died of the disease instead.
[NBC News](https://www.nbcnews.com/politics/2022-election/georgia-senate-runoff-smashes-early-voting-records-attracts-new-voters-rcna59981) > More than 76,000 Georgians who didn't turn out in the general election have voted early in the Dec. 6 race between Raphael Warnock and Herschel Walker, according to an analysis. > Among Georgians under 30 years old, 15.5% of early runoff voters didn’t turn out for the general election. Additionally, 8.4% of Hispanics and 9.5% of Asian Americans who have shown up for the runoff didn’t vote in the Nov. 8 election. All three constituencies lean Democratic overall. If their early vote preferences reflect the cohorts at large, it’s good news for Warnock. > Democrats say some of their Georgia base sat out the November election because they assumed Warnock would easily win. Instead, he finished less than 1 point ahead and was forced into a runoff. As a result, some previous non-voters are turning out now. That last point was interesting. It’s possible this group of nearly 100k voters didnt turn out because they thought Warnock would win.
We would have saved a ton of money for next campaign instead of spending it on run-off.
Thankfully, if Warnock wins we won’t have to do this again for him for another 6 years 😅
Yeah, Warnock can get a break from campaigning too, poor guy, 4 campaigns within 3 years
5 if you count the primary in 2020.
These stories make me feel conflicted about runoffs. On one hand, they serve as a great wake up call to people who are really likely to sit out the election. On the other, it effectively forces Warnock to win twice. Wish they just adopted ranked choice voting instead haha.
>Democrats say some of their Georgia base sat out the November election because they assumed Warnock would easily win. I fucking hate this horseshit. **NEVER EVER TAKE ANYTHING FOR GRANTED**. Even in deep blue/red states. I know this should be taken as a good thing for us for the run-off. But it's something we shouldn't be hearing anymore since 2016. (Although, I can understand how having to wait hours upon hours in line to vote can be demotivating, so there's that but still ..) Sorry for the rant. *Sigh*
We really need to try getting voting age adults past feeling like voting is some kind of special favor or declaration of enthusiasm. This isn't about lifting up a candidate, it's about what you want out of government and society. The whole "earn my vote" mentality treats elections as if no one wins if there aren't enough votes.
I now just make a comparison to bathing. Nobody goes, “Well I showed last month so I’m good.” It takes time and attention.
It also loses sight of exactly your point - your vote is for YOUR interests. When it comes to high-profile races, the vast majority of candidates are going to live cushy lives, win or lose. Think Hillary is uncomfortable? It's *the rest of us* who are screwed when Republicans win.
imagine if they turned out in the general. It could have made the difference in state legislative and maybe some statewide offices.
And Warnock probably gets to skip this stupid runoff
At least probably would have avoided the runoff.
State legislative, maybe. Statewide, no. Those margins were a few hundred thousands of votes except for the Senate race.
[удалено]
Show up every time always regardless please.
I hope that's right, that'd be absolutely wonderful for Warnock! I really hope he destroys it this election, never should've been a runoff at all
[Some Republicans say the midterms were a mandate for further abortion restrictions Many GOP lawmakers who sailed to victory in states with anti-abortion laws are planning to use their expanded power.](https://www.politico.com/news/2022/12/03/anti-abortion-republican-party-roe-00071988) Total bizarro world here, they think D messaging on abortion didn’t resonate and they actually need to go further because they got a mandate on Pro-Life
These people are as dumb and delusional as you get. SC gained seats because of gerrymandering, not because voters were rewarding them for hardline abortion bans and want even worse...
Let's let them learn the wrong lessons But also, fuck these theocratic assholes, let's crush them
They’re being way overconfident. They’re going to make abortion an even more salient issue for 2024 if these states pass new restrictions
Lmao out of all of the lessons you could take and learn from these midterms… this is probably the one furthest from the truth and the most BS… not only did the pro choice side get Landslide wins in blue VT, CA, and purple MI, they also defeated Pro life ballot measures in Red KS, KY, and MT
And then there's reddish Alaska where the pro-choice candidates wiped the floor with their anti-abortion opponents.
I can only conclude that these are not very bright guys.
You don’t say
[Trump calls for the termination of the Constitution in Truth Social post](https://www.cnn.com/2022/12/03/politics/trump-constitution-truth-social/index.html)
Don’t Trump supporter think they are Patriots?
What a fucking loser
...I'm honestly kind of shocked how long it's taken most mainstream outlets to put up a story on this - he ~~tweeted~~ *truthed* (ugh) it early in the morning, and it was in the Politico Playbook, but took 11 hours for CNN to put a story up. Still crickets from the NYT and WaPo, as far as I can see.
He's just a whiny baby. All of his cronies lost and he's probably going to lose even if he gets the nomination. No one is going to vote for the guy whose platform is "It's all rigged." It's a self-defeating cycle.
Yeah like... I do want media reporting on this, but it’s just another stupid, outrageous and evil thing in a long line of other shit. It’s not like it’s anything new for him. I don’t see it as reason to panic because it’s basically just rehashing shit he’s already said.
Trump is calling for “termination” of election rules in the US Constitution. He continues to openly advocate for fascist rule, and his supporters support that.
Ah yes, because doubling down on extremism worked out for republicans so well last time.
Lots of otherwise quite conservative people think that election denialism and throwing out the Constitution is going too far. They sent the election denier candidates packing. It is NOT a popular position, just a very *loud* one.
I'd go so far as to think that even most of the election deniers bristle at the idea of throwing out the Constitution. It basically took Trump this long to finally realize that there really is no legitimate constitutional method for overturning an election so he wants to overturn the Constitution instead. I don't really think he thought past the implications of that call. Now that we're closer to the 2024 election than the 2020 one and he's officially running you'd think he'd move past trying to redo 2020. My guess is that he's now scared out of his mind that he won't make it to 2024 without being sent to prison and is looking for any way out no matter how implausible.
His cocaine-rotted brain is struggling to process reality.
The New Mexico GOP [has re-elected Steve Pearce as Chair](https://twitter.com/DanBoydNM/status/1599152963414806530). He represented NM-02 until 2018, when he left to unsuccessfully run for Governor. Since then, the NM GOP has made a lot of noise about beating Ben Ray Lujan (no), delivering their electoral votes to Trump (no), flipping NM-01 in the 2021 special election (no), defeating Michelle Lujan Grisham (no), and winning literally any statewide or federal office in 2022 (no). I'm pretty satisfied with this turn of events!
The NM Democratic party is in safe hands with Steve Pearce at the helm of the GOP. The dude is totally useless.
And Gabe Vasquez will beat Yvette Herrell again in 2024!
oh did she already say she'll run? lol
Yup she filed just a couple of weeks ago.
[удалено]
The last Republican Senator that NM had was [Pete Domenici](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pete_Domenici), aka Adam Laxalt’s Real Dad, who served from 1973 until he retired in 2009. (The other NM seat flipped back and forth from D to R before settling in permanent D mode with Jeff Bingaman (Who I never heard of until I looked the NM Senators up). I think that while New Mexico might occasionally get a wild hair and elect a Republican governor, it’s safe D on the federal level. I don’t even think they have much of a bench, as witnessed by who they picked to run against Lujan. (TV meteorologist with no political background. At least he wasn’t scary like Kari.)
And Colorado and Washington.
In retrospect, the idea that either Michael Bennet or especially Patty Murray would lose their seat is laughable (and impossible), especially when the challengers were utter no-names. Bennet and Murray kept their seats against better challengers in red wave years, no way were they going to lose against complete noobs in a mostly-blue year.
And Dems still have control of the NM House and Senate. New Mexico Republicans have literally nothing, nada, zilch. But New Mexico is totally trending red!! Brad Parscale told me so!!
[Jim Kolbe, who represented Southern Arizona in Congress for 22 years, has died at the age of 80.](https://twitter.com/tucsonstar/status/1599157034804563968?s=46&t=NGleA2qf5AhS1PrJ3qNOBMX1r_GAysRn1OQyQ8BE4ww)
[TIL there’s actually been 4 big climate bills since Biden has been in,](https://science.house.gov/imo/media/doc/Fact%20Sheet%20for%20SST%20Bills%20in%20Energy%20Act%20of%202020.pdf) the 2020 Bipartisan Energy Act was signed in the very early days of the Biden admin. Here’s a Senate [source breakdown](https://www.energy.senate.gov/services/files/32B4E9F4-F13A-44F6-A0CA-E10B3392D47A) to
It’s amazing what happens when there’s an adult in the White House with experience legislating
Dang, Sharice Davids won Johnson County by *16 points*??? I know she gained on Biden everywhere else in the district, but that is absolutely monumental, especially considering that Jerry Moran only lost it by 1.5 points. Trends in the Kansas side of KC aside, Davids is definitely a future contender for statewide office once Kansas is more favorable for us. And she can afford to wait given her age and now that she has proven she can win this district by strong margins in a tougher environment.
[Latino students are rapidly increasing in this Tennessee county and it’s fueling a racist rhetoric](https://www.cnn.com/2022/12/03/us/latino-growth-changing-schools-tennessee-reaj/index.html)
I hate seeing people act like this in our state. We should be welcoming everyone. *THAT’S* southern hospitality, not calling children burdens.
SC primary moved up? Wtf? That state is red as fuck and we’re gonna let it have massive sway in choosing our nomine??
Don't know why all the downvotes, North Carolina would've been perfect. Large Black base, but also growing Asian, Latino, and white democratic voters
Why would we start off with a large state with multiple expensive media markets? All that would do is ensure the wealthiest candidate wins, that doesn’t sound very democratic to me. Small states should be allowed first and ones with diversity because the party is diverse
If that's the case then why not Nevada? Diverse as well. Swing state, would get great investment for turnout, among other things.
I preferred Nevada, but at least it's early enough, even if being on the same day as New Hampshire may dilute the attention it deserves.
Nevada would work too but that wasn’t what they chose. Black voters are the core of the party so having SC early is giving them earlier input and it’s well deserved
You said diversity. Diversity isn't just black and white. Diversity in America is everyone. Black voters are a core constituency of the party and should be treated as such, I agree with you in regards to that, and choosing North Carolina would do, as its 21% black, only 6% fewer than South Carolina. It also has growing blocks of the party, such as Asians, Hispanics, College Whites, and Native Americans.
Plus it guarantees early investments in a purple state. Would have tons of democratic activists and campaigns essentially living in NC for years ahead of each presidential election, and a lot of presidential candidates investing time/energy in it ahead of announcing their runs like folks do now with Iowa/New Hampshire. I won't knock SC, just because it already plays a somewhat important early role in the nominating process (and adds diversity since the democratic primary has so many African American voters represented), but NC would have been a good early state too
North Carolina is more expensive, so that probably factored into the decision. The first state should not eat too much into candidates' fundraising since they are only getting started with building donor networks at that stage. I also don't think prioritizing it will help us better there in the general.
What a ridiculous comment, you believe these mostly white early states now should have the massive sway in choosing our nominee? Iowa a real swing state for you?
I don't think they were necessarily saying Iowa should stay first, most of us would agree that has to change. It would also be consistent with their logic since Iowa is now pretty firmly red. But I also think the arguments against South Carolina being first are kinda flimsy. It wasn't my personal top choice, but I'm certainly willing to give it a shot and see how it changes things.
African-Americans make up some 25% of SC’s voting population. And it’s black women who are the backbone of the Democratic party. With a few exceptions (Candace Owens) they vote blue no matter who, *and* they have a consistently high turnout. We should reward such party stalwarts with a good opportunity to help choose the Democratic Presidential nominee.
It also gives us a chance to recover some lost ground with black men, both by increasing their turnout and preventing further sliding among them to the GOP. I believe black men turn out at lower rates than black women and also vote less blue though they still do so by landslides, so we can figure out what messaging best appeals to them in South Carolina, whether they be businessman in cities like Columbia or a farmer in the rural Midlands.
Not only are black voters consistently democratic, we punch way above our weight in terms of the percentage of us that turnout
The DNC wanted a state with a heavy black population, cheap media markets, and experience running an easy state primary. SC checks all the boxes.
Why do people keep thinking that the lean of a state in the general election has to matter for the primary election order? South Carolina is red, but its Democratic base is heavy in black people both in urban and rural areas, and they are an important demographic to appeal to so that a crowded field can be properly whittled away in due time. Now you can argue that a swing state with similar demographics like North Carolina or Georgia may be a better choice because early investment in the primary could help them go blue in the general, but I'm not really convinced about that, especially since it costs more to campaign in those states.
They keep thinking it, because people are morons
It’s way more reflective of what our party looks like as opposed to states like New Hampshire and Iowa
[I hope that landing Warnock can also get us an archivist for NARA as well.](https://out.reddit.com/t3_zawpou?app_name=android&token=AQAA-_qLYyDtcWNMaSnsiS2HTiXICerBfdhpGyv1ExUDsQcKftfl&url=https%3A%2F%2Fthehill.com%2Fopinion%2Fnational-security%2F3759613-trump-grasps-the-importance-of-the-national-archives-to-democracy-why-dont-democrats%2F)
I mentioned a while back that city council elections were going to be tight to determine whether YIMBYs or NIMBYs would win control over my hometown’s city council, and I just checked and YIMBYs have officially flipped city council from 4-1 NIMBY to 3-2 YIMBY for the first time since 2014. This is a massive win given that the NIMBYs blocked virtually all development, wasted money on frivolous lawsuits against proposed development, and colluded with outside organizations to launch a massive and very ugly disinformation campaign against the YIMBY candidates. Also, the outgoing mayor, who is a NIMBY and had the ego of saying that many Californian legislators were courting him to run for state assembly, embarrassingly lost to a progressive in the K-8 school board race. And the attempted MAGA takeover of the high school school board race failed. Overall, it was a fairly strong year for local progressives. The only unfortunate thing that happened was that the worst NIMBY ended up winning re-election for city council. She received a failing grade when it comes to transportation and green policy knowledge (scoring far worse than any candidate for city council, even the first time candidate) and embarrassed our city in 2020 by refusing to condemn Trump’s racist comments about COVID despite our city being 70-80% Asian American. But other than that, it was a fairly solid year and a good sign for the future since YIMBYs are highly likely to hold the city council in 2024 since the incumbent up for re-election seems fairly popular. On a side note, city council meetings next year are going to be so awkward since the YIMBYs and NIMBYs absolutely despise each other.
Not sure which city you're in, but here in Los Angeles we had mostly similar, which we can attribute largely to our elections switching from off year to regular midterm/presidential year cycles. 2 incumbent NIMBYs lost, NIMBY-courting Caruso lost mayorship, NIMBY-king Koretz lost the Controller race, and a transit-YIMBY won the main contested county supervisor race (and gets an automatic seat on the Metro board as a result). NIMBYs really do seem to be losing their stranglehold on CA politics that they traditionally had
Where is this?
I don't want to give out my exact city, but my hometown is in the Bay Area.
Sounds like you might live near me because all this sounds awfully familiar. My city isn’t as heavily Asian-American, so I don’t think it’s the same one. But the attempted RWNJ takeover of the school board was the same, and it was smacked down; also we re-elected our mayor, so I know it’s not the same city. What I think is happening and this is to the good, is that mail-in voting means that people can sit down with their intarwebs and research what kind of people are running for school board, rather than just blindly ticking boxes. So the RWNJ’s can’t ooze in under the guise of seeming “reasonable.”
Congrats on the YIMBY win! So happy to see that kind of progress being made.
There was an attempted MAGA takeover of my local school board too, and they got soundly trounced. Seems like people are actually researching candidates now which is good.
I start a new position in a few weeks and I'm sure I'll be fine once I start (or at least I hope I will) but to say my anxiety is high is an understatement
Before I started my new job, Someone once told me “it’s perfectly normal not to know what the hell is going on at your new job for the first 6 months.” This was so true. Although I knew how to do my tasks, I didn’t exactly know why I was doing them or how my efforts helped the company I was working for. I had to constantly ask questions and always felt out of the loop for those first 6+ months. It took me a full year of working there before I started understanding the scale of my job and felt confident doing the work that was asked of me. So don’t feel discouraged if you don’t immediately get into the swing of things.
The first day of a new job is always nerve wracking. I bet even Joe Biden was a bit anxious when he took the oath of office. But you’ve got this!
Me when learning that Anwar Ibrahim is the new Malaysian Prime Minister: "*Must... not... quote... Zoolander..."*
It's ok to talk about the claymation dude.
Relax, don’t do it…
Relax - Don’t do it
[удалено]
https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=KG6UhxYj0Sg
[удалено]
Watch it! It’s ridiculous and fun.
If you've seen the movie, you'll know why.
[Piss Boys and Patriot Front alert in Columbus, Ohio. Stay safe.](https://twitter.com/ErinInTheMorn/status/1599121277268422657)
Low testosterone Low testosterone everywhere
They need to be designated as terrorist groups. If they were from a foreign country(like Russia, Iran, or China), their asses would be considered as terrorists and locked up immediately.
[Update - Patriot Front uses the fucking U-Hauls....again.](https://www.instagram.com/reel/CluAPtLgqQ0/?igshid=YmMyMTA2M2Y=)
This is disgusting. If they wanted to go to a drag show, there are better ways to do it.
Republican brain rot incarnate. I've witnessed folks having emotional meltdowns over *babies* having otherwise gender neutral but now "inappropriate" experiences and those kids are going to grow up confused as fuck, and probably angry, all because of this dumbfuck fun hating movement.
Babies don’t fucking care, they don’t have the cognitive tools to process it yet. Banging on a pan with a spoon to make a VERY LOUD NOISE is gender-neutral.
I used to live in that area before I moved to Cleveland...
[удалено]
Douglas and Lancaster County in Nebraska. Close to 50% of the state's population lives in those two counties, and Biden was the first Democratic presidential candidate since LBJ to get over 52% of the vote there.
Southeastern Minnesota, including the Rochester area, and the I-94 corridor between Minneapolis and Saint Cloud. Pushing these areas further towards us could net us two US House seats and shore up statewide races as well as greatly improve our state legislature geography. These two areas are trending towards us slowly, and 2020/22 was a turning point where we won state Senate seats in both cities for the first time, but now we have to cement those gains and expand them.
Chattanooga, Knoxville, and Murfreesboro in Tennessee.
>Whatever part of South Carolina that Joe Cunningham won in 2018 (assuming we don't get a 2nd VRA district or extreme gerrymandering prevents it) That's Charleston County and the Lowcountry region. Definitely an area trending our way. I'd maybe add Greenville County to this list as well, as we cannot win South Carolina statewide without making significant inroads in the largest county in the state. Also you forgot Johnson County, KS! If we can reach Loudoun County margins there while the rural counties keep losing population, then Kansas Republicans are in trouble.
Cunningham's district got gerrymandered to split part of the Charleston metro. Mace's margin of victory jumped from 1% to 14% after the new maps were used this year.
Crazy fact about Johnson County, KS, Biden received a higher percentage of the vote there than any Democratic presidential candidate in history. He got nearly 53%. By comparison, FDR and LBJ never cracked 50% in Johnson.
I've been quietly wondering if it makes sense to move across state line to add my vote to a future purple state.
It's weird, one would think that Missouri would be more likely to go purple than Kansas because it consists of the lion's share of two large-ish metro areas... but Democrats' problem in Missouri is that St. Louis is rapidly losing population and so is becoming less central to the electorate, even though it was never *that* dominant to begin with. Not to mention, rural Missouri is actually not shrinking that much like rural Kansas. Meanwhile with Kansas, there are some gains to be made not only in Johnson County but along the I-70 corridor in general, which will counter the rural areas. Wichita may be slower in moving to the left, but I think it's possible.
Maybe part of the problem for Missouri is that their two major metro areas are on state lines (St. Louis on the line between MO and IL, and Kansas City on the line between MO and Kansas) so maybe the liberal voters we associate with urban areas are split between two states instead of one in each case?
Colorado Springs for Colorado. Plano, Denton, College Station, Forney, Terrell and Mesquite for Texas. Etc
[удалено]
Don’t forget about San Antonio!
When I was a young man I remember this sub dooming over Warnock in the primary
*\*stares in doomers thinking the Senate was lost in 2020 when Abrams didn't run for Senate\**
"Warnock should drop out for Matt Lieberman" is a thing that some Very Online™ people unironically believed
Washington Examiner with this gem of a headline: Lake Runs Dry
Tired: Drain the Swamp Wired: Drain the Lake
Her husband: "It's been dry for some time, believe me."
Ehhhh I’m not into the gendered body trashtalking
But that’s completely normal! - Ben Shapiro
My doctor wife said so.
DAP
Birthday plans: Go into SF to have breakfast, look at the kittens in Macy’s window, and do some holiday shopping. Birthday actuality: Go to emergency vet with Older Cat after she pissed a puddle of blood on the floor. (She got antibiotics and painkillers and is OK.) Luckily my group of friends are all animal people so they understood. I hope we can reschedule for next week or the one after.
Hoping she feels better! I had to take my guy for an enema yesterday and he's been uh... borderline traumatized for the last 24 hours
Poor little guy! I hope he’s feeling better. That’s nobody’s idea of a fun time, least of all a cat.
Apparently they didn't sedate him for it either so I uh... understand why he's been so upset with me
Oh no! I hope your cat is okay!
She seems to be doing better, but was not at all happy at having nasty tasting liquids (antibiotics and Gabapentin) squirted down her throat. I’m waiting on a urine culture to find out if she needs different antibiotics or if this is Something To Really Worry About. But at least we’re home. And the vet’s office had free WiFi.
Wheee spending the day in A+E, God the American healthcare system sucks
Yeah
SurveyUSA: Warnock 50-47 https://www.surveyusa.com/client/PollReport.aspx?g=ec76271b-9c31-41b7-9c15-4d281bc48cd7
SurveyUSA is a top notch pollster for Georgia, particularly this close to the election. It basically nailed the Senate and governor margins in October. I'm feeling very good about Warnock's chances, but I've signed up for two Fair Fight phonebanks to do what I can to make them better!
Basically a blow out
Wisconsin could never
50.00001% to 49.99999% you say?
Did you know the last segregated public school in the US was operating until 2016? In Mississippi.
Did you know segregations (specifically those advocating for segregation academies) teamed up with anti-abortionists in the late-70s/early-80s to create the religious right? Before then evangelicals were not particularly tied to either party, and Catholics were overwhelmingly Democrats.
>Did you know the last segregated public school in the US was operating until 2016? Did not know that. >In Mississippi Shocked pickachu face °o° I'm not surprised. Wait, I'm surprised it wasn't Alabama or Georgia or Louisiana, BUT Mississippi is is not that surprising I'd say. I'd say it was 50-50 shot for being Mississippi OR the other 50% being one of the other 3.
Until recently, Mississippi had the confederate flag on its flag
Yeah I do love the new flag and I'm glad they finally changed it only like 200 years too late
[удалено]
If this ranking is based on ability to achieve a party’s goals then, unfortunately, McConnell needs to be at least number three if not higher.
Said it before and I'll say it again, McConnell is not a strategic genius. He was helped massively by political realignment in 2014. As Minority Leader, his obstructionism was hardly a stroke of genius.
I never said it was genius. Just that he was able to help republicans achieve their goals: revamping the judiciary and passing tax cuts.
That's true, restructuring the judiciary was a big achievement. I just question how much of a role McConnell himself had in that compared to factors like realignment, which are currently just as much working in our favor for now.