mtutiger

This is probably a "man bites dog" take, but reducing media intake (particularly social media) over the past few months has made looking at a lot of political coverage coming from NY and DC look really divorced from reality. Not so much about the left-right politics of it and more just the details they obsess over are often just not what one sees people talking about in real life. At all. The elections this week reflect this IMO.... they get led around by whatever talking points are hot on the "The Hill" while people in the country are, at the moment, worried about whether SNAP benefits are gonna be funded and whether the local food bank network will be able to cover even a fraction of those affected.

Again, to paraphrase Grant, I'm tired of banging on what he's gonna do over and over again. It doesn't solve anything. When people, even his opponents, build him up into this force of nature for which the laws of politics do not apply, it serves his interests.

Ahh yes, noted traditionally blue areas *checks notes* Erie and Luzerne County PA

It was less than 24 hours ago that the party line was that the NJ GOP candidate was a tossup for Governor... Just massive massive amounts of cope

He's also a former three-term Governor of NYS and the son of a legendary former three-term Governor of NYS. Even with his scandals, that sort of name recognition is absolutely an institutional advantage that Cuomo had going into this thing, particularly with lower information voters who don't follow the daily stuff like we do. Just don't think the picture is complete without this context. It's not like Cuomo was a rando running as an Independent

It's true, he gained quite a bit of ground with Black and Hispanic voters between the first and second round. With Cuomo's numbers, it's worth remembering that he did relatively successful job drawing off GOP voters (Sliwa dropped from around 28% in 2021 to 8% this year).... this would imply that the group he was most successful with yesterday was *checks notes* Republicans lol

By all means, keep cooking Mr President haha

OK. I'm sure that will be uncontroversial and free of consequences from an angry public.

If Mike Johnson doesn't want to be photoed if they lose the House next year, that's his prerogative. Either way, once the 118th Congress dissolves, the Speaker chair is vacant until one is elected. He's a non-entity here.

I don't know that Mamdani's win was *that* impressive in the grand scheme of things from a numbers perspective, but in his defense, he faced an absolutely nasty campaign and that had every institutional lever imaginable pulled against him. From the millions of elite dollars thrown at him to slanted and, frankly, unfair coverage of his campaign in the New York Times and other media outlets. And Cuomo, the slug that he is, is still a big name that registers with low-info voters and probably earned some votes on name recognition alone. He's not really my cup of tea, I have my disagreements with him, but in that context, I think his win was solid (if not impressive) The bigger takeaway for me from him winning along with candidates like Spanberger/Sherrill is that the Democratic Party is a popular front / big tent party and that it's power comes when it is unified. And all three shared a message centered around cost-of-living issues and other issues that voters care about in this moment.

Related Just a true failure of imagination by the elite thoughtmaker class... It was always about the economy dummies... Not about every other pet post-material issue under the sun

To quote Ulysses Grant: "Oh, I am heartily tired of hearing about what Lee is gonna do. Some of you always seem to think he is suddenly going to turn a double somersault, land in our rear and on both of our flanks at the same time. Go back to your command and try to think what we are going to do ourselves" I understand the point Leah is making, but the reality is that literally everyone already has this inclination of what Trump will or won't do... Regardless of how bad GOP losses were or weren't last night, people were going to walk away with the same impression of what's to come. It's more constructive to focus on your game instead of constantly dooming about what Trump's gonna do

Moreover, after watching last night, I'm more convinced that any shenanigans they pull will be wildly unsuccessful

Mike Johnson ceases to be Speaker at the end of the 118th Congress, and there isn't a Congress until electeds are swore in.

Thought after seeing last night, including a massive polling error in New Jersey and a relatively modest one in VA: Are surveys picking up how unpopular Trump has become more broadly, or are they weighting too heavily on 2024 results?

Honestly think there's something to this....

Exactly right... and lawmakers in these states are being asked to make sacrifices out of their districts to make it work. After tonight, don't be surprised if a couple of states back off their plans a bit. Kansas has already come out and said they are going to scrap their plan to try.

I'm sure it was a factor insofar that (at least has been reported, I don't live in VA) they seemed overly focused on the culture war stuff too. Feel like we spent a lot of time making this point to a couple of folks after the election (ie. Holic, 1776), but largely 2024 wasn't about trans or woke or whatever... or even immigration to an extent.... it was about the economy. And Americans see what is going on (all the culture war, all the lawbreaking, all the state violence, all the dysfunction) and see that the administration is not only doing ****-all to deal with voters' concerns about the economy, they are even pursuing policies that are causing harm to the economy (ie. tariffs). You see it beyond Virginia tonight, in New Jersey and other states.... people don't feel like their concerns are being addressed and they are taking it out on GOP candidates.

The usual caveats on extrapolating aside, a world of double digit shifts away in urban/suburban areas coupled with 4-8 point shifts in rural GOP counties would make for a really really bad night if it happens in 2026.... no amount of gerrymandering would prevent huge losses.

Want to see more of the NJ returns come in, but for as much as we talk about the polls whiffing on Trump/GOP, they may have errored in the other direction in some of these races. Jones is going to end up winning by closer to 5-6 points, yet it seemed like the majority of the polls had Miyares winning close

I think the assumptions about Hispanics from "Demographics are Destiny" 2.0 MAGAs might be a bit premature

Ultra low tunout, but the D candidates in the Public Commissioner Races in Georgia are likely to win their races by double digits... which is wild for a place like Georgia lol

It may be higher.... she still has room to gain

Tonight has the makings of an absolute dumpster fire for Trump and the GOP...