mtutiger

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...

Imagine if they had done actual damage to that freeway.... That's 20 miles with zero exits and any time out of service would have a catastrophic impact to any travel or commerce going between the LA and San Diego. Amateur hour, all the way down...

What a clown show

It certainly says something that a Dukakis-esque stint cosplaying at the fry station was hailed as one of the greatest act of politics in recent history.

"Pro-Life President" lol

Complaining about "old white people", the largest and most consistent voting demographic, is certainly a strategy

I think they oughtta, certainly. But the real takeaway about the video is that it kinda lays bare the whole affect of this administration... They spent a great deal of time flapping their gums about these protests, but when push comes to shove, all they have to push back with are crappy, childish AI slop. It makes them look juiceless

But why does the press just accept it? Something that is quite obviously not true and they just can't quite get there in determining that it is, in fact, not true. I get that there are folks out there who would jump off the Mackinac Bridge for this guy, but the press oughtta be able to ask basic questions about actual facts. Maybe it belongs in Media Meltdowns, but FFS

Why isn't there one ****ing reporter who will just tell him to his face that he's full of **** on this? Or that he's delusional? Like, nothing he says about Portland is actually happening, or Chicago for that matter, and they let him off the hook. Every single time