November 5th was a wonderful night to be an American, and we get to begin enjoying the election results today!

As we had been stating all along, the "landslide" which delusionals on both sides were certain was going to happen (Virginia to Trump! Iowa to Harris! Cao wins VA Senate! Allred defeats Cruz! LOL!) was never going to materialize. But Donald Trump was able to get back to where he was on election night of 2016, and he will be the 47th President of the United States. The Senate has gone almost exactly as expected as well, with GOP pickups in West Virginia and Montana as well as a big tossup win in Ohio. Republicans may even get a bonus Senate seat or two in Pennsylvania and Nevada once all the votes are counted, although those are likely to turn out to be mirages. [Update: PA is being declared a win for McCormick though Democrat election-deniers refuse to concede; Nevada did what it always does to Republicans, though at least Trump won there.]

But the extremely important U.S. House is still up for grabs.

As we predicted, a Trump win in 2024 could easily be accompanied by Republicans losing control of the U.S. House of Representatives. We forecast a net loss for the GOP of 2 to 8 seats and that is very likely what is going to happen -- though we won't know for sure for possibly as long as a month. Democrats need a net gain of four seats in order to seize control of the House from the Republicans. Surely they are planning for that coup by working on articles of impeachment for President Trump already.

The reason for the delay is Ballot Harvesting Month in the state of California. This is where party operatives (mostly Democrats) try to locate people who did not vote, and get them to fill out a ballot for the candidates of their choice. The party's choice, that is.

This will not affect the outcome of the races for President or Senator in California, but it will massively affect approximately half a dozen House races or perhaps even a larger number.

As this is being written on the morning after the glorious election, there are another two dozen or more House districts where insufficient votes have been counted or which are still too close to call despite nearly all votes having already been tabulated. We will enumerate these below.

Here are the districts which have been called as of Wednesday morning, and which have flipped from Republican to Democrat:

• AL-2
• LA-6
• NY-22

• MI-7
• NC-6
• NC-13
• NC-14

• CA-47 (open seat) Scott Baugh gave it a good shot in this D+3 district. No GOP pickups in CA this year but only minimal losses.
• ME-2 (Golden) Golden pulls it out again, unfortunately. He is the most "moderate" Rat in the House, though.
• WA-3 (Perez) Southwest WA rejects a good conservative for the second time in a row; Perez holds on.
• CO-8 (Caraveo) One of the top GOP House targets finally comes through almost a week after election night.
• OH-9 (Kaptur) Got the Ohio Senate seat, but the GOP really blew it in OH at the House level, where +2 was quite possible.
• AK-at large (Peltola)
• NV-3 (Lee) Another close-but-no-cigar, as so often happens in Nevada.
• PA-7 (Wild) For the first time since these PA districts were gerrymandered into existence...
• PA-8 (Cartwright) ...the GOP takes them! They had been 0-for-2 for three straight elections.
• MD-6 (open seat) Would have been a big upset, but the Rat was so repugnant that it almost happened.
• CA-9 (Harder) The GOP didn't really try hard here, but came close anyway.

• NY-4 (D'Esposito) D'Espo has bitten the dust; the GOP needs all possible seats, but good riddance to this scumbag.
• NY-19 (Molinaro) Molinaro went down too in the bloodbath in NY; GOP frosh lost 3 of 5 (4 of 6 if you count Santos).
• CA-13 (Duarte)
• CA-22 (Valadao) An unexpectedly early and positive result!
• CA-27 (Garcia) It was never reasonable to think that ALL vulnerable Republican incumbents in CA were going to win, as we have noted since 2022.
• CA-41 (Calvert) But this one did; good for Calvert for defeating a particularly slimy and hateful Democrat.
• CA-45 (Steel)
• NE-2 (Bacon) Bacon has won (!). He's no bargain, but he's better than the alternative.
• PA-10 (Perry) Perry (barely) survives as GOP sweeps the winnable eastern PA districts!
• OR-5 (Chavez-DeRemer) Another lost seat. The 2022 (R) win here was an obvious fluke right from the start.
• CO-3 (open seat) The Rat spent more ($15 mill) than any House challenger in the COUNTRY. And still lost. Ha ha.
• IA-1 (Miller-Meeks) By a razor-thin margin, MMM has been declared the winner.
• AZ-1 (Schweikert) A good conservative holds on to his seat.
• AZ-6 (Ciscomani) This moderate-to-somewhat-conservative freshman wins a second term.
• MI-10 (James) James won.

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2024 House? We'll find out in December

Photo credit: CNN

With just a few more hours until the 2024 election campaign season mercifully concludes, we are on track for one of the closest elections in U.S. presidential history if the polls can be believed. But some folks are not so sure about that, and are thinking in terms of "waves" and "landslides" that will deliver not just the White House but also the U.S. House and Senate. For example (just from the past few days):

• Donald Trump Now Set for Landslide: Forecaster Who Backed Kamala Harris
• The most accurate poll of 2020, AtlasIntel, releases their final battleground poll showing Trump winning all 7 battleground states
• Polls Show Trump Closing in on Blue Virginia and Minnesota!
• CNN Data Analyst: Trump on Course to Win Popular Vote

• Democratic Voter Enthusiasm Ahead of Republicans by Double Digits: Poll
• Women dominate early voting across the country and leave Trump's allies nervous
• Donald Trump Suffers Triple Polling Blow in Battleground States He Must Win

  [Miscalculating voter enthusiasm was a huge mistake by Republican analysts in 2020 also.]

Photo credit: Palm Beach Post

Early Voting

We've heard a great deal about how well the GOP is allegedly doing in Early Voting, even in heavily Democrat states like New Jersey, and it's being claimed that Early Voting is going to be the critical determinant as to which side wins once all the votes are in.

The only available facts about Early Voting pertain to the number of ballots requested and returned, which are normally broken down by party registration in those states which actually register voters by party. Until election day when the ballots are counted, there is no way to know who the early voters actually voted for in any race. Therefore it is nothing more than assumptions at this point regarding any of the following:


Assumption #1: "Republicans vote for Trump, Democrats vote for Harris, and we have no clue about independents but we'll pretend that we do." A related happy assumption is that there will be less defections among Republicans than Democrats; i.e. more Democrats are crossing party lines to vote for Trump/Vance, than Republicans who are voting for Cackles and Tampon Timmy. This could turn out to be an unfortunately specious assumption, though not a particularly impactful one.


Assumption #2: Independents are "breaking for the challenger (Trump, in this case) as they normally do". That's probably just an old wives' tale to begin with, and yet another possibly incorrect assumption. All states have a significant number of so-called independent voters, and in numerous states there are more such voters than either Republicans or Democrats. Most people are likely unaware of this fact. So even if Trump, for example, holds 94% of Republicans but Harris only takes 92% of Democrats, that minor difference is absolutely swamped by how the indies vote.

A good illustration of the above comes from 2016 exit polling. Hillary did infinitesimally better (89%) among Democrats than Trump did among Republicans (88%). Both candidates lost 8% of their party to the other side and the remaining 3-4% voted for neither Trump nor Hillary. For every White lower/middle-class Democrat blue collar worker who was attracted by Trump's populist messaging, one liberal suburban soccer-mommy "lifelong" Republican ran sobbing hysterically over to the left and so it was a wash.

Indies made the difference in 2016. Trump did better with them than Hillary, 46% to 42%, though it wasn't sufficient to win the overall popular vote. But it was sufficient to help put him over the top in the closest states. That was 2016; Trump lost indies by 13 points in 2020 (54%-41%), while both he and Biden retained 94% of their own party's votes. Polls in 2024 are all over the place as they flail around trying to figure out how this critical segment of the electorate is going to vote; their sub-sample sizes are normally much too small to draw any conclusions from.


Assumption #3A: Increased GOP turnout in Early Voting will not "cannibalize" their turnout on election day. They'll still have enough voters who are willing to "crawl over broken glass" to get to the polls, and therefore the extra turnout we're seeing prior to November 5th is mostly a bonus!

Assumption #3B: On the other hand, relatively decreased Democrat turnout in Early Voting will persist through election day because many Democrats are too lazy to get up off their fat asses and stand in line; if they don't vote early, they likely won't vote at all!


The amount of bullshit those twin assumptions contain for 2024 remains to be seen. Perhaps, by coincidence, all of these assumptions will finally be correct and those who pretended they "knew" it all along will get to say "we told you so!". That would be great.

In the past, when Democrats thoroughly dominated Early Voting, we were assured that the Republican surge on election day would counterbalance the early Democrat advantage, and then some. But it never came close to doing so, even though Republican voters were often instructed to wait -- and specifically avoid voting early -- because of the fear of turnout cannibalization on the big day, and something about Democrats knowing exactly how much fraud they would need to commit.

Put it all together and you can see that there's a substantial disconnect from:

"GOP is doing a little better in early voting (we up, they down!)"

to:

"WE GONNA WIN RED WAYVE BAY-BEE!!!"

The main value these early voting stats have is propaganda value. In prior years the media and other Democrats could crow about what a huge advantage their party had and how it portended eventual victory; this year Republicans are crowing about how they have narrowed the gap a little bit or, in some cases, more than a little bit. What does it matter? Basically, it doesn't. A vote is a vote, no matter when it is cast. Even, when Democrats get their way, ones which come in well after election day.

Photo credit: Twitchy.com

The 2024 Presidential Election:

As most observers have known all along, it's going to come down to the seven swing states: Arizona, Georgia, Michigan, Nevada, North Carolina, Pennsylvania and Wisconsin. It's entirely possible that all seven will be decided by less than 5 points, possibly much less, and right now nobody knows for a fact exactly which way they are going to go. Maybe that's why they're called "swing" states.

Crackheads on the left are dizzily contemplating Harris winning. . . Texas! And Florida! And Ohio! And IOWA!

Their hopium-snorting counterparts on the right figure Trump has a damn good shot in. . . New Jersey! And Minnesota! And New Mexico! And VIRGINIA!

For another few hours they can still dream before the Methadone of reality kicks in. It will be just peachy if Trump can merely replicate what he did in 2016, by squeaking out razor-thin victories in enough of the swing states to get to 270. The Real Clear Politics recent polling averages show the following:

[As of 7:00 AM ET on 11/5]

• Trump up 2.8% in Arizona (11 EV)
• Trump up 1.3% in Georgia (16 EV) -- but Democrats are already working on the steal.
• Trump DOWN 0.5% in Michigan (15 EV)
• Trump up 0.6% in Nevada (6 EV)
• Trump up 1.2% in North Carolina (16 EV)
• Trump up 0.4% in Pennsylvania (19 EV)
• Trump DOWN 0.4% in Wisconsin (10 EV)

• Blowout fantasies notwithstanding, the pollsters aren't wrong about how close things are.
  
  Or are they?
  
  Nate Silver thinks they're not only wrong, they are outright lying. He doesn't say for whose benefit they are lying (it's for their own benefit, actually, so as to keep themselves relevant). So who does he think is clearly ahead?
  
  He says: Trump 55%, Cackles 45%. That's not an expected popular vote percentage (obviously), it's the probability of victory as Silver sees it. However just a few days earlier (October 23), Nate claimed "the election remains a 50-50 coin flip". Now he's angry at pollsters who say the same thing. Have things changed so dramatically since then? Has Trump really surged that much in two weeks?
  
  
  
  Real Clear Politics polling average as of 11/2: Trump vs. Harris (click image to enlarge)

  Trump has apparently improved his position, and it's not like a 55% chance of victory makes his election a mortal lock anyway. Presidential contests in the swing states really are likely to be nailbiters, regardless of whether Nate Silver objects or not. If the actual margins aren't quite as small as the pollsters are claiming and, for example, Harris wins and obtains a significantly greater number of votes than was expected, the pollsters will shed some crocodile tears regarding their lack of credibility. While at the same time gleefully accepting the outcome.
  
  Even better for them: when 2028 rolls around these pollsters can be accused of having overstated Republican percentages in the recent past, instead of simply being shills for the Democrats. That would undoubtedly be a first in U.S. polling history, at least since the days of "Dewey Beats Truman!". It would remove a vital "crutch" ("ALL POLLZ ARE BI-USSSED TO THE LEFT!!1!) from amateur polling experts on the right. Let's pray it doesn't happen that way.

  
  

• By declaring so many tossups, the pollsters can't really be blamed if the result is slightly the opposite of what they predicted. Exactly how many decimal places are polls supposed to be accurate to?
  
  For example, the final Pennsylvania poll from left-leaning (to put it mildly) Quinnipiac College asserts that Donald Trump will win by 1% there (47% to 46%) with a margin of error of 2.1%. If/when it turns out that Heels-Up Harris wins PA by a small amount then Quinnipiac can hardly be roasted for inaccurate forecasting; a swing of, say, 2% between their poll and the final outcome is not remarkable and only the perpetually-outraged would say otherwise. Besides, if the phrase "President Harris" ever becomes "a thing", there will be a hell of a lot more to be outraged about than some minor polling variance.

Photo credit: National Review

The Senate:

The Democrats currently hold a 51-49 advantage, including the four so-called "independents" who march along with the Rats. If there is one certainty in the Senate this year, it is the Republicans picking up the West Virginia seat from the retiring Joe Manchin. Recent polling is somewhat sparse, but GOP challenger Tim Sheehy is supposed to be up by about 6 points against ultra-liberal Democrat incumbent Jon Tester in Montana and, along with everyone else who is already counting that chicken as having hatched, we'll agree that in 2024 Tester finally goes down in flames after a Senate career that was much longer than it should have been.

With those two seats in hand, it would be Republicans with the 51-49 advantage next year.

Next on the potential flip list is Ohio, a supposedly crimson "red" state (like Montana) which (also like Montana) has been electing a far-left Democrat to the Senate for far too long. This race is a tossup. Incumbent Sherrod Brown has won three times in the past, by 12 points in 2006, 6 points in 2012, and 7 points in 2018 (crimson red, my ass). But that was then and this is now. Brown is in a dogfight for the first time, with polls favoring him over Bernie Moreno by perhaps a single point. Brown's margin is slender, but he is ahead in almost 100% of the polls even including Trafalgar (R).

Photo credit: The Hill

It's not necessarily about voters actually supporting the dim-bulb Democrats in FL & TX; it's more about voting against the Republicans. Neither Scott nor Cruz are popular with anything more than the tiniest majority of the electorate in their states. Trump is going to win Florida and Texas and even though casual observers will be surprised to hear that a coattail effect might be required for Scott and Cruz, that very well may be the case. We'll say they both pull it out in the end.

Nebraska could be different (though it probably won't be), and that would be the biggest upset of them all. Trump will win Nebraska by an even larger percentage than Texas and Florida, but Fischer is claimed to be running so far behind Trump that she might lose her grip on his coat; she should hardly need such assistance in the first place. Trump is not universally popular in the Cornhusker state -- he is going to lose CD-2 (Omaha) again, and the electoral vote which goes with it; and the liberal GOP House incumbent in CD-2 (Don Bacon) is looking likely to be defeated by the slimy Democrat insect who's opposing him. Trump's support in Nebraska is enormous in the rural western two-thirds of the state, but is tenuous in the Lincoln area and underwater in Omaha.

And now for the potential good news:

In the House, Republican control is in serious jeopardy because of the number of toss-up districts they must defend, because of where the toss-up districts are located, and because of the dynamics of those districts including their partisan composition and the astronomical amount of "possibly" illegally-laundered "ActBlue" money Democrats are spending.

No, that's not the good news.

The good news is that in the Senate the situation is the opposite of the House in one important aspect: it is the Democrats who must do the defending in the marginal states. Those states are:

• Arizona (open; was Kyrsten Sinema)
• Michigan (open; was Debbie Stabenow)
• Nevada (Jacky Rosen)
• Ohio (Sherrod Brown)
• Pennsylvania (Bob Casey, Jr. )
• Wisconsin (Tammy Baldwin)

Photo credit: Fox News

As far as the likely outcome: as we have noted on numerous occasions, having only 51 or 52 seats is not satisfactory to give the GOP anything but nominal control. There are at least two Republican senators -- Lisa Murkowski (Alaska) and Susan Collins (Maine) -- who are for all intents and purposes Democrats. They can continue to sabotage GOP efforts from within as the leadership would prefer; they can drop the charade and become Democrats; or they can go the "independent" route. Regardless, GOP "control" of the Senate will be largely illusory in every way aside from perhaps mathematics.

Current U.S. House breakdown by district
(Map created using mapchart.net)

The House:

As we wrote a couple of weeks ago, there are 40 (out of 435) House seats that can be truly considered as toss-ups this year, with perhaps another 25 lying near toss-up territory. The other 370 seats are just about 100% safe for whichever party currently holds them.

The current split in the House is, effectively, 221 Republicans and 214 Democrats; 218 is the magic number needed to have control, which means that a net loss of merely 4 House seats and it's "Say hello to Hakeem Homeboy" as the new Speaker of the House. And that means, assuming Trump wins the presidency, "Impeachment begins on day one!". It may sound incongruous that Trump could be elected while at the same time the GOP loses its grip on the House; that is not an unlikely parlay at all. When Trump "lost" in 2020, Republicans actually gained 13 House seats that November; it was as if Trump had coattails. . . but no coat for himself. This year could be the opposite, with a Trump win and GOP House losses.

Negative factors in the House:

• Republicans have far more marginal seats to defend than Democrats do.

• Republican candidates, on average, have less (sometimes much less) funding than their Democrat opponents.

• The most marginal seats are almost entirely (34 out of 40) in "blue" states which Trump is definitely going to lose, or in swing states which could go either way. Only six of the 40 are in states which Trump is going to win.

• ME-2, held by Jared Golden since 2018 when he won only because Maine has Rigged Choice Voting (RCV). RCV may save him again.
• AK-at large, held by Mary Peltola since 2022. Alaska also has RCV, and Peltola also may be saved by it.
• MI-7, an open seat vacated by Senate candidate Elissa Slotkin.
• CA-47, another open seat vacated by a Senate candidate (Katie Porter).
• WA-3, held by Marie Gluesenkamp Perez since 2022; she is facing a rematch with Republican Joe Kent.
• CO-8, held by Yadira Caraveo since 2022; this is a marginal district situated north of Denver.

• NY-22, Brandon Williams was always in danger and the 2024 Democrat gerrymander in New York sealed his fate.
• NY-04, say goodbye to Anthony D'Esposito, who will have the distinction of costing the GOP two seats in 2024 (his own, and the adjacent one formerly held by George Santos).
• NE-2, liberal Republican Don Bacon, as mentioned above in the Senate commentary.
• OR-5, freshman Lori Chavez-DeRemer won in a fluke in 2022 but is likely toast now.
• PA-10, conservative Scott Perry won't be missed by the GOPe after being defeated by an ultra-liberal media bimbo.
• IA-1, moderate Republican Marianette Miller-Meeks is being overwhelmed by a flood of Democrat cash. Republicans could lose two of their four seats in Iowa, even though Trump should win the state easily. Probably the House loss will be just one seat (this one) at most.
• AZ-6, freshman Juan Ciscomani is too conservative for the GOPe and too liberal to suit actual conservatives. He could lose to a well-funded femiNazi, similar to the one Miller-Meeks is facing in Iowa.

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2024 House Senate Presidency Hope we're wrong about the House

Current U.S. House breakdown by district
(Map created using mapchart.net)

1. Competitiveness

As happens every two years, all 435 seats in the U.S. House of Representatives (one for each congressional district) are up for re-election. Some folks equate this to 435 flips of a coin, and believe that -- with some luck -- Republicans could win 250 seats, maybe 300, maybe more!!!! That rosy outlook reflects considerable ignorance as to how these districts are constructed.

The fact is that somewhere around 360 of those 435 districts are not competitive at all and have only the most miniscule chance of changing hands; they are almost 100% safe for whichever party currently holds them. That leaves approximately 75 districts which are truly competitive to any extent -- or which should be hotly contested, but sometimes aren't. These 75 are the ones where control of the House will be determined in a few weeks, and of those 75 it's really only about 40 which are truly "toss-ups" this year.

We use objective criteria to determine which districts are the "swing" districts; in addition to recent past results, we consider:

• Partisan composition of the district
• Suitability of the candidates to the district
• Potential effects of other races (like the one for President) on downballot elections like these
• How hard the parties are trying to win, which is easily measured in terms of $$$$

• CT-5: Hayes (D)
• ME-2: Golden (D)
• NJ-3: open (D) -- D+5 district, limited GOP funds are better spent elsewhere
• NJ-7: Kean (R)
• NY-1: LaLota (R)
• NY-2: Garbarino (R) -- Democrats have other far better pickup opportunities in NY
• NY-4: D'Esposito (R)
• NY-17: Lawler (R)
• NY-18: Ryan (D)
• NY-19: Molinaro (R)
• NY-22: Williams (R)
• PA-1: Fitzpatrick (R)
• PA-7: Wild (D) -- R+2 district but Republicans seemingly conceding defeat anyway
• PA-8: Cartwright (D)
• PA-10 Perry (R)
• PA-17: DeLuzio (D) -- district rated even but same story as PA-7

• MD-6: open (D) -- GOP retread has little chance against mega-$$$$ Democrat
• VA-2: Kiggans (R) -- could be a battleground but GOPe ($$$) loves this moderate freshman
• VA-7: open (D)

• FL-13: Luna (R) -- local (biased) "shock" poll showed her losing; even Rats don't believe that
• NC-1: Davis (D)

• IA-1: Miller-Meeks (R)
• IA-2: Hinson (R) -- a rare potential battleground that Democrats declined to compete in
• IA-3: Nunn (R)
• IL-17: Sorenson (D) -- only D+2 but seems farther left; GOP basically punting here
• MI-3: Scholten (D) -- only D+1 but another GOP punt
• MI-7: open (D)
• MI-8: open (D)
• MI-10: James (R)
• MN-2: Craig (D) -- Rats have always spent big to support this carpetbagging dyke from Arkansas
• OH-1: Landsman (D) -- another winnable district in which the Republicans have bailed
• OH-9: Kaptur (D) -- Republicans showing a faint pulse here, but not much more
• OH-13: Sykes (D) -- see OH-1, and this district is even MORE winnable than that one
• WI-3: Van Orden (R)

• CO-3: open (R)
• CO-8: Caraveo (D)
• KS-3: Davids (D) -- yet another R+ district with a radical leftist Rat incumbent; GOP punts again
• MT-1: Zinke (R)
• NE-2: Bacon (R)
• TX-15: de la Cruz (R) -- a marginal district where the Republican seems to be safe
• TX-28: Cuellar (D) -- Democrat with ethical issues; Republicans let him completely slide
• TX-34: Gonzalez (D)

• AK-At Large: Peltola (D)
• AZ-1: Schweikert (R)
• AZ-6: Ciscomani (R)
• CA-3: Kiley (R)
• CA-9: Harder (D) -- D+5 isn't that far left for CA but GOP pulled the plug to play defense elsewhere
• CA-13: Duarte (R)
• CA-22: Valadao (R)
• CA-27: Garcia (R)
• CA-40: Kim (R) -- she's no conservative and has a lot of $$$; Rats are sort of giving her a pass this time
• CA-41: Calvert (R)
• CA-45: Steel (R)
• CA-47: open (D)
• CA-49: Levin (D)
• NM-2: Vasquez (D)
• NV-1: Titus (D)
• NV-3: Lee (D) -- a vulnerable but well-funded Rat in a marginal district; GOP not trying hard enough
• NV-4: Horsford (D) -- ditto
• OR-5: Chavez-DeRemer (R)
• WA-3: Perez (D)
• WA-8: Schrier (D) -- district is more marginal than it appears, but Republicans haven't noticed

• CT-5 -- GOP candidate from '22 back for a rematch; came within 1 point last time
• MI-10 -- also a 2022 rematch and it was very close (0.5%) then
• MT-1 -- and yet another rematch; Zinke should win somewhat comfortably
• NV-1 -- a D+1 district in which the GOP is at least trying to compete
• PA-1 -- the 4th 2022 rematch in this section; lots of D $$$ here (unlike '22) but probably won't prevail
• PA-8 -- an R+4 district held by a very wealthy slimy trial lawyer D incumbent; don't get your hopes up

• AZ-2: Crane (R)
• CO-4: open (R -- Lauren Boebert moving over from CO-3)
• FL-9: Soto (D)
• FL-27: Salazar (R)
• FL-28: Gimenez (R)
• IN-1: Mrvan (D)
• NH-1: Pappas (D)
• NH-2: open (D)
• OR-4: Hoyle (D)
• OR-6: Salinas (D)
• TN-5: Ogles (R)
• WI-1: Steil (R)

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2024 House "Red" wave in the House? Not likely

Photo credit: Tom Williams/CQ Roll Call

The caption at rollcall.com which accompanies the above photo describes Senator Bob Casey, Jr. (D-PA) and his wife as they "celebrate on the final night of the Democratic National Convention". That's one grim-looking "celebration". It seems they aren't feeling the "joy" which, as you surely know by now, is one of the laughable emotional buzzwords that has been assigned to Queen Kamala's campaign by the gaslighting liberal media. It looks more like the Caseys are feeling a bit of constipation, and there's some chance they may get that sensation again in November, whenever Pennsylvania finally decides to stop vote-counting.

The article linked above was published on Thursday and ranges from the mundane to the ludicrous. It's mostly good news for Republicans, with (on the mundane side) the five Senate seats most likely to flip being ones currently held by Democrats. On the ludicrous side, they dredge up the highly unlikely possibility of upsets in dead-red (proper color usage) New Mexico and true-blue Nebraska.

We'll give our detailed analysis below, which provides much more depth than the cursory evaluations published by left-leaning Roll Call. What follows are the Senate races, in order of their likelihood to move from R to D based on the outcome of the 2024 elections. The current partisan breakdown of the Senate is 51-49, with Democrats in control. There are only 47 actual Democrats, but there are four so-called "independents" and every one of those four are highly dependent on the Democrat party. Even the ones who are retiring after 2024 (Joe Manchin, Kyrsten Sinema) are still showing their true colors and voting with the Democrats as often as ever.

Photo credit: CNN

1. West Virginia

West Virginia is going to be a Republican pickup, period, and at this point there's nothing pertinent left to say about the Mountain State's Senate race. Incumbent Democrat Joe Manchin ran away rather than see his perfect record of election victories shattered into pieces, and doddering moderate Governor Jim Justice will be the new senator from West Virginia in 2025. His voting record may not differ much from Manchin's, and Justice will be a reliable tool for Mitch McConnell or whichever one of his sock puppets becomes the party leader in the Senate next year.

West Virginia will finally have two elected GOP senators for the first time in nearly a century. It's a shame that this now heavily-Republican state still won't have any conservative senators.

Photo credit: Fox News

2. Montana

The Senate race in Montana is looking OK for now, but don't count those chickens yet; the Biden-Harris administration may quietly transport some Haitian "refugees" into Montana, and those chickens (and geese, cats, dogs, etc.) would become greatly endangered.

A few months ago the GOP establishment, or those who work on its behalf, used threats of violence against conservative Rep. Matt Rosendale and his family in order to intimidate him out of the Montana GOP Senate primary (and out of Congress altogether) just moments after he entered that race.

Moderate businessman Tim Sheehy thus was effectively unopposed for the Republican nomination to take on three-term liberal Democrat Jon Tester. Tester has never been truly popular with the Montana electorate -- he's cleared 50% just once in three tries, and even that one was by a mere 0.3% -- but he is adept at campaigning as something other than the ultra-liberal that he is, he has the state's major media outlets thoroughly on his side, and he has benefited in the past by the presence of Libertarian candidates who suck votes away from the Republican. The last time Tester ran (2018) the Libertarian saw that he was being used as a pawn for Democrat dirty tricks, and he withdrew from the race and endorsed the Republican. But since he exited only one week before the election, it had little effect aside from highlighting the dirtiness of the Democrats.

Montana is far from the monolithically-Republican state that some may think it is. It almost never votes Democrat for President (just once since 1968, and that was only because of the Perot Factor in 1992), but Democrats have won 9 of the last 12 elections for Senator or Governor. One of Montana's two House districts is somewhat marginal; the other is solid GOP.

Photo credit: AP News

At long last it appears that Tester's appeal has diminished to the point where he is in serious trouble. He may be in trouble in the polls, where surveys lately show Sheehy ahead by about 5 points, but if money alone determined the election outcome Tester would be winning in a landslide. As of the latest FEC filings, Tester has spent over $33 million as opposed to just over $10 million for Sheehy. As we have mentioned here on numerous occasions, there's not a House district or Senate seat in the U.S. where Democrats can't outspend Republicans by incredible margins if they want to. This will be proven to be true in almost every single hotly-contested Senate and House race in 2024.

This race is not nearly over yet, and Sheehy's lead is hardly insurmountable. Even months-old data shows Tester with nearly $11 million still in the bank, and those funds will be used to saturate the airwaves and mailboxes of Montana with typical Democrat ads full of hate and lies about Sheehy (and lies about what a great senator Tester has been). Sheehy may not yet comprehend what's going to hit him between now and November, but he will find out shortly and he'd better be prepared. His lead could evaporate as quickly as it materialized.

Photo credit: 10TV

3. Ohio

The current Senate campaign in Ohio bears a strong resemblance to the one which took place in that state two years ago. The only substantial difference is that there was no incumbent seeking re-election in 2022 however there is one running in 2024. Incumbency is normally a distinct advantage, and this race is no exception even though the incumbent is a Democrat and Ohio (like Montana) is thought to be unfriendly territory for those on the far left of the political spectrum.

In 2022, Republican senatorial squish Rob Portman retired and there was a fractious 3-way primary to determine the GOP Senate nominee, while slimy Democrat challenger Tim Ryan faced no intra-party opposition and was able to keep his powder dry while watching three Republicans stab at each other.

In 2024 there was a fractious 3-way primary to determine the GOP Senate nominee, while slimy Democrat incumbent Sherrod Brown faced no intra-party opposition and was able to keep his powder dry while watching three Republicans stab at each other.

Photo credit: WCPO

The 2022 Republican nominee, J.D. Vance, was (and still is) unacceptably conservative according to the wimpy wing of the Republican party, he had some trouble raising money and seemed to be off the air for long periods in the summer while Ryan was on the attack 24/7. Smelling blood in the water and sensing an unexpected pickup opportunity, Democrats flooded the state with oodles of cash and Ryan was able to outspend Vance by the margin of $57 million to $15 million. After trailing most of the time, finally in October Vance consistently pulled ahead in the polls and then won in November, but it was uncomfortably close in supposedly "dark red" Ohio.

Photo credit: Ohio Star

The 2024 Republican nominee, Bernie Moreno, is unacceptably conservative according to the wimpy wing of the Republican party, he has had some trouble raising money and seemed to be off the air for long periods in the summer while Brown was on the attack 24/7. Democrats flooded the state with oodles of cash and Brown has so far been able to outspend Moreno by the margin of $43 million to $11 million. After trailing the entire time, finally in September Moreno appears to be closing the gap in the polls, but has yet to be shown in the lead in any poll. Will "dark red" Ohio come through for Moreno, with Trump dragging him across the finish line?

We'll see.

Trump may have difficulty attaining the 8-point margin he received in Ohio in 2020, which means his coattails aren't going to be as long as might be hoped.

Photo credit: Market Realist

4. Michigan

Retiring liberal Democrat incumbent Debbie Stabenow was first elected to Congress in 1996 when she unseated conservative freshman Republican Dick Chrysler in Michigan's 8th congressional district. At the time that district was rated as "even" although it included all of Ingham County (Lansing) and a heavily-Democrat suburban portion of Genesee County (Flint). The presence of suburban Livingston County helped balance out the bad areas of the district, and Chrysler had won in the glorious year of 1994 because of Livingston alone (he very narrowly lost the rest of the district).

As you will see, there has been a cozy relationship between this Senate seat and that particular congressional district ever since.

Stabenow moved up to the Senate in 2000, failing to win a majority of the vote but still defeating incumbent one-termer Spencer Abraham. Abraham's win in 1994 was the last time a Republican was elected to the U.S. Senate from the state of Michigan, and Stabenow was re-elected with relative ease in 2006, 2012 and 2018, all of which were anti-GOP years. Like nearly all Democrats in elections which are even slightly contested by Republicans, Stabenow was able to outspend her GOP opponents each time by considerable margins.

Photo credit: Rogers for Senate

Stabenow's replacement in the 8th congressional district in 2000 was Republican Mike Rogers -- the same guy who is now trying to replace her in the Senate in 2024. Rogers, who was at the time a Michigan state senator, defeated fellow state senator Dianne Byrum in 2000 by just 160 votes out of nearly 300,000. Rogers campaigned as a moderate and was even able to obtain some endorsements from Democrat politicians.

Rogers' voting record in the House was a shade to the right of "moderate" for most of his 14-year career, which ended when he chose not to run for re-election to an 8th term in 2014. The 8th district was moved to the right in the 2001 redistricting, perhaps emboldening Rogers to show a little more backbone in his congressional voting. Or maybe it forced him to move a little to the right, lest he be vulnerable to a conservative challenge in a primary election.

The district's partisan composition notwithstanding, Rogers anticipated that he would never face the voters again and therefore he dropped the charade and lurched to the left in his final term. He announced his retirement in March of 2014, and pointedly declined to endorse a conservative Republican state legislator as his successor (claiming that the guy might "embarrass" the district) and opted instead to back the more moderate Mike Bishop.

After two terms in the House, Bishop was sent packing in the anti-Trump referendum election of 2018. Bishop's ultra-liberal Democrat opponent and her party were able to spend a whopping $7.5 million to purchase that House seat -- and that doesn't even include the $5.5 million which was accumulated on her behalf by "independent" groups.

Who was that extremely well-funded Democrat?

Photo credit: CNN

It was Elissa Slotkin -- the "former" Deep State operative who is now the Democrat nominee for the 2024 Senate race against Mike Rogers.

Financially, it's the same story as in all other swing states this year: the Democrat has raised and spent far more money than the Republican. As of two months ago, which is the latest available data at this time, Slotkin has raised $24 million to $5 million for Rogers; she has spent $15 million while Rogers has forked out less than $3 million.

You don't have to be in some Michigan media market to understand that voters are being influenced by non-stop Democrat ads, while Rogers probably has his hands full just playing defense and trying to fight off the attacks. Rogers has done well to stay within the margin of error (but always on the losing side) in the polls. A poll which was released on September 13 showed him down by 3 points, which is his high-water mark over the last several months.

Can Rogers break the 30-year iron grip which liberal Democrats have had on Michigan's pair of Senate seats? The probability of that happening is still less than 50%, but his chances seem to be improving at this time.

Photo credit: Lancaster Online

5. Pennsylvania

Current senator Bob Casey, Jr. is dumber than a chimp (or even Kamala Harris). But unfortunately so are a slim majority of PA voters, as has been consistently demonstrated in recent years with the exception of the 2016 presidential election, when Democrat overconfidence led to a (relative) lack of fraud on their part, and Trump was able to win the Keystone State by a fraction of a percent.

Part of that slim majority of ignorant PA voters consists of Gullible Geezers who tend to believe whatever lies ("Republicans are going to ELIMINATE your Social Security and Medicare! For real this time!") the liberal media continually spouts on behalf of their party.

PA is a fairly elderly state, with a percentage of over-65s (18.8%) that is nearly as high as Florida's (20.3%). When they see the name "Casey" on a ballot, some portion of Pennsylvania geezer-dom undoubtedly believes that it is Bob Casey SENIOR they are voting for. Senior was a much-beloved Governor in the 1980s and 90s who became famous nationally when he was prohibited from speaking at the 1992 Democrat National Convention due to his outspoken anti-abortionist position. Senior was totally in line with liberal Democrat orthodoxy on every other issue, however.

Photo credit: Dave McCormick PA

Casey's (the Junior one) challenger this year is Dave McCormick. McCormick spent lavishly of his own money in the 2022 Republican primary vs. "Electable" Dr. Oz, but lost by less than 1,000 votes out of 1.34 million which were cast. McCormick graciously conceded and now has returned for another shot at the Senate -- this time with the GOP field cleared for him; no more dealing with pesky moderate dilettantes like Oz or staunch conservatives like Kathy Barnette. McCormick is again funding a large part ($4 million as of late June) of his own campaign and, aside from a recent left-biased outlier poll from CBS, appears to be inching closer to a possible -- but still unlikely -- upset.

Casey is now in his 18th Senate year, and has voted the liberal position 94% of the time during his tenure. He has been a reliable supporter of the Biden-Harris agenda and marches out of lockup on only the rarest and most unimportant of occasions. McCormick is a wealthy moderate businessman -- the kind of candidate the GOP establishment absolutely adores. Wealthy businessguys often lack icky conservatism and they have the ability to waste spend lots of money on their own behalf. It could be argued that a true conservative would have little chance of being elected statewide in Pennsylvania, and a nominal conservative like Pat Toomey or Rick Santorum is the best we can do.

Should McCormick somehow pull off the upset, his voting record in the Senate would likely be a little to the left of Toomey-Santorum though nowhere near (hopefully) as lunatic leftist as ex-Republican Senator Arlen "Judas" Specter, who went out in a blaze of bitterness back in 2010. Anything even close to Toomey-Santorum territory would be a tremendous improvement over the Casey pup in the empty suit.

PA may be 51% Democrat at the ballot box, but it deserves better than a pair of 100% liberal Senators; one is quite enough.

• Democrats are desperately wishing for major upsets of Republican Senate incumbents in Florida and Texas; there are no other GOP-held Senate seats which are even close to being in play. Republicans are desperately hoping for major upsets in Arizona, Nevada, Wisconsin or Maryland. The probability is that none of the above will happen, although the loss of Florida or Texas for the GOP has a greater chance of occurring than pickups elsewhere.
• GOP candidates are particularly floundering in the southwest (AZ, NV) and Ted Cruz is underperforming in Texas. We've already written in great detail about how Texas is absolutely not the solid "red" state that it might have been a few years ago, and people have quickly forgotten how marginal Florida is capable of being; 2018 wasn't all that long ago.
• Even after Governor Ron DeSantis' successful election integrity measures which targeted shady Democrat election officials in places such as Broward County and Palm Beach County, Florida can still be finicky and Rick Scott may not be taking this Senate race as seriously as he should. Scott has raised a handsome sum of money, but he may have shot his wad too early -- the femiNazi running against Scott actually has more cash on hand as of the end of July. She is also a lot closer to Scott in the polls than she should be.
  
  Debbie Mucarsel Hyphen Powell isn't right on Scott's tail because of anything desirable or positive on her end; she may as well be listed on the ballot simply as "Not Rick Scott". Scott is the "Jon Tester" of Florida -- he has won three elections and only once has he cleared 50% (he received 50.1% in 2018). He is not popular and never has been; he has been just barely popular enough in the past.
• Only one outlier poll has showed the Republican within true striking distance in Wisconsin. In Maryland, although Larry Hogan is keeping it somewhat close against his affirmative-action opponent, Hogan seems less interested in winning a Senate seat than he does in using his campaign as a vehicle for virtue-signaling and Trump-hating.
  
  Perhaps Maryland's version of Chris Christie is trying to position himself as a GOP presidential candidate for 2028? Or maybe he's looking to be the Democrat nominee? Either way, Hogan's not winning anything in 2024 absent divine intervention. He's going to get beat down hard in the Baltimore-D.C. corridor.

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2024 Senate Montana Ohio Michigan Pennsylvania

Your humble author here at RightDataUSA can now see that he wasted his time many years ago getting a 4-year Bachelor of Science degree in Mathematics and Statistics, because it turns out that a person can become an expert on subjects like polling, sampling, margins of error, etc. without any expensive formal education. He can demonstrate his alleged expertise simply by parroting the same boilerplate drivel which those who are offended by unwelcome polling results routinely resort to.

As the chart above (from Real Clear Polling) shows, this year's presidential election polls were going fairly well (i.e. telling us what we wanted to hear) up to a certain point, and now most of them are absolutely bogus (i.e. telling us what we don't want to hear). These bogus pollsters obviously live in their own fantasy world. They are clearly Democrat puppets with no interest in reflecting reality, but instead are focused on trying to gaslight the public and shape reality to their liking (oh dear, there's some of that boilerplate drivel).

Of course Democrat pollsters damn well do engage in gaslighting, but that (along with the rest of the drivel) is merely a weak crutch; when these crutches are constantly used and abused in an attempt to explain away every poll we don't like -- just as "Frodd, frodd, frodd!!!" is used to explain away every election outcome we don't like -- these feeble rationalizations lose whatever factual impact they may actually have possessed, and they become a cogent explanation for precisely nothing.

Real Clear Politics polling average: Trump vs. Biden (click image to enlarge)

Donald Trump was doing reasonably well in what turned out to be the final polls against Joe Biden, but suddenly things are a lot tighter or have even flipped in some places. Weird, eh?

It's almost as if something important pertaining to the election has changed.

Like the identity of the Democrat nominee.

Real Clear Politics polling average: Trump vs. Harris (click image to enlarge)

Some who are not entirely clueless on the subject of polling claim -- with some justification -- that the reversals suffered by Trump and down-ballot Republicans lately do not necessarily mean that respondents have reconsidered whom they intend to vote for in November. But they proceed from that valid assertion to declare that the numbers have begun heading the wrong direction merely because the pollsters are "cooking the books" -- meaning that they have baselessly altered their underlying sampling schemes in various ways which appear to energize the left and demoralize the right. What these folks identify as the pollsters' motivation for this (e.g., "setting up the Democrat steal in November") descends back into boilerplate drivel territory, but regardless of motivation the dynamics of the upcoming election have changed and the forecasting models which are employed by pollsters therefore must also change.

Polling companies vary in their methods for determining the composition of the American electorate. They must make alterations in their samples regarding respondents' sex, race, political identification, geographic location, education level and a myriad of other factors whenever necessary. Some companies make subtle alterations (which can still be sufficient to generate significant movement); some companies make more blatant alterations; and some perhaps make none at all.

Like the captain of the Andrea Doria, there are pollsters who do not accept that danger lies ahead; they refuse to change course and continue on just as if conditions haven't changed. Continuing that analogy, there are a tiny number of pollsters including Rasmussen Reports which those on the right cling to like a life raft when everything else around them seems to be sinking. Like some others in the business, Ras will only reveal the recipe for their secret sauce for a price, so we can't determine whether the relatively happy (outlier) polling results which they continually provide -- for now -- are based on ignorance of reality or on something else which might be justifiable. Other life rafts for the right (or perhaps just flotsam and jetsam) currently include Fox News (!) and Trafalgar.

Photo credit: CNN

Picture, if you will, an alternate universe where Nikki Haley easily won all of the 2024 GOP primaries because she was unopposed except by some pissant candidate like whoever the Republican equivalent of Dean Phillips is (some alleged "moderate" who nobody's ever heard of).

Then the conservatives in the GOP stage a "coup" and force Haley out of the race in favor of Donald Trump, who wasn't even on the ballot in the primaries.

Now let's say the pollsters do not change their forecasting models, and therefore they show Trump doing no better than Haley against the Democrat, or perhaps doing even worse than her.

What would we be shrieking about then?

Photo credit: Ethan Hyman

Among other things, we'd be hearing:

"Pollsters are still 'oversampling' wimmen! But Trump is the nominee now and that's going to bring out more men as a percentage of voters! They need to account for that!"

"Trump is White and Haley is a minority (either Asian or black depending on whichever is most helpful at any given moment), but pollsters are still oversampling non-Whites!"

"They aren't acknowledging our exponentially-increased enthusiasm and that's the biggest factor of them all! They've tried to wave that off by claiming that Trump is just enjoying a brief 'honeymoon' period and they believe our enthusiasm will greatly diminish by November. No way, Jose! Trump really is a rock star -- just look at his rallies -- and our excitement is going to peak on election day! It's never going to wear off!"

"We grudgingly voted for Haley in the primaries because we had no other choice; she wasn't inspiring at all. Her support was a mile wide and an inch deep, and yet she wasn't faring too poorly in the polls against the Democrat. But now that Trump is our guy we have discovered the meaning of 'joy'! The pollsters still aren't budging and are refusing to accept what will surely be a dramatic turnout spike on the GOP side! We're pumped! We're stoked! We haven't seen passion like this since Ronald Reagan was running! We'd crawl over broken glass, blah blah blah...."

"In short, everything is different now, but these lying partisan Democrat pollsters haven't changed one thing. They truly live in a bubble!"

But not us. Definitely not us.

We don't like the polls but we can't change reality if we can't even bear to face reality. This election is far from over, but doing an impression of an ostrich from now until November is not the recommended way to try to achieve the best result for America.

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2024 Polls Alternate Universe

In 2020 the voters of Alaska allowed themselves to be bamboozled by a slick advertising campaign bankrolled by tons of out-of-state liberal money, and approved Rigged Choice Voting (RCV) by the margin of 50.5% to 49.5%; it took effect with the 2022 elections. Under RCV as it is still being used in Alaska in 2024, all candidates for an office run together on a single primary ballot, with the top 4 -- regardless of party -- advancing to the general election ballot. If no candidate gets over 50% on the "first" ballot in November, votes are shuffled around and many voters are disenfranchised, and then the Democrat (or ultra-liberal Republican) wins. At least that's how it works in practice.

The primary goal of RCV is to marginalize conservative candidates and prevent them from winning an election, and RCV therefore attempts to force Republicans to move drastically to the left in order to have any chance. Mendacious proponents of RCV claim that the same thing theoretically happens on the other side too -- with radical leftists being forced to the center as well -- yet ultra-liberal Democrats are somehow never affected. Not one Democrat has yet lost a federal election because of RCV, but several Republicans or conservatives have.

Photo credit: womenzmag.com

For example, RCV was directly responsible for the otherwise highly-unlikely Republican loss of the Alaska U.S. House seat in 2022, and this new convoluted way of counting votes assisted immeasurably with the Senate re-election of far-left "Republican" Lisa Murkowski over underfunded conservative challenger Kelly Tshibaka that year. Democrats did not even bother to contest that Senate election aside from the tiniest token effort, since Murkowski is for all intents and purposes one of them anyway; she votes more often with Democrats than she does with Republicans.

One thing which is of paramount importance in this rigged system is for a major party to enforce discipline among its potential candidates, making sure not to split the vote among party rivals. The Democrats, who don't exactly have a lot of candidates in Alaska anyway, understand this; the Republicans -- who are known as the Stupid Party, and for good reason -- have repeatedly failed to grasp this concept.

In 2022, Sarah Palin and Nick Begich split the GOP vote and allowed a liberal Democrat to steal the election even though Republicans took over 60% of the open primary vote. The Palin-haters within the GOP who initially supported Begich then "won" in November by throwing their support to the Democrat instead of to Palin.

Photo credit: Yereth Rosen/Alaska Beacon)

Buyer's remorse regarding RCV has set in, and this November the repeal of that abomination will be on the ballot after withstanding court challenges from the left. That's fine, but Republicans on August 20 took one (perhaps) last opportunity to demonstrate their stupidity. They once again ran multiple candidates for the House -- Begich is back for another shot, opposed by gadfly candidate Nancy Dahlstrom -- and once again have created a damaging intra-party rift which is likely to be costly in November.

Liberal Democrat incumbent Mary Peltola, who has been furiously faking to the center with her House votes this year, even achieved a tick more than 50% of the vote in last Tuesday's all-party primary. If this happens again in 2 1/2 months, the Rigged Choice Voting provisions won't even be necessary for the Republicans to be defeated once more in their quest for Alaska's lone seat in Congress. The disarray among the GOP in The Last Frontier may even result in the permanent retention of Rigged Choice Voting, since Republicans are the ones who oppose this Democrat scheme while Democrats (obviously) strongly support it, and the Republican fracture at the House level may carry over and jeopardize the repeal of RCV.

Those Republicans who support the repeal of RCV are currently being outspent by a 2:1 ratio by Democrat forces which desperately wish to keep it in place. Do not take this issue lightly simply because it's happening in a state which is as far away as possible from most American voters, and not normally considered to be politically significant.

Maine and Alaska have been the guinea pigs for Rigged Choice Voting and liberals couldn't be happier with the results they have achieved so far. Though a handful of states have pre-emptively banned RCV, there's still a good chance that it will be approaching a state near you in the not-too-distant future.

Photo credit: ustimespost.com

The state of Washington held its primary on August 6, but the deadline for vote-counting isn't until August 23. There were a few races worth noting in this all-mail voting state, including one which very may well continue past the stated deadline -- but only if the Republican erases the infinitesimal lead which a Democrat currently has. After all, it's a well-established state tradition that the result of a close election is not declared final until the Democrat wins (just ask Republican "Governor" Dino Rossi).

Washington is one of five states which conduct elections entirely by mail-in voting. The Democrat-controlled legislature passed a bill in 2011 which mandates that approach to elections, and it was signed into law by Democrat Governor Christine Gregoire -- the same person who reaped the benefits of the creative Democrat vote counting (and recounting, and recounting) shenanigans back in 2004 at Rossi's expense.

Since all-mail voting became the law of the land in Washington, Republicans have lost every election for Senate and Governor there, and only two Republicans have been victorious for other statewide elections (one of which wasn't even opposed by a Democrat that November) in 13 years. The GOP hasn't done too well at the state legislative level nor the U.S. House level either, both of those being things which are heavily influenced by perpetual Democrat gerrymanders.

The lone "Republican" who has enjoyed true success running statewide in the Evergreen State was former Secretary of State Kim Wyman. Wyman was elected to that office, which is in charge of election administration (including vote counting) in 2012 and then was elected again in 2016 and 2020. Her effectiveness on behalf of Democrats while in her position as Republican S.O.S. is nicely illustrated by the fact that she resigned in 2021 in order to work for -- we're not making this up -- the Deep State entity known as the "Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency" in an important position dealing with "election security". That is a term normally defined by Democrats as "making sure Republicans don't interfere with our cheating".

Photo credit: carboncredits.com

The real nailbiter of a race which is currently going on in Washington is for the office of Commissioner of Public Lands (CPL), which is wide open since the incumbent liberal Democrat commissioner, Hillary Franz, chose to run for Congress in Washington's 6th district instead. She lost her primary earlier this month and promptly blamed dark and evil forces for her defeat. Speaking of which, the easy winner in November in CD-6 will now be ultra-liberal Democrat Emily Randall, who will be a real barrier-breaker as the first Latina dyke ever to be elected to Congress.

Votes are still being tabulated, but the CPL race unofficially stands like this at the moment:

1. Jaime Herrera Beutler (R): 419.297, 22.0%
2. Dave Upthegrove (D): 396,300, 20.8%
3. Sue Pederson (R): 396,249, 20.8%

Photo credit: mynorthwest.com

Elsewhere in Washington, there were hotly-contested primary elections in the three districts (out of a total of 10) where Republicans have any real chance at victory in November.

In CD-5 (Eastern Washington: Spokane, Walla Walla, Pullman) incumbent moderate Republican Cathy McMorris Rodgers is retiring at the age of 55 after 10 terms in the House. She will be replaced in the R+8 district by Spokane County Treasurer Michael Baumgartner after the formality of his general election victory in a few months. He's likely to be even more "moderate" than the woman he's replacing. This district could do better.

In CD-3 (Southwest Washington: Vancouver) it will be Round 2 for Joe Kent vs. Marie Perez. The district is rated as R+5 which means it shouldn't really even be a tossup -- the GOP should win with relative ease -- but the solidly conservative MAGA Republican, Kent, was repeatedly backstabbed by his own party in 2022 and might be again. Democrats are spending an ungodly amount of money to try to hold this seat, which is at or near #1 on the list of potential Republican pickups in the House for 2024. Kent may win this time around, but there won't be any "relative ease" about it and he'd better be wearing a Kevlar vest at all times to insulate himself from knife wounds.

After losing by less than 1% in 2022, Kent immediately declared that he would be running again in 2024. Probably with behind-the-scenes help from the GOP establishment, Republican lawyer Leslie Lewallen made her way into the race for the express purpose of sabotaging Kent's chances. She spent the primary campaign focusing solely on attacking Kent even though Democrat Perez was on the same ballot.

Kent trounced Lewallen on August 6 by over 25 points. The two Republicans combined to receive over 51% of the vote, with just under 46% for the Democrat and 2.5% for an independent. If -- and only if -- nearly all of Lewallen's voters move to Kent in November this district will have a conservative congressman for the first time since Linda Smith (1995-1998) and Smith was much more of a libertarian than a conservative.

Washington congressional district 4

The highest-profile congressional primary in Washington took place in the solidly Republican (R+11) 4th district, which covers the central third of the state geographically, including Yakima and the Tri-Cities area. CD-4 is only 52% White and 40% Hispanic (nearly all of which are Mexicans) but the non-citizens tend to not vote, and those citizens who do vote lean staunchly to the right. No Democrat has exceeded 40% in a House election here since 1996, with the exception of 2006 when the Rats barely cleared that figure (40.1%).

The 2024 election will be the third one in the last six where two Republicans and zero Democrats will battle for the win. The incumbent, liberal Republican Dan Newhouse, is the next-to-last House Impeachment RINO left standing. All others among the 10 in the House GOP who voted to impeach Donald Trump have either run away voluntarily or been defeated at the polls since they did their dirty deed. Aside from Newhouse, the only one remaining is David Valadao of California, who represents a Democrat-leaning district in the Central Valley.

While Trump had endorsed one of Newhouse's two challengers (Jerrod Sessler) in this race long ago, he decided to increase his chances of padding the Trump Winning Percentage by also endorsing the other challenger (Tiffany Smiley) on the eve of the primary. Trump's rhetoric against the liberal Newhouse was, oddly (or perhaps not so oddly), comparatively mild compared to his vitriol against 100% conservative Rep. Bob Good, who lost his primary in Virginia a few weeks back.

Photo credit: jerrodforcongress.com

Sessler is a decorated Naval veteran (not some Stolen Valor coward like Democrat VP nominee Tampon Timmy Walz) who has also beaten Stage IV cancer which was said to be 95% terminal. He is a solid Christian conservative who describes himself as an American Patriot. Perhaps at this point you are beginning to understand why the GOPe fears Jerrod Sessler.

If Sessler is elected, he should be a reliably conservative vote in the House (unlike Newhouse) and based on his background will likely be a fighter for his country and his party, as opposed to being a go-along-to-get-along spineless milquetoast like the vast majority of House Republicans.

Photo credit: Outside Groove

As an aside, Sessler's campaign bio touches briefly on the fact that he is a "former NASCAR driver". It's hardly a big part of his list of qualifications, but it almost became a sticking point two years ago. Sessler was no national star as a driver; he participated in a small regional racing series which was under the auspices of NASCAR. [BTW, Sessler is the second ex-NASCAR driver running for the House this year as a Republican; we wrote about the other one here].

Just before the 2022 primary, NASCAR executives became aware of Sessler's candidacy and were concerned that he might be pulling a "Walz" and claiming to be something he really wasn't; they apparently had no record of Sessler's racing history and would surely have ordered Sessler to cease and desist using the NASCAR trademark in his campaign if evidence had not been furnished to back his claim.

NASCAR, long ago, was considered to be a "Republican" sport and kind of the antithesis of today's leftist/racist WNBA. NASCAR was a sport with good patriotic American participants and fans (again, the opposite of the WNBA). These days, however, NASCAR is every bit as "politically correct" as the major sports it so desperately wishes to emulate, and its corporate executives and bean-counters are almost uniformly well to the left on the political spectrum.

There is no longer any controversy about Sessler's NASCAR credentials, which are unimportant anyway, so those who loathe conservatives -- including the entire Republican establishment -- are finding other weapons with which to assault Sessler. Trump's going to have to put a lot of his political weight behind this challenger, or an Impeachment RINO is going to avoid extinction one more time.

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2024 House Alaska Washington

Photo credit: Robert Deutsch, USA Today

This may become a pertinent question even sooner than expected. Kamala "Cackles" Harris isn't merely the presumptive Democrat nominee for the 2024 presidential election, she may be elevated to President any time now. Although President Biden's personal physician, who is apparently Dr. Nick Riviera, assured the nation on Monday that the President was still alive and continuing to "perform all his presidential duties", this is the same doctor who recently insisted -- everyone's lying eyes notwithstanding -- that Biden was fit as a fiddle and sharp as a tack. The comparison of those items to Biden is valid only if they had just been run over by a train.

And then came the debate. And numerous other examples of physical and mental degradation. Finally the Democrats couldn't abide the devastating polling data (must have been internal polls) any longer and threatened Biden out of the race.

With Biden out of the running and his replacement as Democrat presidential nominee all but official, the focus turns to who the vice-presidential nominee might be.

Saul Loeb/AFP via Getty Images

Candidates from the gubernatorial ranks include: Andy Beshear (D-KY), J.B. Pritzker (D-IL) and Tim Walz (D-MN). Beshear, a pretty boy in an empty suit, could (or so the Democrats think) plausibly pose as a moderate, but the reality is that he's no such thing, and he probably wouldn't even be able to deliver Kentucky's 8 electoral votes. Pritzker's usefulness on the ticket would be limited to donut-eating contests; Illinois is in no danger of voting anything other than Democrat for president anyway. The same applies to Walz except for maybe the donut-eating part, though there are (or at least were) some fever dreams on the right about Minnesota going for Trump in November. Democrats are rightfully unconcerned about that possibility, and will not select Walz simply to defend against it.

If a Governor is selected to run alongside Cackles, there's a greater likelihood that it would be one from a swing state and not a state which is either hopeless for Democrats or already in the bag for them. Swing state Rat Governors include Gretchen Whitmer (D-MI), Tony Evers (D-WI), Roy Cooper (D-NC, and unemployed as of January) and the Great Jewish Hope, Josh Shapiro (D-PA).

Of those, only Cooper could remotely be described as anything other than extreme-left, and even he isn't far off from that. Not that the Democrats require an actual moderate on the ticket; they can (and will) select an in-your-face ultra-liberal -- like Cackles herself -- and when the media controllers repeatedly lie and claim that whoever the VP turns out to be is a moderate, enough clueless and easily fooled voters will believe it. If the Rats truly wanted a moderate VP candidate, they'd have to look outside the party to someone like Mitt Romney (he's downright "conservative" by Democrat standards).

The liberal Veep-pickers could bypass governors altogether. Or they could put a rump ranger such as Colorado Governor Jared Polis or Transportation Secretary Pete Buttgieg on the ticket, but the Democrats aren't likely to be quite that "bold", and Colorado's not even close to being a swing state.

What with the overt (but totally unreported) trend of a significant portion of Hispanic voters -- particularly rural Hispanics -- towards the Republican party starting in 2020, you might expect that the Dems would look for a VP of Mexican or Puerto Rican descent, but the Democrat puppetmasters apparently believe there aren't any who are prominent enough to be worthy of serious consideration.

Finally, the one U.S. senator who is on the short list is Mark Kelly (D-AZ). Kelly has a military record and was once an astronaut, which would lead the ignorant to believe he must be a patriotic conservative or at least a moderate. He is none of those things (neither was John Glenn except maybe early in his political career), irrespective of the false image of him the media will create if he becomes the chosen one. Kelly is as ultra-liberal as any Democrat senator.

mynewsgh.com

The favorite among these has to be Pennsylvania Governor Joshua Shapiro. Shapiro is from the most important of all swing states, is known to be highly covetous of national office, and PA would instantly go from "tossup" to "likely Democrat" in the 2024 presidential election if Shapiro gets the VP slot. As we mentioned just a few days ago, without Pennsylvania's 19 electoral votes Trump is going to have pull off a major upset somewhere else in order to get to 270 EV.

Furthermore, a down-ballot effect in Pennsylvania might help save the Senate seat of dim bulb Bob Casey, Jr. Joshie's presence on the ticket might also help shore up some vulnerable Democrat U.S. House incumbents, of which there are 2 or perhaps 3 in the PA delegation (Susan Wild, Matt Cartwright, Chris DeLuzio) though none of those -- including Casey -- are in grave danger of losing. They are in potentially close races, but creative vote counting on the part of Democrats, if necessary, ought to be enough to return those liberal politicians safely to their offices next year.

As far as having a Jewish candidate for VP, note that while the core of the Democrat party strongly supports the Hamas terrorists, it does not necessarily follow that the party as a whole hates Israel. They DO hate it -- for now -- but that's because of just one man: Benjamin Netanyahu. Once he is no longer in the picture and Israel is controlled by the secular, ultra-liberal, atheistic, self-loathing wing of The Tribe, Democrats will be supporters of Israel again, at least to a much greater extent than they are now.

In the meantime as they wait for Bibi's demise, they may feel it wise to nominate someone from The Tribe as Harris' VP, though of course NOT someone who supports Netanyahu: that description fits Shapiro nicely. This could be the Democrats' attempt to fraudulently claim support for Israel ("Look at our VP! He's Jewish!") -- seeing as how their embrace of anti-Israel terrorists is not completely popular with the American public, or even with some elements within the Democrat party. Democrats already have the total support of Shapiro's tribalists among the media controllers, however this move might help to get those campaign dollars from the ultra-rich Jews flowing again.

Though if we're to believe the recent gaslighting about "record-setting" Democrat contributions earlier this week, that geld may not be necessary. The Dems' ActBlue money laundry has been spinning wildly lately, splitting donations from liberal billionaires into millions of smaller fragments and assigning those fragments to smaller "contributors" in an attempt to create the illusion of broad-based support from the common people, not to mention violating campaign finance law.

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2024 Heels Up! Veepstakes

If the polls are even close to being accurate, the outcome of the 2024 presidential election is going to be determined by the results in just six states: Arizona, Georgia, Michigan, Nevada, Pennsylvania and Wisconsin. These are often referred to as the "swing" states. North Carolina isn't on that list, but probably should be; folks on the right like to pretend it's a 1000% mortal lock for the GOP, but it's not. It just leans slightly in the direction of Republicans at the presidential level in recent years.

2024 presidential election map; swing states in purple

If the Democrat candidate, whoever it turns out to be, wins every state that Democrats normally win, he/she/it will receive 226 electoral votes (EV) from California, Colorado, Connecticut, Delaware, District of Columbia, Hawaii, Illinois, Maine*, Maryland, Massachusetts, Minnesota, New Hampshire, New Jersey, New Mexico, New York, Oregon, Rhode Island, Vermont, Virginia and Washington.

If Donald Trump wins every state that Republicans normally win, he will receive 235 electoral votes from Alabama, Alaska, Arkansas, Florida, Idaho, Indiana, Iowa, Kansas, Kentucky, Louisiana, Missouri, Mississippi, Montana, Nebraska*, North Carolina, North Dakota, Ohio, Oklahoma, South Carolina, South Dakota, Tennessee, Texas, Utah, West Virginia and Wyoming.

[* Maine and Nebraska are the only states where electoral votes are not winner-take-all; they award them by congressional district, and the statewide winner gets the other two votes. Because of this, Trump is expected to easily gain one of Maine's four electoral votes, and the Democrat is narrowly expected to take one of Nebraska's five EV.]

The magic number is 270 EV; that's the number a candidate needs to obtain in order to be elected president.

The six swing states combine for 77 EV:

• Arizona (11)
• Georgia (16)
• Michigan (15)
• Nevada (6)
• Pennsylvania (19)
• Wisconsin (10)

2020 presidential election results in PA

Pennsylvania has been reliably Democrat presidentially from 1992 to the present with the exception of 2016 when overconfident Democrats just barely failed to manufacture enough votes in the Philadelphia ghetto to deprive Donald Trump from eking out a statewide win by 0.7%. Trump would have won the presidency even without PA's 20 electoral votes that year, but Democrats still rued their mistake and vowed it would not happen again in 2020. It didn't.

Trump 270, Democrat 268

If Trump loses PA, then he still loses even if he takes both Arizona and Nevada along with Georgia (268-270).

Democrat 270, Trump 268 (and now that one Nebraska electoral vote looks huge)

Wisconsin likely isn't going to Trump (current illusions aside), what with the Wisconsin Democrat Supreme Court recently issuing a ruling which trashes the election integrity measures passed by the state legislature, and practically mandates Democrat vote fraud. Correspondingly, any delusionals who are dreaming about a GOP Senate pickup in WI can wake up now and face reality unless some 1994-ish tidal wave hits in November.

Politically speaking, Michigan is PA's poorer, more liberal Rust Belt little sister. If Trump can't take PA, he surely isn't winning Michigan. Maybe lightning strikes again as it did in 2016 and he takes both. Like Wisconsin, Michigan has also recently taken measures to thwart election integrity.

To summarize: if the Democrat candidate wins both Michigan and Wisconsin -- as is still probable, though we all wish it wasn't -- and all non-swing states go as expected, there is no scenario under which Trump can win without Pennsylvania.

Even with Joe Biden's obvious mental and physical degradation, swing state polls remain exceedingly close although most of them slightly favor Trump as of this time, but within the margin of error. On July 6, Bloomberg released polls for the seven obvious swing states (NC included) and Trump was ahead in five of those, though the pollster cheerily noted that Biden was closing the gap. This is likely to be as close to reality as we have seen so far, with Trump losing Michigan and Wisconsin. They say he remains slightly ahead in Arizona, Georgia, Nevada, North Carolina and Pennsylvania. One day later the Emerson pollsters had Trump sweeping all six of the swingers (NC wasn't polled).

If 2024 somehow mimics 1984 or 1972 then we will see fluke outcomes in states that shouldn't even be on the radar right now (e.g. Virginia). But even with as much disarray as President Alzheimer and his party seem to be in at the moment, expecting anything along the lines of a rout is foolish.

If you're trying to forecast the 2024 outcome, don't forget to factor in the following:

1. Biden is looking less and less likely to be the nominee.
   
   
2. Mitt Romney's inflammatory (yet quite accurate) comment from 2012 is still operative, undoubtedly at an even higher level than his now-outdated 47% figure. In case you've forgotten what that comment was:
   "There are 47 percent of the people who will vote for the [Democrat] no matter what. . . who are dependent upon government, who believe that they are victims, who believe the government has a responsibility to care for them, who believe that they are entitled to health care, to food, to housing, to you-name-it."
   
   
3. The mass invasion of new welfare recipients streaming across the Mexican border -- who are infiltrating numerous states and not merely Texas or other border states. And all they have to do to earn their "paychecks" is vote Democrat.

2000 presidential election results

In 2000, Dubya won several states which are no longer normally winnable for the GOP in a presidential election -- Colorado and Virginia being the biggest of those. In 2000 CO and VA, plus Nevada and New Hampshire, added 29 electoral votes to the GOP total, more than offsetting the absence of PA's 23 EV. Bush of course also won as expected in Arizona and Georgia, which were solid Republican properties at that time but are now rightfully considered swing states. Bush did lose Iowa which is now considered true-blue (proper color usage). Bush won by a total of 5 EV that year, 271 to 266.

2004 presidential election results

In 2004 Bush repeated his victories in VA + CO and picked up Iowa and New Mexico but dropped New Hampshire. The outcome in the electoral college wasn't nearly as close as it had been four years earlier. The final score was: Bush 286, Lurch 251. The major Rust Belt states of Pennsylvania, Michigan and Wisconsin once again were not needed.

In 2024, barring a landslide of wishful thinking, Trump is not likely to win states like Virginia (unless Glenn Youngkin is on the ticket as VP, and maybe not even then) and is highly unlikely to win places such as Colorado or New Mexico. He must hold North Carolina and take a couple of the biggest swing states. Pennsylvania is the top prize among the swingers.

Without neglecting the other tossup states, Trump's campaign would do well to stay laser-focused on PA from now through November -- with hard-hitting advertising, as many rallies as possible and -- most importantly -- doing whatever can be done to ensure election integrity in order to avoid a repeat of the highly questionable 2020 results here.

Photo credit: visiterie.com

Erie sector (Erie County):

At one time the Erie area had just about the highest percentage of unionized workers in the entire U.S., however it was still often politically marginal as those workers did not always vote the way their labor union bosses instructed them to. Even working-class Erie was not particularly enamored with FDR and how he prolonged his Great Depression. In 1936 it gave FDR his lowest percentage (barely 50%) of any sector in PA against Republican joke candidate Alf Landon.

Erie was the only urban sector in Pennsylvania to vote against America's beloved King-for-Life in both 1940 and 1944. The sizable Catholic vote in the area helped Erie give a narrow two-point majority to JFK in 1960. Ever since that time, Erie has voted for Democrats in all but the most GOP-landslide years (1972, 1980 and 1984, but not 1988) and had a lengthy streak of voting against the GOP candidate in every presidential election from 1988 through 2012.

After an aberrant vote for Trump in 2016, Erie narrowly returned to the D column -- maybe (see below) -- by 1% in 2020. Erie casts only about 2% of the state vote, but is included here as a distinct though not terribly significant sector of PA, because it doesn't really fit in anywhere else.

[Erie made the news on Election Day of 2020 when an alleged poll worker there by the name of Sebastian Machado boasted on Twitter that he had personally "thrown out over a hundred ballots for Trump already!" and "Pennsylvania gonna turn blue 2020!!". The liberal media quickly raced to defend the Democrat vote-counters. They contacted a Democrat operative in Erie who conducted no investigation but labeled Machado's tweet a "false claim" (referring of course only to the first part of it). Democrats insisted that Machado was not actually a poll worker at all. Then the media -- which is the final arbiter of things like this, not law enforcement -- declared Machado's claim of shit-canning 100+ Trump ballots to be "debunked". Meaning that the number of trashed Trump ballots in Erie was likely far higher.]

Photo credit: govtech.com

Wilkes-Barre/Scranton sector (Lackawanna and Luzerne counties):

Presidentially, the electoral history of the anthracite coal country of northeastern PA has been quite similar -- albeit with a much smaller number of votes -- to that of the bituminous coal region of southwestern PA. To some extent the demographics of these two areas at opposite ends of Pennsylvania are also quite similar, in that they contain a significant percentage of residents of eastern European/Slavic descent -- blue-collar workers with little or no formal education who toiled in the mines and the mills back when such things were operational. Their pride and their work ethic (traits which are absent in certain other demographic subgroups) caused them to volunteer to endure difficult and dangerous jobs rather than being lazy and living off of welfare.

The demographics of southwest PA and northeast PA may be similar but they are hardly identical. As a fairly major city, Pittsburgh has far more blacks than WB/S; prior to the invasion of Hispanics which has greatly accelerated in the 2000s, northeastern PA was one of the Whitest areas in the entire country.

Northeast PA and southwest PA tended to favor the same party (normally Democrats) in almost every presidential election from 1932 through the 1970s. However the two regions diverged in the 1980s when the Pittsburgh area continued to blame President Reagan for the fact that Democrat Jimmy Carter presided over the near-destruction of the steel industry in the 1970s. WB/S voted for Reagan twice in the '80s while metro Pittsburgh remained ignorantly Democrat.

From 1988 through 2008 the two opposite corners of the state were back in sync, voting Democrat for president every time. By 2012 however, the "bitter clingers" in the smaller towns and cities of western PA had taken offense to Bathhouse Barry Obama's slur and his total destruction of the coal industry, and western PA marched solidly to the right. By 2016, northeast PA and southwest PA were marching together again, this time on the GOP side. Despite a noticeably higher minority percentage, Luzerne County (Wilkes-Barre) is much more Republican than Lackawanna County (Scranton).

In recent elections this sector of Pennsylvania casts approximately double the number of votes as Erie County, which works out to about 4% of the state vote.

Photo credit: visithersheyharrisburg.org

Harrisburg-Lebanon-York sector (Cumberland, Dauphin, Lebanon and York counties):

Harrisburg-Lebanon-York, along with the non-metro sector, has been consistently the most patriotic sector in the state even though the city of Harrisburg began deteriorating in the 1950s and continued doing so at an accelerated pace through the 1970s and beyond. Enough good people eventually fled, that the city began electing Democrat mayors and Democrat-controlled city councils, something which had not happened there since before World War I. The suburbs closest to Harrisburg are now nearly as reprehensible as the city itself, and in terms of registered voters Dauphin County flipped from R to D over 15 years ago. York County is steady, however even fast-growing (by PA standards) Cumberland County is beginning to decline and is now only moderately GOP instead of solid GOP.

Contemporary deterioration notwithstanding, in terms of its presidential preference this sector has been highly Republican from the late FDR years through the present time, though the area is weakening. From 1944-2020 the only time it voted for a Democrat was in the anti-Goldwater landslide of 1964 and even then this area only gave LBJ 55% -- a lower percentage than even the staunchly Republican non-metro sector of PA known generally as "The T".

Comparing 2020 to 2016, the aforementioned deterioration of this sector would appear to be slow-paced. Trump's percentage dropped only from 56.9% to 56.1%, but that is misleading. Even though Trump won PA in 2016 and allegedly lost it in 2020, his percentage actually increased in nearly every sector. Only this one and WB/S gave Trump a lower percentage in 2020 than it had in 2016. However the Democrat percentage increased by greater amounts in all sectors, with the number of those who voted third-party dropping substantially from its 2016 level.

In terms of political influence, Harrisburg-Lebanon-York currently accounts for about 8-9% of the votes in the state, which is about 50% more than Erie and WBS combined.

Photo credit: amishfarmandhouse.com

Reading-Lancaster-Allentown sector (Berks, Carbon, Lancaster, Lehigh and Northampton counties):

Northampton County (Bethlehem, Easton) is a true bellwether for the rest of PA. From 1984-2020 the most it has varied from the statewide GOP presidential percentage is a fraction over 1%. In Berks County (Reading), Republicans began to outnumber Democrats (by a very small amount) as of 2023, and this is the first time that has happened in forever. Across most of PA, the GOP is making inroads against the voter registration advantage which Democrats have enjoyed for decades. For a counterexample however, see below for the description of the Philadelphia sector.

As of early July in 2024, the Republican registration deficit in the state is down to 371,000. It was 915,000 in November of 2016, and 687,000 as of the 2020 general election. It's been half a century or more since Republicans were "only" outnumbered by 371,000 in PA.

Like the Harrisburg sector, the Reading-Lancaster-Allentown amalgamation has voted consistently Republican for president since 1944. The two exceptions were 1964, when everyone voted Democrat, and 2008. The mistake of 2008 was quickly corrected; Lehigh and Northampton counties still voted for Obama in 2012, but Carbon, Berks and Lancaster swung to the right sufficiently to push the whole area back into the blue.

Lehigh County (Allentown) remains a Democrat bastion, with the Rats having a 10% registration advantage. Allentown and the portion of Bethlehem which lies in the county cast nearly 30% of the vote, and the rest of the I-78 corridor (Whitehall, South Whitehall, Upper Macungie, Lower Macungie) is no bargain either. The other four counties which comprise this sector of Pennsylvania lean sufficiently to the right to offset Lehigh, though as noted Northampton is perennially close to the state average which means it is close, period.

Photo credit: wellsboropa.com

Non-metro sector, i.e. "The T":

The counties which run across the northern tier of PA combine with a wide swath of counties in the central part of the state, running all the way to the Maryland border to form a capital letter T. These counties are for the most part rural or small-town oriented. Modestly-sized cities such as Johnstown, Altoona, State College, Williamsport, Pottsville and Chambersburg are typical for this area.

We define the non-metro counties of Pennsylvania as the following: Adams, Bedford, Blair, Cambria, Cameron, Centre, Clarion, Clearfield, Clinton, Columbia, Crawford, Elk, Franklin, Forest, Fulton, Huntingdon, Indiana, Jefferson, Juniata, Lawrence, Lycoming, McKean, Mercer, Mifflin, Monroe, Montour, Northumberland, Perry, Pike, Schuylkill, Snyder, Somerset, Sullivan, Susquehanna, Tioga, Union, Venango, Warren, Wayne, Wyoming. The Census Bureau defines some of these as metropolitan, but for our purposes they are small enough to qualify for this grouping.

Voters in most of patriotic, rural, small-town America naturally tend to be Republicans, and The T of Pennsylvania is no exception. In 2020 the above-listed counties represented 20% of the PA electorate, and voted 67.0% for Donald Trump as compared to only 31.4% for Joe Biden. This, not surprisingly, was by far the best portion of the state for Trump. Since 1932, The T has only voted Democrat for president in the landslide years of 1936 and 1964, and much of the time it has been at or near the top of the state's sectors in GOP percentage.

In this part of the Keystone State, Republican presidential and other statewide candidates are expected to do well and they need to rack up sizable margins in order to win, given the precarious (or worse) situation in the larger metro areas of the state.

In 2016, Trump won PA by approximately 44,000 votes out of 6.16 million. He amassed a margin of 446,000 votes in The T while losing the rest of the state by 402,000. In 2020 Trump won The T by about 493,000 votes -- but lost the remainder of PA by 575,000. This lamentable result was not due to a relative lack of turnout, or lack of support, in The T. Turnout there was up by 13.5% from 2016 to 2020, and only up 12.3% in the other sectors which contain most of the state's urban and suburban territory.

Photo credit: Richard Nowitz / visitpittsburgh.com

Pittsburgh sector (Allegheny, Armstrong, Beaver, Butler, Fayette, Greene, Washington and Westmoreland counties):

This sector in the southwestern portion of Pennsylvania casts approximately as many votes as The T does -- about 20% of all votes in the state.

As is well known, the greater Pittsburgh region was heavily-unionized coal and steel country back in the days when Pittsburgh was known as the Smoky City. From the Great Depression up through recent years, southwestern PA was the most radical portion of the state. These counties have always been fairly White as major metropolitan areas go, and the ethnic Catholic Democrats who comprise a major part of the polyglot Pittsburgh area have often been moderate or even conservative on non-economic issues. It's true that they like their FDR-style economic "safety net", but they also treasure their guns and their Bibles and they are not rabid pro-abortionists nor do they appreciate governmental pandering to welfare state racists.

Because of these traits, the White working-class citizens of small-town western PA were slandered as being "bitter clingers" by prospective president Barack Obama while on the campaign trail in 2008. In April of that year, shortly before the Pennsylvania primary (which he lost by almost 10 points), Bonzo showed how out-of-touch he is with the heartland of America. While safely ensconced behind closed doors at an expensive Democrat fundraiser in elite ultra-liberal San Francisco, he had this to say about the good folks some 2,000 miles to the east:

"You go into these small towns in Pennsylvania and... they get bitter, they cling to guns or religion or antipathy to people who aren't like them or anti-immigrant sentiment or anti-trade sentiment as a way to explain their frustrations."

The media and other Democrats will always use urban ghetto and barrio areas as examples of woeful "poverty" because it suits their racist anti-White agenda -- but if you ever want to see real poverty in America, look to the areas of Appalachia mentioned in the last paragraph. They were poor to begin with and now have been further impoverished by Democrat political policies.

In Appalachia, these indigent victims do not tend to use their EBT cards for crack cocaine, nor are they overstuffed to the point of being morbidly obese; "poverty" is not supposed to weigh 300 pounds and have Type 2 diabetes.

The poor people of Appalachia do not drive their Cadillac Escalades down to the luxury grocery store (parking in a handicapped spot, natch) to get their mac & cheese dinners and then plop down in front of the 75" TV in their rent-free air-conditioned apartments so they can tune into Oprah and be told how downtrodden they are and what a hateful, racist country the U.S. is while they consume their 3,000-calorie meal which was purchased at taxpayer expense.

All of these regions of Appalachia, including southwestern PA, flipped from Democrat to Republican as of 2012. Even many inhabitants whose livelihoods were not tied to coal mining and processing began marching resolutely to the right, and the voter registration patterns and election outcomes prove it.

Being more urban and suburban rather than isolated and rural, much of greater Pittsburgh has little in common with the rest of Appalachia, and the region's grip on Republicanism is tenuous in its infancy. As in the rest of the United States, the more-upscale suburbs (of which Pittsburgh has several) have run screaming to the left since 2016 while the less privileged White working-class precincts in urban and suburban areas have moved to the right. Whether these trends will continue in the post-Trump years, we'll have to wait a while to see. If Biden couldn't win southwestern PA even in 2020, it's not likely that he (or whatever stooge replaces him) will be able to do so in 2024 either.

But that doesn't matter a whole lot as far as Pennsylvania's 19 electoral votes are concerned, because the ace up the Democrats' sleeve is. . .

Photo credit: Thom Carroll / phillyvoice.com

Philadelphia sector (Bucks, Chester, Delaware, Montgomery and Philadelphia counties):

Southeastern PA was actually the most Republican region of Pennsylvania heading into FDR's elongated depression; it voted nearly 60% to re-elect Herbert Hoover in 1932, and no other segment of PA was even close to that figure. As recently as 1948 the City of Brotherly Love was still electing GOP mayors, but never again since that time. The city reached its peak population of 2.07 million as of the 1950 census, and the mass exodus to the suburbs then began in earnest. The end of Mayor Frank Rizzo's term in 1979 marked the last time that someone who wasn't an ultra-liberal coddler of criminals occupied that office; Philadelphia started racing downhill without brakes in the 1980s and has continued to do so ever since.

For several decades, the large suburban counties around Philadelphia were able (and willing) to counterbalance the city's effect on presidential elections. Those suburbs also normally sent Republicans to Congress and voted for the GOP in other statewide races, but their preference was for Republican candidates who were well to the left of center.

Metro Philly grudgingly voted twice for Ronald Reagan, with 46.4% in 1980 and a bare majority (50.4%) in 1984. Philadelphia-area voters have not, as a whole, voted Republican for president at any time since then. This has been far and away the most liberal sector of PA since the 1990s.

The mid-1990s, specifically 1994, was very much a watershed date in metro-Philly politics.

As Sir Isaac Newton might have said, for every political action there is an opposite reaction (but not necessarily an equal one).

The trend, at least at the presidential level, began much earlier than 1994. The glorious outcome of the 1994 midterm election which placed the Republicans in control of the House and Senate for the first time in four decades represented the culmination of a long journey away from the Democrat party in parts of the country where such a thing seemed unlikely to ever happen.

The Democrat hold on the "Solid South" helped to keep them in charge of the Senate at all times and was a major factor in the House too, along with customary hyper-partisan Democrat gerrymanders in the most important states like California and Texas. The overconfidence and venality (and criminality) of Democrat politicians finally caused a critical level of voter discontent to be reached in that wonderful year of 1994, and a major congressional coup was the result.

That was the "action", or at least the most visible part of it. The "reaction" was not necessarily just a backlash against GOP control of Congress for the first time in 40 years, although the liberal media wasted no time trying to make that backlash happen. Congress has always been unpopular with the American people; only beginning in 1995 did the media feel the need to constantly remind people exactly which party controlled Congress, so the voters would know which party they were supposed to hate.

Photo credit: AP / Denis Paquin

The real "reaction" was against the fact that the GOP was now being led by House Speaker Newt Gingrich and like-minded conservatives -- and therefore was viewed by the left-wingnuts of BOTH parties as being racists, rednecks, sexists, Bible-thumpers, illiterate trailer-trash, etc. This was no longer the party of moderate milquetoasts like former House Minority Leader Bob Michel. Republicans finally had some power in Washington after four dark decades and -- gasp! -- they might actually try to use that power!

These developments especially did not sit well with the upscale, suburban, country-club elitist wing (the "George Bush wing") of the Republican party, and in few places was the revulsion more obvious than in the suburbs of northeastern cities like Philadelphia. While these areas had been ancestrally Republican, they were never conservative, and now these Republicans were terrified by what they thought "their" party was becoming.

The Philly suburbs had seemingly always been represented by GOP politicians who were self-described "fiscal conservatives" (a true oxymoron, since these so-called conservatives voted for every budget-busting social welfare program that came along). They took great pains to make clear that they were not conservative in any other way. This formula of being on the far left of the GOP on all issues aside from some minor spending bills was sufficient to get elected in moderate-liberal suburbs for many years. It boiled down to "I won't raise your taxes as much as a Democrat would, but otherwise you'll never know from my voting record that I am actually a Republican!"

Democrats occasionally won U.S. House elections in the Philly burbs, but the GOP normally swept those districts every two years or came close to doing so. Naturally there was a clean sweep of the four districts which covered the suburban Philly area in 1994. Things barely held together in 1996 (liberal Republican Jon Fox almost lost the Montgomery County-based 13th district) and began disintegrating in 1998 when Fox did lose to future statewide failure Joe Hoeffel. That district and its successors have never again elected a Republican to Congress.

The old 7th district (mainly Delaware County) fell to the Democrats in the anti-Republican landslide in the "Abramoff scandal" election of 2006. Democrats ran the table in 2008 in their giddiness over the prospect of electing America's first half-black president. The scales tipped back towards equilibrium when buyers' remorse set in and GOP voters kicked numerous liberal Democrats out of the House in 2010; two of those evictions came in the Philly area.

The status quo held until the hyper-partisan Democrat gerrymander which was mandated by the Pennsylvania Democrat Supreme Court became law in 2018 and remains in effect today. Liberal Republican stooge Brian Fitzpatrick has been able to consistently squeak his way to re-election in the marginal Bucks County district, but the remaining districts which ring the city of Philadelphia have been crafted to elect nothing but liberal Democrats -- which they do.

Photo credit: Charles Fox / Philadelphia Inquirer

Before we close, there is one other factor to consider regarding elections in Pennsylvania:

PA Secretary of the Commonwealth (chief election officer) Al Schmidt is the token appointed RINO in the administration of far-left Governor Joshie Shapiwo. Schmidt, a Philadelphia liberal with significant experience being around Democrat vote fraud, never met a liberal he didn't love or a conservative he didn't despise. Schmidt became a hero to the left after the 2020 election, at which time he "courageously" resisted Donald Trump's efforts to obtain a fair and accurate vote count in Pennsylvania.

Schmidt will do everything in his (considerable) power to thwart Republican gains of any kind in PA in 2024 -- including protecting the White House and Senate from evil GOP challengers, and trying to ensure that the Democrat-gerrymandered congressional delegation doesn't lose any of its vulnerable leftists and does lose its one and only conservative (Scott Perry).

And don't forget the Rats' one-seat margin (102-101) in the Democrat-gerrymandered state House, which must be protected to the fullest extent possible; and the fact that the Republicans are on the verge of losing just barely enough seats (3) in the Democrat-gerrymandered state Senate in November to give liberals 100% control of PA government at every level -- executive, legislative and judicial.

The transfer of power in the state legislature from Republicans to Democrats may not be all that noticeable, what with many GOP legislators in PA basically being Democrats in Republican clothing already.

The voters will have some say in how these elections turn out, but just be aware that anything good which might happen for Republicans in PA this year will happen over Al Schmidt's dead body. (That's just an expression, ha ha.)

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2024 Pennsylvania

In Virginia the results were literally "not Good", as staunch conservative Bob Good (100% lifetime ACU rating through 2023) was narrowly defeated in the CD-5 GOP primary by state Sen. John McGuire, who also purports to be a conservative. Bob Good (not to be confused with former congressman and presidential candidate Virgil Goode, who represented this same district from 1997-2008) was first elected in 2020 when he beat incumbent moderate Denver Riggleman -- who later bolted from the GOP -- at the party convention and then prevailed over black liberal Democrat Cameron Webb in the general. The national Democrat party saw to it that Webb had nearly $6 million to spend (vs. Good's barely $1 million) and dumped even more into the pot via an additional $4.6 million in "independent" expenditures against the Republican. Good fit the district reasonably well and had no trouble being re-elected in 2022.

Good is a leader of the conservative House Freedom Caucus, and was supported in his contentious 2024 primary by all the right people, including Matt Gaetz, Steve Bannon and Byron Donalds. Good has never been popular with the liberal establishment wing of the GOP however, and they had the knives out for him in much the same way as they treated another 100% conservative in Virginia -- Dave Brat -- back in 2018 (see below).

Photo credit: Evan Vucci/AP

Walking hand-in-hand with liberal GOPeers such as Kevin McCarthy this time around was a guy by the name of Donald Trump, who declared war on Bob Good because the 100% conservative congressman had violated Trump's First Commandment: "Thou shalt have no other gods before Me". Good, you see, endorsed Ron DeSantis for president over a year ago but then switched back to Trump and even went so far as to show up in person in New York City to support Trump during the former president's political persecution trial in Juan Merchan's Kangaroo courtroom.

Lord Trump was not forgiving, however, and He smote Good while waving off the Virginian's support as coming "too late".

Photo credit: Steve Helber/AP

The backstabbing of Good was reminiscent of prior events in the Old Dominion, such as when conservative Dave Brat was abandoned by the GOPe and hung out to dry, allowing him to be outspent heavily and defeated by Abby "Deep State" Spanbarger in congressional district 7 in the anti-Trump wave election of 2018.

Brat was first elected in 2014 in a shocking primary win over Eric Cantor, a one-time conservative who became a squish after he was elevated into the GOP leadership. Cantor was the House Majority Leader when Brat stunned him and the establishment in the '14 primary. Cantor spent nearly $8 million in that primary while Brat, relying on conservative grassroots support instead of GOP party and PAC funding, raised and spent only a tiny fraction of Cantor's amount. Brat won the general election by over 20 points and was re-elected in 2016 as well. In those two terms he took the conservative position on every single key vote.

The establishment never forgave him for taking out their Golden Boy.

In 2015, partisan Democrat judges threw out the district map which had been used in Virginia since 2011 and mandated an immediate partisan Democrat gerrymander which altered several districts in the southeastern part of the state. Brat's district, based mainly in the Richmond suburbs, was one of those affected.

VA-4 results in 2014


VA-4 results in 2016

The goal of the gerrymander was to obliterate the 4th district as previously drawn (see above maps), and cause it to expel a White Republican incumbent (Randy Forbes) and replace him with a black Democrat. This was easily accomplished. However a side effect was to significantly alter Brat's 7th district, much to his detriment, as you can see from the following maps.

VA-7 results in 2014


VA-7 results in 2018

Bad areas of Chesterfield and Henrico counties in the Richmond suburbs were added to VA-7, causing their proportion of the district vote to increase to around 60% from 50%. Brat still won in 2016 fairly easily, but with a margin (15 points) that was noticeably down from what it had been in 2014 (24 points). Prior to redistricting CD-7 was rated as R+10; after redistricting it was closer to R+2. Then came the 2018 election, the district flipped from blue to red (proper color usage) where it has remained, and Brat was finished. Democrats were happy; the GOPe was elated.

Photo credit: David Zalubowski /AP

In Colorado, Lauren Boebert took the first successful step in her bid for re-election in her new district (CD-4) as she easily defeated 5 other Republicans in the June 25th primary. Boebert, the current incumbent in CD-3, did not run in the special CD-4 election to replace Ken Buck, the formerly righteous conservative who ran shrieking to the left and exited a few months ago in order to hamstring the narrow GOP House majority even further than it already was.

Boebert is forever a prime target of liberals and other haters in both parties. Because winning the primary in the heavily-Republican 4th district should be tantamount to re-election, the haters are going to have to deal with Boebert in Congress for another two years. Ha ha.

Democrats are not entirely conceding the seat, although they suffered a setback when their Chosen One, liberal Ike McCorkle, was unexpectedly defeated in the Rat primary. McCorkle had all the money he needed, and was going to wrap himself in the American flag and try to pose as a moderate, pro-military Democrat. Instead, the Dem candidate will be Trisha Calvarese; she's from the far-left wing of the party and just lost the CD-4 special election by almost 25 points. She'll almost certainly do better in November, assuming the Democrats (motivated, along with the RINOs, by their intense hatred of Boebert) feel like wasting money to achieve a 10-15 point loss instead of a 25-point landslide defeat which they can get for free.

Photo credit: NY Post

On June 25, Jamaal "Fire Chief" Bowman (D-NY) was soundly defeated in the Democrat primary in New York's 16th congressional district by Westchester County executive George Latimer (D-Israel). Bowman thus becomes the first member of the radical leftist Democrat coven known as "The Squad" to be defeated in a re-election bid.

Bowman was first elected to Congress in 2020 after he surprised 16-term incumbent Democrat Eliot Engel in the primary. No Republican bothered to run, so Bowman won 84% to 16% against a Conservative party candidate in November. The elderly incumbent lost because of being allegedly out of touch with the district, and he was thought to be insufficiently dedicated to racist causes like "Black Lives Matter"; BLM's largely-unprosecuted violence, rioting and destruction were enormously popular among the far left in 2020, in New York's 16th district and elsewhere.

The GOP did field a token candidate against Bowman in 2022, but almost no money at all was raised on her behalf, and Bowman cruised to another easy general election win (64% to 36%) although he did struggle somewhat in the primary, taking barely 50% of the vote in a 3-way race.

As the Washington Times noted while patriotic Americans were celebrating Bowman's defeat, the Congressman's antics had gotten him in mild trouble even before his racist rhetoric against Israel and his support of the Hamas terrorists after their October 7 attack.

Known for his loud theatrics off the House floor, Mr. Bowman pulled a fire alarm in a U.S. Capitol office building in September [2023] -- a false alarm that delayed a critical spending vote that House Democrats wanted to delay. He previously endorsed 9/11 conspiracy theories and recently said reports of Hamas terrorists raping Israelis on Oct. 7 were "propaganda".

Westchester County, NY

People who get their demographic information from television sitcom reruns may believe that Westchester County is a bastion of upscale White Republicans in a bucolic setting of well-manicured lawns and endless golf courses. To them, it must be confusing that such an area would have elected and then re-elected a black racist who is one of the most far-left Democrats in the entire House.

Photo credit: Bettmann Archive

In the early 1960's, Hollywood ultra-liberal Carl Reiner placed the main character's home in New Rochelle in "The Dick Van Dyke Show". A decade later, Hollywood ultra-liberal Norman Lear created a spinoff of "All in the Family" based around the strident liberal character of Maude Findlay. The show, called "Maude", was set in the village of Tuckahoe.

"The Dick Van Dyke Show" was generally non-political, but by the time "Maude" hit the airwaves in the early 1970's, it was fashionable in Hollywood to portray women as powerful and influential liberal shrews rather than as dowdy housewives. The writers and producers of "Maude" decided to forego entertainment in order to positively address trendy left-wing issues on a weekly basis, with the main character consistently and courageously taking unpopular (i.e., liberal) stands in supposedly ultra-conservative Tuckahoe. As with "All in the Family", Lear was shrewd enough to know that the audience would eventually balk at being fed foul-tasting medicine all of the time, so the writers of Lear's programs portrayed Maude (and Rob "Meathead" Reiner's character on AITF) as being wrong on rare occasions.

Photo credit: YouTube

When Rob and Laura Petrie and their son Richie were living in Westchester County in their early 60's sitcom world, the county was over 90% White and gladly voted for Republicans -- albeit liberal Republicans. Westchester's influence in New York elections peaked in Maude's 1970's, at which time demographic deterioration was picking up speed as refugees from New York City invaded in larger numbers. This naturally caused many of the good people of the county to flee to more distant places such as the Hudson Valley, further Upstate, or Florida, the mass exodus serving to push Westchester further left.

Formerly rock-solid Republican Westchester became Democrat-friendly territory during the 1980's and 1990's though it did support liberal GOP Governor George Pataki three times. By the early 2000's political sanity in Westchester had vanished and the area has been continuing to move ever leftward since then -- accelerating even more during the Trump years. In 2024, Whites comprise at most about 50% of the population, and voter registration figures also tell an ugly story. The once-overwhelming GOP majority disappeared for good at least 35 years ago, and Republicans now account for less than 20% of all voters in Westchester County while Democrats exceed 50%. Why did folks like Rob and Laura vote with their feet and forsake Westchester County? Because they weren't idiots, that's why.

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2024 U.S. House Virginia Colorado New York

Photo credit: WFMJ

Although Republican Michael Rulli easily won (54.6% to 45.3%) Tuesday's special election in Ohio's 6th congressional district over Democrat Michael Kripchak, media liberals are gloating about the Democrat's "moral victory", which is something they do in every special election where their candidate isn't completely blown out of the water by the voters.

In this case, they have a minor point. This R+16 district routinely elects Republicans by 30-point margins, not mere 9-point margins. In extremely low-turnout special elections like this one, normal patterns do not always hold but they typically resume when more voters participate, as they will in November when these two Michaels will face off again. Customary GOP complacency and Democrat wishful thinking aside, there was no discernable reason for the closeness of the outcome in Ohio. Back in March, Rulli was engaged in a hotly-contested primary with fellow Republican Reggie Stoltzfus and one other candidate, however it was conducted in a generally amicable way with very little mud being tossed around; there should have been no lingering animosities from that contest.

Furthermore, while Rulli and Stoltzfus combined to raise and spend over $1.2 million in trying to win this seat, the hapless Democrat challenger raised only $22,000. National Democrats didn't invest anything here for the special election, and they won't do so for November either because they know they are not flipping any R+16 district. It would be the equivalent of the GOP winning a typical district in Massachusetts. And that ain't happening, at any price.

Photo credit: Nancy Mace/Youtube, Getty Images

Nancy Mace 1, Kevin McCarthy 0: In South Carolina, embattled Nancy Mace had an easier than expected time defeating Catherine Templeton, who was a sock puppet for disgraced ex-House Speaker Kevin McCarthy. Mace received approximately 57% of the Republican primary vote and thus easily avoided the runoff election which would have been necessary if she had failed to achieve 50%.

McCarthy and his well-funded allies created a political action committee (PAC) and spent over $2 million through that PAC for the sole purpose of exacting some revenge on Mace for her 2023 vote to topple the ineffective McCarthy from the Speakership. Tuesday's outcome does not necessarily mean that McCarthy and his minions are accepting defeat; it may just be round one.

As we noted previously, the liberal GOP establishment in this district (and nationally) are by no means averse to sabotaging primary-winning Republicans whom they loathe. Recall 2018 in this district, when Republican nominee Katie Arrington was repeatedly backstabbed by her own party, which caused her to lose the general election to a Democrat that November. The GOPe may repeat that tactic here in 2024, perhaps quietly working on behalf of liberal corporate DEI (Didn't Earn It) stooge Michael Moore -- or perhaps taking a more in-your-face approach and daring the good voters of South Carolina's 1st congressional district to do something about it. Moore spent a large sum to buy his win in the Democrat primary, and -- with some help from anti-Mace moderate/liberal Republicans -- is surely counting on raising a lot more. The anti-Mace PAC which was heavily involved in Mace's primary has at least $1 million remaining in the bank.

But it's still an R+7 district and Mace, though not exactly dominating on Tuesday, received more votes than both Democrat candidates combined. She's not perfectly safe for November, but Mace is certainly favored to win. She just needs to watch her back at all times.

Photo credit: Alchetron

The focus in Maine was on the winnable second congressional district which has been held by Democrat Jared Golden since his surprising "Rigged Choice Voting" victory in 2018. Maine voters (mostly Democrats) had just approved a ballot initiative implementing the RCV scheme which took effect in 2018, and those Democrats were delighted when Golden defeated incumbent moderate Republican Bruce Poliquin thanks solely to the provisions of Rigged Choice Voting; without that, Poliquin was the winner.

Golden is extremely well-funded by left-wing labor unions and the "Israel Lobby", and in the past he has done a good job of fooling the voters of CD-2 by faking to the center whenever necessary. The district is rated as R+6 -- that's not even particularly "marginal"; it's an outright Republican district. Trump won CD-2 in both 2016 and 2020, taking the electoral vote which goes with that victory. Alterations to CD-2 in the most recent redistricting were not significant.

As mentioned, Golden has become adept at fooling the voters; yes, he is in fact one of the more "moderate" Democrats in the House, which only means that instead of being 98% liberal he is normally merely 88% liberal. However this year Golden is running scared to an extent which he never has before. In 2024, Golden has broken with his party over 40% of the time on Party Unity votes and on "key" votes he has actually voted with the GOP a whopping 60% of the time. Golden has suddenly become a true moderate; of course the liberal media now considers him a "conservative", which like most everything in the liberal media, is gaslighting propaganda.

Golden was unopposed in this week's primary. His Republican challenger (pictured above) in November will be former NASCAR driver and racing champion Austin Theriault. Theriault, a freshman member of the Maine House, defeated fellow freshman legislator Michael Soboleski in what was apparently a real bloodbath of a primary. Theriault was endorsed by Donald Trump back in March, and he was in part financially supported by NASCAR team owners such as Rick Hendrick, Richard Childress and Bill McAnally.

Theriault also received contributions from some of his prospective colleagues in the House, including Austin Scott, Mike Turner, Gus Bilirakis, Mariannette Miller-Meeks, Lisa McClain, Bob Latta, Nathaniel Moran and Tom Emmer. That's pretty much an All-Squish All-Star team. Or, more accurately, the Squish Team's triple-A minor league affiliate.

Anyone who can knock off the Golden Boy in November is OK with us now, but Soboleski was the true conservative in the race. He had comparatively little money and probably lesser name recognition, and Theriault thrashed him by 32 points (66.1% to 33.9%). We referenced the likelihood of that outcome at the end of a commentary which was posted three months ago.

One day after Theriault's resounding win, John Andrews (a member of the Maine House who served as Soboleski's campaign manager) blew a gasket, declaring:

"I've just resigned my seat in the Maine State House of Representatives. I can't be a part of anything that supports Austin Theriault. Paris [Andrews' home town in Maine] voted for Theriault. That made up my mind. I'm sorry, but I'm done standing up for anything in this community. I'm officially retired from politics. This absolutely disgusts me."

Photo credit: New York Times

In the Senate primary in Nevada, Trump-anointed Sam Brown, a moderate Republican, breezed past conservative challenger Jeff Gunter. Gunter was appointed as Ambassador to Iceland by Trump, but the ex-President typically opted for the "electable" moderate in this race instead of the true conservative. Pre-primary polls had indicated a potentially close finish between Brown and Gunter, but the current figures show 59.8% for Brown and only 15.1% for runner-up Gunter.

This is Brown's second Senate run in two years; he finished second (by over 20 points) to Adam Laxalt in his 2022 bid to go to Washington. Laxalt went on to lose by less than 1% to incumbent liberal Democrat Catherine Cortez-Masto in the general election. Although the GOPe now demands complete unity behind Brown -- which is essential if he is to have any chance of defeating ultra-liberal Democrat Jacky Rosen in November -- Gunter for the time being is not willing to forgive and forget the nasty campaign waged by Brown and his establishment supporters.

Brown is absolutely a squish, which sadly may be the best we can do as far as a supposedly electable Republican in Nevada. He has a lot of money (but Rosen has all the money in the world) and all the right squishy endorsements, while his other primary opponents (Gunter and Jim Marchant) were backed by conservatives.

Brown's cabal cites Gunter's excessive conservatism and lack of name recognition as factors which would cause him to be defeated in November if he were the nominee. However the last poll taken in this race showed Rosen beating Brown by 14 points, "name recognition" and all; the last poll in which Gunter was included showed Rosen beating him by exactly the same amount, even though few people knew who he was. Winning the primary would have solved that little problem and helped him close the gap, while Brown will have to find some other excuse for his polling deficit.

This whole scenario, Trump endorsement and all, seems very similar to what happened in the PA Senate election in 2022 with "Electable Dr. Oz". There's no way that Eyepatch McCain 2.0 (Brown) can be as bad a candidate as Oz was, and Rosen couldn't beat a ham sandwich by 14 points in a general election, but....

Even if the GOP does close ranks behind Brown, this is still Nevada. As with Oz in PA, the likely upshot of all of this is that Brown's supporters will be able to console themselves on election night in November by claiming (obviously without proof) that Gunter would have lost to Rosen by even more. It should be close -- nowhere near a 14-point gap -- but the GOP's record in close elections in Nevada, where Democrats count the vast majority of the votes, isn't impressive.

Republican Joe Lombardo was allowed to win a close contest in 2022 because a Governor isn't nearly as important as a U.S. Senator and because Lombardo is a pliable squish presiding over a state with a nearly veto-proof Democrat legislature. Jim Marchant was not allowed to win a close election in 2022 because a Secretary of State is also more important than a Governor (Don't believe us? Then go ask George Soros.), and Marchant scares the hell out of the left with his vow to clean up vote fraud in one of the most corrupt states in the country.

We'll never know whether giving the voters "a choice (Gunter), not an echo (Brown)" would have won the Nevada Senate race in 2024, we'll only know that, barring a somewhat major upset, the "echo" did not do so. All good Nevadans -- including Gunter -- need to rally to Brown now (just like folks in PA held their noses and voted for Oz), regardless of how much of a squish he is, and see if what appears to be inevitable in November might be able to be altered. Standing on principle is nice, when possible, but Brown is the only option we have now.

Photo credit: Gateway Pundit

Speaking of squishy (or far worse) Senators: Lately we have been subjected to numerous articles in the "right-wing" media which have awarded Strange New Respect to drooling Pennsylvania Democrat John Fetterman. Fetterman, of course, is the combination of the characters of Lurch and Uncle Fester from the old Addams Family television show, and this cartoon character has been a U.S. Senator since defeating Electable Dr. Oz in 2022.

There's this from Townhall.com:

Red Pilled John Fetterman?, which starts out by comparing Fetterman to -- yes, really -- Ronald Reagan. It goes on, like all of these delusional screeds do, to echo Fetterman's claims that he is not a liberal, he is not woke, he's just a regular guy in a hoodie, etc.

Here's one from Breitbart:

Fetterman Rejects Progressive Label While Addressing Left-Wing Attacks

Golly, now he's under "attack" from the radicals in his party. A stroke, and now this? Poor guy.

Fetterman does concede that "eight years ago" he was in fact a "progressive", a label which he now rejects. He's not up for re-election until 2028, but apparently it's never too early to begin campaigning. One of the basic tenets of Democrat campaigns is trying to get ignorant voters to swallow whatever lies they are fed. That becomes easier with every repetition of the lie, and there's no reason for the non-liberal media to help the Democrats with their task.

The liberal puppetmasters, who send Lurch/Fester out there to parrot whatever script they've prepared for him, are rolling with laughter that people are buying this crap. Granted it is impressive that Fetterman can memorize even a simple script, what with his brain damage, and he wasn't any Mensa candidate even before the stroke.

He is all talk, and only talk.

It serves a purpose to have a "last sane Democrat" puppet to put on public display once in a while. The tactic goes back at least to Zig-Zag Zell Miller, through Joe Lieberman (on rare occasions) and then to grandstanding showboat Joe Manchin. Manchin is down to his last few months in office so they need a new one, preferably from a swing state. Michigan, Georgia, Arizona, Nevada, New Hampshire and Wisconsin had no remotely believable (as "sane") Democrat Senate options, so the job fell to Fetterman.

Fetterman is a total fraud with his "I ain't woke no mo'" garbage. The next Senate vote he casts which defies liberal orthodoxy in any way will be his first one and that's no exaggeration. Talk is cheap. Get back to us when he shows up Chuckie Schumer even once by casting a critical non-liberal vote on an important issue. In the meantime, Republican voters (and authors) need to stop being so gullible.

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2024 U.S. House Senate Ohio South Carolina Nevada Maine Lurch / Uncle Fester

Three high-profile primaries in U.S. House districts will be held tomorrow in South Carolina. In solidly Republican CD-3 (Anderson and the northwest portion of the state), seven candidates are vying to replace 7-term conservative Jeff Duncan, who is retiring rather than face a campaign that would feature nasty (and unproven) allegations from his vindictive soon-to-be ex-wife. In solidly Republican CD-4 (Greenville/Spartanburg) Trump-supported incumbent William Timmons is facing conservative state legislator Adam Morgan, who is being boosted by outspoken conservative congressman Matt Gaetz of Florida. Timmons had no Democrat opposition in 2022 but he achieved only 52.7% in a four-way primary that year, and this one could be close too.

But the most interesting and important primary is taking place in CD-1 (Charleston and suburbs), where incumbent Nancy Mace is being opposed by a pair of foes. The race has attracted attention from major players in both wings of the GOP -- Donald Trump and Matt Gaetz support Mace; squishes like Newt Gingrich and vengeful ex-Speaker Kevin McCarthy support Catherine Templeton, who labels herself as a conservative (GOP challengers in right-leaning districts always attempt to appear conservative -- in the primary) and claims a tenuous connection to Donald Trump, in that the former President supposedly once "considered" her for a cabinet position.

Unlike CD-3 and CD-4, Mace's district is certainly not solidly Republican although for now it does tilt in that direction. As recently as 2018, the district elected Joe Cunningham, an extremely well-funded Democrat who squeaked his way into Congress as the result of intra-party squabbling and backstabbing within the GOP. This is the exact same thing certain liberal elements in the Republican party are aiming for in the 2024 campaign here, in hopes of attaining the same outcome -- the ousting of a Republican they despise -- regardless of whether it is by another Republican or by a Democrat.

This time, Mace is the candidate they despise. Which is the #1 reason that the good people of her district should vote for her.

Photo credit: J. Scott Applewhite / Associated Press

In October of 2023 Mace was part of a small cabal of GOP representatives who voted to remove Assistant Democrat Kevin McCarthy as Speaker. Who knew at the time that Mike "Pence" Johnson would be just as craven and cowardly?

McCarthy then went berserk and vowed to destroy his conservative enemies, of which six remain in the House: Matt Gaetz, Andy Biggs, Bob Good, Eli Crane, Tim Burchett, and Mace. As is well known by now, the petulant McCarthy later resigned from Congress, took his binky -- and his huge bundle of campaign cash -- and slinked home. As of the last financial reports, the spiteful California crybully still has raised more money than any House Republican, even though McCarthy himself is not running for office; that money will finance McCarthy's "Revenge Tour" in an attempt to purge the House of as many conservatives as possible.

In 2024, Mace's voting record in the House has been 100% conservative. Not 75%, not 85%, not even 99% -- 100 percent. She has earned the forgiveness of Donald Trump and regained his support; Trump gave her his blessing in March after Mace had endorsed Trump several weeks earlier.

Many voters may still be reluctant to support Mace despite:

• Her recent conversion to righteous conservatism
• Trump's endorsement
• Her critical role in dethroning Squish McCarthy
• The fact that the liberal wing of the GOP now detests her

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2024 U.S. House South Carolina People DO Change

It's both, but mainly the latter.

A few months ago we published some data pertaining to Party Unity votes in the U.S. House of Representatives for 2023. A "Party Unity" vote is one in which the parties were split, with a majority of Democrats unified in opposition to a majority of similarly determined Republicans.

Nearly all important votes in the House fit that description. Democrats normally march in just about perfect goosestep with the wishes of their party leadership; most (but hardly all) Republicans do the right thing and vote the way we would want them to.

Here is one example among many, a vote from last year. It was on a bill called the "Protection of Women and Girls in Sports Act", which would prevent male transvestites from participating in female sports. Every Democrat who voted was against that bill; every Republican who voted was in favor. In 2023, there were 463 Party Unity votes in the House.

The list we published highlighted the representatives who were the most inclined to abandon their party on a Party Unity vote. Not surprisingly, the names were almost entirely those of liberal/moderate Republicans, mostly from the Northeast or California, who helped the Democrats as often as they dared to. Many of these liberals would claim to have practical reasons for running to the left as often as they do, because they represent marginal districts and their re-election chances would be diminished if they appear to be too conservative.

• Nickel is not seeking re-election; Allred is running for U.S. Senate and another couple of Democrats who are not listed above (because they crossed party lines in only 24% of their votes) are also not seeking re-election to the House and are instead running for statewide office in either 2024 (Jeff Jackson, NC-14) or 2025 (Abby Spanbarger, VA-7).
  
  
• Peltola and Ryan were both first elected in 2022 and are therefore freshmen, but they initially won special elections and were re-elected once already, in November of 2022.
  
  
• Every one of these Democrats who are running for re-election this year are very well funded; some of them are not particularly endangered at all (Houlihan for sure, probably also Mrvan, Budzinski and some others).
  
  
• Cuellar was first elected in 2004 and was formerly thought of as a conservative Democrat -- which he sort of was, for one term. He has spent most of the past several years as a reliable leftist, but has lurched back toward the center in 2024. Cuellar's ethical/legal troubles may have something to do with him trying to salvage his former reputation as a non-liberal; a corrupt centrist (even a fake centrist) has a better chance in TX-28 than a corrupt liberal would. If Cuellar were a Republican, he'd have been expelled by now.

Photo credit: ABC News

There is no such phenomena in the Senate of Democrats feeling the need to fake to the center. The most (allegedly) endangered Senate Democrats are remaining on the far left, and not even glancing toward the center much less moving in that direction. Their scores on Party Unity votes:

• Jon Tester (MT): 83%
• Sherrod Brown (OH): 86%
• Jacky Rosen (NV): 89%

Photo credit: womenzmag.com

On the other hand, the usual Republican suspects -- who are not even up for re-election this year so we're stuck with them -- are still cheerfully voting with the Democrats and against their own party a significant portion of the time:

• Susan Collins (ME): 55% voted with Democrats
• Lisa Murkowski (AK): 54%
• Lindsey Graham (SC): 32%

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2024 U.S. House Scared Democrats? Fakers

Photo credit: Mike Braun For Indiana

In the state of Indiana on May 7, the Republican primaries all went as expected although one outcome was successfully influenced by a considerable amount of out-of-state money being spent by single-issue groups in order to defeat a certain GOP candidate.

In the high-profile gubernatorial primary, moderate-conservative U.S. Senator Mike Braun easily defeated a collection of viable opponents; these included current Lieutenant Governor Suzanne Crouch, state Commerce Secretary Brad Chambers and businessman Eric Doden. In the weeks before the primary, the liberal media frequently cried about how horribly conservative all of these candidates were, leaving the impression for the good citizens of Indiana that any of them would make a fine Governor. Braun won with 39.5% of the vote in the 6-candidate field, with Crouch coming in a distant second with 21.7%. Braun won every county but three.

Braun's opponent in November is virulent Trump-hater Jennifer McCormick. McCormick was once elected -- as a Republican -- in a fluke in 2016, happily riding the coattails of the President she hates to an upset win over the incumbent Superintendent of Public Instruction in Indiana; the office was then abolished by the state legislature in 2019. McCormick switched parties in 2021 and has become the consummate liberal Democrat, attempting to appeal to voters on the basis of favoring unrestricted abortions, radical environmentalism, and of course more taxpayer money for left-wing teachers' unions. McCormick was unopposed in the Democrat primary. She starts the general election campaign well behind in the polls; she will finish the campaign there too.

Squishy state legislators won GOP primaries in CD-1 and CD-8. CD-1 (Gary, Hammond, Michigan City, most of LaPorte) hardly matters because the incumbent Democrat is easily going to win again in November.

Photo credit: AIPAC

In CD-8, ex-Congressman John Hostettler was trying to reclaim the seat he lost 18 years ago. Hostettler wasn't exactly a paragon of arch-conservatism during his time in Washington, but he was OK and he'd be better than state Senator Mark Messmer who at one time was a conservative but is now a total squish. Hostettler was branded as "anti-Jewish" and was opposed by the extremely wealthy Israel Lobby (groups such as the "Republican Jewish Coalition" and "United Democracy Project"). Over $2 million of their money went into this single U.S. House primary with the goal of electing the more liberal Republican. Messmer won with nearly 40% of the vote while Hostettler (who was endorsed by Rand Paul and Charlie Kirk) came up just short of 20% in the field of eight. Money talks, and in this contest it absolutely shrieked. One wonders just how much these particular special interest groups are spending to oust anti-Israel Democrats from Congress; there aren't any shortage of those, but these groups seem to be giving them a free pass.

In CD-5, incumbent moderate Victoria Spartz lately hasn't been too bad on issues aside from ones related to Ukraine. She alone in the U.S. House at least has a personal reason to keep funneling billions of dollars of U.S. taxpayer money to that thoroughly corrupt rathole -- she is from the Ukraine. Spartz had initially decided not to run for re-election this year, and was probably lured back out of GOPe fear that a true conservative would win her district. And one would have, too. Spartz narrowly prevailed over conservative state House member Chuck Goodrich by just 6% (39% to 33%). Max Engling came in third, taking 10% of the conservative vote away from Goodrich, more than enough to alter the outcome. There were 6 lesser candidates seeking the nomination as well.

Jim Baird in CD-4 is an elderly RINO joke but Trump bypassed conservative challenger Charles Bookwalter and endorsed the incumbent since Baird was 98% certain to win the primary based on name recognition and a mere 7:1 advantage in money. Nevermind that the actual conservative would have been 98% certain to win in November too seeing as how Democrats don't even bother with this district. Trump rarely, if ever, passes up a safe RINO incumbent, and at least Baird didn't vote for Trump's impeachment (which is probably all that mattered in this case).

The CD-3 seat is open in 2024 because incumbent Jim Banks is running for the Senate; he was unopposed in the primary and will win easily in November, giving Indiana an actual conservative there alongside his moderate-liberal GOP colleague Todd Young. Conservative ex-congressman Marlin Stutzman (last elected in 2014) attempted to reclaim his old seat, and succeeded in this hotly-contested primary. Four different candidates won at least one county in this northeastern Indiana district which includes Fort Wayne. Conservative Tim Smith was the leading challenger to Stutzman, taking 22.6% to the winner's 24.2%. Stutzman had numerous endorsements from current and former congressmen. Moderates Wendy Davis and state Senator Andy Zay came home third and fourth, combining for over 35% of the vote. Grant Bucher was fifth at 10.3% but he actually won two small counties. Stutzman is heavily favored to return to Congress in November after he defeats unknown and unfunded liberal Kiley Adolph, who predictably won the Democrat primary on the basis of being a female who was running against a male.

In Maryland on May 14, liberal women swept the Democrat primaries for open seats in the U.S. Senate and House districts 3 and 6. We've already profiled the Senate contest, and as far as House races only the primary in CD-6 was of any significant interest to Republicans; it's their one slim chance of picking up a Democrat-held House seat in Maryland, where liberals currently occupy 7 of the 8 districts thanks in at least a couple of cases to hyper-partisan Democrat gerrymandering. CD-6 is the most gerrymandered of them all.

On Tuesday in that district, 2022 gubernatorial candidate/sacrificial lamb Dan Cox ran against perennial candidate Neil Parrott in the GOP primary. Both are conservatives. Parrott was victorious by 47% to 30%, and this will be his third consecutive try to take the 6th district. He'll be facing the wife of former congressman John Delaney, an ultra-liberal who won three terms here (2012, 2014, 2016) due solely to the harsh gerrymander implemented by the veto-proof Democrat legislature in 2011.

When the district maps were redrawn that year, CD-6 was shifted a whopping 16 points to the left by adding execrable areas of Montgomery County to the nice counties in the panhandle west of Frederick. The district was moved slightly back towards the center (7 points) in 2021. Still, Trump lost the redistricted area in 2020 by almost 10 points (instead of the 23 points by which he lost in CD-6 as it stood prior to redistricting). As of 2022, Democrats still have a 6.5% edge in voter registrations here, and it appears that "independents" regularly break left too. The Cook PVI for CD-6 claims it's only D+2, which seems like a crock given recent presidential & House election results. Furthermore, Parrott's chances in the general election are hardly enhanced by the sizable financial advantage which the liberal feminist Democrat has here. Given that this open district is not totally a lost cause, the RNC may eventually decide to toss a few dollars in Parrott's direction.

Photo credit: bacon.house.gov

Nebraska: the state-level GOP organization which, according to surely unbiased media reports, "was taken over by those loyal to former President Donald Trump during a contentious state convention" -- that happened back in 2022 -- decided to oppose (or ignore) all 5 of the Republican incumbents who were running for federal office. This is quite good since pretty much all 5 incumbents are squishes, but unfortunately the tactic proved to be utterly ineffective. For one thing, actions (especially $$$) speak far louder than words, and these were only words; the conservative challengers collectively had about $1.50 to work with here. Also, making the announcement regarding endorsements just moments before the voters had to head to the polls was a great way to make sure that as few people as possible got the message.

Nebraska has two Senate elections this year, one of which was necessitated when Trump-hater Ben Sasse fled to Florida and was replaced by Pete Ricketts, who was appointed by Governor Jim Pillen in January, 2023. The other Senator, Deb Fischer, is also up this year.

There are also 3 incumbents who are running for re-election to the House: Mike Flood in CD-1, Don Bacon in CD-2 and Adrian Smith in CD-3. Here are the lifetime American Conservative Union (ACU) ratings for these guys:

• Senator Pete Ricketts: 66% (1 year)
• Senator Deb Fischer: 81% (11 years)
• Rep. Mike Flood: 72% (2 years)
• Rep. Don Bacon: 64% (7 years)
• Rep. Adrian Smith: 85% (17 years)

The NEGOP made no endorsement in the races involving Fischer and Flood, and they endorsed challengers to Ricketts, Bacon and Smith. All 5 incumbents did face primary opposition -- such as it was.

Fischer won on Tuesday with 80% and Ricketts had 79%. Their challengers, official party support and all, didn't even rise to the "nuisance" level. Flood received 82% in his congressional primary, Smith 74% and Bacon 62%. Don Bacon enjoys his role as a rabidly anti-conservative Republican who helps the Democrats on most important issues, and he richly deserved a challenge. His challenge will come not from some destitute conservative Republican in the primary, but instead from a greasy, well-funded liberal Democrat in the general election. Far-left state Senator Tony Vargas (2023 ACU rating: 7%), who nearly defeated Bacon in 2022 is back for another crack at him and carries with him a bank account that is chock full of Democrat dollars.

The district which Bacon represents contains the city of Omaha and some of its suburbs. Omaha may not rank down there with the likes of East St. Louis, Newark, the Bronx, Detroit and similar hell-holes, but it is far from being a good area. The suburban territory is the only thing keeping Republicans afloat here -- barely. Bacon, even as far to the left as he is, is not nearly liberal enough to suit about half of the voters in CD-2. His winning margins have been 1.2% against incumbent Brad Ashford in 2016; 2.0% and 4.6% against radical leftist Democrat Kara Eastman in 2018 and 2020 (a comparatively sane liberal Democrat would have likely won in 2018, but Ashford lost the primary); and 2.6% against Vargas in 2022.

Donald Trump narrowly carried this district in 2016, by just 2.2%, and he lost it in 2020 by 6.5% (!). That loss was significant because Nebraska awards electoral votes by congressional district, and Biden was able to get an unlikely vote from Nebraska (Trump got the other 4).

CD-2 was nearly unchanged in the most recent redistricting (2021), despite the ease with which that task could have been accomplished. But the Stupid Party, which controls the legislature and the redistricting process, deliberately opted not to harm the Democrats in any way. If Trump loses in 2024 by this one electoral vote, be sure to thank cowardly Nebraska Republican legislators.

So for no good reason at all the district remains marginal; Charlie Cook rates it as dead even.

In a totally marginal district such as this, a chump like Don Bacon may be the best we can do since a 60% liberal (R) is better than a 100% liberal (D). These are districts where we must usually accept a compromise; however in other places we can certainly do better -- especially in a state like Nebraska. Politicians like Ricketts, Flood and Fischer are clearly not the best we can do.

Keep in mind that what we conservatives think is "better" is terrifying and loathsome to the GOP establishment. Not because they might lose, but because they might win. Which brings us to:

Photo credit: National Review

West Virginia, where energetic conservative Senate candidate Alex Mooney was swamped by doddering moderate Governor Jim Justice in Tuesday's Senate primary as was expected. "Terrifying and loathsome" is pretty much how the GOPe would describe Mooney. We'd describe him as "conservative". The GOPe would agree, and that's their main problem with the 5-term congressman.

Mooney was the first prominent Republican to enter the race against vulnerable Democrat incumbent Joe Manchin, who later tucked his tail between his legs, chose not to run for re-election and went on to briefly pretend that he could become President (or at least stop Donald Trump from being President, which is the most important thing to liberals and fake centrists).

The GOPe, namely Mitch McConnell and Steve Daines (his little toady who runs the NRSC) flew into a panic and dragged Governor Justice into the race by appealing to his ego, thus creating a potentially divisive primary, which is the kind of thing they claim to abhor -- when it suits them.

The latest results show Justice with 61.8% of the vote, while Mooney received 26.5%. Five others collected approximately 12%. With nothing to vote for on the Democrat side, since electable Democrats are all but extinct in the Mountain State (some, like Jim Justice, now label themselves as Republicans), numerous Democrats undoubtedly crossed over and voted in the Republican primary.

Mooney had the support and the endorsements of prominent conservatives like Rand Paul, Mike Lee, Ted Cruz and ex-Senator Jim DeMint; Justice had some semi-conservative endorsements (Marsha Blackburn, Tom Cotton), some moderate-liberal endorsements (Mitch McConnell, Shelley Capito [whose politician-son endorsed Mooney], Lindsey Graham) and some misguided endorsements from alleged conservatives (Donald Trump).

In the end, Justice also had the votes. West Virginia is now a very solidly Republican state; like many others which fit that description, it is in no way a solidly conservative state.

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Photo credit: AP Photo/Susan Walsh

As expected, there was no drama in the Republican Senate primary, where former Governor Larry Hogan won the low-turnout contest by over 30 percentage points. The stakes were higher on the Democrat side, where ultra-liberal billionaire congressman David Trone, who represents western Maryland, faced ultra-liberal county executive Angela Alsobrooks, who hails from the deep, dark jungle of Prince George's County.

Trone got started in politics by taking advantage of his massive wealth and the heavy partisan Democrat gerrymander in Maryland's 6th district to purchase (at a cost of over $17 million) a seat in Congress in the anti-Republican year of 2018, and he held it by decreasing margins in the next two elections. The 96% liberal Trone tries to portray himself as a moderate every couple of years during his campaigns, and his idea of "fundraising" is to whip out his checkbook and calmly write a check for $10,000,000 or so to his campaign treasury.

In this Senate primary however, Trone really was the "moderate" candidate. But as a White male running against a black female, he didn't check any of the politically correct boxes which are so important in nearly all Democrat primary elections, and so he never really had a chance. Trone lost by approximately 54% to 42%, in what Republican strategists have classified as a nasty and divisive primary which they hope will have lasting effects through November; it rarely happens that way on the left, and surely won't be allowed in an election as critical as this one.

The backgrounds of the two candidates were not nearly as similar as their comparable liberal ideologies. Even as a rich guy, Trone is not simply a Democrat trust-fund baby. He became a billionaire by founding a successful business from scratch; at one time he really was a political moderate and even donated to GOP candidates. Alsobrooks, on the other hand, has always been on the extreme left and has spent nearly her entire career in the affirmative-action public sector, at the nexus of government and politics.

Photo credit: wamu.org

Hogan, from the staunch liberal wing of the Republican party, was extremely popular in Maryland during his two terms as Governor. Democrats were as thoroughly satisfied with Hogan as Republicans were, and they made only the most token effort to oppose his re-election bid in 2018. At his election-night victory party that year, Hogan predictably gloated about how his liberalism (as opposed to Democrat apathy) had enabled him to overcome 2018's anti-Trump "blue wave". He was at least partially correct.

Democrats had veto-proof majorities or very close to it in both houses of the Maryland legislature during Hogan's entire 8 years in office, and under those conditions -- see also Vermont and Massachusetts in recent years -- liberals often have no objection to an impotent figurehead Republican as Governor, if for no other reason than to have some handy Republican to take the blame from the media and the voters when Democrat legislative policies prove to be unpopular and damaging. Hogan's gubernatorial "success" notwithstanding, a U.S. Senate seat is a far more important prize than a governorship, and Democrats damn sure aren't going to show any apathy this time around.

The liberal media has been dutifully reminding folks in Maryland that Hogan is very much an "anti-Trump" Republican. Obviously they do this not to boost Hogan in the eyes of other Trump-hating liberals; instead it is a totally transparent attempt to damage Hogan with the solid GOP base -- those who support Trump. They're probably succeeding to some extent. Hogan's win in the Senate primary yesterday was far from unanimous, with 81-year-old frequent (but hopeless) candidate Robin Ficker surprisingly outraising and outspending Hogan by a substantial margin and campaigning solidly to Hogan's right, which isn't exactly difficult. Ficker received only 30% of the Republican vote. That's still 30% who voted against Hogan. Five fringe candidates combined to take another 8% of the vote.

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Here is a review of everything important which happened in the Pennsylvania primaries yesterday.

Turnout:

D votes (presidential): about 991,000
R votes (presidential): about 944,000

People on the right who habitually search for something to be disappointed about are concerned regarding the supposedly low GOP turnout. But based on current registration figures, the percentages are:

D turnout: 25.4%
R turnout: 27.0%

The races at the top of the ballot (President, Senator) featured essentially unopposed candidates for both parties, and there was little to vote for even at the U.S. House level. Since there was basically nothing contested for the GOP anywhere, what reason would there have been for sky-high turnout on that side? Democrats had some things to vote for -- a couple of statewide offices and a couple of U.S. House races.

Photo credit: Philadelphia Inquirer / Patel campaign

The highest-profile Democrat primary in PA took place in the Democrat-gerrymandered 12th congressional district, where terrorist-supporting liberal racist Summer Lee was challenged by a slightly less liberal racist Democrat named Bhavini Patel. Lee didn't bother to campaign much at all (and now we know why) but Patel did. Aside from a minor disagreement on the subject of Israel, Patel tried to stress to her potential primary voters that she was just as hate-filled toward all the "right" things as Lee is. Despite her somnambulant campaign, Lee still outspent Patel by nearly 3:1 according to FEC data from early April, and won by about 20 points.

Months ago when Lee proudly displayed her anti-Semitism by supporting the Hamas terrorists, we considered the impact that her hate might have on this primary election. CD-12 has a substantial Jewish community which did temporarily swing to the right in November of 2023 in the local Allegheny County elections even though Lee herself had nothing directly to do with that movement. That community's financial weight is far more substantial than its voting weight, but there's no evidence that they are suddenly steering their geld to the GOP. Lee only narrowly lost Pittsburgh's heavily-Jewish 14th Ward yesterday (and will apparently win it easily in November), reflecting the fact that she still has considerable support among the more atheistic, secular, ultra-liberal, self-loathing sector of that community. The remainder of the 14th Ward opted for the lesser of the two evils.

Any incumbent who prevails by less than about 70% in a primary election is normally considered vulnerable, depending of course on the composition of the district (Lee barely attained 60%). The CD-12 result in November will probably be closer than many expect but whatever hope yesterday's outcome is generating is highly likely to be false hope. Democrats still outnumber Republicans here by more than a 2:1 ratio and the vastly underfunded Republican in the race, James Hayes, will still probably lose by a considerable amount.

Hayes is a moderate conservative -- a 100% conservative would have a 0% chance of winning this district -- but his campaign treasury contains barely enough to pay for a few yard signs, nevermind expensive media buys. Unless there is some clear evidence in the internal polling that Hayes stands any chance of coming within even 10 points of Lee in November -- which is unlikely -- the RNC is going to spend its limited resources elsewhere, mainly trying to play defense for (at least) a couple dozen vulnerable GOP incumbents. Next up is one of those districts where they are frantically trying to play defense. Or at least they should be:

Photo credit: Bill Kalina, The York Dispatch

Photo credit: glensidelocal.com

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