| 3/29/2024: [Texas] The 2024 Senate Race Has Been Called! [RightDataUSA] | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
Photo credit: ABC News (from 6 years ago, so don't get excited)
Of course it's really quite far from being over, but not according to some rando with a blog which gets posted on a site called "American Thinker". Not deep thinkers apparently, but at least they are hopeful ones and they're on the right side.
There is no reason to presume that a positive outcome here is guaranteed, and subsequent polls will definitely "confirm" that, however there are some good reasons to believe that Cruz will be re-elected: this is a presidential election year and Trump's presence on the ballot will help Cruz, unlike in the 2018 midterm when Cruz only narrowly defeated another Democrat celebutard; Allred is of course a media darling but he's a completely dim bulb; and it's hard to imagine so many tickets being split that Trump wins Texas but Cruz loses it. On the other hand, nobody can doubt that Texas is a rapidly "purpling" state (going from true blue towards commie red). This is not a recent development and has been apparent for quite some time. However what is a recent development is the increased mass invasion of Democrat voters from south of the border. The impact of that is not yet baked into political outcomes, but by November it may well be. Texas is being invaded from every direction and not just from the south, taking in refugees from all other states but particularly ones such as California, New York, Illinois, etc. which have been destroyed by a long period of thoroughly incompetent and corrupt one-party Democrat rule. Not all invaders are liberals, but the numbers strongly suggest that a majority of them are. Below is a table which shows the number of registered voters back to 2022 along with the most recent available data for 2024 for the most populous counties in the Lone Star State. Texas does not register voters by party so there is no way to determine how many of these new voters are Democrats, though some folks have methods to derive party-orientation estimates. However these are really just guesstimates and do not necessarily have a great deal of accuracy. The 12 counties in the table account for approximately 62% of all registered voters in the state. The good news is that the proportionate increase of new voters is the same statewide as it is in these dozen (mostly) leftward-trending counties, and that balance is important. At the present rate there will be a net gain of about three-quarters of a million voters in Texas by this November as compared to last November. That is a far greater increase than occurred between 2022 and 2023. But in a presidential election year, particularly one accompanied by an invasion, a larger number of registered voters is to be expected. Especially if the voter rolls are not periodically cleansed to get rid of ineligible and deceased voters.
* Projected The fastest-growing county on the list is the best one: Montgomery County, which for the time being retains a healthy Republican majority in all elections. It will continue to do so for many years to come, albeit with decreasing percentages. Rapid, massive growth is not always a good thing. When something grows rapidly inside a body it's called "cancer". Excessive growth in a good county or state always -- eventually -- has a cancerous effect too. Montgomery County has already absorbed too much detritus from adjacent Harris County (Houston) among other places, and its demographics are showing the strain. Its election results are beginning to show deterioration too; it's still very subtle at this time, but Montgomery County unquestionably has reached its peak. This doesn't mean that the county has gone insane and will begin electing Democrats anytime soon, just that its rightward motion has stopped and has begun to reverse. Montgomery County's future probably looks very much like Fort Bend County's present. It's an inviolable law of demographics that bad people always follow (and then drive out) the good people from desirable areas, until those areas are no longer desirable. Fortunately new good areas naturally arise, even farther away from the urban center. The cycle continues as, over time, the new areas are ruined as well. Like Montgomery County (except at a faster rate), the entire state of Texas has been "purpling", as anyone who actually takes the time to look can easily attest to. To see a bigger picture, we'll pull back and focus on metro areas rather than individual counties. The four metro areas which dominate the Texas landscape are:
These four areas accounted for 7,856,153 votes in the 2020 presidential election, which was 69.4% of all votes cast in the state of Texas. Trump got 3,670,374 of those votes (46.7%) and Biden received 4,056,573 (51.6%). The rest of the state outside these four urban and suburban areas gave Trump a massive 64.0% to 34.7% win. Here is the data for the 2016 presidential election:
Between 2016 and 2020 Trump went from narrowly winning the Big-4 (by 0.5%) to being demolished by 4.9%. The areas in Texas which are being invaded the heaviest -- not just via Mexico -- are the ones moving to the left the quickest. Furthermore, these urban/suburban areas increased their share of the state vote by nearly 2% (from 67.7% up to 69.4%) in 2020. Apparently turnout was relatively higher in these demographically-decaying areas than it was in the rest of Texas, or perhaps it was just easier in these urban localities for Democrat vote-counters to "find" more absentee/mail-in ballots in precincts they controlled. Either way. In the rest of Texas, Trump increased his winning margin from 26.8% to 29.3%. This dovetails with the assertion that Hispanics moved significantly towards Trump (but not necessarily all other Republicans) between 2016 and 2020. That assertion is only half-true, however. Rural Hispanics in Texas and in some other states did in fact move sharply to the right, a development which the tribe of media controllers has desperately suppressed in its (lack of) reporting since 2020. Urban and suburban Hispanics in Texas and elsewhere have shown no such rightward trend, or if they have it has been mostly inconsequential. In Texas as of 2022 there were 7,437,831 urban/suburban Hispanics in the four major metro areas out of a total of 12,068,549 Hispanics in the state -- over 61% reside in the metros. Yet they are "underrepresented" there. Texas as a whole was about 40% Hispanic, but the figure in the Big-4 was only 36.5%. In the entire rest of the state, Hispanics account for almost 50% (47.9% to be exact) of the population. Their swing to the right, even if just a temporary Trump-related phenomenon, is nice but the impact is muted by the far greater number of non-rural Hispanics who are still refusing to leave the Democrat plantation. The following tables illustrate the recent leftward lurch in the major metropolitan areas of Texas: Metro Dallas-Fort Worth:
Metro Houston:
Metro San Antonio:
Metro Austin:
Texas has voted GOP for president in every election since 1980. However as measured by its Republican presidential voting percentage as compared to the rest of the United States, it could be considered as truly "solid" blue (note proper color usage) from 1996 through 2012, based on voting around 10 points (or more) greater than the average for the GOP candidate in the country as a whole.
As of 2016 and 2020, the relative voting percentage for the GOP in presidential elections in Texas is back to where it was in the 1980's when it first flipped from Democrat to Republican. In 2020 that percentage actually declined relative to the U.S., despite the fact that rural Hispanics in Texas voted for the Party of Trump in record numbers. As of 2020 and even 2022, it's worth repeating that the dramatic Hispanic trend to the right has been very limited geographically; urban and suburban Hispanics -- in Texas or anywhere else -- are trending that direction only very slightly, if they are even moving rightward at all. Back to the future: Cruz should win the 2024 Senate election in Texas by about 5 points (plus or -- yes, possibly -- minus) and Trump should win by a little more than Cruz does. It's extremely unlikely that either one, especially Cruz, will get a 10-point margin like Greg Abbott (10.7% margin in 2022) or John Cornyn (9.6% margin in 2020) got last time they ran. It's no secret that the Rats are definitely going to lose the West Virginia Senate seat and might lose Ohio and/or Montana. Some pipe dreamers would add other states to that list. But even just flipping WV makes it a 50-50 Senate. A Trump win gives the Republicans control with the vice-president breaking the tie, depending of course on whether any liberal Republican Senate incumbents decide to bolt from the party. To digress briefly, we predicted back in 2022 that Sen. Lisa Murkowski would do exactly that if it had been necessary to deprive the Republicans of a Senate majority (it wasn't necessary, as things turned out) but now it appears that our prediction might come true a couple of years later. Don't rule out Sen. Susan Collins doing the same thing if it appears that President Trump would have a Senate that is under Republican control (oh noes!). Both of these dried-up old RINO hags are fully aware that they are in their final Senate terms and will never have to face the voters again. So 50-50 is the most realistic partisan breakdown in the Senate for 2025 as things stand now: the GOP goes +1 and maybe gets one or two more if things go unusually well in November. Texas is the one state where Democrats have any chance whatsoever of picking up a seat in the Senate. Does anyone really believe they aren't going to pull out all the stops to try to achieve that? The latest FEC reports still show the Democrat empty suit with more money to spend than the incumbent Republican. Cruz has raised a ton -- but has spent just about all of it (on what?). He'll get more, but he'll never catch Allred in terms of cash-on-hand unless he hoards all he's got and never spends it. It's not unusual at all for a Democrat to have more money to work with than a Republican. It is unusual for an incumbent Senator to trail in the financial department. The customary advantages that Democrats enjoy in all major statewide races (financial support, and across-the-board support from the "mainstream" media) still probably won't add up to a defeat for Ted Cruz this time around, but this mindless blogger chatter about some poll "confirming" that he "will" definitely win in November is extremely premature. Tags:
2024
Senate
Texas
Going Purple
Ted Cruz
3/13/2024:
[Ohio] If the presidential slate is set, will Ohio's GOP voters still show up for the U.S. Senate primary?
[Ohio Capital Journal]
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Photo credit: WCMH-TV
The photo shows the three GOP Senate candidates, Larry, Moe(reno) and Curly, during a recent debate. Leftist Matt Dolan is the stooge who is positioned on the right. Moreno isn't really a stooge of course, but he's certainly surrounded by them here. Speaking of being positioned on the right, the gaslighting article which accompanies that photo was written by an ultra-liberal NPR media twerp and therefore reads like a Dolan campaign commercial. The present: There's another three-way race in Ohio in 2024 for the Republican nomination to the U.S. Senate. Having patiently waited his turn, Moreno is back for another run and has Trump's endorsement. That endorsement was made in December but, oddly, has not resulted in a great leap forward for Moreno in the polls. The next poll after Trump's blessing actually showed Moreno with a smaller lead over liberal Dolan and moderate Ohio Secretary of State Frank LaRose. Subsequent polls did show a small bump for Bernie, however a poll which came out this morning puts Moreno down by 3 points to the liberal Dolan with many voters still undecided less than one week from election day. That poll also shows incumbent ultra-liberal Democrat Sherrod Brown winning vs. all three GOP candidates though not yet breaking 40% against any of them. Brown, like all Democrat Senate nominees in competitive states, has an astronomical advantage in campaign cash over his Republican challengers. LaRose in particular has practically nothing to work with compared to his opponents in both parties. As of the end of February, Brown had raised over $33 million with nearly $14 million of it still in the bank. Dolan and Moreno each are somewhere around $2.4 million while LaRose has the piddly total of $591,000 cash-on-hand. That's not enough to compete for a hotly-contested U.S. House race in a single district these days, nevermind trying to run a statewide campaign in Ohio on such a thin shoestring. Article author Nick Evans, evidently writing on behalf of the Dolan campaign, describes the liberal legislator as "quite conservative". This causes the remainder of the article to be read through tears of laughter by anyone who is actually familiar with Dolan. In an attempt to make Dolan palatable to other supposedly conservative Trump-haters, Evans ludicrously claims that Dolan has worked feverishly to enact the "Trump agenda" in Ohio while at the same time distancing himself from the President as much as possible. Insofar as a political candidate is known by the company he keeps, Dolan is supported by Rob Portman, the former senator and squish who is still highly regarded in RINO circles; and the highest-ranking squish in the state, wimpy Governor Mike DeWine. LaRose is doing just about as well with high-profile endorsements as he is with campaign fundraising (pretty much none at all of either one). LaRose does have the support of liberal Republican congressman Mike Turner of Dayton. Moreno not only has Trump in his corner, but also solid conservatives such as Senators Mike Lee, Ted Cruz, Rand Paul, J.D. Vance, Tommy Tuberville, Marsha Blackburn and others with whom Moreno will work as part of the opposition (non-RINO) caucus in the Senate if he is elected. He is also endorsed by bigwigs such as Jim Jordan, Kari Lake, Vivek Ramaswamy, Donald Trump Jr. and (oh well) Newt Gingrich. Like them or not, they are all conservative heavyweights or were in the past (Gingrich). Insofar as a political candidate is known by what he has actually done legislatively, here is Matt Dolan's record:
Yeah Nicky, he's quite the conservative. There is only one logical conclusion, and it's addressed to only one candidate though it's probably already too late to have a significant effect: Drop out now, Mr. LaRose, and endorse Bernie Moreno. Don't be the person responsible for giving the puppetmasters, the media, and other Democrats a win-win in November. Tags:
2024
Senate
Ohio
Moreno & the Two Stooges
Win-win for Democrats
3/4/2024:
[New York] NY Dems adopt new redistricting map with no threat of GOP lawsuit, ending 3-year saga
[Lohud]
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Photo credit: NY "Independent" Redistricting Commission
There's considerable talk about how the Democrats played nice this time by not screwing Republicans as hard as they were expected to (i.e. as hard as possible). Doddering old NYGOP chairman Ed Cox -- yes, THAT Ed Cox, Tricky Dick's son-in-law -- believes that his party was merely bent over to a small degree, therefore he has unilaterally declared that there will be no lawsuits filed against this Democrat gerrymander. As to the argument that squishes like these guys are the best we can do in marginal or left-leaning districts, sometimes it's better to keep your enemies as far away as possible rather than letting them pretend they're "team players". They may be team players, but they aren't necessarily playing for the team whose uniform they are wearing at the moment. For example: there's a liberal Republican stooge in the House from Pennsylvania by the name of Brian Fitzpatrick. He represents a marginal district in the rapidly-deteriorating suburbs of Philadelphia, and Democrats are so satisfied with this RINO that they don't seriously oppose his re-election bids. Fitzpatrick's late brother Michael once served in Congress from this same district. Michael was no conservative by any means, but at least he never forgot which party he belonged to. However in 2023 there was exactly one member of the House of Representatives who voted against his own party more often than he voted with his party. That turncoat was Brian Fitzpatrick, who, over 50% of the time, voted exactly the way the Democrats wanted him to vote. Last week, Brian came in for some flattery from the liberal media when he stated that he and several like-minded traitors in the so-called "bipartisan Problem Solvers Caucus" were preparing some shenanigans to do an end-run around Speaker Mike Johnson unless the reluctant Speaker permits a vote on a bill which would send even more American money to the corrupt Democrat money-laundering regime known as "Ukraine". This must happen, so say the RINO scum, without any linkage to legislation which would address real problems of actual concern to the good people of America -- like the unabated sewage flowing north from Mexico which will adversely affect our economy and the integrity (LOL) of our elections. If the Democrat coup is successful in November, look for this traitor to collect his 30 pieces of silver and switch over to the new majority party in the House. BTW, the filing deadline in PA has passed and Fitzpatrick has no viable primary challenger (just one woefully underfunded opponent) and the same Democrat loser who ran halfheartedly in 2022 is running again, albeit with more money this time. So "prymarry hiz azz!!!" isn't going to work this time around; it rarely ever works at all. Speaking of liberal credentials, guess which "Republican" supported President Alzheimer the most in 2022? Actually Fitzpatrick was only second on that list. Number 1 was the late (but not lamented) drooling Trump-hater Adam Kinzinger, who supported the Biden agenda fully 80% of the time with his votes in the House. Here are the 2023 Party Unity scores for the Dirty Dozen who top the RINO charts:
By way of contrast, Santos, whom many of his GOP colleagues abhorred and voted to expel back in December, voted with his party 92% of the time in 2023. He also voted the conservative position on 91% of key votes according to our calculations, so you can see why RINOs and other liberals wouldn't want him around. We'll post Santos' American Conservative Union score along with the scores of all other Congressmen and Senators if that organzation ever gets around to releasing its 2023 ratings of Congress. Of the 25 representatives who deviated from their party most often last year, 24 of them were Republicans. This helps explain why even with a (miniscule and getting smaller) numerical majority in the House, Republicans do not truly have "control". The same phenomenon applies in many state legislatures, particularly out West, where the GOP appears to have tremendous numerical advantages. Those tremendous advantages are often caused by Democrats masquerading as Republicans in order to get elected -- and then, to their delight, these Democrats discover that as moderates/liberals they are comfortably in line with the ideological majority in their GOP caucuses. There was only one House Democrat in 2023, Jared Golden of Maine (72%), who was disunited from the rest of his Democrat comrades at a similar level to those Republicans who are listed above. He represents a Republican-leaning district which voted twice for President Trump but has also voted 3 times for Golden. Between his ability to fool a sufficient number of constituents into thinking that he's a moderate, and having Rigged Choice Voting around to save him when necessary, Golden has managed to be continually re-elected. Maybe that will change when he faces former NASCAR driver and current freshman Maine legislator Austin Theriault in November. Don't get your hopes up too high though; Golden currently has nearly 5 times the amount of money as his Republican challenger. As anyone who looks at candidate financial reports can easily discern, 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. We're probably going to see more evidence of that in 2024 than ever before. Tags:
2024
U.S. House
New York
Democrat gerrymander
Say goodbye to Speaker Johnson
2/10/2024:
[Montana] Creating a 'Divisive Primary': NRSC Chair Blasts Rosendale's Senate Run
[Townhall]
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Photo credit: townhall.com
Confirming what had been rumored for months, conservative two-term congressman Matt Rosendale on Friday announced his entry into the Montana Senate race against ultra-liberal Democrat Jon Tester -- and the GOP establishment is absolutely irate at this development.
If divisive primaries truly are such a bad thing as Daines is whining, then he has apparently adopted another typical Democrat trait here: hypocrisy. In West Virginia, conservative Congressman Alex Mooney declared his Senate run against Joe Manchin back in November, 2022, long before Manchin chickened out and elected to run away, rather than run for re-election. Guess who suddenly decided that a "divisive primary" would be a good thing? That's right, Steve Daines, Mitch McConnell and the rest of the simps who control the Senate GOP. These cowards panicked and ran to doddering old moderate Governor Jim Justice, desperately begging him to run against Mooney and promising him lavish support if he would do so. The GOPe's purchase of the ex-Democrat Governor was finalized in April of 2023, six months after Mooney announced his run. There are several other pissant-level candidates in the Republican primary, but Mooney would have been effectively unopposed for the Senate nomination; that was a prospect which clearly terrified the establishment. Perhaps due to Justice's late start, Mooney -- with zero support from the party puppetmasters -- has actually outraised his moderate opponent and has more cash-on-hand as of the most recent financial reports. Continuing his string of blundering and inexplicable endorsements, Trump had already endorsed the moderate candidate in West Virginia and then made a deliberate point -- just moments after conservative Rosendale announced in Montana -- of blundering again and endorsing Sheehy. Perhaps Trump admires successful businessmen who (like himself) are not overly conservative. Plus an affinity for political neophytes and dilettantes, such as the supposedly "Electable Dr. Oz" in Pennsylvania. Other party bigwigs also felt the jerk of the puppet strings yesterday and jumped into line behind Sheehy following Rosendale's apostasy. They include Governor Kristi Noem of South Dakota and pathetically ineffective House Speaker Mike Johnson (R-LA). Johnson had originally promised to support Rosendale, but then he received new marching orders and immediately reneged on that promise. A poll taken last year when Rosendale was merely considering getting into the race against Tester showed that he had much stronger support among Republican primary voters than Sheehy did. This is starting to add up to another "Oz" situation: Sheehy isn't a bad person but he's in way over his head here and all the establishment money in the world isn't likely to save him. Republicans don't have all the money in the world anyway -- but Democrats sure seem to. Tester currently has over $11 million to work with, while neither Rosendale nor the wealthy moderate businessman have as much as $2 million. Even with Trump's Golden Endorsement, Electable Oz barely made it out of the Senate primary in PA in 2022. Sheehy has a good chance to not get even that far. If Rosendale wins the primary despite all of the establishment supporting his rival, we'll see where the GOP money goes then. Our guess is that it will dry up completely, proving once again that in any contest between an ultra-liberal Democrat and a conservative Republican, the GOPe prefers the former every time. In this case, Senate control be damned. Tags:
2024
Senate
Montana
Matt Rosendale
Irate establshment
Blundering endorsements
2/8/2024:
Final 2023 campaign finance reports -- Democrats way ahead in the key races
[RightDataUSA]
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[The image is backwards -- the big money is, as always, on the left. The amount on the right is whatever Ronna McRomney at the RNC can spare from her lipstick and botox fund.]
In every single case the Democrats have a large amount of cash on hand; in only 2 districts (CA-49 and NC-1) are the Republican challengers, even if they pooled their money -- coming close. Now let's take a look at some races where those factors do not always hold. Republican incumbents:
Note: A GOP challenger to Gonzales has $587,000, which is fantastic. Gonzales, who is for all intents and purposes a Democrat (which is why they aren't bothering to oppose his re-election bid), needs to be eliminated in a primary election. Unlike the Democrats who are facing potentially stiff competition this year, some Republicans in similar circumstances are coming up short. Predictably, the shortfall is hitting conservative incumbents the hardest: Perry, Luna and Schweikert. Luna for the time being is not in any danger but the other two are severely threatened and have a significant probability of losing. The party establishment won't shed a single tear if that happens. In addition, Democrat challengers as a group are much better-funded than Republican challengers to Democrat incumbents. We noted last March that the list of vulnerable GOP House members was, on average, more endangered than their liberal counterparts. Campaign finance is a major reason why that statement is true. The next level of competitive House seats are several of the ones which have no incumbent, primarily due to retirements. Open seats:
The determination as to which party controls the House after 2024 will be largely -- but not quite entirely -- made in the districts we have highlighted in the 3 tables shown above. First off, black-robed tyrants have already dictated a shift of one seat from Republicans to Democrats in Louisiana, and will likely achieve the same thing in Alabama. Republicans have no chance of holding the Louisiana district and only a small chance of retaining the affected Alabama seat. Similar shenanigans may play out in South Carolina and elsewhere before November. For example: New York Democrats, who already had a favorable district map in 2022, are going to gerrymander harder and turn all of those merely "vulnerable" New York GOP-held seats listed above into guaranteed flips. And then try for even more. Same thing in Wisconsin, where Democrats got the map they wanted in 2022 but are going to use their new dictatorial state Supreme Court power to gerrymander the state in their favor to an even greater extent. Specifically in the crosshairs when that happens will be Republicans Derrick Van Orden (WI-3) and Brian Steil (WI-1). Taken all together, these moves will more than offset the undoing of the Democrat gerrymander in North Carolina, where Republicans are set to gain 3 seats -- mainly by simply reclaiming a pair of districts which Democrat judges stole from them in 2020 and continued to hold hostage in 2022.  Here's how things stack up on the Senate side, in any state which could possibly be competitive: Arizona: ("Independent" incumbent) Kyrsten Sinema (I) $10.596 million, Ruben Gallego (D) $6.542 million, Kari Lake (R) $1.083 million. Neither Sinema as a phony independent nor her equally greasy Democrat colleague are facing any primary opposition and can keep their powder dry until the general election campaign. Lake will face at least one primary opponent, and the Hanoi John McCain wing of the AZGOP will oppose her both in that primary and again in November. Just as they did in 2022. Florida: (R incumbent) Rick Scott (R) $3.172 million, Debbie Mucarsel-Powell (D) $1.544 million. The best the Rats could do in Florida was to exhume some hyphenated one-term fluke ex-Congresswoman who should lose by at least 10 points to Scott. But the race isn't necessarily going to be as easy as the Republicans seem to think, and note the paltry amount Scott currently has to work with -- in a massive state like Florida -- as compared to what some D incumbents in much smaller states like Nevada and Montana have. Michigan: (D incumbent) Elissa Slotkin (D) $6.021 million, several hopeless Republicans ~$2.5 million combined. Democrats got off to a quick start here with Debbie Stabenow announcing her retirement very early, and they've parlayed that into a huge war chest. Republicans have stumbled out of the gate, with a pair of failed ex-Congressmen (Mike Rogers, Justin Amash) leading the dreary GOP field. Police chief James Craig has apparently thrown his hat into the ring and should gallop past his rivals shortly. Slotkin is hardly a strong candidate but as things stand now there's every chance that she'll have a Senate career as long as Stabenow somehow did despite accomplishing nothing aside from being a reliable ultra-liberal puppet. Montana: (D incumbent) Jon Tester (D) $11.223 million, Tim Sheehy (R) $1.266 million. Matt Rosendale (R) has $1.672 million in his House campaign account, but it's looking like he's about to defy his party's liberal establishment and jump into the Senate race! Sheehy, as the presumptive Republican candidate up to now, has been facing a barrage of negative ads from the Tester campaign, along with the negative coverage he gets from the media free of charge to the Democrats. Rosendale's going to get that treatment too of course, but he's run statewide campaigns before and should know exactly what he's up against -- and maybe even how to beat it. Nevada: (D incumbent) Jacky Rosen (D) $10.650 million, Sam Brown $1.729 million. Brown was runner-up in the GOP Senate primary in 2022, to perennial loser Adam Laxalt. If/when Brown racks up another high-profile loss or two (one is probably coming in November) he can join Laxalt and Danny Tarkanian in the NVGOP Hall of Shame. OTOH, polls keep alleging that Trump is beating President Alzheimer in Nevada, and in the event those polls are accurate then there could be a coattail effect. It may be close, but the Republican record in close elections in Nevada isn't anything to brag about. Ohio: (D incumbent) Sherrod Brown (D) $14.614 million, 3 GOP challengers combined ~$7.63 million. Another one that's going to be close in November. It's going to be close in next month's primary too. Trump's endorsement of Bernie Moreno should propel him to victory but it may be a very fractious win, with the Frank Larose and -- especially -- Matt Dolan camps possibly failing to unite behind Moreno afterwards. Don't be surprised if Dolan, among others in the GOPe, endorses Brown instead of Moreno or simply sits it out through November. Pennsylvania: (D incumbent) Bob Casey (D) $9.438 million, Dave McCormick (R) $4.179 million. McCormick can't possibly do any worse than Oz in PA, can he? It's about time for someone to give the Casey pup the boot; incredible though it seems, Empty Suit Casey is actually the dumber of the two PA senators. Texas: (R incumbent) Ted Cruz (R) $6.176 million, Colin Allred (D) $10.106 million. If you look at only the amounts raised and spent so far, you'd conclude that Cruz is cruz-ing to another Senate term. But as we've mentioned previously, whatever Cruz has spent all those millions on isn't helping him much. Now he's behind in cash-on-hand and is likely to stay there; hopefully that won't matter. One recent poll has Cruz back on top by about 10 points, as he should be, as opposed to another recent (outlier?) poll which had him only up by 2. Some are assuming that Allred is going to have to spend a good portion of his current cash in a contentious Democrat primary. That's not very likely to be necessary; the primary ought to be a breeze, even for a dull candidate whose "celebrity" status is all (aside from lots of $$$$) he has going for him. Wisconsin: (D incumbent) Tammy Baldwin (D) $8.036 million, the GOP has nothing, not even a viable candidate yet. Just because the filing deadline and primary dates are comparatively late in the election season doesn't mean the Republicans should be wasting time -- but they are. The standard-bearer will almost certainly end up being either Sheriff David Clarke or businessman Eric Hovde. The second tier would be ex-LG Rebecca Kleefisch or another businessman, Kevin Nicholson. None of those four are officially in the race yet, and none are exactly heavyweights though any of them would be acceptable. An ultra-liberal like Baldwin, whose only political "qualification" is her sexual deviance (forgive us for that mental image) should not be unbeatable in a marginal state like this. If this were California, sure. But not Wisconsin. West Virginia (D incumbent) Alex Mooney (R) $1.766 million (!), Jim Justice (RINO) $1.230 million. The conservative "kid" is out-raising the doddering old moderate who is backed by all of the liberal movers & shakers in the GOP leadership? How is this possible? There's no point in even mentioning Democrat chances here, because they haven't got any. If Mooney wins the primary, no amount of GOPe backstabbing is going to stop him from being elected in November -- which is why they'll spare no expense to stop Mooney in the primary. WV's mega-squish Senator, Shelley Moore Capito, will take the lead on that project. Solidly Republican West Virginia already has one RINO senator; it doesn't need two. We'll update these races and any other competitive ones as the year goes along. The next batch of FEC reports are due at the end of the first quarter, and of course there will also be non-financial factors which steer the probable outcome in one direction or the other. Money alone does not determine the outcome of an election. If it did, no Republican would ever win a Senate election except in states where Democrats don't bother trying. Nor would they win anything other than the very safest House districts. But in marginal districts or states, when one candidate (the Democrat) has a sizable financial advantage -- close to 3:1 or greater -- it is rare for the underdog (the Republican) to come out on top. We'll see over the next few months whether these sizable deficits Republicans are facing grow or shrink. Tags:
2024
U.S. House
Senate
Democrat $ advantages
1/28/2024:
[Ohio] Trump ally rises as top GOP candidate against Ohio's Sherrod Brown
[The Hill]
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The headline is premature since no polls (yet) show what the title claims. But it's never too early for the liberal media to begin focusing their attacks on a Republican candidate, and tying one to Trump is -- they think -- a winning strategy. It usually is, but not always. Like just two years ago in Ohio, for example.
In 2022 Senate races in North Carolina and Ohio the anointed Democrats were basically unopposed in their primaries and were very well-supported financially; unlike GOP Senate candidates everywhere, who were drastically outspent. The Rats lost those two races anyway, but did (almost) everything possible to win them. In the 2020 Senate elections they cleared the field in Colorado, Georgia twice and North Carolina, were fully united, and picked up 3 of those 4 seats. In 2018 the same applied to Arizona and Nevada and both were successful pickups. Now in 2024 the liberal GOP establishment is, as usual, ramming "moderates" down our throats and marginalizing the supporters of "can't-win" conservatives in West Virginia and Montana and to some extent Ohio, which are the only three states where Republicans have a viable chance of flipping Senate seats from D to R. WV is a sure pickup no matter who the Republicans nominate (they still greatly prefer the squishy old Governor over the young conservative Rep.) and MT and OH are tossups at best. In Ohio, with pro-abortionist/anti-2A state senator Matt Dolan clearly on the left no matter what fakes to the center his campaign tries, and Bernie Moreno supposedly on the right, Secretary of State Frank Larose is in the middle and will be the deciding factor in the GOP Senate primary -- can he take enough votes to win, and if he doesn't quite accomplish that then which of the other two candidates does he steal the most from to deprive them of the win? Does he split the center-right vote and make Dolan the nominee, or does he split the center-left vote and inadvertently help Moreno? Dolan, a la Nikki Haley, will beg for (and get) support from Democrat interlopers voting in the Republican primary; that is a scheme which he also used in 2022. The most recent poll in this race is over a month old and favors Moreno -- but with merely 22% for him, and 44% still undecided. None of the three frontrunners are remotely close to pulling away from the others yet, and that may never happen unless one drops out. Larose is currently coming up way short in the money battle, but even Dolan and Moreno combined have less campaign cash-on-hand than liberal incumbent Democrat Sherrod Brown. Trump endorsed Moreno back in December, a few days before Christmas. Trump's blessing is usually good as gold in a primary (and normally a lead balloon in all but the safest general elections, cherry-picked "winning percentage" aside), and no polls have apparently been taken since that endorsement of Moreno. Bernie ought to get a nice bump in the next one. If or when he becomes the clear favorite however, the media will begin to savage him even harder than the linked article at the top of this commentary does. Tags:
2024
Senate
Ohio
Bernie Moreno for the win!
1/21/2024:
14 House Democrats Vote To Denounce Biden Admin's Open-Borders Policies
[Daily Wire]
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Photo credit: Getty Images
The vote earlier this week involved "Denouncing the Biden administration's open-borders policies, condemning the national security and public safety crisis along the southwest border, and urging President Biden to end his administration's open-borders policies." Here is a link to the text of the resolution: House Resolution 957. Since there is no substance whatsoever to this resolution, it's all about the propaganda value. Numerous articles popped up immediately in the liberal media, with titles which contain words like "denounce" and "rebuke" with regard to the Biden administration. The titles sound as if they're documenting some huge legislative setback for the White House and imply that stopping the invasion now has bipartisan support and progress is going to be made. Hardly. The real story -- the only story -- in these articles concerns praise for the 14 courageous Democrat souls who openly rebuffed their party leaders in the House and stood up to be counted on the side of Mom, Apple Pie and America. We've written about tactical voting on several occasions here. That occurs when certain Democrat plantation slaves who represent marginal districts in the House of Representatives are permitted to briefly leave the plantation. There is no defiance of authority, there is no courage and there certainly is no sincerity in those tightly choreographed and controlled performances. These 14 leftists did not march into the office of House minority leader Hakeem Homeboy and register any pleas or issue any demands; they were simply told how they would be allowed to vote on this resolution. The only reason that more Rats were not allowed to openly support this charade was that the puppetmasters did not wish to dilute the "courage" angle in the media; it takes no courage to be part of a mob. Democrat leaders selected a handful of members who needed to shore up their shaky support at home. A different group of vulnerable Democrats will get its chance to fake to the center during a risk-free vote on some other day. So what the oh-so-clever Republican majority actually ended up accomplishing here was to give certain potentially endangered Democrats a golden opportunity to grandstand without having to put even one dime's worth of money where their mouths are. Now the obedient liberal media lapdogs portray them as heroes for their courageous inconsequential votes. You can't buy that kind of positive coverage, but the liberal media -- with Republican assistance in this case -- can give it to you for free. Let's see how these 14 vote when it truly counts for something like the upcoming impeachment attempt of the smarmy incompetent (or just corrupt) Biden administration official pictured at the top of this commentary. There won't be any defections then, just a 100% united Democrat party marching in perfect goosestep as usual. Here is a table which displays data pertaining to the districts of these valiant heroes. It reveals the reason for this sudden deviation from Democrat orthodoxy.
You may have noticed that one of these things is not like the others. We'll come back to that. The districts represented by the Fearless Fourteen are marginal or even Republican-leaning, and 8 of the 14 are represented by freshmen whose prospects for re-election this year are (or were) tenuous. Some notes about this motley crew:
The one Democrat on the above chart who is not from any marginal district is ex-pro football player Colin Allred, who played linebacker for four years with the Tennessee Titans and stood on the sidelines most of the time, starting a total of 2 games. CNN nonetheless refers to him as an "NFL star" because of course they do. The link is good for a laugh. Allred first won election to the House in the anti-Trump annihilation of 2018 when the Rats gained a few dozen seats in Congress. They gained two of those seats in Texas, in similar suburban districts (one near Houston, and Allred's district near Dallas) which were in the process of going into the toilet demographically. Republican redistricters in 2022 abandoned any hope of gaining back either of these deteriorating areas and conceded them to the Democrats for at least the remainder of this decade. The GOP reluctantly fielded a candidate but didn't spend a single dollar against Allred in '22. Allred didn't vote for HRes 957 on principle (oh, please) nor was he concerned about his re-election chances because he isn't even running for re-election. Instead he's Beto O'Rourke 2.0 -- the 2024 celebrity Democrat challenger to Ted Cruz for a Senate seat and the new darling of the Hollywood left and other wealthy lunatics. Allred's voting record in Congress is impeccably liberal, rare fakes (like this one) to the center notwithstanding, and he has the full support of the Democrat Money Machine. Ted Cruz has faced and defeated unqualified liberal dilettantes before, and he is no stranger to fundraising either. He has raised -- but already spent -- millions of dollars in this election cycle. The Democrat cash registers have hardly opened yet, however Allred has more cash on hand than Cruz. Whatever Cruz has spent $35,000,000 on so far (and that was just through September), it's not working. A poll from earlier this week shows Cruz up only 42% to 40% over his empty-suit opponent. That same poll shows accurate-looking results in the presidential matchup (Trump over Biden by 8 to 10 points, but under 50% overall) so intelligent people cannot easily shrug it off and the emotionally frail ignore it at their own risk. Trump is certain to win Texas if he is the nominee, likely with over 50% but surely nothing remotely approaching a landslide. Cruz should receive help from Trump's coattails to drag him across the finish line; he may very well need that help. The Rats won't be spending much in the Lone Star State on the presidential race because they can't win one of those races here (yet) and more pertinently because they don't need to win it. However they will be going all-in on the Senate election, and more data to back up that fact will be available shortly when the FEC releases its 2023 year-end campaign data. Tags:
U.S. House
2024
Senate
Texas
Ted Cruz
vs. "NFL star"
GOP saves endangered baby Rats
1/19/2024:
[New York] 'She's a killer': Trump eyes Rep. Elise Stefanik as a potential VP pick
[NBC News]
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Photo credit: ANNA MONEYMAKER/THE NEW YORK TIMES VIA REDUX
We like her aggressive attitude. Stefanik's voting record has taken a noticeable jump to the right in recent years, but that is not as impressive an accomplishment as it may sound; we'll explain below. In her first two terms (2015-2018) she voted the conservative position on key issues 37% of the time which is an abysmal rating for any Republican. In her next term at the end of the first Trump administration (2019-2020) she improved to 58% which is somewhat less abysmal but still quite weak. From 2021-2022 Stefanik voted the right way 73% of the time. All of those percentages are based on key votes as determined by the American Conservative Union (ACU). They have not yet released their data for 2023, but we here at RightDataUSA.com have identified 34 key votes from last year -- a greater number than the ACU normally focuses on per year -- and Stefanik grades out at 88% (!). She will probably get a correspondingly high figure from the ACU when they get around to calculating one for 2023.  Why is Stefanik's improvement not as impressive as it looks? During the Trump and Biden administrations, the Democrats have become more polarized -- and polarizing -- than ever before. They vote in perfect lockstep on nearly every issue except for when certain members are allowed to dissent for tactical purposes. In response most Republicans, even ones with long-term liberal tendencies like Elise Stefanik, have found themselves voting in opposition to Democrats as a bloc too. As a result, Republican ratings have become almost as extreme as Democrat ratings. Nearly all House Democrats have conservative ratings near 0%. Anything even as high as 10% is rare (it's mainly those "tactical" votes). Democrat polarization has been customary for decades and is not something that only began with Trump in the White House; their extremism gained momentum with the extinction of that species of politician known as "Conservative Democrat". Even "Moderate Democrat" is highly endangered and practically extinct now. Its population is down to a small handful. But "Liberal Republican" and "Moderate Republican" have generally been as healthy as ever. There are GOP Senators like Susan Collins, Lisa Murkowski and Light Loafers Lindsey Graham who vote more with the Democrats than with their own party. Even Mitt Romney doesn't do that. Such a thing as a Democrat voting mostly with the GOP is unheard of. No, not even Joe Manchin at his grandstanding finest; he's not even close to doing that anymore. "Independent" Kyrsten Sinema? Get real. Sinema voted 95% of the time with her fellow Democrats in 2023. She's a total IINO (Independent in Name Only). However many Republicans are clustering in the 90-100% conservative range on key votes at a rate higher than usual. This is a very recent development and does not even go back as far as the Trump days. All of that notwithstanding, Stefanik is still quite an unusual case. It's as if she's strategically trying to position herself as a VP candidate by showing that she can act as a conservative if necessary. Hers is not a normal progression for a member of Congress. A Republican from a relatively safe House district often starts out as an enthusiastic conservative bent on keeping the campaign promises he made. As time goes on the Representative normally caves in to the Uniparty establishment and moves to the left -- "going along to get along" -- otherwise career advancement is impossible. Not only that, if someone sticks to his principles he is merely asking for disillusionment and frustration: frustration as he sees his legislative objectives watered down or failing entirely; frustration as he sees even his most patriotic colleagues corrupted by lobbyists and big-$$$$$ anti-conservative campaign contributors; and frustrated by that Beltway Culture which keeps him permanently on the outside unless he waives those principles he brought to D.C. with him -- "no fancy Georgetown cocktail party invitations for you, Neanderthal!" Furthermore, with rare exceptions such as Jim Jordan, you do not get to be in the Republican Party leadership or advance towards it unless you are a squish. Stefanik currently holds a minor leadership position as Chair of the House Republican Conference, which may not sound like much but it makes her the 4th-ranking Republican in the House. Trump and the GOP have lately realized that their appeal to urban and suburban racists and femiNazis is limited if they insist upon a presidential ticket consisting of two White males. There is a significant probability that Trump will select a female as a running mate, or one will be selected for him. 
Photo credit: J. Scott Applewhite/AP; Leah Millis/Reuters Even given her recent rightward trend and her gender, that hardly means Stefanik is the best possible option. [Sacrilegious though it is, we've liked Tulsi Gabbard for a while despite her congressional voting record -- we feel she has "evolved". But we don't completely trust her.] Working against this supposedly clever approach is the fact that the GOP has never learned the lesson that tokenism and pandering pay off only for Democrats, not Republicans. For example, when they nominate black candidates for statewide office in anything other than the most Republican states, the strategy almost always fails. If a non-White -- or non-male -- is truly the best possible candidate for a Senate seat in 2024, like James Craig (Michigan) or David Clarke (Wisconsin, but not yet officially in the race) then so be it. Always go with your best regardless of race or sex; anyone except a liberal would agree that's how society should work. However if the minority is not truly the best candidate, then this tactic is truly idiotic. Of course the voters are the ones who pick the candidates, but the Republican party has a lot to say about who is encouraged to run, who is NOT encouraged to run, and who gets the logistical and financial support if they do run (and, of course, who does NOT get that support). Most of the time the voters merely select from the choices the party offers. Insurgents, normally conservative challengers, are unwelcome and are pushed aside from important statewide elections whenever possible. If one of them happens to win a primary election against the wishes of the establishment, they are hung out to dry in the general. You only need to look back to 2022 for considerable evidence of this. The theory that "urban" (i.e. racist) voters will leave the Democrat plantation in significant numbers and vote for a black statewide Republican nominee is patently false in the vast majority of cases. If a black Republican gets elected statewide, e.g. Tim Scott in South Carolina, he does so almost exclusively on the votes of Republicans and not Democrats. If an "Uncle Tom" GOP candidate needs Democrat votes to win statewide.... he loses, simple as that. As far as Trump's VP goes, there has been considerable chatter in the liberal media about Stefanik over the past few days. In an attempt to sow even further dissention and get Trump supporters sniping at each other, they are now even floating trial balloons for the most objectionable possible VP nominee short of Trump picking Big Mike Obama for the job. Or Governor Krispy Kreme. In the end, some adult in the room needs to select the best person for the job regardless of their melanin content or genitalia. The best person is probably not Elise Stefanik and it's sure as hell not Nimrod Randhawa. Hint: if those who control the media approve of whoever it is, it's definitely a bad choice. Tags:
Trump
2024
Veep
Elise Stefanik
New York
Anybody but Nimrod
1/19/2024:
[New York] Third District Poll: Democrats with Edge to Pick up Congressional Seat
[Emerson]
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Photo credit: WABC
On Thursday, Emerson College released numerous 2024 election polls including one for the mid-February special election in New York's 3rd Congressional District. That election was necessitated when freshman Republican George Santos was expelled from Congress last December at the behest of his own party, so as not to serve as a distraction from Republican efforts (to lose?) in November. As if to prove the above statement, national Democrats wasted no time in fundraising or attacking the Republican candidate. It was announced in early January that the Rats had purchased $5.2 million worth of local advertising, and in fact ads supporting Suozzi (and hating Pilip) are saturating the airwaves; in contrast, national Republicans had reserved the paltry sum of $0.2 million in advertising as of January 2. The local liberal media has rolled out the red carpet for Suozzi by offering to schedule and broadcast as many as four rigged debates in his favor. Pilip has astutely declined most of the invitations to those "gotcha" sessions. Recent history: After liberal Democrats had been in control locally in Nassau County for years, Republicans began to claw their way back in 2021. In 2022 they captured all four Long Island congressional districts including the two Democrat-oriented districts in Nassau County (CD-3 is one of those). In 2023 Republicans reclaimed all significant county-level offices on Long Island, and so would appear to have momentum there. Santos was expelled from Congress mainly because his skittish New York colleagues feared he would break that momentum and cause their fluke victories in 2022 to be reversed in 2024. That's very likely to happen anyway and always was likely, Santos notwithstanding. Even if George Santos had never existed in Congress, a GOP bloodbath in New York in 2024 was inevitably in the cards based on the narrow upset outcomes in 2022 in several districts, and a new hyper-partisan Democrat gerrymander which will be implemented before November. Many have suggested that we never should have reached this point, and the GOP should have supported Santos instead of shunning him -- just like the Rats support their sleazebags (such as Senator Menendez) no matter what. They support them unless there's something to be gained by a "loss" like when they jettisoned Al Franken (D-MN) in 2017, knowing he would definitely be replaced by another Democrat. Then the Rats could virtuously claim that all other Democrats in office were squeaky clean while they slandered Republican judge Roy Moore who was running for the Senate in Alabama at the time (and lost). Moore faced similar allegations to Franken. The difference is that the charges against Moore were false. Five years after that election, far too late, Moore won his defamation lawsuit. Comparing the Santos situation to Menendez is apples and oranges. If Menendez goes, the liberal Democrat Governor of New Jersey immediately appoints a liberal Democrat replacement (just like what happened in Minnesota with Franken) and New Jersey then compliantly votes for a Democrat whenever the special election comes around. There is nearly zero risk if the Rats ever do the right thing and throw Menendez into the nearest dumpster. However when Santos left, it opened up a valuable House seat in a district that voted for Biden by 8 points in 2020 (using current district lines), and one where Democrats outnumber Republicans by 11%. There's considerable risk that Santos will be replaced by a Democrat, but the liberal GOP establishment calculated that there was greater risk in allowing Santos to remain. For every Democrat crime that comes to light (rare though such exposure is), the leftists could always say "Oh yeah, but what about Santos???" More polling details: Biden is hideously unpopular in NY-3 (59% disapproval, 26 points under water) and Governor Hochul (66% disapproval) fares even worse. People in this district wouldn't cross the street to spit on her if she were on fire. Actually, that might be fun to see. However, the one politician who is way more unpopular than both of those is Santos (83% unfavorable rating). This election is meant to be a referendum on Santos. Period. The GOP candidate is a good one, and Suozzi probably inspires about as much enthusiasm as Basement Biden does though he does have name recognition, tons of money and lots of hateful (but influential) ads running 24/7. If the current polls are accurate to any degree, instead of an 85% chance of losing this seat, maybe the probability of Republican defeat is down to around 65% now? The media and other liberals insist that the voters in New York's 3rd Congressional District be ashamed of their earlier election of Santos and demand that those voters cleanse their consciences by going for the Democrat this time around and in November as well. We'll see in about a month if they obey those demands. Will a plurality of the voters (however slight that plurality might be) let this election outcome be what the Democrats and the media want? Hopefully not, but probably so. Tags:
U.S. House
2024
New York
Special election
The 'shame' of the Republicans
1/18/2024:
[Ohio] Dennis Kucinich files FEC paperwork to run for Congress against Republican Max Miller
[Cleveland.com]
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Photo credit: news5cleveland.com
Dennis Kucinich, now 78 years old, is running for Congress again -- this time as an independent (he missed the major-party filing deadline which was a month ago). The liberal Democrat and former Boy Wonder, who was the youngest mayor in the country when he was elected to preside over the city of Cleveland in 1977, will be taking on Republican Max Miller in Ohio's 7th Congressional District. The district in which Kucinich will be providing comic relief this year was created in 2022 as a slightly Republican-leaning district in the southern portion of the Cleveland suburbs in Cuyahoga County, south through Medina County and into Wooster. Charlie Cook's Partisan Voting Index calls it an R+7 district but R+5 might be more accurate. Under the right circumstances, the GOP could lose it. A Kucinich candidacy is hardly the "right circumstances". Or is it? He's likely to have little to no cash to work with, and all that his name recognition is going to get him is some laughs (voters laughing at him, that is). OK, Kucinich can't win -- but what he can try to accomplish is to trick some less-intelligent Republican voters into casting their ballots for him, just like Libertarian candidates so often do: the idea is to peel off enough GOP votes to hand the election to the Democrat. That Democrat will be either liberal businessman Doug Bugie, who once ran for Congress over 30 years ago and finished a distant 3rd in the Democrat primary; or 2022 candidate Matthew Diemer who was outspent 10:1 by Miller and lost by 10 points. The end of the linked article is basically a campaign commercial for Bugie, who described Kucinich as one of his "political heroes". Neither Diemer nor Bugie views the Boy Wonder as a credible threat. But he may in fact be an asset. Max Miller is a freshman and therefore somewhat vulnerable. He is a moderate/squish just like his predecessor Anthony Gonzalez, although, unlike the rabid Trump-hater Gonzalez, Miller is supposedly full-MAGA despite his moderate voting record in Congress. As noted, the 7th District is in no way rock-solid Republican. Kucinich might provide some entertainment value during the campaign, however this ploy to flip a GOP seat to the Rats is highly probable to fail in November. Tags:
U.S. House
2024
Ohio
Boy Wonder
7th District
Max Miller
1/18/2024:
[Michigan] Former GOP Congressman Justin Amash explores joining crowded Michigan Senate field
[Fox News]
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Photo credit: Getty
Amash started off in Congress well enough, building conservative credentials with his voting record and enhancing that "cred" by being kicked off of GOP committees in 2012 along with Kansas representative Tim Huelskamp and David Schweikert of Arizona. All three were ousted for being too far to the right to suit many of their more-powerful Republican colleagues, including milquetoast John Boehner who was Speaker at the time. It's true that the current GOP field for Senate in Michigan (defeated ex-Congressmen Peter Meijer and Mike Rogers and a bunch of other hopeless losers) is woeful -- aside from police chief James Craig, who we trust is not as clueless as he was in 2022 when he naively allowed Democrat operatives in disguise to deliberately gather invalid signatures for him, and was thus disqualified. After the primary Craig would be at least a 5-point underdog no matter what some recent polls have suggested. Nonetheless he remains the best option for this unlikely but still possible Senate pickup. Amash sees a small opening and wants to capitalize. He can get back that media adulation by torpedoing Craig and sabotaging efforts to erase the Democrat majority in the Senate. Craig may not be so easy to torpedo in the primary, what with Meijer (liberal) and Rogers (moderate) splitting the non-conservative vote. Amash is probably more likely to jump into this race as an independent than a Republican, though it would be interesting to watch GOP primary debates with Amash challenging Meijer about which of the two of them hates Donald Trump more. Given the dangerous (as far as Amash is concerned) prospect of "President Trump" becoming a reality in 2025, an Amash campaign would attempt to stymie the possibility of Trump having a GOP-controlled Senate to work with should he somehow win, substituting instead a Rat-controlled Senate which would revive Trump's persecution where it left off. Some believe that the mass exodus of GOP incumbents from the House is being orchestrated for a similar purpose -- handing control to the opposition, just in case. We'd much rather take our chances with Craig than Amash or any of the other pissants in the general election. The former Detroit police chief might be able to eke out a vote or two in the Detroit ghetto precincts, get within the margin of vote fraud statewide, and at least make the Rats sweat a little before their probable late-election-night-vote-dump victory here in November. Tags:
Michigan
2024
Senate
James Craig
Yes
Justin Amash
No
1/18/2024:
[South Carolina] Rep. Jeff Duncan (R) will not seek reelection
[WSPA News 7]
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Photo credit: Jeff Duncan
Duncan is a 7-term Congressman, first elected in 2010. He lost the primary that year, but won the runoff vs. future "moderate" state legislator Richard Cash. Cash is already being rumored as a candidate for the now-open congressional seat. Cash's lifetime conservative rating in the SC Senate is in the low-70s, which is squish territory. Duncan has a lifetime conservative rating of 97%. Tags:
U.S. House
2024
South Carolina
Jeff Duncan
Retirement
Media double standard
1/9/2024:
Another One Bites the Dust.... But This is 2024, Not 2018
[RightDataUSA]
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Photo credit: fox59.com
Seemingly not a day goes by without another incumbent House Republican announcing that he will not be running for re-election this year. Yesterday it was 7-term moderate Republican Larry Bucshon of Indiana deciding to hang it up at the end of the year. These announcements are causing significant pearl-clutching among GOP voters who are beginning to anticipate a 2018-style annihilation in the House; Republicans lost 41 seats that November (plus one more in a prior special election) and went from a 47-seat majority to a 37-seat deficit. Many of the Fainthearted Fifty-One were squishy liberal or "moderate" Republicans who in 2017 and 2018 found themselves caught between a rock and a hard place. Being on the left flank of the Republican party, they despised President Trump to varying degrees and were not pleased to be in a position where many of their constituents, and the conservative GOP base as a whole, expected them to help Trump's legislative agenda. Their own agenda was to do their best to ensure that Trump would be a one-term President. The squishes had an unpalatable choice to make about running again: they could run and risk being embarrassed at the polls, since they felt that the 2018 midterms were shaping up to be a bloodbath; or they could run and maybe win. However that outcome would perhaps be even more unpalatable than losing -- what with Trump still in the White House. Congressmen have massive egos too, just like senators and presidents, and Trump was using up all the oxygen in the room. Giving up a powerful, lucrative and cushy job is not an easy thing to do, and these squishes were truly on the horns of a dilemma: how best to stop Trump? Thanks to Trump's media-driven unpopularity, the 2018 midterms were indeed heading in the direction of a rout at the polls. The decision to go in the tank was likely made at the highest levels of the dominant liberal wing of the GOP. The RINOs, who are never comfortable in the majority anyway, greatly preferred to sacrifice control of the House after 2018 -- by sacrificing several Republican members -- in order to no longer be in a position to help the President. By conceding and even welcoming defeat, the GOP liberals also terminated expectations from pesky conservative voters ("What can we do? We don't have control anymore! Please send us money!"). This maneuver not only thwarted the Trump agenda in Congress, but began the Trump persecution which commenced as soon as the new Congress was sworn in during January of 2019. Now some people believe we're witnessing it all again in 2024, with the GOP liberals fearing that Trump might regain the presidency. If that happens, they want to be sure that Democrats have House control so that Trump's "Revenge Tour" is stymied as much as possible. However these recent retirements are not at all like those of 2018, where RINOs in marginal districts ran screaming for the exit and hoped -- or even said aloud -- that they wished for Democrats to win in their districts. So far this year, not one GOP retirement is likely to result in the loss of a House seat. The lone Rat pickup will probably be NY-3, George Santos' old district, and he was not a "retiree". On the other hand, several of the districts which Democrats are abandoning are golden pickup opportunities for the Republicans. These potential pickups include three districts in North Carolina, where the Rats are whining because the illegal partisan Democrat gerrymander which was mandated in 2022 has been replaced by a lawfully-created district map which favors Republicans. It appears that -- at least for now -- the new map will be used in 2024 and beyond. The open House seats in 2024 which are most prone to shifting from bad to good are shown below along with Charlie Cook's Partisan Voting Index. PVI's for North Carolina are estimated. Then there are slightly left-leaning districts which are ripe for Republican pickups, although that outcome is not necessarily probable:
Those last three aren't particularly likely, but they are in the ballpark. As far as the Republican departures from Congress only NY-3, which is rated as D+2, is a likely loss at this moment. The others range from utterly safe holds to very likely safe; the most marginal pair of open Republican districts are in Colorado -- CO-3 (Boebert) and CO-5 (Lamborn) -- and those are R+7 and R+9 respectively. No matter how big the Democrats talk -- and spend -- the GOP is obviously solidly favored in R+7 and R+9 districts; if they start losing those then they are in real trouble no matter how many incumbents do or do not run. One way in which conditions in 2024 are similar to 2018 is that partisan Democrat gerrymanders will affect the political landscape. Around 2015, black-robed tyrants in Virginia and Florida dictated that Republicans must lose seats in the House and Democrats must gain. Three or four seats in those two states were affected. Then in 2018 the Pennsylvania Democrat Supreme Court waved its magic wand and flipped four more seats to the Democrats. In 2020, similar judicial machinations in North Carolina caused another two House seats to go from R to D; Liberal hysteria aside, the new map for 2024 in the Tarheel State is just barely undoing the effects of the Democrat gerrymander from 2020. The GOP obliteration in 2018 was far more thorough than Democrat gerrymandering alone could account for, even if a new Democrat trick called "ballot harvesting" was factored in. That new technique was used in California to flip five seats from blue to red (note: proper color usage). There was also the implementation of Rigged Choice Voting in Maine, which caused a Republican defeat that would not have occurred had the votes been counted in the normal manner. Many of the losses from 2018 were recouped in 2020, perhaps because the GOP tried a little harder to win at the House level (now that Trump was safely on his way out) and even more seats were regained in 2022. In November of 2020 the Republicans won 213 House seats to 222 for the Democrats. As noted above, judicial fiat alone resulted in at least 9 or 10 seats in four states being gifted to the Democrats in 2018 and 2020. Take away those 9 or 10 from the Democrats and put them back on the Republican side where they belonged, and who controls Congress in 2021 then? That's right. Quite a bit of the "Dementia Hitler" [credit: Scott Adams] agenda which was inflicted upon America in 2021 and 2022 could not have happened without Democrats having full control of the House and voting in complete lockstep for their President in a manner which Republicans never managed to do when Trump was in office. Back to 2024: Of course the handful of GOP pickups in North Carolina will be offset (and then some) by an upcoming hyper-partisan Democrat gerrymander in New York. Other liberal gerrymanders have already occurred in Alabama and Louisiana, with more to come between now and November -- and probably even after November. But the subject here concerns retirements and for the time being no New York Republican incumbents have thrown in the towel although they are fully aware of what's coming. A few of them probably will fold though, once the new map is finalized. There is no shortage of vulnerable incumbents in both parties who will be running for re-election in 2024. Those districts are where partisan control of Congress will be decided. The probability of the GOP retaining control of the House in November is 50-50 at best as things stand now. If they lose, the retirements which have been announced up to now will not have been the primary factor in that loss. The net effect of all departures is helping Republicans -- even one of the GOP shifts (Boebert from CO-3 to CO-4) actually helps their chances of holding one district while not hindering their chances in the other one. However, if we begin to see Republicans from marginal districts cashing in their chips even without the spectre of Democrat gerrymandering forcing their hands, then it might be time to start worrying. That sort of thing was exceedingly common in 2018 but hasn't happened at all in 2024 yet. Tags:
U.S. House
2024
Retirements
Panic
Calm down
1/4/2024:
[Pennsylvania] It's not just Trump: Democrats are moving to bar Republicans from ballots nationwide
[NY Post]
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Photo credit: thetimes-tribune.com
We've referenced Scott Perry (R-PA) before as someone who is a prime target of left-wing hatred and someone whom liberals would dearly love to exterminate from Congress in 2024 [see commentary posted here 10 months ago] -- by any means possible. The haters have noticed by now that the hyper-partisan Democrat gerrymander which was implemented on their behalf in Pennsylvania in 2018 in violation of existing state law isn't working as intended in this case (though it worked perfectly in numerous other districts in PA). Perry is still in Congress and has been re-elected three times since the Democrat gerrymanders went into effect. Tags:
U.S. House
2024
Pennsylvania
Scott Perry
Lawfare
12/28/2023:
[Colorado] Lauren Boebert will switch congressional districts to improve her chances of winning in 2024
[Colorado Sun]
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Photo credit: Jerry McBride/Durango Herald
It's great that Boebert is maximizing her chances of remaining in Congress -- which were quite minimal -- by moving from Colorado's 3rd congressional district over to its 4th congressional district. We need more conservative fighters like her in the GOP House caucus instead of representatives like the former conservative but current wimp (Ken Buck) who she'd be replacing in CO-4. Tags:
U.S. House
2024
Colorado
Lauren Boebert
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