| 11/6/2024: Congrats to President Trump! He Still Needs a House [RightDataUSA] | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
November 5th was a wonderful night to be an American, and we get to begin enjoying the election results today!
Here are the districts which have been called and which have flipped from Democrat to Republican:
These initial districts flipped almost solely due to the effects of redistricting. In Alabama and Louisiana, racist court rulings mandated the ouster of White Republicans from the House and the substitution of black Democrats. In New York, Democrats belatedly gerrymandered the state earlier in 2024, but NY-22 was likely to be lost even without that factor. In North Carolina, an illegal Democrat gerrymander which had been in place in 2020 and 2022 was finally removed and replaced by a legitimate district map. The Michigan district was an open seat which was formerly held by Democrat Elissa Slotkin, who left to run for the Senate (and probably win, but that's not been called yet). Here are the other potential pickups for Republicans:
At one point on 11/6 DD saw a possible R+2 outcome in the House; they are predicting R-1 as of the evening of 11/8 and have been sticking to that number ever since. R-1 means they keep control, 220-215. Update 11/9: DD shows 11 House races uncalled and the GOP needs only to win 2 to maintain control; DD believes they will win 4 of the 11. Evans (R) is now ahead of Caraveo (D) in CO-8; Ciscomani (R) is clinging to life in AZ-6 and Begich (R) is ahead but still short of the necessary 50% in AK. All other undecided seats are in CA and Republicans lead in some of those too. Update 11/10: Golden may not win in ME-2 after all -- with all ballots counted he has fallen below 50% and therefore the race will be decided by Rigged Choice Voting just like it was in 2018 when that scheme was first used in Maine. Golden is still likely to win, but apparently not 100% certain at this point. Update 11/11: Most media called it on Sunday but now everybody says that Republicans have picked up CO-8. AZ-6 is still too close to call and they're all asleep in Alaska, where vote totals haven't moved in a long time. Republican incumbents will probably lose no more than 2 seats in CA (we hope) and there will be no pickups there, but in the end the House should stay (R). Update 11/12: It's over (as far as who will run the House) -- Republicans hold CA-41 and AZ-6 but lose CA-27. A net of minus-1 there may not sound impressive, and it's not, but it is sufficient to reach the 218 threshold; they are at 219 with possibly 2 more wins yet to come (AK and CA-13). If those wins materialize we'll wind up exactly where we started, with Republicans having a 221-214 advantage. That outcome may also sound unimpressive, but given the number of marginal districts which had to be defended, merely breaking even isn't bad at all and a slightly better outcome than realists like us projected for them. So far Trump has named 2 incumbent GOP House members to his administration, which will necessitate special elections in FL-6 (Waltz) and NY-21 (Stefanik). Those special elections should be easy wins for the Republicans. Tags:
2024
House?
We'll find out in December
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| 11/2/2024: Election 2024: The Final Hours [RightDataUSA] | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
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):
But also:
These polar-opposite worldviews are hardly unexpected; the fragile snowflakes on both sides (there are far more on the left, but no shortage on the right either) need to be constantly reassured that things are going their way, no matter what "lies" they may hear which say otherwise. Pay no attention to the man behind the curtain and believe everything we tell you, they say. Well, somebody is lying, and somebody is going to be crushingly disappointed on November 6th or whenever the vote-counting finally ceases. 
Photo credit: Palm Beach Post
Early Voting
In a nation as closely divided as this one, it appears that the potential for a "wave" that would sweep over the presidency, the Senate and the House is minimal. But it's not impossible. We'll say this much: if there is any kind of wave, it's probably going to be the kind we don't want to see. Republicans routinely underestimate the amount of hatred Democrats are capable of, and hatred is an excellent motivation for voting. 
Photo credit: Twitchy.com
The 2024 Presidential Election:
If this series of miniscule margins that generally favor Donald Trump -- ALL of which are within the margin of sampling error -- carry over to the actual vote counts, then Trump will prevail in the Electoral College by the count of 287 to 251 assuming all other states go as expected. Which means that the "Keystone" to the election is the state of Pennsylvania -- as we noted long ago and wrote about in considerable detail; it is tremendously likely that whoever wins PA wins the election. There are a couple of things to keep in mind about all of these pollsters who are showing exceedingly close races in several states at the presidential level, and in other races as well:
Photo credit: National Review
The Senate:
The potential bad news comes from Florida, Texas and even rock-solid crimson, burgundy, maroon Nebraska, where an "independent" phony-moderate candidate is supposedly within striking distance of squishy Republican incumbent Deb Fischer according to the far-left New York Times and the liberal candidate's own polls; all other polls forecast a normal Nebraska outcome. The Democrats did not even field a candidate here -- aside from the one who is calling himself an independent. Republicans are likely to hold all three of those seats. The Rats are flooding Florida and Texas with $$$ but it would still be quite an upset if Ted Cruz or Rick Scott were to lose; some now classify the TX race as a tossup. The saving grace for these two Republicans could be the laughably poor quality of their liberal Democrat opponents. But the usual Democrat formula of (money + lies + hate) = victory certainly could work. There's one important ingredient we left out of that equation, which helps Democrats greatly when money + lies + hate isn't quite sufficient. That ingredient is normally not added until after the votes are cast. 
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.
There are also lunatic fringe pipe dreams regarding Republican pickups in Maryland and Virginia. However the GOP has zero chance in Maryland and at most a 10% chance in the Virginia Senate race. But those other six states are going to be close, to one degree or another. Ohio and Wisconsin are the most likely pickups; Arizona (one outlier poll aside) and Nevada are the least likely. Pennsylvania and Michigan currently look improbable too. In any event, this is all gravy for the Republicans. They have nothing to lose in these states and everything to gain. The probability, however, is that they will gain nothing, or at most one. But it would take only a very slight shift to the right, and suddenly it could be another +2! Or more! All Senate polls are close in these marginal states and, on average, they all show the Republican losing. Final score: The most likely outcome is a net gain of 2 or perhaps 3 seats for the GOP, which means the breakdown will be 51-49 or 52-48 in the Republicans' favor starting in 2025. It may be assumed that any "wave", however low the probability is that one occurs, can only push things further in the Republican direction. But don't completely discount the possibility of an unpleasant surprise in Texas or Florida. Worst case scenario: the Senate stays 51-49 Democrat, and that is not terribly likely. 
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:
Democrats could get the +4 they need in New York and California alone. Republican freshmen (and some incumbents) won numerous close -- fluke -- elections in 2022 and a large portion of those outcomes are highly likely to be reversed. One already has been reversed (NY-3, Santos) in a special election. There are as many as five vulnerable GOP freshmen in New York. Two of the five (Brandon Williams, Anthony D'Esposito) appear to be near-certain losses. Two others (Marc Molinaro, Mike Lawler) are tossups at best. Numerous Republicans are on the hot seat in the Land of Fruits and Nuts. Endangered incumbents include John Duarte, David Valadao, Mike Garcia, Michelle Steele and Ken Calvert. It will be no surprise if at least two or three of those lose. Don't bother staying up late on election night to find out. California gives itself 30 days to count votes in order to facilitate "ballot harvesting" after election day. Thirty days apparently wasn't enough time for California Democrats in 2022; don't expect the same results in 2024. Unless an endangered California incumbent is solidly ahead prior to Ballot Harvesting Month, then he/she doesn't have much of a prayer of remaining in Congress. Republicans will pick up 3 seats in North Carolina due to the removal of the 2020/2022 illegal Democrat gerrymander. Republicans will lose 2 seats (one in Alabama, one in Louisiana) due to the impact of racist court rulings which have demanded that a White Republican be replaced by a black Democrat in both instances. Elsewhere, the list of likely ("likely" = "maybe a 50.1% chance" so don't get too excited) GOP pickups is a short one:
The list of likely GOP losses is longer, even without including the five endangered Californians:
Neither of these lists is exhaustive. For a wider range of possible House flips, read our report from a couple weeks ago. If there is any kind of movement off-center, one list or the other will expand. Based on all of the above expectations, the final outcome in the House is going to be exceedingly close. Republicans will need at least a small swing to the right in many districts in order to simply retain what they already possess; that swing is hardly a certainty. The likeliest outcome is that the GOP suffers a net loss of 2 to 8 seats. The results from 2022 in California and New York are what gave the Republicans the House during this past term; the results from those states in 2024 will be the ones which are primarily responsible for giving Democrats control beginning in 2025, if the House does in fact flip. State legislatures: Nearly all states are having legislative elections this year. Those elections are well under the radar as compared to the U.S. House, Senate and presidency, but they are hardly unimportant. In most places, partisan control of a state House or state Senate is not in much doubt. However there are a handful of states -- many of the same ones which are tossups at other levels too -- in which control of a state legislative body could easily flip from one party to the other. The ones that are most flippable include: Alaska: Both the House and especially the Senate are close, but it almost doesn't matter because even when the GOP has the numbers (as they always do) the liberal-RINO wing of the party conspires with liberal Democrats to form a "coalition" which ensures that conservative legislators are on the outside, and powerless. The House currently consists of 21 R, 13 D and 6 independents; the Senate has 11 R and 9 D -- with 8 Republicans and all 9 Democrats working together to seize control and exclude three conservative Republicans. Arizona: The Rats need ONE House seat (there are 31 R and 29 D) and ONE Senate seat (16 R, 14 D) to move from minority status into a tie. Obviously that means they need +2 to take full control of the state government. Michigan: Dems flipped both houses in 2022. Michigan Republicans are in an identical position to Arizona Democrats: +1 to tie, +2 to win. The House is 56 D, 54 R; the Senate is 20 D, 18 R. Neither Arizona nor Michigan are exactly known for election integrity lately, so temper your expectations accordingly. Minnesota: Republicans need a net gain of 1 seat in the Senate (34 D, 33 R) to win back what they lost control of in 2022. It will take a small wave (R+4) to get the House. New Hampshire: In a state where practically every neighborhood has its own representative (there are 400 seats in the House of this tiny state) things often fluctuate wildly. If they fluctuate just slightly to the left, Rats will get the House. The current breakdown is 201 R, 196 D, 3 I. Republicans have nominal control of the state Senate (14 R, 10 D). Pennsylvania: Could cause the fragile types to ingest a ton of copium next week if Cackles wins, Casey is re-elected, Perry loses, etc. Then add the Democrats going +3 and taking the state Senate (current breakdown: 28 R, 22 D) and by doing so seizing 100% control of PA government. The GOP is fighting hard and may avert disaster, at least in the state Senate. The Rats currently lead 102-101 in the state House and on a good election night the Republicans will take it back. On a bad night they won't. Wisconsin: The GOP has large majorities in both houses of the legislature.... today. In 2025, they won't. A Democrat gerrymander has been put in place for 2024 and when the votes are counted the Wisconsin House and Senate are going to look a lot like Pennsylvania's or Michigan's -- tossups all the way around. The Wisconsin GOP needs a good election night at all levels. Currently the splits are 22 R, 11 D in the Senate and 64 R, 35 D in the House. Enjoy it while you still can, Wisconsin Republicans. Tags:
2024
House
Senate
Presidency
Hope we're wrong about the House
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| 10/17/2024: 2024 Election Analysis: Will Republicans Hold the House? [RightDataUSA] | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
Current U.S. House breakdown by district (Map created using mapchart.net)
1. Competitiveness
That last one is a biggie, but the others are also important. Regarding the suitability of the candidates: Democrats always try to run the most liberal candidates possible in House races, but in a marginal district they must (with the help of their army of media allies) attempt to disguise their nominee as a "moderate" because they understand that most voters in a marginal district would find an in-your-face liberal nutbucket to be repugnant. Once elected, Democrat "moderates" normally march in goose-step with their liberal colleagues. Even when narrowly in the minority as is the case today in the House, Democrats voting as a united bloc is nearly always sufficient to thwart any unwanted legislation. This happens because there are always enough liberal Republicans in the party's "big tent" to cross over and assist the Democrats whenever the Republican establishment (GOPe) desires for that to occur. Sometimes, particularly on legislation which has no chance of passing the Senate or being signed into law, the Democrat puppetmasters will permit their most vulnerable House members to temporarily leave the plantation and cast a non-liberal vote. Which they can then highlight to the voters back home as a sign of their alleged "independence" when re-election time rolls around. Of course there is no real independence; they vote as they are told to -- always. Those who control the Republican party (and especially its purse strings) also seek to run the most liberal candidates possible in House races -- even in solid Republican districts -- because the GOPe finds anyone who is even remotely conservative to be repugnant. On this topic, the leadership of both parties are in agreement. Occasionally, the GOPe is correct in running a moderate-liberal if the nature of the district is inappropriate for a nominee who is perceived as being too far to the right. Based on the above criteria, we have identified 62 districts which should be competitive this year. This list is not substantially different from the one we published over a year and a half ago, but the data associated with these districts is now up-to-date. In addition to the potential flippers, there's also one district in Washington which features two Republicans and zero Democrats running; the incumbent Republican is a Trump-hating impeachment RINO while the challenger is a solid conservative. If an upset should occur there it won't count as a GOP pickup since they already hold that seat, but it would be a welcome development nonetheless. 2. Background After the 2022 elections, Republicans controlled the House by the margin of 222-213. Since that time there have been 8 special elections held to replace representatives who retired or died. Seven of those 8 were won by the same party which originally held the seat. The lone exception occurred in New York in February when Democrats won the special election in NY-3 to replace conservative Republican George ("Miss Me Yet?") Santos. That election was necessitated when the Stupid Party decided to expel Santos from Congress in December, 2023 for allegedly being so corrupt that he might as well have been a Democrat. But he voted like a conservative which, come to think of it, probably didn't help his case with the party leadership. The have been three other resignations or deaths for which special elections have not yet been held (or will not be held), and the GOP currently has a 220-212 advantage in the House. Because two of the three vacancies exist in solid Democrat districts (NJ-9, TX-18) which will be easily retained in November, the Democrats effectively have 214 seats going into the election which means they require a net gain of merely 4 seats to seize control. 3. Belated Redistricting Congressional redistricting -- the redrawing of U.S. House district lines -- took place in all states prior to the 2022 elections, except of course in the six (Alaska, Delaware, North Dakota, South Dakota, Vermont and Wyoming) which have only one district that comprises the entire state and therefore there are no district lines. After 2022 however, a handful of states redrew their districts. This will have a net effect of close to zero on the partisan composition of Congress in 2025, but will result in significant changes within the affected states. In North Carolina the Democrat-controlled state Supreme Court in 2020 (and then again in 2022) chose to illegally bypass the Republican-controlled legislature and mandated district lines which favored Democrats. In 2022 the voters of the Tarheel State delivered a GOP majority to the Court. The Court then began acting lawfully and returned the task of line-drawing to the legislature, where it belongs. As a result, Republicans will almost certainly be picking up three House seats (NC-6, NC-13, NC-14) from Democrats on election day. However this windfall will be negated by restricting-related outcomes in Alabama, Louisiana and New York. In the two southern states, partisan Democrat judges demanded that two conservative White Republicans (one in Alabama, one in Louisiana) be replaced in the House by two liberal black Democrats. Barry Moore (AL-2) and Garret Graves (LA-6) are the two Republicans who will be out of work after 2024 because of these racist court rulings. In New York, Democrats in 2022 were forced to settle for a district map that was only a slight improvement over the one from which they had benefitted in 2020; they had tried for a hyper-partisan gerrymander which would have all but eliminated Republicans (it would have been something like 22 Democrats and just 4 Republicans) from the New York congressional delegation. In March of 2024, New York Democrats tried once again to gerrymander the state's congressional districts in their favor, and they succeeded without any resistance from the GOP. We wrote about this in detail at the time it occurred. Having already picked up NY-3 in the Santos debacle, NY Democrats ensured that their pickup would not revert to the GOP in November (and it won't). Additionally, they have altered the Syracuse-Utica area district of freshman Republican Brandon Williams to severely endanger him, making it all but certain for the Democrats to go +1 in New York. At least +1. Redistricting greatly altered no other New York districts, though it did make NY-18 a little safer for liberal freshman Democrat Pat Ryan. However it always was probable that New York and California would be bloodbaths for the Republicans in 2024. That logical assertion is based on the sheer number of close (fluke) House wins which the GOP somehow achieved in those liberal states in 2022, and many close/fluke outcomes were likely to be reversed in 2024 with or without the assistance of Democrat gerrymandering. One other state -- Georgia -- redrew its lines after 2022 by a court order similar to the one which affected Alabama and Louisiana. Democrats have been fuming ever since that ruling came down because Republicans found a way to comply with the racist ruling without sacrificing any of their currently-held seats. We also wrote about that in detail at the time it occurred. Even counting New York at only -1 for the Republicans, that, along with the -2 which is guaranteed from Alabama and Louisiana means a break-even as the result of belated redistricting despite the upcoming GOP bonanza in North Carolina. 4. The 62 Most-Flippable Districts These do not include the North Carolina, Alabama and Louisiana districts already mentioned above, but does include NY-22 (Williams) because it is not quite 100% certain that the district will be won by a Democrat. The following 62 districts are the ones which should be strongly sought by both parties -- but it doesn't work out that way in all cases, as we will illustrate. Several of the listed districts, mostly ones held by Democrats, are not very likely to flip despite the vulnerability of the Democrat incumbents. Or at least not nearly as likely as they should be, mainly because the GOP does not have infinite funds to work with, while the Democrats (via their "ActBlue" money laundry) apparently do. Some are finally beginning to catch on to the illegal activities of ActBlue, but it's too late to do anything about it in this election cycle and Democrats are likely to be able to purchase a significant number of House and Senate seats which might otherwise be far more tenuous. Here are the 62 most likely potential flippers, by region. The bloodiest battlegrounds are highlighted, and some which probably won't be so bloody come with brief explanations. Northeast (16):
Mid-Atlantic (3):
South (2):
Midwest (13):
Great Plains-Mountain West (8):
West (20):
As noted above, the most competitive districts are bolded. A little more (34) than half of the listed districts fit that description. Of these 34, 11 are currently held by Democrats and 23 by Republicans. That's not a good ratio. There are some others which are perhaps a small amount behind in terms of competitiveness. They are:
Three of those are currently GOP districts and three are held by Democrats. Add them to the 34 super-contested districts and the Republicans have the potential to lose 26 marginal seats, the Democrats 14. The 40 most competitive districts are mostly in states which are toss-ups at the presidential level (AZ, MI, NC, NV, PA, WI) or ones which the bumbling Word Salad Queen is guaranteed to win (CA, CO, NE*, NJ, NM, NY, OR, VA, WA). Only six of the 40 battleground districts lie in states that Trump should win (AK, IA, ME*, MT, TX). Eleven lie in the swing states and 23 are in states where Trump's probability of victory ranges from "very unlikely" to "utterly impossible". If there is any presidential coattail effect in that latter group, it is hardly going to be beneficial for GOP House candidates. [* ME-2 and NE-2 are in states which split electoral votes. Trump is likely to win ME-2 and lose NE-2, replicating the 2020 outcome in those two districts.] In these 40 districts, Democrats have raised more money in 30 of them and have spent more money in 30 of them. Republicans have the financial edge in only 10 of the 40. As we've stated several times before: there is no election in this country, at any level, in which Democrats cannot outspend Republicans (often by astronomical amounts) if they wish to do so. Money alone doesn't determine the outcome of an election, but having more than your opponent surely doesn't hurt. The results in the other districts listed above are not likely to be as close as they should be. Republicans are not trying as hard as they might in R-leaning districts like KS-3, OH-9, OH-13 and PA-7. They are also not terribly competitive in some districts which lean only slightly to the left (in the D+1 to D+4 range) such as IL-17, MD-6, MI-3, MN-2, NV-3, NV-4, OH-1, PA-17 and TX-28. These represent blown opportunities, although if a "red" wave somehow materializes there may be some pleasant surprises here. There are about a dozen districts which have not been mentioned previously but could change partisan hands in November; it would require moderate to major upsets in order to wind up doing so. Some of these are really just pipe dreams for one party or the other, and the majority of them are not even being seriously contested (financially) although some are. We enumerate them just to cover all the bases:
5. Conclusion Add it all up and the probability of the GOP remaining in charge of the House appears to be less than 50% (perhaps much less), barring a clear shift to the right between now and November 5. As we have documented, there are likely to be more tight races in Republican-held districts than there will be in Democrat-held ones. Anything can happen in a close election, in case you've somehow forgotten 2020. Even if the GOP wins as many as half of the most precarious 40 districts, which is by no means certain to happen, that would make it +6 for the Democrats and 220-215 control of the House. When Democrats rule a legislative body by even one seat, they govern with an iron fist as if they have 100% control; when Republicans face the same margins -- as they currently have in the House and will in the Senate next year -- they become even more timid than usual (they aren't really comfortable with the concept of "governing") and act as if they have control of nothing. Which, in effect, they don't. And good luck with Senate "control" anyway with traitors like Lisa Murkowski, Susan Collins and Lindsey Graham in the GOP caucus -- assuming that none of them switch parties after 2024. The difference between how the parties behave in advantageous situations will be quite evident beginning in January, unless the Republicans can stem the tide of potential House losses and cling to power, such as it is with a twerp like Mike Johnson in command. As spineless as the GOP leadership is, that party's control of the House at least means that the Trump agenda (assuming he wins the presidency) is not immediately D.O.A. as it would be under racist election-denying Speaker Hakeem Homeboy, and it also means we would avoid a never-ending series of Trump impeachments. Vote hard. Tags:
2024
House
"Red" wave in the House?
Not likely
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| 8/22/2024: House Battlegrounds -- Alaska and Washington [RightDataUSA] | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
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.
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.
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.
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).
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.
Pederson ran against Franz in 2020 and lost by 13.5%. She has never held public office. Herrera is the Trump-hating former congresswoman and Impeachment RINO who was defeated in the 2022 primary election. She refused to endorse the conservative Republican (Joe Kent) who defeated her, and Kent went on to lose narrowly to Democrat Marie Gluesenkamp Perez -- another freshman who, like Alaska's Mary Peltola, has been furiously faking to the center in 2024 in a desperate bid to conceal her liberal leanings from the voters in her district. Kent has been magnanimous where Beutler was not, and he has endorsed his former opponent in her bid to become Washington's Commissioner of Public Lands. The top 3 finishers in the CPL race are listed above; the remaining votes are scattered among 4 candidates. Herrera and Pederson are the only two Republicans in the race; five Democrats split approximately 57% of the vote. If the Democrats quickly certify Upthegrove as the #2 finisher in the primary (which they will if he stays ahead; otherwise look for as many recounts as necessary) he will therefore be the clear favorite to win in November when the Democrats unite behind their guy. Having two GOP-ers on the ballot and zero Democrats, resulting in a guaranteed Republican win, would have been quite an accomplishment for the party. We'll find out shortly if that's allowed to happen. 
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.
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%).
Sessler ran for the CD-4 seat in 2022 and finished fourth in the primary, splitting the conservative vote with former gubernatorial candidate Loren Culp. Culp finished third, so only Newhouse and Democrat Doug White advanced to the general election. That outcome was quite the win-win for the GOPe and other leftists, with two conservatives biting the dust and two liberals moving on. A similar scheme was in the cards for 2024 as well, with the GOPe protecting Newhouse again by having former senatorial candidate Tiffany Smiley enter the race belatedly in order to siphon votes from Sessler. Smiley was obliterated in the 2022 U.S. Senate race vs. doddering ultra-liberal incumbent Patsy Murray, but in the process Smiley proved to be an attractive candidate (in maximum contrast to Murray; unfortunately the election wasn't a beauty contest) -- and more importantly Smiley showed a solid ability to fundraise. She actually raised several million more than Murray in terms of small donations, but Murray had the full weight of the ActBlue Democrat money launderers and lots of other billionaire/corporate funding. Plus, this is Washington after all -- it's not as if a Democrat Senate incumbent is going to lose no matter how much money any GOP challenger raises. Smiley was likely insinuated into the CD-4 House race by the GOPe this year with the hope that she could overwhelm Sessler in the $$$$ department, but she couldn't. Smiley tried to convince voters that she is a conservative but utterly failed to do that. Her past track record as a moderate, including endorsements from groups like the left-wing Log Cabin Republican homos, did not endear her to the voters. Smiley was eliminated from further contention with less than 20% of the vote. Sessler came in first with 33% and Newhouse received only 23%. This is the first time since 2014 that Newhouse has failed to finish first in the primary -- but he defeated a conservative Republican (former NFL tight end Clint Didier) that November too. Sadly, he'll probably survive again this year. Sessler's going to need damn near every one of Smiley's voters to flock to his side because Newhouse will get the 23% who went for Democrats in the primary. That plus his own 23% gets him real close. Ugh. 
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.
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].
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| 7/2/2024: Virginia: Not "Good" At All; New York: Fire (Chief) Has Been Extinguished; Colorado: Democrat Manipulators Invade GOP Primaries Again [RightDataUSA] | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
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.
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.
Hillary Rodham Clinton, among her numerous repulsive traits, is petty, vengeful and unforgiving -- or worse -- to those who cross her; Vince Foster, Ron Brown and Jim McDougal were unavailable for comment on that subject. Bill had nothing to say either. Although the Clintons do possess an "enemies list", Hillary never acted upon that list -- at least not in any way which would deprive her congressional enemies of their jobs. She did not wreak vengeance on the ultra-liberal members of her party who endorsed Barack Hussein Obama over her in 2008, nor on those who endorsed Bernie Sanders against her in 2016. That's not because Hillary has any kind of warm and forgiving side, it's because only the Stupid Party is stupid enough to deliberately sabotage those who represent its ideological and electoral base. Democrats, like Communists, always put the Party first; RINOs would rather see aggressively conservative Republicans like Bob Good defeated whenever possible. The RINOs got their wish in Virginia last month. While Trump had his own petty reason for attempting to terminate the career of this particular conservative, the rest of the GOPe had another reason. The squishes don't find themselves allied with Donald Trump very often (but still more often than we would like), but because Good had voted to topple RINO McCarthy as Speaker last year -- and because of Good's resolutely conservative record -- the GOPe were all-in against him alongside the former president. 
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.
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.
Federal Election Commission reports concerning Colorado's 3rd district show that something called the "Rocky Mountain Values" PAC spent nearly $200K against conservative Ron Hanks, who was able to raise only $22,000 himself to fight back against the liberals -- Democrats and Republicans -- who supported his main primary opponent, moderate-liberal lawyer Jeffrey Hurd. The left-wing media claims that Rocky Mountain Values actually spent $500,000, and that the funds were spent supporting Hanks, because the PAC calculated that the conservative would be easier to beat in November. This Democrat PAC exists for the sole purpose of collecting and spending money to manipulate Republican primary outcomes in Colorado, one way or the other. He could have had an impact, but Donald Trump was silent in the CD-3 primary race and avoided endorsing the conservative; probably because that woefully-underfunded conservative was likely to lose the primary anyway. Which he did, by about 13 points in a 6-way race; current figures show Hurd as the winner with 41.3%, to 28.5% for Hanks. This is not the first time Democrats have openly tried to sabotage Republican primaries in Colorado. In numerous states in 2022, Democrats cleared the field for their chosen candidates in winnable statewide elections, thereby averting needlessly expensive and divisive primaries. That tactic also frees up Democrat voters who, because they have no real contests of their own to vote in, are able to cross over and manipulate the outcome of GOP primaries. Colorado state law even allows "independent" voters to participate in Republican primary elections without having to bother to re-register (no matter how temporarily) as Republicans. In 2022, only in the Pennsylvania Senate race (among all truly contested two-party races for Governor or Senate in the entire country) did Democrats allow the possibility of an acrimonious primary election. But it never happened because all of the party's heavyweights -- and their money -- were on the side of radical leftist candidate John Fetterman instead of the slightly less liberal candidate, Conor Lamb. Lambykins was never close in any primary poll, usually not even within 20-30 points of Fetterman, so there was never any doubt as to who the winner would be and the puppetmasters could afford to let the voters appear to "decide" that election. It's more of the same in 2024, where Democrats have once again cleared the field in every primary election where it matters, while Republicans still regularly wage war against each other in their primaries. On the GOP side the primary winner is often mortally wounded heading into the general election, and the RINOs refuse to unite with the conservatives whenever the primary voters have the temerity to select the less liberal candidate. In no state were liberal manipulations of GOP primaries more blatant than in Colorado in 2022. Democrats, often uniting with anti-conservative Republicans, spent inordinate amounts of money to get their way. In CD-3 in 2022, Democrats pulled out all the stops to either defeat or severely injure Lauren Boebert in her primary election against RINO Don Coram. They failed to defeat her at that time, but they were able to inflict sufficient damage which -- combined with the vast amount spent by liberal Aspen Democrat Adam Frisch, including over $2 million of his own money -- almost got the job done in November. Boebert narrowly escaped with a 50.1% to 49.9% win. Frisch spent over $6 million in all in 2022, which is chump change compared to what he and the Rats are spending in one more attempt to buy this congressional seat in 2024. Though failing in CD-3 in 2022, Democrats did get the outcomes they wanted in the more important Governor and Senate elections in Colorado, not to mention the really important Secretary of State election. Though it is not clear why they felt the need to go to so much trouble influencing Republican primaries for offices which the Democrats were always highly likely to win regardless of who the GOP nominee turned out to be. In the gubernatorial and senatorial Republican primary races, big-money Democrats funneled lots of $$$$ to the more conservative GOP candidates with the idea that they would be easier to defeat in a general election. The conservative who was running for Governor, Greg Lopez, was defeated in that primary by liberal Republican Heidi Ganahl, who was obliterated by almost 20 points by the incumbent Democrat rump-ranger in November. Lopez was elected to Congress last week in the special election in Colorado's 4th congressional district. His tenure in the House will be brief, as he did not choose to run for the full term which begins in 2025. In the 2022 GOP Senate primary, the puppetmasters feared squishy Republican Joe O'Dea and tried to boost Ron Hanks -- the same Ron Hanks who ran in the 2024 primary in CD-3. Once again the string-pullers failed to drag the conservative across the finish line, but they need not have feared O'Dea -- he lost by over two touchdowns in November to the incumbent liberal Democrat. But not before those same puppetmasters invested over $16 million dollars in "independent" expenditures against O'Dea; O'Dea himself was only able to raise $10 million altogether and $4 million of that came out of his own pocket. He never had a chance, though GOP leaders talked bravely (and stupidly) about supporting him with money -- however little that amount was, it would have been much better spent on Senate races practically anywhere else, like Georgia, Arizona or Pennsylvania. The biggest liberal coup of all in Colorado in 2022 was capturing the vital Secretary of State office, which is the office in charge of counting votes and abetting Democrat vote fraud (and helping persecute those who call it out). The GOP primary in that race was quite mysterious: How Did A Zuckerberg Charity Stooge Win A GOP Primary In Colorado? Subtitle: "Pam Anderson won a race with no money and very few visible voters". 
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.
Fire Chief Bowman falsely claimed that he turned in the alarm because he was trying to open emergency doors so he could hustle to the important vote which was taking place elsewhere in the Capitol building -- a phony fire alarm is more dangerous than any alleged "crime" committed by the J6 political prisoners. Bowman was facing a six-month jail term for this stunt, but charges were quickly dropped by Washington D.C. authorities (go figure). The House Ethics Committee, which is led by GOP milquetoasts, also immediately declined to recommend any punishment for Bowman. New York's 16th district was rated by Charlie Cook as D+25 in 2020 and D+20 after redistricting reduced the Bronx portion of the district to practically nothing; CD-16 is now contained almost entirely (~95%) within suburban Westchester County and remains utterly safe for Democrats. The new Democrat congressman from CD-16 will be just as liberal as Bowman, so don't expect any improvement there; he probably won't be as obnoxious, though. 
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. 
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.
Tags:
2024
U.S. House
Virginia
Colorado
New York
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| 6/13/2024: This Week's Primaries; Meltdown in Maine; The Last Sane Senate Democrat? [RightDataUSA] | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
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.
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%.
C.I.V.O. -- "Conservative In Voting Only": Elsewhere in the Palmetto State on Tuesday, incumbent Republican William Timmons in CD-4 (Greenville/Spartanburg) barely survived a primary challenge from his right, just as he had barely survived a similar but less focused threat two years earlier. In this heavily Republican district, a primary win is often tantamount to election because Democrats either do not field any candidate at all, or they make only the smallest token effort. Timmons, now completing his third term in Congress, has displayed conservative tendencies when voting on legislation. The American Conservative Union gives Timmons a lifetime rating of over 90% and he toes the party line (such as that party line sometimes is) at least 95% of the time; he cannot technically be called a "RINO". On the other hand, there is more to a congressman than how he votes. Given his vastly underwhelming performance in primary elections lately, it is clear that Timmons has done something to annoy a sizable portion of his party's base. Among other reasons for annoyance, Timmons is definitely not a "fighter" for conservative causes. Timmons was a staunch supporter of disgraced ex-House Speaker Kevin McCarthy and, as a go-along-to-get-along type, would hardly be uncomfortable as a Republican back-bencher in a Democrat-controlled House. Which is something he may well get to see first-hand in 2025. Timmons has rejected calls to join the House Freedom Caucus, that "far-right" group of conservatives who dare to try to influence legislation (gasp!); they also try to influence the moderate House leadership, of which they comprise no part. In order to avert retaliation (which shows you how the GOPe works) the membership list of the House Freedom Caucus is never disclosed. Timmons proudly declares that he is not now nor has he ever been a member of that group, and he also complains that the Caucus is a hindrance to getting certain (liberal) legislation through the House. Timmons has some other issues (extramarital affairs, support for racist DEI crap) which bolster the assertion that he is not worthy of re-election. In this year's CD-4 primary, unabashed Freedom Caucus member Matt Gaetz of Florida threw his support behind conservative state legislator Adam Morgan; Donald Trump, in an action so typical as to practically be mandatory, threw his support behind the wimpy incumbent even though there was no risk whatsoever of the conservative Morgan losing to a Democrat in November. [The same thing applied in the North Dakota U.S. House race, where Trump bypassed solid conservative Rich Becker in order to endorse a likely RINO in a district which had no incumbent running -- and, like in SC-4, no viable Democrat opposition in November either.] The South Carolina squish eked out a win on Tuesday, with 51.6% to 48.4% for Morgan. Timmons raised and spent nearly $2 million, although $900,000 of that came from a loan which Timmons was able to make to his campaign. Morgan actually outraised the incumbent swamp critter in terms of individual mom-n-pop type contributions, while Timmons had much greater support from the political/corporate sector, and his own bank account. 
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.
Andrews' "resignation" was merely symbolic and utterly meaningless seeing as how the Maine legislature has already adjourned for the year and Andrews was not running for re-election anyway. He did not elaborate on what the real problem was here, but it's probably spelled T-r-u-m-p. However, like Soboleski, Andrews is also normally a conservative and his voting record backed up that description. It is therefore possible that Trump wasn't the main point of contention. In every story about this 27,000 square-mile district, the liberal media makes sure to note that it was once the site of a "mass shooting"; Theriault is a supporter of the Second Amendment, which according to the media (and probably John Andrews) makes Theriault somehow personally responsible for that massacre. Golden's financial advantages and his experience with manipulating the voters of the second district will be difficult to overcome, but the GOP has put this House seat at or near the top of its list of potential pickups, and for good reason. An R+6 district is likely to come to its senses sooner or later, and 2024 may be the year that happens. 
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.
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.
Tags:
2024
U.S. House
Senate
Ohio
South Carolina
Nevada
Maine
Lurch / Uncle Fester
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| 6/10/2024: [South Carolina] Who Are You, and What Have You Done With Nancy Mace? [RightDataUSA] | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
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.
The Charleston-based district has been quite volatile politically in recent years. When the voters of this district sent Republican Mark Sanford back to Congress for a second stint in a 2013 special election, it appeared that they had forgiven him for his erratic behavior including (but not limited to) his Kennedy-esque extramarital affairs, his sudden unexplained disappearance while Governor in 2009, and his surprising reappearance in Argentina several days later. Sanford compiled a generally conservative record throughout most of that second stint in the House. In 2018 however, Sanford split with President Trump and ran shrieking to the left, opposing Trump on nearly 50% of his House votes that year. Trump endorsed Katie Arrington, a mostly moderate state legislator, in the 2018 GOP primary against Sanford. Arrington won that primary by the margin of 50.6% to 46.5%, narrowly averting a runoff. In the 2018 general election, Cunningham and the Democrats outstpent Arrington by 50%, while the GOP establishment abandoned Arrington when they weren't busy knifing her in the back; she had to finance a significant portion of her own campaign. Arrington lost by just over 1% in November. Arrington would be heard from again, but not in 2020 when the Republicans united behind Nancy Mace. Mace, who had compiled a moderate-to-slightly-conservative record during her three years in the SC state House, recaptured CD-1 for the Republicans by about the same narrow margin which Arrington had lost it two years earlier. The Democrats spent over $7 million trying to keep Cunningham in office, plus another $6 million in "independent" expenditures opposing Mace. But the GOP fought back and was able to compete on almost equal financial footing in the 2020 campaign. Mace evicted Cunningham from the House even as Trump's margin in CD-1 was falling from 13% in 2016 to only 6% in 2020. CD-1 was redistricted to be slightly more Republican after 2020, a pertinent factor which will be addressed below. Mace was no conservative during her first three years in Congress, and she became a self-appointed poster child for her wing of the GOP. She regularly ran to the liberal media and criticized her conservative colleagues, and others on the right, for their attacks on "RINOs" and she warned that such attacks would severely damage the party at the polls. Mace, who according to her bio played a substantial role in the Trump campaign in 2016 in South Carolina, eventually broke with the former President. It didn't help matters when she said Trump was "accountable" for the so-called "attack" on the U.S. Capitol building on January 6, 2021. In the 2022 Republican primary, Trump and the conservatives threw their weight behind Arrington, who was making her second bid for the CD-1 seat. The right did claim a scalp in the 2022 South Carolina primary, that of Trump impeachment RINO Tom Rice in CD-7, but Mace survived without a runoff when Arrington came up several points short. Democrats only tepidly contested this seat in November of 2022, and Mace easily won the R+7 district. As recently as last year Mace was still being her usual irritating moderate self.... and then something odd happened. 
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?
Nobody is suggesting that a politician who sticks her finger into the wind and changes course accordingly is to be respected or trusted. But that's not what Nancy Mace did here, opinions of the haters notwithstanding. We mentioned redistricting earlier in this commentary. For all of 2023 and most of 2024 there was every reason to believe that Mace's district would be altered again and moved sharply to the left, in a racist effort to favor Democrats. Her move to the right under those circumstances would hardly constitute "blowing with the wind". If anything, in order to be re-elected she would need to run away from anything resembling conservatism in order to attract Democrat votes. Only a few short weeks ago did Mace get a reprieve. On May 23 the U.S. Supreme Court rejected the arguments of the professional racists at the NAACP. They ruled that South Carolina does not need to redistrict again and gerrymander Mace's congressional district to make it solidly Democrat. We not only need more conservatives in Congress, we need more conservative fighters. Mace has always been aggressive, and now that she is finally fighting the GOOD fight, we strongly support her re-election bid and all conservatives should do so as well. Addendum: Mace's main financial opposition -- to the tune of 2 million dollars for the June 11 primary alone -- is something called "South Carolina Patriots PAC" which just sprung into existence a few months ago for the express purpose of torpedoing Mace. It has contributed to no other races in the state, or anywhere else. It's being funded by McCarthy's millionaire allies in order to give the coward some "plausible deniability". McCarthy has apparently only contributed a token amount of the money he bilked his own contributors out of, for the alleged purpose of financing his own re-election which of course isn't happening. If you like dark-money GOP establishment RINO puppets, you'll love Catherine Templeton. Tags:
2024
U.S. House
South Carolina
People DO Change
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| 6/6/2024: Incumbent House Democrats: Running Scared or Just Faking Toward the Center? [RightDataUSA] | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
It's both, but mainly the latter.
Now we are in an election year, and even though most voters don't have any clue who their representative in Congress is until they see an election ballot -- and they certainly have no idea how that congressman votes -- incumbents are wary of their congressional voting record being used against them in the campaign, and so they often try to "moderate" their record to avoid accusations of extremism. The vast majority of the time, it is Republicans who must be the most wary and who do the most moderating. The liberal media, and of course Democrat candidates and RINOs who are running to an incumbent's left in a primary, will gladly use whatever ammunition is available against a conservative. It is a rare case that a liberal Democrat -- even in the most marginal of districts -- must concern herself even slightly about charges of being "too liberal". That is true in nearly all election years. But apparently not 2024. Our analysis of congressional voting data from Voteview which runs through May 23 shows that numerous Democrats are the ones who are panicking and running hysterically towards the center, while even the squishiest House Republicans suddenly have grown at least a small amount of backbone and are standing united most of the time. This behavior, on both sides, is unprecedented in recent years. With all of these "moderate" Democrats voting alongside the solid Republican majority so frequently, why isn't more conservative legislation becoming law? There are at least two reasons. First, these Democrat defections are carefully metered by the party leadership. A certain group of panicky Democrats is permitted to leave the plantation on a particular vote, then a different group is given temporary freedom on a subsequent vote, and so on. No specific bill which is repugnant to liberals has any landslide vote in favor of it. Secondly, even if one does slip past them in the House, the Democrats still have their firewall in the Senate where any conservative bill is D.O.A. Despite only 49 actual Democrats plus two alleged independents, Angus King & Kyrsten Sinema, they effectively have at least 53 fairly solid votes (see below) against any legislation that could be remotely described as conservative. So these center-fakes are basically a no-risk venture from the perspective of the liberal Democrat House leadership, and there is a significant benefit to playing the voting equivalent of Three-Card Monte: the supposedly endangered House Democrats get vital "moderate cred" for these carefully choreographed votes, which they can use to deflect accusations of ultra-liberalism that may arise on the campaign trail. No vulnerable Democrat wants to hear her Republican opponent declare "She voted with Hakeem Jeffries 94% of the time!" during a debate or at any other time during a campaign. These tactical departures from lockstep Democrat voting are meant to defuse such allegations and to create the illusion of independence from the unpopular liberal leadership. In 2024 five Democrats have been voting nearly as much (over 40%) with Republicans on Party Unity votes than they vote with their own party. Another 22 Democrats have been allowed to leave the plantation at least 25% of the time. Twenty-five percent may not sound like a lot, but for Democrats in recent years it is a ton. In 2023 only one Democrat (Jared Golden) rather than 27 reached that threshold of permissible disobedience. In 2022, the last time these people had to face the voters, Democrats were as united as ever with not even one of them dissenting from party orthodoxy as much as 20% of the time. In 2024, fully 48 Democrats have exceeded that figure so far. The fact that they feel the need to fake to the center so often is an indication that panic is setting in. The column titled "% GOP" in the table below is the percentage of the time so far in 2024 that the Democrat representative has voted with the Republicans on Party Unity votes. Freshmen are shown in italics; the first re-election bid is normally the toughest.
Notes:
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:
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:
Even if the Republicans regain numerical control of the Senate as a result of November's elections (they need only a Trump win or one additional victory besides West Virginia in a Senate race), who can possibly believe the GOP will have actual control with traitors like Collins and Murkowski in their ranks? If necessary, one or both of those desiccated crones may bolt the party and claim to be Independent in order to stop Republicans from having even numerical control. Even the execrable Mitt Romney, who is retiring after 2024 and undoubtedly wishes to end his political career in a blaze of anti-conservative glory, only votes with the Democrats 24% of the time so far this year. The Democrat analog to Romney is Joe Manchin, who recently announced his departure from the Democrat party to become an independent. Like Romney and fellow "independent" Kyrsten Sinema, Manchin is never going to face the voters of his state again and can therefore follow his conscience from here on out. Be that as it may, Manchin's conscience is still somewhere around 75% liberal, and he still has to answer to the party masters who will not appreciate his defection on any bills which are truly important to them. The comparison of Manchin to Romney is not completely appropriate though both enjoy the notoriety they sometimes receive for being a thorn in the side of their respective parties. Manchin, unlike Romney, is not a regular visitor to liberal media opinion programs (sometimes disguised as "news") to trash his own party whenever possible. Romney's propaganda value to the left is far greater than his mere voting record in the Senate; Manchin is also a whore for publicity, but his damage to the Democrat party has always been minimal and that's not going to change despite the fact that he has altered his party label for his final few months in office. Conclusion: Although House Democrats appear to be running scared it's likely just so much political theater. Nearly all of the most vulnerable ones still have sizable money, organizational and of course media advantages over their GOP challengers. On the flip side, the numerous vulnerable Republican House incumbents may be sticking together in terms of votes in Congress, but their chances for re-election will be determined more by money and voter turnout and factors which affect that (such as election "integrity") than those votes in the House. In many instances, that's not a happy prospect. Tags:
2024
U.S. House
Scared Democrats?
Fakers
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| 3/4/2024: [New York] NY Dems adopt new redistricting map with no threat of GOP lawsuit, ending 3-year saga [Lohud] | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
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
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| 2/8/2024: Final 2023 campaign finance reports -- Democrats way ahead in the key races [RightDataUSA] | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
[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
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| 1/21/2024: 14 House Democrats Vote To Denounce Biden Admin's Open-Borders Policies [Daily Wire] | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
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
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| 1/19/2024: [New York] Third District Poll: Democrats with Edge to Pick up Congressional Seat [Emerson] | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
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
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| 1/18/2024: [South Carolina] Rep. Jeff Duncan (R) will not seek reelection [WSPA News 7] | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
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
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| 1/18/2024: [Ohio] Dennis Kucinich files FEC paperwork to run for Congress against Republican Max Miller [Cleveland.com] | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
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
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| 1/9/2024: Another One Bites the Dust.... But This is 2024, Not 2018 [RightDataUSA] | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
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
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| 1/4/2024: [Pennsylvania] It's not just Trump: Democrats are moving to bar Republicans from ballots nationwide [NY Post] | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
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
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| 12/28/2023: [Colorado] Lauren Boebert will switch congressional districts to improve her chances of winning in 2024 [Colorado Sun] | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
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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| 12/19/2023: Democrats Stage a Congressional Map-Making Coup in New York [Wall Street Journal] | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
Another domino falls against the probability of the GOP continuing to maintain House control after 2024. Maybe a house of cards would have been a better image for the fragile and timid Republican majority in Congress. You may wonder why Republicans normally do not bother to seek redress from the courts when they are screwed by Democrats in redistricting. Here's an example of what happens when they try: In November of 2020 Democrats vowed to get revenge on GOP Rep. Yvette Herrell in New Mexico because she had the audacity to defeat a Democrat in a House race that year, and they got their vengeance by redistricting her out of the House; Herrell narrowly lost in 2022 in a district which was substantially altered from the one in which she had prevailed in 2020. In late November of 2023, the 100% Democrat New Mexico Supreme Court unsurpisingly ruled that the partisan gerrymander which the Democrats in the NM legislature created was 100% legal despite the fact that the NM state Constitution explicitly forbids such spiteful partisan gerrymanders. In cases like these, Democrat judges are all about upholding the party -- as opposed to upholding the law. When a law unfavorable to Democrats exists, they simply ignore it; when no law favorable to Democrats exists, they simply "legislate from the bench" and invent one out of thin air as was done in North Carolina in 2022. Because the House landscape will probably be constantly undergoing changes between now and next November, we will periodically publish an updated scorecard to show how the GOP majority is being eroded by Democrat gerrymanders. New districting maps mandated by racist Democrat judges will cost Republicans one U.S. House seat next year in each of Alabama and Louisiana, and they are also trying to gerrymander Georgia (+1 for the Rats), South Carolina (also +1), and Tennessee (ditto) along similar racist lines. They will try for +2 in Wisconsin by insisting that Republicans were not sufficiently screwed by the Democrat-drawn map which was used in 2022. And don't rule out Democrat shenanigans in Florida, similar to what occurred in that state during the previous decade. In Alabama, judges have eliminated a White (Republican) district from the face of the earth and replaced it with one which must elect a black Democrat, or else. The GOP has recruited a good candidate who possesses the required melanin content (former University of Alabama and NFL defensive lineman Wallace Gilberry) but he is hardly likely to prevail in the new ghettofied version of CD-2 and he is just as unlikely to get much in the way of help from the national Republican party, which knows quite well how to "take the L" gracefully. Republicans are clinging desperately to the hope that they will offset some of these disasters by going +3 or so under a new North Carolina map that might be installed to replace the one which was illegally mandated by Democrat judges on the NC Supreme Court in 2022. But don't count on that new NC map being used in 2024 just yet. All it takes is one partisan liberal judge somewhere to put a stop to it. Liberals are swinging for the fences as well in Republican strongholds such as Kentucky, Arkansas and Utah, where they hope to locate some compliant black-robed tyrants who will put partisan election outcomes above the law. When it comes to redistricting, the Democrat motto is "sue everywhere!"; the GOP leadership grumbles a little but then bends over as they usually do. In Utah, where an independent commission created the map which was used in 2022, Democrats are whining (and, of course, suing) because they claim that the Democrat mecca of Salt Lake City was purposely split up in order to dilute the concentration of leftists in any one congressional district. The extremely partisan League of Women Voters was offended by the map the independent commission created, and has taken up the Democrat cause as is customary for that "nonpartisan" (LOL) organization. To see something quite similar you need only to look slightly to the west of Utah where, in Nevada, the Democrat legislature carved up the city of Las Vegas in order to dilute Republican strength in each of the three districts in which Las Vegas lies. We're patiently waiting for the League of Hysterical Harpies to discover this particular injustice and file suit accordingly on behalf of the GOP. Tags:
U.S. House
Redistricting
New York
Gerrymander
New Mexico
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| 12/19/2023: [Georgia] Redistricting special session likely to boost Democrats [Capitol Beat] | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
Photo credit: wabe.org
The linked article was published in late November by the self-proclaimed "unbiased" website "Capitol Beat" which covers Georgia politics from an exclusively left-wing perspective. It concerns how that state's legislature is going to cope with the recent ruling of an Obama judge which demands the redrawing of district maps at all levels (state House, state Senate, and Congress) to elect Democrats and exterminate Republicans. UPDATE: On December 28, Judge Jones shocked everyone and dismayed his fellow Democrats by approving the new congressional district map drawn by the Georgia legislature. Liberal crybabying commenced immediately, despite the fact that the GOP-controlled legislature fully complied with the judge's mandate to create a fifth black-majority congressional district. As noted above, five such districts out of a total of 14 exceeds the actual proportion of blacks in the state of Georgia. So why aren't Democrats celebrating? (Scroll back a few paragraphs to find the answer.) Look for reaction from Democrat-controlled states in the near future (New York and Wisconsin leap immediately to mind), where leftists will redouble efforts to gerrymander Republicans out of Congress because they are upset that Republicans weren't screwed any harder than they were in Georgia. Judge Jones' ruling is in no way a "win" or a gain for the GOP; it merely enables them to hold onto what they already earned. Tags:
U.S. House
Georgia
State Legislature
Redistricting
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| 11/2/2023: Yesterday's Developments in Congress [RightDataUSA] | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
Photo credit: The Hill
On November 1, there were two roll-call votes in the House concerning possible disciplinary actions against two individual members, and another two Republican representatives announced that they would not be running for re-election in 2024. Earlier in the day, GOP representatives Kay Granger of Texas and Ken Buck of Colorado revealed that they will retire from Congress at the end of the current term. Granger was first elected to her suburban Metroplex district in 1996, and Democrats have not seriously challenged her since 1998. The district has been moved politically to the right over the years through redistricting (though it was shifted back towards the left this time around), which also tends to discourage challenges. The GOP should easily be able to hold this seat next November. The same applies to Ken Buck's Colorado district, which favors GOP candidates slightly more than Granger's district. Buck is a perfect example of why you cannot evaluate a Republican's conservatism simply by looking at his voting record. Buck's voting record in Congress is highly conservative, or at least it was through 2022; he voted the right way nearly 100% of the time. However Buck is also a flake, flitting all over the place in the past and especially lately. Buck did the right thing by being one of the tiny number of GOP insurgents who ousted Squish McCarthy as Speaker of the House. However.... Back in July he used his allotted time during the Republicans' grilling of quisling Christopher Wray to heap praise (instead of well-deserved derision) on the Trump-hating FBI director and his organization, even as the FBI was busy protecting the Biden Crime Family from any consequences of their crimes. In recent days, Buck led the revolt against conservative Jim Jordan in order to prevent him from replacing McCarthy as Speaker. Buck has made no secret of his desire to join the most liberal of all liberal media outlets (CNN) as a GOP-bashing commentator when his days "serving the public" are over. But at least he votes the correct way and that's sufficient, right? Wrong. And good riddance. The second vote yesterday was to potentially expel -- not merely censure -- non-terrorist Republican George Santos of New York. Ever since being elected in 2022, Santos has been accused of lying about his past, though at least Santos never lied by claiming to have "served' in the Vietnam War, like a certain Democrat Senator from Connecticut has done with impunity. Santos is being persecuted, a la Trump, by the always impartial and non-partisan "lawfare" system in New York state. This resolution to expel Santos (the second one he has faced this year) was brought by five of his Republican colleagues from New York, all of whom are liberal freshmen (Santos is the only conservative among the newest members of the NY delegation) and all of whom are, not surprisingly, totally gutless. Apparently these invertebrates fear being labeled as guilty by assocation with Santos when they run for re-election next year. Therefore they would prefer to be rid of him prior to that time. One wonders why Michigan Democrats are not equally fearful of guilt-by-assocation with their racist Muslim colleague, Rashida Tlaib. Do simps like Brandon Williams, Mike Lawler and Marc Molinaro -- running in New York districts many miles away from the one Santos represents -- really need to be so terrified of some liberal media reporter challenging them about another member of their party? Although 24 of his fellow GOP-ers did vote to expel Santos yesterday, 31 Democrats tactically came to his rescue, and the motion for expulsion failed. What great human beings those 31 Democrats are, putting aside their partisan differences to aid an embattled Republican! Right? Hardly. The list of Santos' newly-minted supporters from across the aisle contains some of the most hard-core racists in the Democrat party. The Democrats merely want Santos to remain in Congress -- as a whipping boy for themselves and as an albatross for Republicans -- because they (like the five New York cowards) believe he will be a campaign issue in 2024. Those Santos haters are likely to be disappointed. Although Santos has not yet announced that he isn't running in 2024, it's a fact that he won't be. Santos has zero chance of being re-elected, and probably has the lowest amount of campaign cash-on-hand of any incumbent Republican. He's finished. Even without Santos in the race there's still a greater than 50% probability that the seat flips anyway in 2024 because his win was perhaps the greatest fluke outcome among House elections in 2022. And that prediction for 2024 comes even without considering the probable implementation of a hyper-partisan Democrat gerrymander which will eradicate many House Republicans in New York. There's a ton of money in the race already in Santos' district -- on both sides -- several million dollars as compared to Santos' pittance, and almost a dozen financially-viable candidates. Tags:
U.S. House
George Santos
Expulsion
Rashida Tlaib
Actual Insurrection
Kay Granger
Ken Buck
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| 10/28/2023: Masks Off: Alarming New Gallup Poll Blows Growing Democrat Schism Over the Israel Issue Wide Open [Redstate] | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
Photo credit: AP Photo/Evan Vucci
Fifteen Democrats went on record as failing to support Israel after the Hamas attacks, when asked to vote on a resolution comdemning those attacks. The 9 who voted against the resolution are: Tags:
Israel
Hamas
Democrat
Terrorists
U.S. House
Pennsylvania
Pittsburgh
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| 10/25/2023: North Carolina Republicans Propose Harshest Gerrymander Yet [Elections Daily] | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
Photo credit: elections-daily.com
Looks like the NCGOP is trying for a home run here, and hopefully will get it. If the partisan Democrat NC Supreme Court had not invented a "law" and overturned the original GOP map which was submitted a couple of years ago, Republicans would have won 9 or maybe 10 at most (out of 14) seats in Congress. Now, ironically, they may have a chance to do even better (11-3). Ha ha. First tactic will be to use the Alabama strategy and insist that because North Carolina is 21% black then they are "entitled" to 3 out of 14 districts on that basis. NC is also 10% Hispanic, which could mean another entitlement of one district. Both of those racist factors would combine to limit the GOP to at most 10 out of 14 seats. Which is still much better than the 7 they hold now. Another tactic they'll use is that the filing deadline for 2024 is coming up soon, as if that deadline can't be changed, and claim that it's "too late" now to implement a new map. That's the trick the Rats tried in 2022 in New York when they (temporarily) didn't get their way. It didn't work then, but who knows if it will now? Tags:
North Carolina
Redistricting
U.S. House
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| 9/20/2023: Republicans Just Got Blasted in a New Hampshire Special Election Because Zero Lessons Have Been Learned [Redstate] | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
Photo credit: AP Photo/Charles Krupa
The Trump-haters and GOP establishment shills who run "RedState.com" have decided that Donald Trump blew it again. It happened yesterday in a tiny New Hampshire district in which a liberal Democrat defeated a MAGA Republican in a special election that most voters ignored. Trump himself likely wasn't even aware of the election, much less involved in it in any way. Tags:
New Hampshire
State House election
2023
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| 9/20/2023: Ratings Update: Ohio Congressional Races Solidify as Maps Approved for Second Term [Elections Daily] | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
Good news (presumably) out of the Buckeye State as regards the U.S. House districts which will be used in 2024, though by a Democrat-friendly state law they will still be invalidated before the 2026 elections. The 2024 districts will be the same ones which were used in 2022, which may cause one to wonder why this is considered to be good news seeing as how Democrats were the ones who benefited in '22. More on that below, but first, some history: Tags:
Ohio
U.S. House
Redistricting
Backfire
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| 9/12/2023: [South Carolina] House Republican Nancy Mace Says 'We Will Lose Next Year' If MAGA Members Bully Moderates [Mediate] | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
Photo credit: The Hill
Liberal GOP crybully is welcomed onto a low-rated ultra-liberal TV network in order to bash conservatives. Any "news" story pertaining to a Republican politician which contains "During an appearance on CNN..." tells you all you need to know about that politician's credibility.  However: If Mace's district is redrawn and overrun by the Charleston ghetto, do not be surprised if she jumps on her broomstick and flies to a different district (perhaps CD-7) and tries to oust the GOP incumbent there. She'll have 100% support from the GOPe, just like she did in 2022 when they helped her to fight against a solid conservative in the primary. The establishment may claim publicly that it will be neutral in a matchup of incumbents, but you can count on there not being much neutrality going on behind the scenes. CD-7 is represented by freshman Republican Russell Fry who prevailed against Trump-hating liberal incumbent Tom Rice in the 2022 primary. Oh how the GOPe must despise Fry, and would love to save Mace and dump him simultaneously. It's worth noting that Mace already has at least 4 times the amount of cash for the 2024 election as Fry does. If they battle each other, one of those two will get a lot more $$$$ from the GOPe. It won't be Fry. Tags:
Nancy Mace
South Carolina
RINO
U.S. House
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| 7/20/2023: [Colorado] Cook shifts Boebert race to 'toss-up' [The Hill] | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
Photo credit: Getty Images
The reason is because the liberal Ass-pen Democrat whom Boebert narrowly defeated in 2022 is back for another run at her, and has been given a ton of money so far (probably a good deal of it from "Republicans"), with plenty more to come. Tags:
Colorado
U.S. House
Lauren Boebert
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| 7/11/2023: Mayra Flores Launches Comeback Bid in Texas [Breitbart] | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
Photo credit: Anna Moneymaker/Getty Images
You'll remember Flores from June of 2022 when she scored a historic upset victory in a heavily-Mexican south Texas district (CD-34) which had never before been won by anything other than a Democrat. The old version of the 34th district in which Flores won that 4-way special election 13 months ago was pretty much a tossup and had trended slightly to the right as of 2020. Special elections are always prone to fluke outcomes due to low turnout, but the flukes usually favor the left. This one didn't. Tags:
Mayra Flores
Texas
U.S. House
Historic upset
Redistricting
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| 3/10/2023: 2024 election: 29 House lawmakers Democrats fear could lose their seats next year [Washington Examiner] | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
From the article: Tags:
U.S. House
2024
Vulnerable incumbents
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| 1/6/2023: Judges order South Carolina to redraw congressional map [Roll Call] | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
Photo credit: Tom Williams/CQ Roll Call
And so it begins. Tags:
U.S. House
South Carolina
Judicial gerrymandering
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| 11/29/2022: [Virginia] House Democratic Rep. Donald McEachin dies at 61 [ABC27] | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
Photo credit: abc27.com
Myth #1: Republican Governor Glenn Youngkin gets to appoint a replacement, which means the GOP gains a seat!!! Tags:
U.S. House
Virginia
Special election
2023
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| 11/7/2022: Final 2022 election predictions! [RightDataUSA] | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
Sorry we've been out of touch for a couple of months (family issues), but here are some realistic predictions for what will happen Tuesday.
Tags:
U.S. House
Senate
2022
Take back the House
But not the Senate
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| 8/24/2022: Pat Ryan (D) defeats Marc Molinaro (R) in special election in NY-19 [Albany Times Union] | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
Photo credit: Tony Adamis/Special to the Times Union
Anyone assuming that Republicans are going to win most of the close ones in November is delusional. We have to turn out in numbers that make these races far less close. Tags:
U.S. House
New York
Special election
2022
Bad candidate
Narrow loss
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| 8/24/2022: [Florida] Anna Paulina Luna defeats Kevin Hayslett for CD 13 GOP nomination [Florida Politics] | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
Luna's victory in CD-13 is great, especially because the GOP simps hate her, and the school board election results in Florida (the good guys won some big ones!) are getting a lot of hype today, which is another noteworthy outcome. But as for the Republican congressional primaries in Florida, how are real conservatives supposed to be enthused by a bunch of squishes being nominated everywhere aside from CD-13? Tags:
U.S. House
Florida
2022
Anna Paulina Luna
Squishes win elsewhere
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| 8/12/2022: [Florida] America First Poll Shows Republican KW Miller With Double-Digit Lead Over RINO Carlos Gimenez In Florida's 28th District Primary Race [PR Newswire] | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
Photo credit: KW Miller for Congress
According to Ballotpedia, Trump has endorsed the RINO incumbent instead of the conservative challenger. This poll, not that it's particularly believable, might cause that endorsement to change. Not only is Gimenez a RINO who supports amnesty for illegal aliens, gun-grabbing and other liberal causes, he supported the J6 Kangaroo Kourt Kommittee even after Trump endorsed him in 2020. Tags:
U.S. House
Florida
2022
Backstabbing RINOs
Lunatic poll
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| 8/9/2022: [Wyoming] Data: Liz Cheney's Plan to Win GOP Primary with Democrat Votes Is Failing [Breitbart] | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
Photo credit: pbs.com
From the article: "Wyoming law states that voters must be affiliated with a particular party to vote in that party's primary election - but voters can change their party registration on primary Election Day or any time leading up to it. In other words, it is essentially an open primary." Tags:
U.S. House
Wyoming
2022
Liz Cheney
Dead RINO
J6 Kangaroo Kourt Klown
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| 8/1/2022: [Michigan] Moderate GOP Rep. Peter Meijer Trashes Dems for Bankrolling His MAGA Foe in Scathing Op-Ed: Selling Out 'Any Pretense of Principle' [MSN] | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
The article claims that "Democrats have been financially backing MAGA GOP candidates this primary cycle in order to have a better shot at beating them ahead of an expected Republican wave in November." In this case, that assertion smells like bullshit. As of July 13 Gibbs had less than $150,000 cash on hand and Meijer had about 6x as much. Those must be some pretty stingy Democrat contributors. Tags:
U.S. House
Michigan
2022
Silver-spoon RINO
Peter Meijer
Going down
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| 7/27/2022: [Michigan] GOP's Meijer voted to impeach Trump. Now Democrats are helping his Trump-backed GOP primary opponent [Washington Post] | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
Even better, true conservatives are supporting Gibbs too. The liberals and RINOs are both hoping that Gibbs will lose in November against the ultra-liberal and very well-funded Rat. The redistricting process also worked against Republicans here, as this district which encompasses the rapidly-deteriorating Grand Rapids area was shifted several points to the left and now favors Democrats. Tags:
U.S. House
Michigan
2022
RINO backstabber
Loser
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