On October 27, one week before the state of California was inevitably going to approve its most recent Democrat gerrymander (it passed by 3,000,000 votes and will cost Republicans 4 or 5 House seats), Indiana Governor Mike Braun called for a special session of his state's legislature in order to retaliate against California to some degree. There's only so much that a relatively small state such as Indiana can do against a behemoth like California, but Braun and Indiana conservatives -- encouraged by President Donald Trump -- prepared to revise the Hoosier State's congressional district map in such a way as to enable Republicans to go from a 7-2 advantage in the Indiana delegation to possibly as much as a 9-0 sweep in a good election year.

Republicans have a solid hold on both houses of the Indiana state legislature, 70-30 in the House and 40-10 in the Senate.

The special session of the legislature did not even commence until December 1, however on November 18 a Twitter user named "johnny maga" posted a new district map which was allegedly proposed by the Indiana House Republicans. The map was accompanied by a statement from House Speaker Todd Huston in which he vowed that Indiana would stand up against the Democrat gerrymanders in California (which by then was a done deal) and Virginia. The Virginia plan is still on the drawing board but, if implemented, could cost Republicans up to 4 more seats in the U.S. House of Representatives.

The proposed Indiana map from November 18 was ludicrous (not that such a thing has ever stopped Democrat map creators) and probably was never seriously considered; it contained two districts which stretched from Lake Michigan to practically the Kentucky border. On December 1 the Indiana House Republicans released a different map -- an eminently reasonable map with compact districts which is pictured above. It would obliterate one of the two Democrat-held House districts (CD-7) and would make the other Rat-held district (CD-1) into one which leans slightly towards the right.

Four days later the Indiana state House approved this new map by a vote of 57-41. On December 11, twenty-one RINOs in the Indiana state Senate became darlings (temporarily) of the liberal media by voting alongside every Democrat in order to sabotage their own party and defeat the new redistricting plan. The final vote was 19 in favor and 31 against.

Indiana Congressional District 1

CD-1 has been in Democrat hands for almost 100 years without interruption; no Republican has ever won a House race there since the district was created in 1932. At that time Lake County (Gary, Hammond) was given its own congressional district, the rapidly growing county having gone from 38,000 residents in 1900 to a population of 261,000 by 1930. Since then, CD-1 has always contained most or all of Lake County, but in recent years Porter County and parts of LaPorte County have been added. Lake County has been losing population since the late 1960's, when Whites began fleeing in droves -- leaving behind a county and congressional district which thus became even more Democrat-oriented.

From 1974 through 2018 no GOP House candidate even broke 40% in CD-1 except for a fluke in 1994 and the time the seat was open in 1982. In 1982 racist Democrat Richard Hatcher was in charge of selecting his party's nominee after the incumbent in CD-1 died following the primary election. Hatcher bypassed better-qualified White candidates and forced his party to accept a black nominee. The Republican still lost by 13% in both 1982 and 1994, and that was as close as the GOP came during that 44-year interval.

Indiana Congressional District 7

This district, which was the old CD-10 until Indiana was reduced to 9 districts in 2002, was only slightly D-leaning in the 1990s. Republicans made a serious effort in 1996 when Andy Jacobs retired. Jacobs, a Democrat who was first elected in 1964, was known for spending practically zilch on his campaigns yet he still prevailed time after time; Democrats had to spend nearly $600K to hold the seat in '96.

Figuring they had a chance in the 2000s, Republican redistricters moved CD-7 five points to the right, but the GOP never came particularly close to a House win in that decade. They moved it 5 more points to the right for 2012, and it still didn't help. As of that year the district was the southern three-quarters of Marion County (Indianapolis), omitting the northern tier. The Republicans had two reasons for giving up on CD-7 in 2022 (they spent literally nothing there in 2024): they apparently couldn't win CD-7 under any conditions, and the adjacent CD-5 was worsening. So the northern tier of Marion County was moved from CD-5 to CD-7. Now CD-7 is the northern 70% of Marion, omitting the good southern portion.

A Republican nominee in CD-5 no longer has to deal with Marion County at all, and that district has added good rural territory while also losing deteriorating Boone County which is northwest of Indianapolis. Demographic sewage mainly flows north from Indianapolis and is harming the southeastern corner of Boone, and has already polluted formerly rock-solid Hamilton County to a serious extent. Hamilton is the primary county of CD-5 and has been for a while, but now it is only 50-55% Republican -- and dropping -- whereas it was once consistently 70% GOP or even more. Shoring up CD-5 for Republicans was the tradeoff for them forfeiting CD-7 entirely.

The proposed map for 2026 would have nullified that forfeiture. It split Marion County into 4 districts instead of into two as it is now (the good southern portion is in CD-6). The new versions of CD-4 (R+7), CD-6 (R+8), CD-7 (R+7) and CD-9 (R+8) would each have contained some part of Indianapolis, but would have been only nominally influenced by the city, leaving none of those districts bad enough that Andre Carson or any other Democrat could win it in a typical election.

Under the current map, which will likely persist for the remainder of the decade, CD-7 is rated as D+19. Which means that no Republican has even the slightest chance of winning it. Carson has approached 70% of the vote in the last two elections, and Democrat presidential candidates achieve similar figures; Trump got 28% in CD-7 in 2024.

Probably not coincidentally, the vast majority of the GOP quislings occupy Senate seats which are in the vicinity of the two U.S. House districts that could have flipped from D to R had these quislings' votes not put an end to that possibility. Of the 21, only two (Dernulc, K. Walker) represent Senate districts which could be described as marginal in a normal election year; the other 19 are varying degrees of safe for the GOP nominee.

Safe in a general election, that is. These 21 cowards may face some highly motivated and well-funded primary opponents next time around. Incumbent liberal Republicans normally have significant advantages in fundraising during primary elections; we'll have to wait and see if any viable opponents actually materialize. President Trump stated, before the vote took place, "Why would a REAL Republican vote against this when the Dems have been [gerrymandering] for years??? If they stupidly say no, vote them out of Office -- They are not worthy -- And I will be there to help!"

• Doddering old RINO stooge Senator Jean Leising, proudly defending her pro-Democrat vote: "Mid-cycle congressional redistricting in Indiana failed on the Senate floor today with my 'no' vote. I believe it is time to move on to our normal session schedule and focus on issues affecting our local communities, like addressing the availability of affordable [Democrat buzzword alert!] rural health care and good jobs so Indiana residents can provide for their families."

• Senator Blake Doriot, an apparent victim of astroturfed pressure: "I heard from friends, neighbors and people I had never met before who overwhelmingly stated they were not in support of this and were concerned that the proposed changes would only hurt our community. My vote reflected those concerns, and I stand by my decision to vote against this bill to support those who rely on me to represent them."

• Senate Majority Leader Rod Bray, talking out both sides of his mouth at the same time: "We support President Trump, and we are with him on many issues."
  
  (But not this one.)
  
  Also from Bray: "We want to see a Republican majority in congress at the midterms. The issue before us today was how to get there, and many of my caucus members don't think redrawing our Congressional map mid-cycle is a guaranteed way for Indiana -- or our country -- to achieve that outcome."
  
  (Surrendering surely is the "guaranteed way" to accomplish the opposite outcome, though.)

• Another RI-No voter, Senator Spencer Deery, speaking gibberish: "Some say we should gerrymander because Democrats have been doing it for years and it's time for Republicans to catch up. That would be a sensible question to ask four years ago or four years in the future."

• Senator Linda Rogers, after being astroturfed: "Over the last few months, I have heard from thousands of constituents who were overwhelmingly opposed. When I chose to run for Senate District 11, I promised to serve and advocate for those in our local community, and I believe I upheld that promise today."

BREAKING - It has been revealed that Indiana Republicans secretly went behind President Trump?s back and struck a deal with Maryland Democrats and Gov. Wes Moore to freeze both states? redistricting, saving two Indiana Dem seats in exchange for Maryland keeping it?s one GOP seat. pic.twitter.com/OFcNKStlVd

— Right Angle News Network (@Rightanglenews) December 12, 2025

Maryland 2024 House results: 1 R, 7 D

The Democrat president of the Maryland state Senate had already announced that gerrymandering would not be on the agenda during the special session which has been called for mid-December, despite pressure from Maryland Governor Barack Obama 2.0 (a clean and articulate empty suit, who for years has been carefully groomed in preparation for achieving high political office). Additionally, a Democrat gerrymandering expert has warned that an attempt to create an 8-0 sweep of the Maryland congressional delegation would likely not withstand a court challenge, assuming the sleepy, complacent GOP would choose to file a challenge.

Map source: Dave's Redistricting

In North Carolina, a panel of federal judges dismissed Democrat claims of "racism" and refused to order the injunction which the professional racists sought. This presumably means that the new congressional district map drawn by the Republican legislature will be used for the 2026 midterms. Republicans currently hold a 10-4 advantage in the North Carolina delegation, the new map makes only minor changes, and those changes primarily affect only two districts (CD-1 and CD-3). CD-1, which is held at this time by Democrat Don Davis, is being changed from a PVI of D+1 to perhaps R+3. This could be enough to dislodge Davis, assuming 2026 isn't a "blue" wave of any kind. The adjacent CD-3 moves from R+8 to R+3. As we have noted many times, most of the 10 GOP-held districts are marginal to some degree, and in a bad election year we could see a real bloodbath in the Tarheel State. Having an uninspiring simp like Michael Whatley lose big to Roy Cooper in the Senate race is not going to help matters down the ballot.

Map source: Dave's Redistricting

In extremely Republican Utah, a RINO judge has sided with Democrats and is forcing the state to discard the district map which was used in 2022 and 2024 (which resulted in the GOP winning all 4 House seats). Initially, she was expected to select a new map which would have two super-safe Republican districts and two iffy ones, both of which tilted a little to the right. Instead she chose a map which would guarantee one Democrat pickup. Therefore, at best, the supposed GOP win in North Carolina is negated by the certain loss in Utah.

Map source: Dave's Redistricting

On December 4, the U.S. Supreme Court in a 6-3 decision granted an "emergency stay" which allows the new Republican-drawn map in Texas to be used in 2026 while Democrat lawsuits continue indefinitely. As a result of the stay, Republicans expect to pick up as many as 5 U.S. House seats which are currently held by Democrats. The affected districts are:

• CD-9, which will be R+3 (was D+26 on behalf of deranged racist Al Green, who has fled to CD-18)
• CD-28, D+3 (was D+4)
• CD-32, R+6 (was D+14)
• CD-34, even (was D+8)
• CD-35, R+2 (was D+19)

Map source: Dave's Redistricting

California voters in November passed Proposition 50, which allows the state to proceed with its hyper-partisan gerrymander which is designed to eliminate 5 Republicans from the California delegation in the U.S. House. Using the same tactic which Democrats have relied on (with much success) over the past 30+ years, the U.S. Department of Justice has joined California Republicans who are suing California on the basis that the new map mandates racially-gerrymandered districts, which is illegal. The motion to intervene is still pending before a U.S. District Court in California. Don't hold your breath in anticipation of any relief here. The case was scheduled to be heard on December 15. Another Republican lawsuit has already been dismissed for the good, old "lack of standing" reason that liberal judges often use against Republicans who have a good case (remember 2020?).

Map source: Dave's Redistricting

There will be a new congressional district map in Ohio for 2026, but it is not substantially different from the map which was used in 2022 and 2024. A revised map was required by state law because the previous one was passed without bipartisan support and was therefore only permitted to be used twice. The 2026 map does have bipartisan support, which ought to tell you something about how effective it will be for Republicans in 2026 and beyond. The GOP currently holds 10 of the 15 U.S. House seats in Ohio, but three Democrat-held districts (CD-1, CD-9, CD-13) are shaky at best. Yet Republicans failed to capture any of the three in 2022 or 2024. They will give it another try in 2026 under district boundaries which have received only subtle alterations from those which existed in the past two elections. CD-1 and CD-9 are moved imperceptibly to the right, while CD-13 goes the opposite direction in a similarly negligible way. There are some shaky GOP-held districts too, so if 2026 goes sour there could be a few House results in Ohio which would surprise the unaware.

Map source: Dave's Redistricting

The redistricting effects of Texas (R) and California (D) will cancel each other out, or come close to doing so; North Carolina (R) and Utah (D) also may be a net-zero. Ohio will likely end up with a 10-5 GOP advantage, no change from the current situation. Missouri's revised 5th Congressional District is going to be about R+8, an easy GOP pickup from the existing Democrat in CD-5. That makes the current aggregate redistricting score probably +1 for the GOP in 2026, with some variation depending on the overall demeanor of the election. If there is some "blue" wave, which should be greatly expected as things stand now, then any minor redistricting advantage accruing to the Republicans would be swamped by a general swing to the left overall.

Republican-controlled Kansas was going to redistrict before the 2026 midterms but they are pulling an "Indiana" and chickening out for the same reason as Indiana -- a lack of RINO support for picking up a House seat from a Democrat. Democrats are going to gain at least two seats in Virginia when that gerrymander is put into place, and large Rat-infested states such as New York and Illinois are looking to screw Republicans there even harder than they already have. Florida Governor Ron DeSantis is looking to have his state mimic Texas; he believes a new map could oust 5 Democrats from the Florida delegation and make it 25-3 in favor of the GOP. That sounds extremely unlikely, but a gain of even one or two seats would be helpful.


A final word:

And then there's the whole bullshit idea of "Republican gerrymandering very bad", "Democrat 'response' merely self-defense". Democrats for years have relied on judicial mid-decade redistricting rather than doing it legislatively. What liberal judges have done frequently on behalf of Democrats is far worse than anything President Trump and the GOP are trying here, but of course the media spin is that what is happening now is "unprecedented".

Indiana illustrates the risk involved with trying to do things the right way; it can be difficult to get a sufficient number of RINO legislators to overcome their fears and vote properly on some redistricting plan. However ONE solitary black-robed liberal tyrant can singlehandedly mandate not only that a Republican map be scrapped -- normally by decreeing it to be "racist", with no pertinent evidence required -- but that it be replaced with a map which is guaranteed to cause a specific outcome which is desired by Democrats.

Tags:

Indiana U.S. House Surrender RINOs

We have already examined the outlook for 2026 in the aftermath of the 2025 elections. Most of that commentary focused on the U.S. House and how the results from the last disastrous midterm election (2018) might foreshadow the upcoming potentially disastrous midterm election. We spent little time on the Senate, but noted that although 2018 was a train wreck for Republicans over almost the entire ballot, there was one minor exception: Republicans actually gained 2 Senate seats in 2018 and with some luck it could have been as many as 6. Because it was only a net +2, most observers on the right were extremely disappointed. Yet holding onto the Senate at all in 2018 was an important accomplishment and an impressive one under the circumstances. It kept rabid Democrats at least partially at bay. Recall what Democrats did with their total control of the House, and imagine what would have occurred with them in charge of the Senate during the final two years of Trump's first term in the White House.

The 2018 Senate elections provide a history lesson: that it is possible to hold steady (or even improve) at the Senate level even while being decimated up and down the remainder of the election ballot, as happened to the GOP that year.

However the individual Senate skirmishes from 2018 -- unlike the ones from the House -- are not germane as far as predicting what will happen in 2026. All 435 House seats are up for election every two years, which makes recent past midterms at least somewhat comparable to future ones. Many of the House members from 2018 are still in office, even though the configuration of their districts may have changed, and most of those members will be running again next year.

Source: OpenSecrets.org

The current Senate terrain is not as favorable as it was in 2018, when Democrats had to play defense in most of the contested states. In 2026 Republicans have 22 seats to defend (including special elections in Florida and Ohio) while Democrats are up in only 13 states. Of those 13, just 3 present any real opportunity for a GOP gain while there are a minimum of 5 juicy targets for Democrats this time around. All things considered, the playing field is clearly tilted towards the left here.

The top (really the only) probabilities for Republican pickups are in Georgia, Michigan and New Hampshire. Democrats have a fighting chance in Iowa, Maine, North Carolina, Ohio and Texas and perhaps a couple of others, or so they claim.

Any eventual morsel of good news for Republicans, no matter how meager that morsel is ("Generic polls favor Democrats only by 5 points now instead of 6!") will cause hopium addicts on the right to begin fantasizing about Senate pickups in states such as Minnesota, New Mexico and Virginia, which they believe are purple but are in fact completely safe for leftists absent some "red" tsunami. In Louisiana, much like in Alaska in 2022, a RINO (Bill Cassidy) currently holds the seat but might be ejected by a true Republican in the primary. That wouldn't count as a pickup, but it would amount to the same thing and would bolster actual conservative representation in the Senate. It didn't happen in Alaska and probably won't in Louisiana either, but there is a chance.


Here are the 2026 Senate battleground states:
(in order of likelihood to flip, as things stand in November of 2025)

North Carolina Senate results from 2020

1. North Carolina:

Anti-Trump squish Thom Tillis announced months ago that he would not seek re-election to the Senate in 2026, beating GOP primary voters to the punch; Tillis decided to quit rather than being dumped in the primary. Not much more about Tillis needs to be written; we already did that here, describing Tillis' career and his increasingly RINO-ish behavior in 2025.

At the time Tillis made his retirement proclamation, Lara Trump was considered to be the best candidate to hold the NC Senate seat for the GOP. She probably still is the best candidate, but won't be running.

Numerous North Carolina congressmen were in position to be the fallback in the event that Trump opted out of the race. In what is likely to be a regrettable move (we'll find out in about a year), Republican National Committee (RNC) chairman Michael Whatley entered the NC Senate race shortly after Lara Trump passed. Whatley, despite his general ineffectiveness as head of the RNC, quickly received Donald Trump's imperial blessing, which meant that all other viable candidates might as well step aside.

Maine Senate results from 2020

2. Maine:

The Maine Senate seat is the second most likely one to flip from being occupied by a Republican (such as she is) to one filled by a Democrat. Mega-RINO Susan Collins is currently in her fifth Senate term, and she is looking to make it 6 in 2026. Since Collins' last election in 2020, she has voted more often with Democrats than Republicans; she wasn't exactly a bargain before 2020 either. Collins is normally excused for her behavior because she represents Maine, and the GOP is hardly likely to do any better there.

Maine Republicans have little choice but to pin their hopes on Collins, because nobody who is more conservative would stand a chance in a statewide election, Paul LePage's fluke wins for Governor in 2010 and 2014 notwithstanding; the outcome of his 2022 quest for a non-consecutive third term (he got 42%) is more in line with Maine's preferences these days. It's possible that Collins won't do significantly better than 42% in 2026, but she's been counted out before. Notably in 2020 when Collins squeaked by with 51% against an ultra-liberal Democrat who raised over $75 million for the challenge (Collins barely got to $30 million). Collins received about 57,000 more votes in Maine in 2020 than Donald Trump did.

There will apparently be a two-way battle for the Democrat nomination between current term-limited Governor Janet "Butch" Mills and some guy who wants to be Maine's version of Pennsylvania Senator John Fetterman (before Fetterman began acting more sensibly and enraged the radical left): that guy would be alleged "working class hero" Graham Platner, who has described himself as a "communist" and "ANTIFA supersoldier" but denies being a "secret Nazi". We believe him. Whoever said it was a secret?

Mills ought to be the favorite in the Rat primary, but if she is it's not by much. One ludicrous poll had her down to Platner by 34 points; that poll must have been taken either on a college campus or in a media newsroom. The geriatric Mills (age 77) started her campaign by refusing to release her medical records, while Platner is suddenly raising millions of dollars from the type of people who think that the 2025 election results are a referendum in favor of killing Republicans. It's going to be quite a battle unless Mills bows out or Platner is dragged down by his past (and present). Democrat voters forgave the murderous racist in Virginia two weeks ago; Maine Democrats aren't likely to abandon any candidate no matter how much of a lunatic he may be -- as long as they think he can win next November.

Keep in mind that Maine uses Rigged Choice Voting (RCV), just like Alaska does. Imagine a 3-way race with Collins, Platner and some other leftist candidate who isn't violently nutzoid. Nobody gets to 50% initially so RCV kicks in and the comparatively moderate independent who finishes third is eliminated. Who gets his votes then?

We might not like the answer.

Georgia Senate results from 2020 runoff

3. Georgia:

The incumbent Democrat, Hollywood Jon Ossoff, will once again be backed by enormous amounts of out-of-state money, just as he was in 2017 (when running for a House seat) and in 2020 when he spent over $150 million to defeat GOP Senator David Perdue. Ossoff lost in November of 2020, but won the January, 2021 runoff which was required because Perdue came up 0.3% short of 50% in the initial election. In the wake of the "questionable" (to put it mildly) presidential election results in 2020, you may recall that some GOP folks in high places were spitefully calling for Republican voters to boycott the January runoff. We've never really been sure what that was meant to accomplish, but you have to admit it worked. Hello, Senator Ossoff.

Ossoff will not have to face a primary opponent in 2026. Democrats nearly always do that -- clearing the field in situations like this, which helps their candidate and frees up Democrat voters to pollute Republican primaries in states (like Georgia) where that is permitted. In the general election Ossoff will take on one of the three current GOP frontrunners: congressman Buddy Carter (85% lifetime conservative rating), congressman Mike Collins (96% conservative) or football coach Derek Dooley; Dooley is running well behind the two congressmen. As of September 30, Ossoff (3% conservative) already had raised over $50 million with much more to come. Georgia deserves better than a couple of liberal stooges in the Senate. Republican-leaning pollsters indicate a close race, but Ossoff maintains a small lead across the board -- so far.

Michigan Senate results from 2020

4. Michigan:

Michigan occasionally votes Republican for President lately (albeit by very small amounts), as it did in 2016 and 2024. It wasn't too long ago (2010 and 2014) that Michigan elected a GOP Governor; OK, Biden-supporter/Trump-hater Rick Snyder was basically a Democrat regardless of the letter after his name, but he did get elected twice as a Republican. Now here's a trivia question: when was the last time Michigan elected a Republican U.S. Senator?

The answer is. . . 1994. The have been 9 Senate elections in Michigan over the subsequent 30+ years, and the GOP is 0-for-9. The most recent two have been close; the other 7 weren't. In 2026 ex-congressman Mike Rogers is going to make a second run at the Senate on the Republican side. We covered Rogers a year ago as he was making his first run, which turned out to be unsuccessful but could hardly have been closer. Rogers lost by less than half a percent in 2024 while running 1.3% behind Donald Trump. Rogers needed to hang onto those coattails a little bit tighter, but apparently he couldn't.

Rogers' Democrat opponent, as in 2024, will be a congresswoman. Last time it was Elissa Slotkin; this time it's Haley Stevens, a far-left Democrat who once worked for Hillary Clinton and Barack Obama. Since 2019 Stevens has represented a deteriorating congressional district in suburban Oakland County, near Detroit. Stevens was first elected in the anti-Trump landslide of 2018, when the 11th district was still politically borderline. After 2020 the district was pushed farther to the left, aided by continuing demographic degradation in Oakland County. The district is now very safe (about D+11) for whatever Democrat runs there.

When Rogers lost in 2024 his Democrat opponent had a massive financial advantage, outspending him $51 million to $13 million. That chapter of the story will be the same in 2026, though as of the end of September Rogers was very close to Stevens in $$$; but the major part of fundraising season is not yet underway. Stevens will also have her hands full before (probably) moving on to face Rogers, because she has two primary opponents who are as well-funded as she is. Democrats were able to bypass a contentious Senate primary in 2024 (Slotkin had only token opposition), but that won't be the case next year. Perhaps some Democrat divisiveness will give Rogers the little extra boost he needs to become Michigan's next Senator. We wouldn't rely on it.

Photo credit: John H. Sununu

Chris and his father are RINOs, if not outright Democrats; John E. Sununu is the conservative in the family. By "Sununu" standards, anyway. He's one of those oxymoronic "fiscal conservatives" now (i.e. anti-conservative on every other issue). There's no such thing as a fiscal conservative/social liberal. Because "social liberalism" is clearly anything but fiscally conservative when you look at how much those social programs cost.

Ohio Senate results from 2024

6. Ohio:

Ohio's 2026 Senate contest is a special election to fill the seat for the remaining two years of J.D. Vance's term. When Vance advanced to the Vice Presidency, Ohio Lt. Governor Jon Husted was promoted to the Senate via an appointment from Governor Mike DeWine. Husted entered politics at an early age (25), losing a bid for state House in 1992. He eventually served in the state House for 4 terms (becoming Speaker in 2005), had one state Senate term, was elected Secretary of State for 8 years beginning in 2011 and was DeWine's Lieutenant from 2019 until joining the U.S. Senate. Husted, now 58, is still quite young by Senate standards. During his short time in D.C., Husted has been a reliable albeit low-profile GOP vote on every issue.

Husted's Democrat opponent next November will be 73-year-old ex-Senator Sherrod Brown, who will be making his third appearance on a ballot in the past 8 years. Brown, a career politician, took a path which was somewhat similar to that of Husted, with Brown initially being elected to the Ohio state House in 1974 at the age of 21. Also like Husted, Brown was Ohio Secretary of State for several years (1983-1992). Brown won an open U.S. House seat in the Cleveland suburbs in 1992, the seat being open because incumbent Democrat Edward Feighan was implicated in the House Bank scandal which enveloped several Democrats that year, and Feighan chose to exit politics as a result.

Brown was a solidly liberal vote (lifetime ACU rating: 6% conservative) but began faking to the center in 2006 in preparation for his first Senate race. Brown defeated incumbent Senator Mike DeWine in that anti-Republican year, immediately resumed his ultra-liberal positions upon taking office in 2007, and was easily re-elected in 2012. Brown's past history of domestic (and other) violence was used against him as Brown was seeking a third Senate term in 2018. However Brown, with the assistance of his allies in the liberal media -- and a massive advantage in fundraising -- was able to shrug that off and score another relatively easy win. Those on the right expected a better outcome since Ohio had suddenly become (or so they thought) a "solid red" state now that it had voted convincingly for Donald Trump in 2016.

Texas Senate results from 2020

7. Texas:

The 2026 Senate race in Texas will feature spirited primaries on both sides, which is not a common thing in recent years. While it's true that Republicans often conduct a no-holds-barred donnybrook on their side (costing a considerable amount in money, and in hard feelings afterwards), Democrats regularly attempt to whittle down the number of candidates in any statewide election, whether for the benefit of a Democrat incumbent -- especially a vulnerable one -- or to anoint a "chosen one" to be their standard-bearer without interference from pesky voters. They even take that approach for presidential elections sometimes. There are several smart reasons why Democrats do this:

1. It avoids a bloody primary fight in which even the winner suffers potentially mortal wounds, and is therefore less effective in the general election because of those wounds.

2. It saves money (not that Democrat campaign funds are ever scarce) which can be used to greater effect in the general election.

3. With diminished reason to vote on the Democrat side in the primary, this tactic frees up Democrat voters to sabotage Republican primaries by participating in those, in order to try to select the weakest possible GOP opponent. Even so-called closed primary states are not immune to this.

Photo credit: splinter.com

Talarico describes himself as a deeply religious Christian, but is a phony who spouts that "Jesus-was-a-liberal" bullshit a la the self-righteous "He Gets Us" television ad campaign, which you may have seen. Picture Talarico as a combination of Bernie Sanders and Jimmy Swaggart (apologies to Swaggart). Talarico the "True Christian" adamantly opposed displaying the Ten Commandments in Texas schools, preferring that those institutions remain atheistic and free from anything which might accidentally encourage good moral values. He represents an ultra-liberal (D+26) Austin district in the state House, so Talarico's views are surely considered to be mainstream by his constituents but most of the rest of the state of Texas would disagree. Talarico is a one-trick pony, wearing his version of far-left Christianity on his sleeve at all times and using it to explain all of his immoral, pro-abortion, pro-crime and other radical votes in the legislature. He surely believes he can "out-liberal" and "out-hate" Crockett and Allred, but he's got his work cut out for him in those departments.

Colin Allred we already know about (click here for more info) from his 2024 Senate attempt. He is a former Dallas-area congressman who was first elected in Congressional District 32 in 2018 when Dallas County swung hard-left in elections that year. The Texas GOP did him a "solid" in 2022 by extending his district up into left-trending Plano (there is an ongoing massive influx of Muslims and Hindus into southern Collin County) and down into ghetto Balch Springs. Previously CD-32 was a D+1 district but became safely D+13 after the new leftist areas were added. Republican redistricters did this favor not so much for Allred but for themselves, sacrificing that district so that adjacent ones like CD-3, CD-5 and CD-24 would be safer for Republicans. When Allred left the House in 2024 to run for the Senate against Ted Cruz, the GOP didn't waste any resources trying to reclaim CD-32. But Allred wasted $94 million in his attempt to acquire a seat in the Senate.

This is nothing new for Ken Paxton. The former state legislator was first elected as Texas Attorney General in 2014, succeeding Greg Abbott in that office as Abbott stepped up to become Governor. The solidly-conservative Paxton quickly showed that he was (and still is) one of the most effective A.G.'s in the entire country. However he is much too effective to suit the RINOs who perpetually have control of the Texas GOP and the Texas state House; Democrats loathe him even more than RINOs do.

The GOP establishment failed to stop Paxton from being elected to a third term in 2022 although they recruited a clueless geriatric congressman (Louie Gohmert) along with Land Commissioner George P. Bush, who is the son of former Florida Governor and momentary (2016) presidential candidate Jeb! Bush. The plan in 2022 was that RINO Bush and Clueless Gohmert and one other hopeless candidate would combine to steal enough primary votes to force Paxton into a runoff where he would either be defeated or severely damaged. The establishment strategy worked, up to a point.

Paxton dominated the runoff against Georgie P. and then won by nearly 10 points in November against the Democrat; all Texas statewide Republican candidates did better than expected in 2022, with Paxton having the closest race of any of them and it still wasn't very close. Maybe it was the "Beto Effect", with Beto the Bozo (D) helpfully running statewide again, and this time being demolished by Abbott, 55%-44%.

Having failed in their 2022 assignment, Texas RINOs led by state House Speaker Dade Phelan and Rep. Andrew Murr impeached Paxton in 2023. Other RINOs joined the Phelan-Murr witch hunt, and Paxton ended up on the wrong end of a 121-23 vote in the House; 60 of those 121 votes for impeachment came from "Republicans". However the Texas state Senate, which is not RINO-controlled, was tasked with completing the impeachment process. During the Senate hearings, one witness who accused Paxton admitted he actually had "no evidence" whatsoever of wrongdoing. Another witness conceded that the claims of malfeasance he made against Paxton were about things he "didn't know whether [they] were true or not", but he regurgitated them anyway. No credible evidence was presented at all. Mere accusations against a Republican are normally sufficient for conviction, but the Senate wasn't buying it this time. In September of 2023 Paxton was acquitted of all charges.

With his enemies living in mortal terror of Paxton becoming a U.S. Senator, the smear campaign against him has ramped up again in 2025 since he announced his run against Cornyn in April. The smear campaign seems to be having an effect, judging from the polls. Paxton has only a slight lead over the unpopular GOP incumbent, Cornyn, and is only neck-and-neck with Allred in hypothetical general election polls. Our opinion is that Paxton is so good at what he is currently doing (you can tell by the amount of hate he receives), that we'd be much better off with him in a fourth term as Texas Attorney General rather than a first term as a U.S. Senator.

Photo credit: Texas Scorecard

As noted above, the GOP primary is not just a 2-way race anymore. In October, congressman Wesley Hunt announced that he would abandon his safe (R+10) district in the suburban Houston area and join the Senate race. The 44-year-old Hunt has a fine military background, graduating from West Point in 2004, serving 8 years in the U.S. Army before earning 3 Masters' Degrees, and then entering politics. Hunt's first bid for Congress came in 2020 in the deteriorating 7th District and was unsuccessful though he made a solid showing (47.5%) under difficult circumstances. When the new 38th District was created in 2022 in approximately the same area, Hunt won a majority in a crowded 10-way Republican primary and then easily sealed the deal in November. Hunt was re-elected in 2024 with only token opposition, and has been a reliable conservative vote in the House. He currently trails his primary opponents in fundraising (and is way behind the wealthy Democrats) but he's only been in the race for about 6 weeks.

Although Texas remains a relentlessly "purpling" state due to demographic changes caused by invaders both domestic and foreign, most forecasters agree that -- as things stand now -- Republicans should be able to hold this Senate seat in 2026. We concur, although the GOP winning percentages are more likely to be in the same range as they were in Texas from 2016-2020 (~50-55%) than their slightly higher levels (sometimes 55-60%) from 2022-2024.

Iowa Senate results from 2020

8. Iowa:

Moderate GOP incumbent Joni Ernst is calling it quits in the Hawkeye State after two Senate terms during which she moved gradually but perceptibly to the left. President Trump attempted to prevail upon Ernst to run one more time, but she declined and decided to proceed with her retirement (shades of 2018, egad!). Ernst, who is probably the only pig castrator currently serving in Congress, has been described as a "fiscal conservative". That's far more letters than are necessary to spell "RINO".

The supposed Democrat heavyweight in Iowa -- i.e. a Democrat who can actually get elected -- is state auditor Rob Sand. But he's running for Governor in 2026, not for the Senate, and he's not some electoral wizard anyway. Sand won in the hyper-Democrat year of 2018 with 51% of the vote and held on by his fingernails (50.1%) in 2022 after outspending his Republican opponent by a mere 40:1 ratio.

Ernst's withdrawal is a golden opportunity for the GOP to find a true conservative as a replacement. Or at least it would be, if they cared to try. Instead, squishy congresswoman Ashley Hinson is the clear favorite among Republicans. Not only would the Senate be an obvious step up for Hinson, but she may be figuring that getting elected statewide in Iowa could be less difficult than being re-elected in her marginal congressional district. There's a possibility that Hinson will have primary opposition from Iowa state House Speaker Pat Grassley. That last name may sound familiar. Patrick may choose to try to join his 92-year-old father in the Senate, but for now he is not running. Several low-level Democrat candidates are amassing funds to take on Hinson, and although they may be low-profile their campaign accounts are growing daily. This race is not likely to be the slam-dunk that some might anticipate, but Hinson is favored at this time.

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2026 Senate North Carolina Maine Georgia Michigan New Hampshire Ohio Texas Iowa

Although the elections may be tantalizingly close (in truth, they probably won't be that close), the likeliest outcome for the Republicans is. . .

The races have generally (but not consistently) been tightening in both states, especially according to polling organizations which are classified as Republican-leaning by liberal media sources. Some hardcore leftists (e.g. Washington Post) are cheerleading for a Democrat blowout in Virginia, but the ones who attempt to be less transparently liberal forecast the contests as being moderately competitive. Close though the races may be, as things stand now both Jack Ciattarelli (NJ) and Winsome Earle-Sears (VA) appear to be heading for losses. It's up to the good voters of New Jersey and Virginia to get out and vote and prove the pollsters wrong.

We'll start with a look at New Jersey.

Photo credit: inquirer.com

Background:

In 2025 Ciattarelli is making his third attempt for Governor of New Jersey. The three-term state legislator ran in 2017 and finished second in the Republican primary to Kim Guadagno, the two-term (2010-2017) Lt. Gov. under Governor Tubba Goo.

In 2021 Ciatterelli came closer than expected to an upset victory after starting 15 to 20 points down in early general election polls. Even polls taken in late October (by Democrat-college groups such as Emerson, Rutgers, Farleigh Dickinson & Monmouth) anticipated incumbent Democrat Phil Murphy being victorious by 6 to 10 points. Only the Trafalgar Group (R) came close to getting it right, predicting a 4-point loss for the challenger; Ciattarelli lost by 84,000 votes (3.2%).

Murphy was first elected in 2017 by vastly outspending Republican nominee Guadagno, as well as by capitalizing on the massive unpopularity of outgoing Republican Governor Chris Christie, to whom Guadagno was constantly linked. That election result maintained New Jersey's habit of alternating parties every 8 years in gubernatorial elections, a pattern which has held since 1993 when ultra-liberal Republican Christine Todd Whitman denied Democrat Jim "Flimflam" Florio a second term by eking out a surprising 1-point victory. Florio later claimed that he was "one of the first victims of modern right-wing talk radio", LOL. Democrats appear likely to break that alternating pattern in 2025.

Photo credit: app.com

The 2021 election was mainly a referendum on Murphy's first term, with Ciatterelli being regarded as sufficiently bland and moderate to avoid alienating potential crossover Democrat voters which any Jersey Republican requires in order to have a chance of winning a statewide election. Murphy is a huge supporter of the illegal importation of new Democrat voters from foreign countries, and he designated New Jersey as a sanctuary state. He also took several steps to hinder the deportation of illegals, such as not permitting law enforcement to ask about immigration status. By 2021 many New Jersey voters had grown weary of the invasion and their disaffection hurt Murphy's re-election chances. Nor were the voters pleased with the numerous tax increases which were passed by the overwhelmingly Democrat NJ legislature.

Unlike 2017, Republicans were able to compete on almost equal financial footing in 2021 in the expensive gubernatorial election. The same applies in 2025, though as we head into the final days of the race the Democrat has substantially more cash on hand, and therefore will likely be more visible in the media than Ciatterelli (nevermind the media bias advantage the Democrat already holds for free).

Ciattarelli won 6 of New Jersey's 12 congressional districts in 2021 -- including the one represented by 2025 Democrat nominee Mikie Sherrill. Sherrill is currently in her fourth term in the House, and is a member in good standing of the far-left wing of her party. She was first elected in the anti-Trump year of 2018 in what at the time was a tossup district (NJ-11) centered on upscale, suburban Morris County.

Until 2018 Morris County had been forever represented in Congress by liberal Republicans such as Rodney Frelinghuysen. Like several other squishy Republicans in the House, the staunchly anti-Trump Frelinghuysen picked 2018 to retire. The 72-year-old, 12-term representative was not comfortable being "forced" to toe the party line and support a president whom he despised. Frelinghuysen abandoned his House seat, hoping (or knowing) that he would be replaced by a Democrat who would help the new Democrat majority thwart Trump's legislative agenda and begin Trump's congressional persecution. Sherrill filled that role nicely.

Morris County seems to have recently begun a journey away from the left and back towards the center, voting for Trump in 2024 after giving Joe Biden a 4.2% victory in 2020. Morris is reliably Republican in other statewide elections too (Murphy lost there twice and it wasn't particularly close), even selecting hapless Curtis Bashaw over Andy Kim in the 2024 Senate race. In 2022 Democrat gerrymanderers added a larger portion of ghetto Essex County to the Eleventh District, taking it from being a complete tossup to favoring Democrats by 5 points. Republicans face an uphill battle to win NJ-11 in 2026 from either Sherrill or whoever her special-election replacement is if Sherrill becomes Governor as expected.

2024 presidential election results in New Jersey

Geography:

We have divided New Jersey into the six geographical regions listed below, shown with the counties which correspond to those regions:

• South Jersey: Atlantic, Burlington, Camden, Cape May, Cumberland, Gloucester, Salem
• Central Jersey: Mercer, Middlesex, Somerset
• West Jersey: Hunterdon, Morris, Sussex, Warren
• Central Coast: Monmouth, Ocean
• Urbanized North: Bergen, Passaic
• Ghetto Jersey: Essex, Hudson, Union

Photo credit: redlineheadlines.com

Scott Presler and his organization have worked diligently over the past couple of years to increase Republican voter registration counts in certain states. Presler focused on Pennsylvania during 2024 and has been given inordinate credit for the GOP victories which occurred there -- Trump's win along with that of Senator Dave McCormick, and the important pickup of two House seats (CD-7 and CD-8) in Eastern PA.

While it is true that the Democrat registration advantage in PA was reduced to 3.1% from 5.6% during 2024 (a net GOP gain of 165,000 registrations in 12 months), the trend in PA has been significantly in the R direction for over 15 years now. Between November of 2008 and November of 2023 the GOP added 210,616 voters in the Keystone State while Democrats diminished by 579,285, a net change of 789,901 in the positive direction for Republicans.

Pennsylvania has apparently "cleaned up" its voter rolls in 2025, with both parties seeing a reduction in registrations:

2024:

• 3,710,290 R (40.5%)
• 3,991,381 D (43.6%)
• 1,460,307 I (15.9%)

• 3,642,630 R (40.9%)
• 3,811,262 D (42.8%)
• 1,448,470 I (16.3%)

2024 PA voter registration, by county

After 2024, Presler and his vote registrars moved east to New Jersey in an attempt to turn that state "red". As in PA, trends in New Jersey were already favoring Republicans, although these trends have not manifested themselves in any victories. Trump's loss by 5.9% here in 2024 was actually the best showing for a Republican candidate since George Bush lost by only 2.4% in the 3-way election of 1992. Prior to 1992, the GOP won 6 presidential elections in a row in New Jersey before the state's demographics began to head rapidly south.

Recent results have been no better down the ballot, with Chris Christie the only Republican to win statewide since Christie Whitman in 1997; the GOP has not elected a U.S. senator from the Garden State since ultra-liberal Clifford Case in 1972, and the U.S. House districts have been gerrymandered to an amount which limits Republicans to just 3 districts out of 12 (and at least one of those GOP districts, CD-7, is very marginal). Those factors notwithstanding, Trump did a little better statewide than expected in 2024, Jack Ciattarelli almost pulled off a major upset in the most recent gubernatorial election, and there appears to be reason for some optimism on the Republican side going forward.

The trend is also apparent in the New Jersey voter registration figures, to a minor degree.

November 2023:

• R: 1,541,158 (23.7%)
• D: 2,504,294 (38.6%)

• R: 1,628,633 (24.2%)
• D: 2,534,932 (37.7%)

• R: 1,670,297 (25.3%)
• D: 2,525,346 (38.2%)

2024 presidential election result in Virginia

Background:

Although Trump lost the Commonwealth of Virginia in 2024, his margin of defeat (5.7%) was a distinct improvement over 2020 when he lost by over 10 percent; the 2024 outcome was in line with other recent presidential elections in Virginia. There was false optimism in the 2024 U.S. Senate race, where many wishful thinkers believed that Hung Cao would defy the polls and score a major upset over incumbent radical leftist Timmy Kaine, or at least make it a close call. Cao did neither of those things, losing by 9 points which was just a slight tick better than the polls predicted.

Trump's sizable step in the right direction, along with the surprise victory by Republican Glenn Youngkin for Governor in 2021, helps to create the illusion that Virginia is a "purple" state where Republicans have almost as good a chance at winning as Democrats do. In reality, Virginia is slipping behind the rest of the country and becoming "bluer" by the day. Relative to the nationwide percentage of the Republican presidential vote, Trump's 4-point underachievement in VA in 2024 was the worst showing here for a GOP candidate since the 1940's when Virginia was solidly Democrat across the entire ticket. Although Virginia does not register voters by party, recent estimates of party affiliation indicate that Democrats have nearly a 2:1 advantage over Republicans. That's not very purple-ish.

Speaking of Governor Youngkin, his win in 2021 was primarily the result of the stars and planets aligning in his favor, and it is now abundantly clear that Youngkin's electoral success (and that of his party, which gained 7 seats and took control of the state House that year) was a temporary phenomenon.

Youngkin benefited from several factors, which have some parallel to Donald Trump's surprise victory in 2016, and those factors may have also helped Republicans in races down the ballot in Virginia in 2021:

Photo credit: washingtonmonthly.com

• Youngkin, like Trump in '16, was a political outsider and not a career politician, and both were fortunate to be able to run against the single most repugnant and unlikeable Democrat available at the time (Terry McAuliffe, Hillary Clinton). Former Governor and Clinton crony McAuliffe was a godsend for Youngkin. McAuliffe's abrasive personality and his far-left political positions proved to be quite helpful to the moderate Republican candidate. Furthermore, the Republican was able to compete financially against the Democrat's massive fundraising advantages by contributing significantly to his own campaign. Youngkin distanced himself from Trump (while McAuliffe was not able to distance himself from Joe Biden) enough to keep moderate and independent voters from bolting to the left.
  
  The 2021 Republican nominee was aided in great measure by voter revulsion against local school boards (notably in Loudoun County) which were defying parents -- and common sense -- by welcoming the presence of boys in girls' bathrooms and by continually "overstepping parental rights during the pandemic". When a male student raped a female student in a Loudoun County school bathroom in 2021, the incident and the school's mishandling of it rightfully became a national scandal -- at least in the "right wing" media. The liberal media downplayed and/or ignored the story after an initial cursory report, with a majority of voters in upscale, liberal Loudoun County probably being totally unaware of what had occurred right in their own backyard. But many good voters in the rest of the state were aware of this atrocity, and their logical reaction to it helped Youngkin considerably.
  
  
  
• Virginia is not exactly known for the cleanliness of its elections in recent years, but Youngkin was perhaps not taken as seriously by Democrats as he should have been even though he was close or even slightly led McAuliffe in polls which were taken in the closing weeks of the race. Trump also was not given a serious chance to win in 2016, and liberal pollsters right up to election day helped the Democrats maintain their (false) overconfidence; Democrats and Deep Staters of both parties did prepare for the eventuality of Trump's election by fabricating the "Steele Dossier" and all the phony "Russia, Russia, Russia" crap to attempt to hamstring him after the fact, but they apparently didn't put as much -- let's call it "extra effort" -- as usual into achieving their desired electoral outcome in the first place.
  
  Underestimating the amount of voter support which both Trump and Youngkin actually had, the Democrats apparently did not feel the need to ensure victories by their usual methods (cough, cough). Trump was able to achieve narrow victories in critical states such as Pennsylvania (by 0.7%), Michigan (0.2%), Wisconsin (0.7%) and Florida (1.2%) and thus win the electoral vote despite losing the popular vote by 2.1%. Youngkin improved his party's showing from 2017 in several areas of the state, winning major portions of the Tidewater and Greater Richmond areas, and vastly reducing the deficit in NOVA -- even in Loudoun County, but still lost by 11 points there.
  
  In the aftermath of that glorious 2021 outcome it was reported that one of the main reasons for it was the "Virginia Project", a Republican effort to increase election integrity (something Democrats always oppose) by, for one thing, recruiting poll watchers for as many precincts as possible. With 36% of the votes in the 2021 Virginia gubernatorial election being cast early or absentee, the impact of GOP poll watchers was somewhat muted unless they were present when the envelopes were being opened and the ballots counted; their presence on election day was still helpful, though.
  
  With it seeming to work so well in Virginia that year, the Virginia Project (we were told) would serve as a model for helping ensure the honesty of future elections, and would be expanded to states beyond Virginia. Looking at many important outcomes from 2022 onward, the proponents of the Virginia Project either never implemented their model or it didn't function as well as expected. In any event, there's much more to the concept of election integrity than poll watchers can accomplish.
  
  
  
• Even with all of those advantages, both Trump and Youngkin won rather unconvincingly. The mistakes which national Democrats made in 2016 at the presidential level were "rectified" in 2020; the mistakes which Virginia Democrats made in 2021 began to be rectified almost immediately: the 7-seat gain which gave Republicans the Virginia state House starting in 2022 was partially offset in November of 2023 when Democrats added 3 seats and seized control of the House, 51-49; they have held the state Senate throughout Youngkin's term, by a 21-19 margin.

Photo credit: lifenews.com

GOP nominee Winsome Earle-Sears is an immigrant from Jamaica who arrived in the U.S. at the age of 6. She served in the United States Marine Corps for 4 years in the 1980's and became an American citizen during that time. Her political career commenced in the early 2000's when she won a race for the state House, upsetting a black Democrat who had been in office for two decades. She was the first Republican to win a state House seat in a majority-black district in Virginia since 1865. She later became the state's first female Lieutenant Governor (elected in 2021) and is the first black female to be elected to any statewide office in Virginia.

Although Sears endorsed Donald Trump in 2020 and served as the chairman of a PAC called "Black Americans to Re-elect the President", she broke with Trump in 2022 because she believed that the candidates Trump had endorsed that year were too conservative and therefore unelectable (in fact they weren't elected, but Sears was wrong about the reason for their defeats). At that time Sears declared she would not support Donald Trump's election bid if he were to run in 2024.

Probably for this reason (yeah, "probably"), Trump for a long time refused to support Sears for Governor in 2025, though he belatedly came through with an endorsement earlier this week. That endorsement, however, seemed to focus more on Spanberger being a "disaster" for Virginia than it did on Sears being Trump's choice for the job.

Sears also has the endorsements of Governor Youngkin, state Attorney General Jason Miyares, the entire Virginia Republican congressional delegation, and some congressmen from other states. Sears is pro-life, supports "common sense" tax cuts and government spending cuts, and opposes Democrats' radical pro-crime policies such as "catch and release" and sanctuary cities. She opposes incompetent (but powerfully unionized) teachers and favors school choice and parents' rights. Sears also strongly supports Virginia's "right-to-work" law. These positions stand in stark contrast to that of her allegedly "moderate" Democrat opponent, Abigail Spanberger.

Photo credit: twitchy.com

Spanberger, a native of New Jersey, went from being a substitute schoolteacher and a postal inspector to (as of 2006) being a spy for the Central Intelligence Agency; a rather interesting career change, to say the least. When she first entered politics, Spanberger's CIA resume was sanitized so that it could be declassified and, according to ABC News, the former spook stuck "to carefully scripted lines, approved by the agency, when talking about her work" on the campaign trail.

In 2018 CIAbby was recruited to run against Republican incumbent Dave Brat for a seat in Congress. Brat had irritated many GOP bigwigs by daring to oppose -- and defeat -- golden boy Eric Cantor, a squish who was a member of the GOP leadership (House Majority Leader) when he was shocked by Brat in the 2014 primary. We wrote at length about Brat's situation here, and his parallels to ex-congressman Bob Good. Good, a very solid conservative like Brat, fell out of favor with his party's leadership in 2024, and irritated the biggest bigwig of them all (Donald Trump). Good was defeated in the 2024 primary.

VA-7, the formerly Republican-oriented district in which Brat toppled Cantor and then 4 years later was defeated by Spanberger, was altered to give Democrats a much greater chance of success after 2014. Brat survived in 2016 because the Democrats pretty much gave him a free pass, but in 2018 Spanberger was able to raise and spend over $7 million dollars to purchase that House seat. That was more than double the amount which Brat could raise (or obtain from his indifferent party leadership). The surplus millions which Deep State Abby was able to throw around proved to be critical as she eked out a 1.9% win in the recently-gerrymandered district; her margin of victory came almost exclusively from the new Democrat areas in the Richmond suburbs which were added after 2014.

Democrats spent lavishly while procuring numerous House seats in 2018 and, coincidentally, another new Democrat who was the recipient of an astronomical "investment" that year was New Jersey's Mikie Sherrill who is now her party's gubernatorial nominee in that state.

Photo credit: NRCC

Republicans picked up 13 House seats in 2020 but Spanberger's wasn't one of them although a serious effort was made. Her district, which had been rated as R+10 prior to the 2016 Democrat gerrymander, was still slightly "red" and Republicans had it high on their list of potential pickups. Spanberger, then as now, occasionally talks like a moderate and did cast a highly publicized (and highly choreographed) vote against Nancy Pelosi for Speaker in January, 2019. Spanberger then spent the remainder of her first term in Congress establishing her liberal bona fides, but was able to conceal that fact from the voters as she reverted back to her faux-moderate persona.

Nick Freitas, a solid conservative, defeated squishy John McGuire (now a congressman from Virginia's Fifth District) in a contentious Republican party primary convention in July of 2020, and won the right to oppose Spanberger in November. As in 2018, the Republican carried all areas of the district aside from the deteriorating Richmond suburbs, but that was not sufficient to prevail district-wide. Or was it?

On the afternoon of the Wednesday following the 2020 election, Freitas had a lead of a little more than 1,300 votes over Spanberger. Then came the discovery of a "flash drive" in Henrico County by the husband of a Democrat operative, and that flash drive miraculously contained over 14,000 as yet uncounted votes in the 7th District. Just as miraculously, Spanberger happened to receive a tremendous percentage (64%) of those flash votes. The Democrats later found even more votes for CIAbby, making sure that her final margin was outside the range which would require an automatic recount. In 2022, Spanberger spent over $9 million dollars to successfully retain the 7th District seat; redistricting by that time had moved the district even further left in order to help ensure her another term. Spanberger did not seek re-election in 2024 in order to focus on her gubernatorial run.

Geography:

As we did with New Jersey, we have split Virginia into 6 regions:

• Rural Chesapeake Bay area
• Greater Richmond
• Hampton Roads
• Northern Virginia
• Piedmont / Southside
• Shenandoah Valley / Southwest Virginia

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2025 Governor New Jersey Virginia

Over the past few days, two moderate Republicans have announced that they will not be seeking re-election in 2026: Rep. Don Bacon of Nebraska and Senator Thom Tillis of North Carolina. Both of these anti-conservative politicos have taken great pride in being a thorn in the side of the majority of their party, and they bask in the positive media attention they get when they oppose President Trump.

Trump normally saves his greatest degree of vengeance for those who oppose him from the right (such as ex-Rep. Bob Good or current Rep. Thomas Massie) while going easier on Republicans who come at him from the other direction (such as Impeachment RINO Dan Newhouse of Washington), and he nearly always endorses squishy moderate incumbents over conservative challengers even in the safest of Republican districts. However, Trump recently declared War on Tillis and, probably as a result of that, Tillis has decided to scram. Trump's reaction notwithstanding, Tillis did not become a darling of the left only recently; he had already sealed his probable re-election fate months earlier.

Fried Bacon:

Photo credit: AP Photo/J. Scott Applewhite

Although he did not make the official announcement until June 30, there had already been chatter that Bacon was through after this term. He was first elected alongside future nemesis Donald Trump in 2016, defeating erratic Democrat incumbent Brad Ashford by 1.2%. Ashford started out as a Democrat, switched to Republican, then became an Independent, then back to Democrat again. He used his scattershot background to provide cover for his natural liberalism; although Ashford campaigned as a moderate he nearly always voted as a liberal during his lone term in Congress.

Bacon survived the anti-Trump liberal landslide of 2018 because the so-called moderate Ashford was edged out by far-leftist Kara Eastman in the Democrat primary that year; Ashford would have likely won the general election rematch, but Bacon lucked out by having a more "progressive" opponent who repelled enough moderate voters to seal her defeat.

Bacon was truly a moderate during his first term and part of his second one (2017-2019) but he began to panic and/or seek liberal media approval for his "maverick" status during the COVID year, and his voting record jumped noticeably to the left. His record has stayed that way ever since. It could be successfully argued that, as bad as Bacon is, he remained a good fit for his ever-deteriorating district (NE-2) which is based in and around the city of Omaha. Bacon won 5 times without ever getting even 52% of the vote in this highly marginal district, which is impressive in its own way.

Bacon's greatest achievement was his most recent victory in 2024. It's rare that a long-term House incumbent suddenly becomes an underdog absent some scandal or adverse redistricting (neither of which applied to Bacon in 2024), but liberal Democrat Tony Vargas was leading in every poll taken from mid-August on and nearly every prognosticator -- including us -- expected Bacon to lose; he won by 1.8% in one of the most surprising outcomes on election night.

Nebraska congressional district 2

Nebraska's Second Congressional District contains all of Omaha, and the city comprises 75% of the district. It is the other 25% which (so far) has kept this a Republican seat in the House. By 2024, the White percentage of the district was down to approximately 65% (it had been 80% as of the early 2000s) while the Hispanic percentage continues to rapidly increase. This district -- which awards its own Electoral Vote in presidential elections -- not only has rejected Trump twice in a row now, it also voted heavily against incumbent Republican Senator Deb Fischer in 2024, preferring "independent" Dan Osborn by a whopping 12 points. NE-2 did vote Republican for Governor in 2022 and for the other Senate seat (Ricketts) in 2024, however it was by the narrowest of margins. Led by Omaha, the district is obviously trending leftward and is now rated as D+2. Even as recently as 2020 it was rated as leaning to the right by a miniscule amount, but those days are gone.

Photo credit: 3newsnow.com

Minor error #1: former Omaha Mayor and nominal Republican Jean Stothert (elected in 2013, 2017 and 2021) is not a transvestite and therefore is not a "he" as a quote from the article states; a minor error but one which reveals a certain amount of cluelessness on the part of the quoter, who was a former chairman of the Nebraska Republican party. That guy did get one thing right -- Stothert is surely no conservative. Stothert had her easiest election in 2021 when three liberal Democrats split the primary vote and could not reunite in time for the general election one month later. Stothert lost in May of 2025 by almost 13 points to a liberal black Democrat, conclusive evidence of how the city of Omaha has finally completed its journey to the dark side. Even granting that Stothert's general election campaign in 2025 was sabotaged by Republican primary loser Mike McDonnell (who spitefully endorsed the Democrat), it seems that even moderate Republicans no longer need apply for electoral employment within the city limits.

The mayor of Omaha is technically a non-partisan position (like the state legislature) but the parties of the candidates and officeholders are rarely a secret.

Major error #2: Gizzi's own blunder in the article is a real howler: claiming that Brett Lindstrom, the presumptive GOP nominee for the open NE-2 seat in 2026, is "considered a strong conservative". In reality, Lindstrom is just so much leftover Bacon. He can usually be found on the left flank of the Republican party in Nebraska and at one time was the most liberal Republican in the Nebraska state legislature. During his time in Lincoln, Lindstrom's conservative ratings from CPAC were:

2015: 64%
2016: 54%
2017: 75%
2018: 73%

Having moved to the right while running for re-election for the first time in 2018, Lindstrom was safely returned to office for a second term -- and safely returned to being the liberal which he really always was. When he decided that he wanted to be Governor and would therefore have to appeal to conservative voters statewide by moving rightward (if he could win the primary while running to the left) -- a neat trick, but a common one for liberal Republicans -- Lindstrom began moderating his voting record in 2020.

2019: 52%
2020: 63%
2021: 64%
2022: 80%

In 2022 Lindstrom was absent (or failed to take a position) for nearly half of all key votes including one on abolishing the state income tax and another vote on preventing election fraud.

In 2022 Lindstrom finished third in the GOP primary for Governor. Moderate Jim Pillen won that primary (and then the general election, easily) and conservative Charles Herbster finished second after leading in the polls; he was slimed with some Clintonian-type accusations of sexual indiscretions. Herbster was endorsed by Donald Trump and others on the right; Pillen had all the moderates in his corner; Lindstrom was supported by some ex-Republicans who became Democrats, and he was endorsed by moderate-liberal Omaha Mayor Jean Stothert.

Even a squish like Pete Ricketts (a Pillen supporter) considers Lindstrom to be too liberal. Here is a quote from Ricketts which appeared during the '22 gubernatorial campaign: "Brett Lindstrom raised the gas tax 23%, opposed voter ID, gave taxpayer benefits to illegal immigrants, repealed the death penalty, and even tried to gut the Property Tax Credit Relief Fund. It's no wonder Democrats are supporting Lindstrom -- his liberal record speaks for itself."

And this guy is the best we can do while trying to hold the NE-2 House seat? Sadly, that may be the case.

Photo credit: Washington Post

Business executive Thom Tillis was elected to the North Carolina state House in 2006 after one term as a city commissioner. Tillis compiled a conservative voting record (but was a more bipartisan type aside from some of his positions on key votes) during his 4 terms, and was Speaker of the NC House from 2011 through the end of his tenure there. True conservatives very rarely ascend to the position of Speaker even in the most conservative of states, and North Carolina isn't one of those anyway.

Liberal Democrat Kay Hagan, defeater of Elizabeth Dole and a rubber stamp for the Obama agenda in the Senate, was up for her first re-election bid in 2014. Polls showed her as being increasingly vulnerable heading into that election year, and numerous Republicans were considering opposing Hagan. Tillis jumped into the GOP primary as the favorite and received endorsements from high-profile squishes like Mitt Romney and Jeb Bush. Tillis' major opponent for the nomination was conservative "activist" and physician Greg Brannon. But Brannon was not a serious threat, never led in any poll against Tillis, and finished second in the primary, with 27.1% to 45.7% for Tillis.

For the general election, Democrats flooded the state with oodles of money on behalf of their doomed candidate and additionally invested $36 million in "independent" expenditures against Tillis. Despite the massive disparity in funding in favor of the Democrat (an extremely common occurrence in Senate elections in recent years), Tillis eked out a 1.5% upset victory over Hagan.

North Carolina Senate election results, 2014

Tillis carefully walked a line down the middle of the road during his first two Senate years (2015-2016) which corresponded with the final two years of the Obama administration. Desperately seeking to project an image of moderation in his sharply divided state, Tillis supported Obama somewhat more often than he opposed the president on Senate votes. Tillis was a staunch (though not entirely reliable) supporter of Donald Trump during Trump's first term in office.

In 2020 Tillis faced another big spender, Democrat Cal Cunningham. Cunningham, a former U.S. Army lawyer, tried to portray himself as a sensible, patriotic moderate who was not on board with fashionable radical leftist causes like "Black Lives Matter" and "Defund the Police". As in 2014, Tillis -- though now having the advantage of incumbency -- trailed throughout the COVID summer and into the fall. Even the final polls predicted a 2-4 point win for Cunningham. A month before the election, the married Democrat patriot was found to have engaged in "sexting" with a woman not his wife. These revelations were typically downplayed by the media and Cunningham suffered no damage in the polls. But just like in 2014, Tillis pulled off the upset and prevailed by a small margin in November.

Romney and Tillis: Birds of a Feather
Photo credit: newsmax.com

With Trump safely out of the picture now, Tillis emerged as even more moderate (actually, liberal) than he had been in the past; his support for the Biden administration's policies and his opposition to conservative principles were both running in the 40% range from 2021-2024; that's Mitt Romney territory, though not quite as reprehensible as Susan Collins or Lisa Murkowski.

Trump's return to the White House has caused Tillis to largely abandon whatever was left of his principles. All politicians (not just Donald Trump) have massive egos, and few of them have larger egos than the "Elite 100" who occupy the United States Senate. Tillis, among some others, objects to the pressure to blindly obey the president's every wish regarding legislation. Occasionally in 2025 this is a good instinct for a Republican, but most of the time it is not. Tillis began the second Trump administration by railing (and voting) against worthy presidential nominees like Pete Hegseth for Secretary of Defense and Ed Martin for U.S. Attorney for the District of Columbia. Tillis singlehandedly derailed the Martin nomination and his ex-sister-in-law was the driving force behind the smear campaign against Hegseth. So Tillis wasn't just voting the wrong way -- he was doing much more damage than that, whether directly or indirectly.

Those actions, along with his other recent anti-conservative tendencies, made Tillis' 2026 re-election prospects quite dubious. The last straw was his vote against the "Big Supposedly-Beautiful Bill", which triggered Trump's wrath. Tillis The Moderate would be highly vulnerable in the Republican primary while remaining an underdog in the general, still reviled by North Carolina Democrats no matter how much of a centrist he thinks he is now.

Photo credit: Carolina Journal

The Republican side is wide open. Lara Trump, chairman of the Republican National Committee for a little over 10 months in 2024-25 (and the daughter-in-law of President Trump) is the heavy favorite for the GOP nomination if she chooses to seek it. A native of the Tarheel State, Trump will still face allegations of carpetbaggery because she has spent much of her adult life elsewhere.

A hypothetical matchup between Trump and Cooper shows -- guess what? -- a close race! Lara Trump will face unprecedented amounts of hatred in 2026 if she is on the ballot, but Roy Cooper is far from unanimously popular despite a media-burnished image as an alleged moderate. Cooper would probably win against any Republican, but November, 2026 is an eternity away and gleeful Democrat prognosticators may find 17 months from now that their crystal balls weren't so accurate.

Other potential Republican Senate candidates include a large number of opportunistic congressmen, several of whom are still in their first term:

• Pat Harrigan, newly elected in the 10th district (mostly suburban areas like Mooresville, but also part of urban Winston-Salem) and one of the best of the non-Trump alternatives. Harrigan is a young military veteran, a Green Beret who served in Afghanistan and a solid conservative so far in Congress. Harrigan has declared that he will not run for the Senate if Trump does, so as not to split the right-wing vote.
  
  
• Tim Moore, newly elected in the 14th district (Gastonia, Shelby, Charlotte suburbs). He is a lawyer and career politician with a resume much like that of Thom Tillis (uh oh). Moore spent 22 years in the N.C. state House before moving up to D.C. He was the Speaker of the House for 10 years but is still thought to be somewhat conservative.
  
  
• Greg Murphy, currently in his fourth term in the House after winning a 2019 special election to replace the late Walter Jones in the 3rd district. Murphy has been re-elected easily three times and has compiled a record which began as fairly conservative but has moved a bit to the left since his initial term.
  
  
• Addison McDowell, another very young (31 years old) freshman House member from the 6th district (suburban areas around Concord, Greensboro, High Point and Winston-Salem). McDowell's main electoral challenge came during the 2024 primary where he narrowly defeated former congressman Mark Walker. Walker was the true conservative in the race. McDowell faced no Democrat opposition in November, but a Constitution party candidate received 30% of the vote (which is a lot for a penniless third-party candidate) and even won the portion of the district closest to Greensboro. McDowell has been a reliable party-line voter in the House so far, but it's early yet.
  
  
• Dan Bishop, former 2½-term congressman and one of the most conservative representatives during his 6 years in D.C.; he along with Harrigan would be the most conservative Senate options if Lara Trump takes a pass. Like Murphy, Bishop was initially elected in a 2019 special election. He opted to seek higher office (NC Attorney General) in 2024 but was dragged down by the Mark Robinson Debacle and lost to liberal Democrat Jeff Jackson for that important position.
  
  
• Brad Knott, the fourth freshman congressman on this list. He represents a suburban/rural ring of territory around Raleigh. Knott's voting record is indistinguishable from that of his freshman Republican colleagues -- loyal, but not enough data to draw conclusions from yet. Knott finished second to Kelly Daughtry in the 14-way House primary in 2024. She had more money and openly supported conservative/Christian values; he had Donald Trump's endorsement and also that of Senator Ted Budd. Daughtry graciously declined the runoff election and backed Knott.

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U.S. House Senate 2026 Nebraska North Carolina

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

1. Competitiveness

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Photo credit: WCMH-TV

The photo shows the three GOP Senate candidates, Larry, Moe(reno) and Curly, during a recent debate. Leftist Matt Dolan is the stooge who is positioned on the right. Moreno isn't really a stooge of course, but he's certainly surrounded by them here. Speaking of being positioned on the right, the gaslighting article which accompanies that photo was written by an ultra-liberal NPR media twerp and therefore reads like a Dolan campaign commercial.


The past: In 2022 in many important statewide elections, there was nothing to vote for in the Democrat primaries because their nominee had already been anointed. The same is true in 2024. That means Democrat party puppetmasters and Democrat voters are free to spend time and money influencing the outcome of Republican primary elections for their own benefit.

Like Nimrod Haley did during the brief time when she was supposedly a viable presidential candidate, other liberal Republicans like Matt Dolan are desperately seeking Democrat votes in their primary battles against actual Republicans. This is nothing new for Dolan, a left-wing state legislator who ran for the U.S. Senate in 2022 and is running again this year. In 2022 he begged Democrats to vote for him in the GOP primary, because otherwise he stood zero chance against Trump-endorsed J.D. Vance.

That tactic came closer to succeeding than it should have. In polls taken only a few weeks before the 2022 Ohio primary, Dolan was barely cracking double-digits in what was essentially a three-way race with Vance and Josh Mandel. Mandel, the former state Treasurer, had been a milquetoast candidate against Sherrod Brown in 2012 and Brown mopped the floor with him. That happened despite the fact that the Republicans actually competed on nearly equal financial footing with the Democrat, which has become quite an uncommon occurrence in contested states since that time.

With the help of thousands of Democrat voters and the endorsements of other liberal Republicans, Dolan surged in the final voting to over 23%, just a fraction of a percentage point behind Mandel. Vance of course won that primary, but with barely 30% of the overall vote. Vance didn't break the one-third mark even though he had the endorsement of Donald Trump and the endorsement of former primary opponent Bernie Moreno. Moreno had dropped out of the race in February of 2022, heroically sacrificing his campaign in order to avoid a damaging split of the conservative primary vote.

• Pro-abortionist
• Anti-gun
• Supported "contact tracing" and dictatorial powers for "health" officials during the plandemic
• Opposed arming teachers (or any armed security) in dangerous urban schools or ghetto-ized suburban schools
• Supports the Democrat vote-buying tactic of student loan "forgiveness"
• Supports "green" energy mandates
• Favors higher property taxes
• Favors taxpayer-financed handouts in corrupt ghetto areas under the guise of "neighborhood development"

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2024 Senate Ohio Moreno & the Two Stooges Win-win for Democrats

The headline is premature since no polls (yet) show what the title claims. But it's never too early for the liberal media to begin focusing their attacks on a Republican candidate, and tying one to Trump is -- they think -- a winning strategy. It usually is, but not always. Like just two years ago in Ohio, for example.

Dysfunctional Republicans have a habit of shooting themselves in the foot via divisive primaries in critical statewide elections -- mainly because the liberal wing of the party will never back a conservative in the general election and will often actually work against one; lukewarm support like J.D. Vance got here in 2022 is pretty much all that a non-liberal GOP candidate can expect. The establishment, which controls the all-important purse strings, much prefers a liberal Democrat to a conservative Republican, and in '22 they got their way in critical Senate races in Arizona, Pennsylvania and Alaska, came close in Wisconsin and North Carolina, and only grudgingly made a token effort to help in Ohio.

This sort of fracturing and backstabbing is something Democrats never go for. First of all, they make certain that the field is clear for their chosen candidate in a Senate primary in any winnable state, thus avoiding the divisiveness. Then they support their nominees with the vast resources of their campaign finance money laundries. Deliberately sabotaging one's own nominees is idiotic, which is why only Republicans do that and not Democrats.

In a state which is not winnable for Democrats, like Missouri in 2022, they let the losers battle it out with their own money in the primary to see which one gets the honor of being stomped in the general election. They don't waste time or money on lost causes, while the Republican party, with its comparatively limited resources, starves winnable candidates in order to waste cash on ludicrously unlikely pipe dreams in places like Colorado and Washington (both of which were lost by two touchdowns), as they did in '22.

Also, the Rats do not care how outrageously liberal a candidate is and they quite obviously do not demand that only the most squishy centrist be their party's choice. If a supposedly moderate candidate can't beat a drooling liberal (see the 2022 Senate Democrat primary in Pennsylvania, for example) then the drooler is the nominee and the entire party apparatus immediately gets in line behind him.

Need proof? We've published this data before, but here again are the campaign spending figures for the swing-state Senate races in 2022. All figures shown are in millions of dollars:

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2024 Senate Ohio Bernie Moreno for the win!

Photo credit: Getty

Amash started off in Congress well enough, building conservative credentials with his voting record and enhancing that "cred" by being kicked off of GOP committees in 2012 along with Kansas representative Tim Huelskamp and David Schweikert of Arizona. All three were ousted for being too far to the right to suit many of their more-powerful Republican colleagues, including milquetoast John Boehner who was Speaker at the time.

Schweikert is still in Congress -- at least for the rest of this year. He represents a very marginal and deteriorating district in the Phoenix suburbs, barely won in 2022, and Democrats are spending big to defeat him in November. They have a significant probability of doing exactly that.

Huelskamp proved to be such an irritant to the Republican leadership (he once attempted to unseat Crybaby Boehner from the speakership and replace him with Jim Jordan) that he was successfully targeted -- by Boehner and other members of his own party -- for elimination in the 2016 primary. Roger Marshall, who defeated Huelskamp in that western Kansas primary to the delight of the GOPe, has gone on to parlay his squishiness into a Senate career.

Wikipedia notes with approval that "Amash received national attention when he became the first Republican congressman to call for the impeachment of Donald Trump, a position he maintained after leaving the party". Amash abandoned the Republicans in 2019 to become a so-called independent, then flitted over to the Libertarian party before leaving Congress. Now he wants to be welcomed back into the GOP as their standard-bearer in a losing Senate election.

Amash is a gadfly who doesn't know what the hell he is or what he wants to be. Well, he knows he wants to be a senator all of a sudden but he isn't going to get that prize. And he knows he hates Israel, which really isn't sufficient to base a Senate campaign on although it might get him votes in Dearborn-istan.

He's just a charlatan who misses the attention and the payday he got when he was a self-important congressman -- especially the media adulation he received after he made clear how much of a "maverick" he is and how he hated President Trump enough to leave Trump's party and even to leave Congress. So now he's a darling of the media and others on the left, claiming to be a "principled conservative" though he is actually neither of those things.

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Michigan 2024 Senate James Craig Yes Justin Amash No

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.

The left-wing author of the linked article is outraged, naturally, yet was strangely silent about hyper-partisan Democrat gerrymanders in the recent past (Illinois, Pennsylvania, etc.) and will be gleeful about ones which are probably coming up in the near future (New York, Wisconsin, etc.).

If the Republicans can pick up 3 seats or so in North Carolina, that reduces the probability of election-denying Brooklyn homeboy Hakeem Jeffries wielding the Speaker's gavel come 2025. It probably doesn't reduce that probability enough, however. Even if "re-redistricting" between now and the 2024 elections is 100% neutral, the number of truly vulnerable Republican representatives exceeds the similar number for Democrats as things stand now.

If a minor miracle or 2 takes place in the 2024 Senate elections, the outcome could well be that the GOP loses the House but gains nominal control of the Senate.

Don't be too fast to count those North Carolina chickens, though. Lawsuits have surely been prepared in anticipation of this day, and whether those suits have any merit or not is irrelevant -- the idea, at a minimum, is to delay the implementation of this "harsh gerrymander" past 2024, so don't be surprised if that's exactly what happens.

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North Carolina Redistricting U.S. House

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.

Patriotic American voters who would like to see the GOP in Congress stand for something (did you know that Republicans actually control the House of Representatives?), lament the defeatist attitude and cowardly legislative inaction by squishes such as Kevin McCarthy -- and Nancy Mace. Conservative voters believe, rightly, that after 2024 the GOP is likely to lose control of the House for those reasons.

That is very likely to happen as things stand now. Demoralized conservative voters notwithstanding, another reason for the impending loss is that Democrats are preparing to pick up several seats from the effects of belated redistricting which (in all cases except North Carolina, if redistricting there ever happens) will favor Democrats across the board.

Interestingly, one belated redistricting target of Democrat racists is.... the South Carolina district which Nancy Mace represents. Democrats decided that South Carolina's delegation In Washington ain't gots enough "people of color" (Tim Scott doesn't count since he's a Republican) and specifically they have targeted Mace's CD-1, which is Charleston and vicinity, for "reparations".

The Democrat/NAACP lawsuit is now at the Supreme Court level after some liberal federal judges took the racists' side, and it has already been proven that the GOP absolutely can NOT count on that so-called "Republican" Supreme Court to do the right thing in these cases.

Won't it be funny when a stooge like Nancy Mace gets ousted by racist liberals to whom she is closer ideologically than she is to conservatives? It's not like the GOP can afford to lose this House district -- or any district -- due to the effects of Democrat racism and a compliant Court, though something about irony being delicious regarding this turn of events comes to mind.

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Nancy Mace South Carolina RINO U.S. House

Photo credit: AP/Charlie Neibergall

Rich Lowry, the author of the article, is what passes for a mainstream, establishment "conservative" these days, but he's right on the money with his premise here regarding the 2024 presidential election:

Both [Democrats and Republicans] are seeking the same thing -- Trump as the Republican nominee, either so he can sweep to victory (Trump's view) or be beaten again and pay the price for his crimes (the Democrats' view). [Emphasis added, to highlight the primary objective.]

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Donald Trump 2024 No! Wait! Now we want him OFF the ballot!

Photo credit: The Hill

For a suddenly relevant blast from the not-too-distant past, here's an excerpt from our very own "Final 2022 election predictions" posted last November 7th:

If partisan control hangs in the balance, i.e. if Republicans end up with a 51-49 majority, the filthy whore from Alaska (who will win re-election easily), will sell herself to the highest bidder like all filthy whores do; that high bidder will be the Democrats. A la Judas Jim Jeffords 20 years ago, Murkowski will switch sides and give the Democrats control.

With the "red wave" petering out completely, there was no need for the dessicated crone from Alaska to pull a Jeffords at that time. However it appears that Murkowski along with other spineless weasels (Cornyn, Thune, Romney, etc.) now fear that the GOP might somehow take Senate control following the 2024 elections, and as always they would greatly prefer not to be in power -- at least not on the same side as those smelly conservatives, and especially not if taking control in January of 2025 is due to the fact that 1 or 2 more actual conservatives are elected next November. So Murkowski is hinting that she will bolt, and it's quite possibly not just a bluff.

She doesn't have to face the voters again until 2028, and Rigged Choice Voting in Alaska practically ensures her re-election just as it did in 2022.

The Democrats don't need to buy off this whore with their endless supply of geld -- she's already a millionaire -- but through their control of the media they can make her the greatest American hero since St. George Floyd; why, she would be single-handedly saving Democracy!!! They don't need to appeal to her greed; they can simply appeal to her gigantic ego and lust for power (or at least relevance).

Regarding the 2024 Senate elections, the puppetmasters have little to fear in West Virginia where a moderate Republican will replace an allegedly moderate Democrat. But if the uniparty establishment loses control of the primary election in places like Montana and Ohio, leading to the nomination of right-of-center candidates like Rosendale and Moreno, and then loses control of the general election and those guys somehow get past all the obstacles in their path (vote fraud, overwhelming funding disadvantages) then they figure that spells DISASTER.

For the establishment.

Of course that's not true at all, with Mitch McConnell or one of his Bitches becoming Majority Leader and being as vigorous, forceful and effective a "leader" as Frank Luntz's boy toy currently is in the House.

Speaking of Kevin McCarthy, the current odds heavily favor him handing over the Speaker's gavel to the racist Democrat election-denier from Brooklyn when the next Congress convenes in 2025, so it would be nice to have the GOP control the Senate. It would be even nicer for them to actually accomplish something with that control, but probably the most we could expect is preventing President Biden, President Harris or President Newsom from being able to pack the Supreme Court. Maybe.

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Senate RINO Lisa Murkowski Mitt Romney John Cornyn Judas Jim Jeffords

Photo credit: AP Photo/Jose Luis Magana

The article states, quite accurately, that a "prior left-wing court invented out of whole cloth a constitutional provision that forced the legislature to create so-called fair districts."

Last November the voters in North Carolina delivered a 5-2 Republican majority to the state Supreme Court, and today that court came through by not merely overturning the illegal judicial interference with last year's redistricting, but also restoring a voter ID law which was duly passed by the voters in 2018 before being thrown out by partisan Democrat judges.

This is all great news, although the hyperventilating in the article about the GOP picking up 4 House seats in the Tarheel State in 2024 after the maps are redrawn is not terribly realistic, however a gain of 2 or even 3 might be. On the flip side of the coin, Democrats in New York are suing because they were not allowed to implement the most ridiculously partisan gerrymander (with all due respect to Illinois) in the entire nation. The lawsuit seeks to restore that gerrymander or something very close -- if not worse.

Many of the series of fluke U.S. House victories the GOP attained in New York in 2022 -- CD-3 (Santos), CD-4 (D'Esposito), CD-17 (Lawler), CD-19 (Molinaro) and CD-22 (Williams) -- were likely to be undone in 2024 even without a new gerrymander, plus CD-1 (LaLota) and CD-11 (Malliotakis) aren't exactly 100% safe either; Malliotakis may appear safe due to the margin she received in 2022, but that's only because the Democrats ran a complete stooge against her and they will not make that mistake again.

If the Democrats prevail in New York court, it will offset the presumed North Carolina gains, and more.

Adverse changes will also be coming to the district map in Ohio and possibly other states, with South Carolina as another example. If those changes in Ohio are not implemented for the 2024 election then they definitely will be by 2026. Republicans expected to pick up 2 House seats in 2022 in Ohio while maybe sacrificing one seat (that sacrifice was pretty much mandated by liberal court order when the court rejected the Republicans' original Ohio map); what actually happened was that the Republicans picked up nothing while losing one seat, as the much ballyhooed (and mis-named) "red wave" became not even a trickle, though at least they held the U.S. Senate seat with J.D. Vance.

Because the expected gains never materialized, even a less favorable district map might do little or no damage to the composition of the Ohio congressional delegation, in which the Republicans currently hold a 10-5 edge.

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North Carolina Redistricting Democrat gerrymander overturned New York Democrat gerrymander restored

Photo credit: AP Photo/Susan Walsh

Actually, that's one thing he's not. The article claims that Manchin is regretting his high-profile vote which singlehandedly provided the margin for passage of the Democrats' ludicrously-named "Inflation Reduction Act" last August. But he knew exactly what he was doing at the time, and only now that the 2024 campaign season is beginning to get underway is Manchin feeling a little heat at home in West Virginia. He pretends to be a thorn in the side of his party, but when the chips are down he always comes through for the leftists.

Republicans are lining up to take Manchin on, the first one was solidly conservative representative Alex Mooney. The liberal GOP establishment therefore went into a panic, but calmed themselves down by successfully recruiting term-limited Democrat-turned-Republican Governor Jim Justice to oppose Mooney in the primary.

The RINOs and their big $$$$ donors are now able to run away from Mooney and toward Justice. Donald Trump should endorse Mooney to give Mooney's campaign some traction, but apparently that's too much of a risk to the all-important Trump Winning Percentage since Mooney is unlikely to survive the primary.

Aside from his conservatism, the RINOs' problem with Mooney is that he wasn't born in some rural hovel in the geographical center of West Virginia and therefore is doomed to always be considered an outsider like Patrick Morrissey was painted as when he ran against Manchin and lost -- basically for that reason alone -- in 2018. Morrissey has since been elected to statewide office in WV, and is running for Governor in '24 and will probably win, so the voters seem to have forgiven him for the sin of being born elsewhere. Will the voters also forgive Mooney? We very likely won't get to find out this year.

The fear is that Manchin and the media would use the same playbook against Mooney that they did against Morrissey. They also fear that Mooney is "unelectable" even in this bluest of blue states because they feel (and wish, and try their best to ensure) that all conservatives are unelectable.

It's a moot point because no way the establishment lets Mooney win the GOP primary if Justice is in the race, and maybe even if he isn't. Given that Justice will be the nominee, at this time we feel he has about a 60-40 chance of defeating Manchin. Manchin is as slimy as they come, but West Virginia voters have been fooled by him in the past and may be again in the future. Also Manchin is a good campaigner -- good enough, anyway -- and most Republicans are not. Justice won in 2016 (as a Democrat, prior to switching parties) by "only" 7 points, but the next truly tough election campaign he faces will be his first one.

If something from way out of left field happens and Mooney is the nominee, it wouldn't be surprising at all to see the state's other Senator (alleged Republican Shelley Capito) all but endorse Manchin by talking about how delighted she's been to serve with him, how wonderfully "bipartisan" he is, etc. Other RINOs will also pull out the knives and aim for Mooney's back; Mitch McConnell will see to it that Mooney is starved for funds. But as stated above, that scenario is very likely something we won't have to worry about.

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Phony "moderate" Joe Manchin West Virginia 2024 Alex Mooney Conservative Jim Justice RINO

Photo credit: Thom Bridge, Independent Record

This bill has not yet become law, but Democrats are already howling with outrage because Republicans in Montana are attempting to craft an election law which exactly matches the ones used -- to great Democrat benefit -- in states such as California and Washington. Except this time the benefit, tiny though it may be, would accrue to the GOP. Hence the hypocritical outrage from the left.

The idea is to make the November, 2024 U.S. Senate election a 1-on-1 race with no interference from minor party candidates. Tester has won three times previously, with percentages of 49.2% in 2006, 48.6% in 2012, and 50.3% in 2018. In all 3 cases, the candidacy of a Libertarian was engineered in order to cost the GOP candidate enough votes to lose the election. It worked perfectly twice, and even in 2018 when Tester finally got over 50% the Libertarian eventually discovered how he was being used and manipulated, and he withdrew from the race and endorsed the Republican. But he bailed out too late to affect the outcome.

There remains the little matter of determining who the GOP nominee will be in 2024. The filing deadline is still 11 months away so there's plenty of time, however no serious Republican has as yet entered the race. One or both of the state's U.S. House incumbents (Zinke, Rosendale) probably will file. So too may some others who already hold statewide office.

Because there will be only one primary ballot instead of separate ones for each party if this law passes, Democrats will not so easily be able to utilize their effective scheme from 2022 in which leftist voters invade the Republican primary (as they did in Colorado, for example) to try to help the weakest candidates prevail.

Even with one or more good candidates running for the GOP -- preferably only one -- liberals may resort to old tricks such as placing bogus "conservatives" on the primary ballot in order to split the right-wing vote and ensure that the most liberal of the big-names becomes the Republican nominee; this obviously creates as much of a win-win scenario for the left as possible. Democrats won't have to sabotage conservatives all by themselves; the GOP establishment will be happy to take charge of that particular task.

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Senate 2024 Montana Jon Tester No more Libertarian assistance?

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.

Tl;dr version for those with insufficient attention spans or an aversion to being realistic: the delusionals have worked themselves up into such a frenzy that even GOOD news -- Republicans going +15 or +20 and winning the House and maybe picking up a seat or two and perhaps taking control of the Senate -- will be viewed as major disappointments by those who actually believe outlier polls, people who reflexively add 10 points to GOP candidates in polls just because, and people who take ludicrous "predictions" by sources such as Newt Gingrich and Dickie Morris seriously.

Senate:

The most likely reasonable expectation is in the range of GOP -1 to GOP +1. This may sound unimpressive or pessimistic, but then reality IS normally more unimpressive than fantasy. It's not totally pessimistic either: we'll assume that Republicans hold their pair of highly endangered and marginal seats in North Carolina and Wisconsin, outcomes which are very far from certainties.

The most likely path to the -1 to +1 range is: Oz loses PA (which he will, after appearing to be winning substantially on Tuesday night) and the Republicans pick up either 0, 1 or 2 of Nevada and New Hampshire. An upset is possible but Walker will most likely lose in a runoff in Georgia, other races may be close-but-no-cigar (such as Arizona), and only if a 1994-style massacre of Democrats occurs is there any plausible chance for pickups in places like Colorado and Washington. Of the 2 Democrat-held seats which are actually tossups, Nevada is a better bet for GOP success than New Hampshire (even the right-leaning shills at Real Clear Politics have conceded that Bolduc will not win), and Nevada is pretty tenuous.

Final Senate note: if partisan control hangs in the balance, i.e. if Republicans end up with a 51-49 majority, the filthy whore from Alaska (who will win re-election easily), will sell herself to the highest bidder like all filthy whores do; that high bidder will be the Democrats. A la Judas Jim Jeffords 20 years ago, Murkowski will switch sides and give the Democrats control. If we want REAL control we need to get to 52 somehow.

Governors:

Maryland and Massachusetts are already foregone conclusions to flip from R to D and another significant possibility to do the same thing is Oklahoma. In the end, we'll guess that Stitt wins by an extremely small margin and holds Oklahoma for the GOP.

Among currently D-held seats, Pennsylvania is a lost cause but we predict the Republicans will pick up Nevada; however it better not be too close because Republicans almost never win close elections in Nevada.

Sadly, MAGA heroine Kari Lake will lose in Arizona simply because she cannot be allowed to win; she's too good. If she somehow slips through the cracks in Katie Hobbs' Fraud Machine (it's so cute that people think the Rats can't cheat because "Weer Wotching" more closely than in 2020) and ekes out a win, Lake will not be allowed to govern. Remember Evan Mechem? Lake will be Evan Mechem 2.0. The Democrats, the Democrat media and the RINO elites in Lake's own party will see to it and are probably already preparing for it by fabricating the Kari Lake version of the "Steele Dossier".

All other seats will probably be status quo though there is a decent opportunity for Tim Michels to defeat soyboi Tony Evers in Wisconsin. Republicans will blow it in Kansas, which should have been an easy pickup, and the Oregon pipe dream will turn out to be a pipe bomb as support for the "independent" Democrat who was splitting the D vote has evaporated, and her supporters have flocked back like sheep to the nutzoid D candidate. It was fun while it lasted and the final outcome will be close, but this is Oregon. Other states -- notably New York -- will be much closer than they usually are, but all realistic odds favor Democrat holds in that state and in Maine, Minnesota, Michigan, New Mexico and Colorado. Will Illinois flip, as some seem to believe? That's precious.

House:

The realistic floor for the GOP is somewhere around +10, and that's sufficient to take control but as mentioned above would be considered a crushing disappointment if that's all we get. If we see less than +10, or worse yet we see panicky Democrat predictions of gains coming true, then we know that Democrat fraud is working better than ever.

A sensible outcome without going too far overboard with the purely wishful thinking is GOP +15 to maybe as much as +20 (I know, I know, that's STILL a massive downer); anyone who truly believes, despite no evidence whatsoever, that +50, +75, +100 is viable, will need to up their meds starting Wednesday.

Newly created seats in Florida, Texas (1 of the 2 new seats), Montana and Colorado will go our way, offset by GOP reapportionment losses in places like New York, Pennsylvania, Illinois, Michigan and West Virginia along with D pickups of new seats in states such as Oregon and North Carolina. Florida will be the biggest win for our side, as the delegation goes from 16-11 in our favor to 20-8. Arizona might see a pickup of 2 House seats for the GOP even as both statewide Republican candidates are being frauded out of their wins.

Democrat incumbents (through defeat on Tuesday, or retirement, or redistricting) will be ousted in Wisconsin, Tennessee, Georgia, New Jersey, Ohio (Tim Ryan's old district), perhaps Iowa. There are possibilities of capturing marginal tossup Democrat-held districts in Alaska, Pennsylvania, Virginia and Nevada. There are lesser chances, but still possible pickups, in Rhode Island, New Hampshire, Maine, Maryland, and a few others. Ideas of GOP seizures of numerous endangered Democrat seats in places like Illinois and New York are nothing but illusions and not even a single pickup will result (well, maybe 1 at most) absent a "red wave" of enormous proportions.

There are only 2 GOP-held seats which are in any real danger of being lost -- unless Democrat "ballot harvesting" fraud in California claims a whole bunch more, as it did in 2018 and very well might again in 2022 -- and those 2 are Mayra Flores in TX-34 and John Gibbs in MI-3. Both are in tough fights, and Gibbs in particular will go down to defeat as the GOP establishment abandoned him the moment he defeated Trump-hating weasel Peter Meijer in the primary. As always, the GOPe would greatly prefer a liberal Democrat to a MAGA conservative.

If we have to pick a specific final number in the House, we'll go with lucky +13. We'd be delighted to be wrong about some of this (particularly Kari Lake) but we prefer predictions based in reality rather than fantasy.

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U.S. House Senate 2022 Take back the House But not the Senate

By what is surely just a remarkable coincidence, the polls which the liberal poindexters at FiveThirtyEight.com allow the public to see -- at least the ones from sources those poindexters consider to be "highly rated" -- all favor the ultra-liberal candidate. So just because us unenlightened proles have never heard of the leftist poll-takers at the University of North Florida doesn't mean they're wrong.

Still, Florida is not a slam-dunk Republican state by any means whatsoever, and even Governor DeSantis is going to have to work hard (he is a major target and is in no way going to simply cruise to re-election) but given the low quality of their Democrat opponents both Rubio & DeSantis should be moderately favored. At most.

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Senate Florida 2022 Not safe GOP?

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.

Some people insist that Trump's endorsements of guaranteed-to-win-anyway Republican House incumbents have nothing to do with padding his winning percentage, but instead is a "6D Chess" maneuver to inspire loyalty from politicians who will always remember how Trump supported them (even when they didn't need it), and they will therefore support him in return.

Oh really? Here is a list of the other 15 House Republicans who Trump endorsed in 2020 and who then backstabbed him by voting for the Pelosi-Cheney-Kinzinger J6 lynch mob: Johnson (SD), Bice (OK), Moore (UT), Guest (MS), Bentz (OR), Simpson (ID), Fortenberry (NE), Newhouse (WA), Bacon (NE), Miller-Meeks (IA), Jacobs (NY), Gonzales (TX), Joyce (OH), Salazar (FL), Curtis (UT).

How's that for "loyalty", eh?

Fortenberry was ousted for some alleged technical violation that Democrats probably get away with every day, Jacobs supposedly ran away because some nutzoid leftist killed some people in Buffalo (near his district), and all of the others so far have safely won their primaries in 2022 despite their apostasy. There were 19 other Republicans who voted to persecute Trump, but at least he was smart enough not to have endorsed them previously.

8/24/2022 update: Miller lost by over 60 points. Believe lunatic polls at your own risk.

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U.S. House Florida 2022 Backstabbing RINOs Lunatic poll

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."

Wyoming is not unique in this area, though other states with ostensibly "closed" primaries may have different deadlines for party-switching. The folks who concern themselves with "Open or closed primary??!11??" or "ALL PRIMARIES SHOULD BE CLOAZED!!" may as well finally begin to understand that the bolded part above applies to every state now. There is effectively no such thing as a closed primary anymore, anywhere.

In this particular case, the lack of a truly closed primary isn't going to save Cheney's RINO ass no matter how much she goes around desperately begging for the votes of liberals of both parties. In other states however, Democrat infiltration of Republican primaries has had significant effects even if those effects did not always alter the outcome.

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U.S. House Wyoming 2022 Liz Cheney Dead RINO J6 Kangaroo Kourt Klown

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.

Two facts:

1. If (more likely when) Gibbs defeats Meijer on Tuesday, he really better count on Democrats for further funding because the petulant spiteful RNC sure ain't gonna come across. They would much rather lose this seat than support a conservative who just slaughtered one of their pet RINOs.

2. This district was moved a few notches to the left in redistricting so now any Republican starts off as the underdog in a general election. Especially when the ultra-liberal Democrat in the race has all the money in the world to campaign with and doesn't even have to spend a dime of it in the primary because she's unopposed.

The district is not so far left that a Republican can't possibly win, and money alone doesn't always determine the outcome of a race, but when the imbalance is as massive as this one will be it's going to take a substantial blue wave to pull off the upset here.

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U.S. House Michigan 2022 Silver-spoon RINO Peter Meijer Going down

Photo credit: AP Photo/John Raoux

Liberal media outlets like Fox News aren't about to bypass a chance to stir up trouble for Republicans, but this endorsement -- Trump's, not Cruz's -- is a valid concern. Is Kleefisch really an inferior candidate to Michels, who is currently shown as doing worse in the general election vs. Evers than Kleefisch is? The ex-Lt. Governor under Scott Walker isn't some squishy "moderate"; she is every bit as conservative -- or more -- as the other candidates who are running and, as the linked article notes, has actually been elected to something before.

So let's see: Kleefisch is not only conservative and "electable" (and well-enough funded, AND opposed by liberal establishment Republicans like the "Club For Growth") but actually more likely to win an important race than the novice whose only political experience up to now has been losing races for state Senate and U.S. Senate. But of course Trump is never wrong with his endorsements (Dr. Oz says "hi") and in this case Trump is needlessly snubbing a good MAGA conservative who has thoroughly supported him for years.

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Wisconsin Governor 2022 Rebecca Kleefisch Ted Cruz Got it right Donald Trump Didn't

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.

Even so, at least one poll shows that Gibbs would fare much better than the spoiled little rich boy who voted for impeachment. However this will take money, and Gibbs doesn't have a family fortune to fall back on, nor can he count on funding from big-$$$$ RINO GOP donors after he wins the primary next week.

Gibbs is going to be outspent heavily while his opponent gets 24/7 free support from the media. Despite all that, he can and will win if RINO voters in his district are able to suppress their disgust at one of their own kind losing his primary. We're told by the GOP establishment (when it suits them) that party unity in general elections is of paramount importance. Let's see how well they prove it in this case.

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U.S. House Michigan 2022 RINO backstabber Loser