RightDataUSA

Demographics and Elections Commentary tagged with Senate

6/13/2024: This Week's Primaries; Meltdown in Maine; The Last Sane Senate Democrat? [RightDataUSA]


Photo credit: WFMJ

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

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

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


Photo credit: Nancy Mace/Youtube, Getty Images

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

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

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

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



C.I.V.O. -- "Conservative In Voting Only": Elsewhere in the Palmetto State on Tuesday, incumbent Republican William Timmons in CD-4 (Greenville/Spartanburg) barely survived a primary challenge from his right, just as he had barely survived a similar but less focused threat two years earlier. In this heavily Republican district, a primary win is often tantamount to election because Democrats either do not field any candidate at all, or they make only the smallest token effort.

Timmons, now completing his third term in Congress, has displayed conservative tendencies when voting on legislation. The American Conservative Union gives Timmons a lifetime rating of over 90% and he toes the party line (such as that party line sometimes is) at least 95% of the time; he cannot technically be called a "RINO".

On the other hand, there is more to a congressman than how he votes. Given his vastly underwhelming performance in primary elections lately, it is clear that Timmons has done something to annoy a sizable portion of his party's base.

Among other reasons for annoyance, Timmons is definitely not a "fighter" for conservative causes. Timmons was a staunch supporter of disgraced ex-House Speaker Kevin McCarthy and, as a go-along-to-get-along type, would hardly be uncomfortable as a Republican back-bencher in a Democrat-controlled House. Which is something he may well get to see first-hand in 2025. Timmons has rejected calls to join the House Freedom Caucus, that "far-right" group of conservatives who dare to try to influence legislation (gasp!); they also try to influence the moderate House leadership, of which they comprise no part. In order to avert retaliation (which shows you how the GOPe works) the membership list of the House Freedom Caucus is never disclosed. Timmons proudly declares that he is not now nor has he ever been a member of that group, and he also complains that the Caucus is a hindrance to getting certain (liberal) legislation through the House.

Timmons has some other issues (extramarital affairs, support for racist DEI crap) which bolster the assertion that he is not worthy of re-election. In this year's CD-4 primary, unabashed Freedom Caucus member Matt Gaetz of Florida threw his support behind conservative state legislator Adam Morgan; Donald Trump, in an action so typical as to practically be mandatory, threw his support behind the wimpy incumbent even though there was no risk whatsoever of the conservative Morgan losing to a Democrat in November. [The same thing applied in the North Dakota U.S. House race, where Trump bypassed solid conservative Rich Becker in order to endorse a likely RINO in a district which had no incumbent running -- and, like in SC-4, no viable Democrat opposition in November either.]

The South Carolina squish eked out a win on Tuesday, with 51.6% to 48.4% for Morgan. Timmons raised and spent nearly $2 million, although $900,000 of that came from a loan which Timmons was able to make to his campaign. Morgan actually outraised the incumbent swamp critter in terms of individual mom-n-pop type contributions, while Timmons had much greater support from the political/corporate sector, and his own bank account.


Photo credit: Alchetron

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Andrews' "resignation" was merely symbolic and utterly meaningless seeing as how the Maine legislature has already adjourned for the year and Andrews was not running for re-election anyway. He did not elaborate on what the real problem was here, but it's probably spelled T-r-u-m-p. However, like Soboleski, Andrews is also normally a conservative and his voting record backed up that description.

It is therefore possible that Trump wasn't the main point of contention. In every story about this 27,000 square-mile district, the liberal media makes sure to note that it was once the site of a "mass shooting"; Theriault is a supporter of the Second Amendment, which according to the media (and probably John Andrews) makes Theriault somehow personally responsible for that massacre.

Golden's financial advantages and his experience with manipulating the voters of the second district will be difficult to overcome, but the GOP has put this House seat at or near the top of its list of potential pickups, and for good reason. An R+6 district is likely to come to its senses sooner or later, and 2024 may be the year that happens.


Photo credit: New York Times

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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


Photo credit: Gateway Pundit

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

There's this from Townhall.com:

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

Here's one from Breitbart:

Fetterman Rejects Progressive Label While Addressing Left-Wing Attacks

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

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

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

He is all talk, and only talk.

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

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

Tags:

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


5/15/2024: [Maryland] Hogan Wins Senate Primary Easily; Next Race Will Be His Toughest [RightDataUSA]


Photo credit: AP Photo/Susan Walsh

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

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

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

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


Photo credit: wamu.org

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

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

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



General election polls regarding the Senate race in Maryland have been varied but are trending to the left lately even during the supposedly acrimonious Democrat primary. The polls started out by claiming that Governor Hogan was in the lead, however surveys taken this month have shown him with a considerable deficit against either potential Democrat nominee. The recent results are hardly surprising, given that Maryland is a state in which Democrats + liberal-leaning "independents" comprise two-thirds of the electorate, if not more.

As the general election campaign unfolds, it remains to be seen whether the Democrats will bother to campaign on issues of actual concern to the majority of voters, or if they'll merely stick to appeals to racism (it seems to have worked in their primary) and -- of course -- "aborshun, aborshun, aborshun!" Hogan violates liberal orthodoxy by not being in favor of 100% unlimited taxpayer-funded abortion on demand. Even without looking at future polls, you will be able to determine the likely outcome of this race just by observing the evolution of the prominent campaign topics and the candidates' positions on the issues.

When you see Hogan abandoning what few non-liberal positions he holds in order to run shrieking hysterically to the left, while Alsobrooks makes absolutely no pretense at moderation, that will tell you everything you need to know about how November is going to go in Maryland. OTOH, if you see the Democrats in a panic and feeling the need to fake towards the center, then things may be quite interesting here (don't hold your breath). With West Virginia's Senate seat certain to flip to the GOP, and potential if not actually probable pickups in Ohio and Montana and perhaps some other pipe-dreams if a 1994-style "red" wave occurs, the Democrats cannot afford to lose a seat in an utterly safe state like Maryland.

It's highly likely that they won't lose it.

In their desperation for continued liberal Senate control, the professional prognosticators (most of whom should themselves be rated as "Lean Democrat" or "Likely Democrat") are keeping this race pretty solidly in the D column for November. You should too, but it's still a long way to November.


[May 21 update: It sure didn't take long for what we predicted three paragraphs ago to come true. "Maryland Republican Senate Candidate Larry Hogan Vows to Codify Roe Protections". Pandering never works for Republicans. It gains no votes from the left and loses votes on the right, which seems like an odd way to run a campaign -- if you're trying to win.]

Tags:

2024 Senate Maryland Hogan Competitive or pipe dream?


3/29/2024: [Texas] The 2024 Senate Race Has Been Called! [RightDataUSA]


Photo credit: ABC News (from 6 years ago, so don't get excited)

Of course it's really quite far from being over, but not according to some rando with a blog which gets posted on a site called "American Thinker". Not deep thinkers apparently, but at least they are hopeful ones and they're on the right side.

The blogger references a recent Marist poll which shows Ted Cruz with a mundane 51% to 45% lead over celebrity Democrat challenger Collin Allred. As polling organizations go Marist has been reasonably accurate lately, but one poll taken 8 months before the election, which shows a 6-point lead for the good guy with nearly a 4% margin of error is hardly conclusive.

Or is it? The blogger declares that this poll "confirms that Mr. Cruz will win" and he advises the Democrats to spend their money elsewhere. They already are spending money elsewhere -- lots of it -- and do not need to concern themselves with economizing like Republicans often must do.

The poll "confirms" something? Pre-election polls predict (or try to influence) election outcomes. They do not confirm anything except perhaps that a race will either be close or a landslide or somewhere in between, and this particular race sure as hell won't be any landslide.



There is no reason to presume that a positive outcome here is guaranteed, and subsequent polls will definitely "confirm" that, however there are some good reasons to believe that Cruz will be re-elected: this is a presidential election year and Trump's presence on the ballot will help Cruz, unlike in the 2018 midterm when Cruz only narrowly defeated another Democrat celebutard; Allred is of course a media darling but he's a completely dim bulb; and it's hard to imagine so many tickets being split that Trump wins Texas but Cruz loses it.

On the other hand, nobody can doubt that Texas is a rapidly "purpling" state (going from true blue towards commie red). This is not a recent development and has been apparent for quite some time. However what is a recent development is the increased mass invasion of Democrat voters from south of the border. The impact of that is not yet baked into political outcomes, but by November it may well be.

Texas is being invaded from every direction and not just from the south, taking in refugees from all other states but particularly ones such as California, New York, Illinois, etc. which have been destroyed by a long period of thoroughly incompetent and corrupt one-party Democrat rule. Not all invaders are liberals, but the numbers strongly suggest that a majority of them are.



Below is a table which shows the number of registered voters back to 2022 along with the most recent available data for 2024 for the most populous counties in the Lone Star State. Texas does not register voters by party so there is no way to determine how many of these new voters are Democrats, though some folks have methods to derive party-orientation estimates. However these are really just guesstimates and do not necessarily have a great deal of accuracy.

The 12 counties in the table account for approximately 62% of all registered voters in the state. The good news is that the proportionate increase of new voters is the same statewide as it is in these dozen (mostly) leftward-trending counties, and that balance is important. At the present rate there will be a net gain of about three-quarters of a million voters in Texas by this November as compared to last November. That is a far greater increase than occurred between 2022 and 2023. But in a presidential election year, particularly one accompanied by an invasion, a larger number of registered voters is to be expected. Especially if the voter rolls are not periodically cleansed to get rid of ineligible and deceased voters.


County Nov. 2022 Nov. 2023 Mar. 2024 Nov. 2024* 2023-24
Increase
Bexar 1,230,662 1,231,380 1,244,216 1,279,515 3.91%
Collin 693,753 704,486 715,657 746,377 5.95%
Dallas 1,420,223 1,411,043 1,421,371 1,449,773 2.74%
Denton 606,275 621,564 630,984 656,889 5.68%
El Paso 506,554 496,767 502,700 519,016 4.48%
Fort Bend 521,611 521,416 529,558 551,949 5.86%
Harris 2,568,463 2,590,121 2,611,025 2,668,511 3.03%
Hidalgo 416,978 424,886 430,164 444,679 4.66%
Montgomery 409,759 423,577 431,434 453,041 6.96%
Tarrant 1,260,870 1,256,474 1,269,019 1,303,518 3.74%
Travis 886,480 883,569 890,646 910,108 3.00%
Williamson 415,096 420,409 425,749 440,434 4.76%
Total (12 counties) 10,936,724 10,985,692 11,102,523 11,423,810 3.99%
State total 17,672,143 17,759,273 17,948,242 18,467,907 3.99%

* Projected


The fastest-growing county on the list is the best one: Montgomery County, which for the time being retains a healthy Republican majority in all elections. It will continue to do so for many years to come, albeit with decreasing percentages. Rapid, massive growth is not always a good thing. When something grows rapidly inside a body it's called "cancer". Excessive growth in a good county or state always -- eventually -- has a cancerous effect too.

Montgomery County has already absorbed too much detritus from adjacent Harris County (Houston) among other places, and its demographics are showing the strain. Its election results are beginning to show deterioration too; it's still very subtle at this time, but Montgomery County unquestionably has reached its peak.

This doesn't mean that the county has gone insane and will begin electing Democrats anytime soon, just that its rightward motion has stopped and has begun to reverse. Montgomery County's future probably looks very much like Fort Bend County's present.

It's an inviolable law of demographics that bad people always follow (and then drive out) the good people from desirable areas, until those areas are no longer desirable. Fortunately new good areas naturally arise, even farther away from the urban center. The cycle continues as, over time, the new areas are ruined as well.



Like Montgomery County (except at a faster rate), the entire state of Texas has been "purpling", as anyone who actually takes the time to look can easily attest to. To see a bigger picture, we'll pull back and focus on metro areas rather than individual counties. The four metro areas which dominate the Texas landscape are:

  • Dallas-Fort Worth-Arlington: 7,943,685 population as of 2022
  • Houston-The Woodlands-Sugar Land: 7,340,118
  • San Antonio-New Braunfels: 2,655,342
  • Austin-Round Rock-Georgetown: 2,421,115


These four areas accounted for 7,856,153 votes in the 2020 presidential election, which was 69.4% of all votes cast in the state of Texas. Trump got 3,670,374 of those votes (46.7%) and Biden received 4,056,573 (51.6%).

The rest of the state outside these four urban and suburban areas gave Trump a massive 64.0% to 34.7% win.

Here is the data for the 2016 presidential election:

Big-4 Metros Rest of State
Trump2,900,298 (47.6%)1,784,749 (61.5%)
Hillary2,870,422 (47.1%)1,007,446 (34.7%)
Total6,089,982 2,903,184


Between 2016 and 2020 Trump went from narrowly winning the Big-4 (by 0.5%) to being demolished by 4.9%. The areas in Texas which are being invaded the heaviest -- not just via Mexico -- are the ones moving to the left the quickest. Furthermore, these urban/suburban areas increased their share of the state vote by nearly 2% (from 67.7% up to 69.4%) in 2020. Apparently turnout was relatively higher in these demographically-decaying areas than it was in the rest of Texas, or perhaps it was just easier in these urban localities for Democrat vote-counters to "find" more absentee/mail-in ballots in precincts they controlled. Either way.

In the rest of Texas, Trump increased his winning margin from 26.8% to 29.3%. This dovetails with the assertion that Hispanics moved significantly towards Trump (but not necessarily all other Republicans) between 2016 and 2020.

That assertion is only half-true, however. Rural Hispanics in Texas and in some other states did in fact move sharply to the right, a development which the tribe of media controllers has desperately suppressed in its (lack of) reporting since 2020. Urban and suburban Hispanics in Texas and elsewhere have shown no such rightward trend, or if they have it has been mostly inconsequential.

In Texas as of 2022 there were 7,437,831 urban/suburban Hispanics in the four major metro areas out of a total of 12,068,549 Hispanics in the state -- over 61% reside in the metros. Yet they are "underrepresented" there. Texas as a whole was about 40% Hispanic, but the figure in the Big-4 was only 36.5%. In the entire rest of the state, Hispanics account for almost 50% (47.9% to be exact) of the population.

Their swing to the right, even if just a temporary Trump-related phenomenon, is nice but the impact is muted by the far greater number of non-rural Hispanics who are still refusing to leave the Democrat plantation.

The following tables illustrate the recent leftward lurch in the major metropolitan areas of Texas:

Metro Dallas-Fort Worth:

2020 Joe Biden (D) 1,535,525 49.8% Donald Trump* (R) 1,495,550 48.5%
2016 Donald Trump (R) 1,218,897 50.5% Hillary Clinton (D) 1,066,312 44.2%

Metro Houston:

2020 Joe Biden (D) 1,330,116 49.8% Donald Trump* (R) 1,302,436 48.8%
2016 Donald Trump (R) 1,012,507 48.3% Hillary Clinton (D) 991,171 47.3%

Metro San Antonio:

2020 Joe Biden (D) 529,607 50.8% Donald Trump* (R) 495,195 47.5%
2016 Donald Trump (R) 380,665 47.8% Hillary Clinton (D) 371,623 46.7%

Metro Austin:

2020 Joe Biden (D) 661,325 62.3% Donald Trump* (R) 377,293 35.5%
2016 Hillary Clinton (D) 441,316 56.1% Donald Trump (R) 288,229 36.7%


Texas has voted GOP for president in every election since 1980. However as measured by its Republican presidential voting percentage as compared to the rest of the United States, it could be considered as truly "solid" blue (note proper color usage) from 1996 through 2012, based on voting around 10 points (or more) greater than the average for the GOP candidate in the country as a whole.

2020 Donald Trump* (R) 5,890,347 52.0% Joe Biden (D) 5,259,126 46.4%
2016 Donald Trump (R) 4,685,047 52.1% Hillary Clinton (D) 3,877,868 43.1%
2012 Mitt Romney (R) 4,569,843 57.1% Barack Obama* (D) 3,308,124 41.4%
2008 John McCain (R) 4,479,328 55.4% Barack Obama (D) 3,528,633 43.6%
2004 George W. Bush* (R) 4,526,917 61.1% John Kerry (D) 2,832,704 38.2%
2000 George W. Bush (R) 3,799,639 59.3% Albert Gore, Jr. (D) 2,433,746 38.0%
1996 Robert Dole (R) 2,736,167 48.8% Bill Clinton* (D) 2,459,683 43.8%
1992 George Bush* (R) 2,496,071 40.6% Bill Clinton (D) 2,281,815 37.1%
1988 George Bush (R) 3,036,829 56.0% Michael Dukakis (D) 2,352,748 43.3%
1984 Ronald Reagan* (R) 3,433,428 63.6% Walter Mondale (D) 1,949,276 36.1%
1980 Ronald Reagan (R) 2,510,705 55.3% Jimmy Carter* (D) 1,881,147 41.4%


As of 2016 and 2020, the relative voting percentage for the GOP in presidential elections in Texas is back to where it was in the 1980's when it first flipped from Democrat to Republican. In 2020 that percentage actually declined relative to the U.S., despite the fact that rural Hispanics in Texas voted for the Party of Trump in record numbers. As of 2020 and even 2022, it's worth repeating that the dramatic Hispanic trend to the right has been very limited geographically; urban and suburban Hispanics -- in Texas or anywhere else -- are trending that direction only very slightly, if they are even moving rightward at all.



Back to the future: Cruz should win the 2024 Senate election in Texas by about 5 points (plus or -- yes, possibly -- minus) and Trump should win by a little more than Cruz does. It's extremely unlikely that either one, especially Cruz, will get a 10-point margin like Greg Abbott (10.7% margin in 2022) or John Cornyn (9.6% margin in 2020) got last time they ran.

It's no secret that the Rats are definitely going to lose the West Virginia Senate seat and might lose Ohio and/or Montana. Some pipe dreamers would add other states to that list. But even just flipping WV makes it a 50-50 Senate. A Trump win gives the Republicans control with the vice-president breaking the tie, depending of course on whether any liberal Republican Senate incumbents decide to bolt from the party.

To digress briefly, we predicted back in 2022 that Sen. Lisa Murkowski would do exactly that if it had been necessary to deprive the Republicans of a Senate majority (it wasn't necessary, as things turned out) but now it appears that our prediction might come true a couple of years later. Don't rule out Sen. Susan Collins doing the same thing if it appears that President Trump would have a Senate that is under Republican control (oh noes!). Both of these dried-up old RINO hags are fully aware that they are in their final Senate terms and will never have to face the voters again.

So 50-50 is the most realistic partisan breakdown in the Senate for 2025 as things stand now: the GOP goes +1 and maybe gets one or two more if things go unusually well in November. Texas is the one state where Democrats have any chance whatsoever of picking up a seat in the Senate. Does anyone really believe they aren't going to pull out all the stops to try to achieve that?

The latest FEC reports still show the Democrat empty suit with more money to spend than the incumbent Republican. Cruz has raised a ton -- but has spent just about all of it (on what?). He'll get more, but he'll never catch Allred in terms of cash-on-hand unless he hoards all he's got and never spends it. It's not unusual at all for a Democrat to have more money to work with than a Republican. It is unusual for an incumbent Senator to trail in the financial department.

The customary advantages that Democrats enjoy in all major statewide races (financial support, and across-the-board support from the "mainstream" media) still probably won't add up to a defeat for Ted Cruz this time around, but this mindless blogger chatter about some poll "confirming" that he "will" definitely win in November is extremely premature.

Tags:

2024 Senate Texas Going Purple Ted Cruz


3/13/2024: [Ohio] If the presidential slate is set, will Ohio's GOP voters still show up for the U.S. Senate primary? [Ohio Capital Journal]


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.



The present: There's another three-way race in Ohio in 2024 for the Republican nomination to the U.S. Senate. Having patiently waited his turn, Moreno is back for another run and has Trump's endorsement. That endorsement was made in December but, oddly, has not resulted in a great leap forward for Moreno in the polls. The next poll after Trump's blessing actually showed Moreno with a smaller lead over liberal Dolan and moderate Ohio Secretary of State Frank LaRose.

Subsequent polls did show a small bump for Bernie, however a poll which came out this morning puts Moreno down by 3 points to the liberal Dolan with many voters still undecided less than one week from election day. That poll also shows incumbent ultra-liberal Democrat Sherrod Brown winning vs. all three GOP candidates though not yet breaking 40% against any of them.

Brown, like all Democrat Senate nominees in competitive states, has an astronomical advantage in campaign cash over his Republican challengers. LaRose in particular has practically nothing to work with compared to his opponents in both parties. As of the end of February, Brown had raised over $33 million with nearly $14 million of it still in the bank. Dolan and Moreno each are somewhere around $2.4 million while LaRose has the piddly total of $591,000 cash-on-hand. That's not enough to compete for a hotly-contested U.S. House race in a single district these days, nevermind trying to run a statewide campaign in Ohio on such a thin shoestring.

Article author Nick Evans, evidently writing on behalf of the Dolan campaign, describes the liberal legislator as "quite conservative". This causes the remainder of the article to be read through tears of laughter by anyone who is actually familiar with Dolan. In an attempt to make Dolan palatable to other supposedly conservative Trump-haters, Evans ludicrously claims that Dolan has worked feverishly to enact the "Trump agenda" in Ohio while at the same time distancing himself from the President as much as possible.

Insofar as a political candidate is known by the company he keeps, Dolan is supported by Rob Portman, the former senator and squish who is still highly regarded in RINO circles; and the highest-ranking squish in the state, wimpy Governor Mike DeWine. LaRose is doing just about as well with high-profile endorsements as he is with campaign fundraising (pretty much none at all of either one). LaRose does have the support of liberal Republican congressman Mike Turner of Dayton.

Moreno not only has Trump in his corner, but also solid conservatives such as Senators Mike Lee, Ted Cruz, Rand Paul, J.D. Vance, Tommy Tuberville, Marsha Blackburn and others with whom Moreno will work as part of the opposition (non-RINO) caucus in the Senate if he is elected. He is also endorsed by bigwigs such as Jim Jordan, Kari Lake, Vivek Ramaswamy, Donald Trump Jr. and (oh well) Newt Gingrich. Like them or not, they are all conservative heavyweights or were in the past (Gingrich).



Insofar as a political candidate is known by what he has actually done legislatively, here is Matt Dolan's record:
  • 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"

Yeah Nicky, he's quite the conservative.

There is only one logical conclusion, and it's addressed to only one candidate though it's probably already too late to have a significant effect:

Drop out now, Mr. LaRose, and endorse Bernie Moreno. Don't be the person responsible for giving the puppetmasters, the media, and other Democrats a win-win in November.

Tags:

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


2/10/2024: [Montana] Creating a 'Divisive Primary': NRSC Chair Blasts Rosendale's Senate Run [Townhall]


Photo credit: townhall.com

Confirming what had been rumored for months, conservative two-term congressman Matt Rosendale on Friday announced his entry into the Montana Senate race against ultra-liberal Democrat Jon Tester -- and the GOP establishment is absolutely irate at this development.

National Republican Senate Committee (NRSC) chairman Steve Daines, a squish who serves as Mitch McConnell's sock puppet regarding GOP Senate election campaigns (and who also happens to be from Montana) immediately ran crying to the liberal media to attack Rosendale for creating a "divisive primary". The establishment already had a horse in this race: moderate newcomer Tim Sheehy, a wealthy businessman who was selected on the basis of being able to help fund his own campaign, and on the basis of not being too conservative -- the two things the GOPe looks for the most in a candidate these days.

Daines blasted Rosendale for giving Tester "the biggest win of his career" when the two faced off in the last Senate election for this seat in 2018. In his lame attempt to smear Rosendale as a loser and as a bad candidate, the NRSC squish conveniently left out a few pertinent facts:

  • That "biggest win" was by a mere 3.6 percentage points, in the Democrat landslide year of 2018 when every election for the House or Senate was a referendum on the Trump presidency and the haters came out of the woodwork to show how much they despised Trump and pretty much anyone else with an (R) after his name.

  • In that year, Tester was allowed to spend nearly 4 times more than Rosendale, as the Republican party left Rosendale high and dry in the money department. Yet, even as a relative unknown in statewide politics, with little name recognition and facing an incumbent who had all the money in the world to campaign with, the Republican still came within 3.6 points of a major upset.

    It would have been even closer than that if not for the presence on the ballot of Libertarian candidate Rick Breckenridge who took nearly 3 percent himself despite withdrawing from the race (too late) and endorsing Rosendale. Breckenridge took exception to an "anonymous" Democrat dirty-trick mailer which made fraudulent claims about the Republican and encouraged GOP voters to choose the Libertarian instead.

  • Speaking of being a newcomer, the main Democrat campaign tactic (aside from dirty tricks) in 2018 was to paint Rosendale as an outsider because he was not born in Montana and had only resided in the state for a paltry 16 years as of 2018. This "outsider" had actually served in the MT state legislature for 6 years (2011-2016) and in 2016 was elected statewide as Auditor.

    Following his defeat in the 2018 Senate election, Rosendale completed his term as Auditor and then ran for and won the statewide U.S. House seat in 2020. After reapportionment gave MT a second House seat, Rosendale was re-elected in 2022. Yet as recently as last year articles were quoting Republican sources -- who feared a Rosendale Senate run -- as being incapable of ever winning statewide in Montana despite the fact that he had done so twice already. The utilization of outright lies and dirty tricks in campaigns isn't limited to Democrats; liberal Republicans are allowed to resort to those as well, but only against a conservative.



If divisive primaries truly are such a bad thing as Daines is whining, then he has apparently adopted another typical Democrat trait here: hypocrisy.

In West Virginia, conservative Congressman Alex Mooney declared his Senate run against Joe Manchin back in November, 2022, long before Manchin chickened out and elected to run away, rather than run for re-election. Guess who suddenly decided that a "divisive primary" would be a good thing? That's right, Steve Daines, Mitch McConnell and the rest of the simps who control the Senate GOP. These cowards panicked and ran to doddering old moderate Governor Jim Justice, desperately begging him to run against Mooney and promising him lavish support if he would do so.

The GOPe's purchase of the ex-Democrat Governor was finalized in April of 2023, six months after Mooney announced his run. There are several other pissant-level candidates in the Republican primary, but Mooney would have been effectively unopposed for the Senate nomination; that was a prospect which clearly terrified the establishment. Perhaps due to Justice's late start, Mooney -- with zero support from the party puppetmasters -- has actually outraised his moderate opponent and has more cash-on-hand as of the most recent financial reports.



Continuing his string of blundering and inexplicable endorsements, Trump had already endorsed the moderate candidate in West Virginia and then made a deliberate point -- just moments after conservative Rosendale announced in Montana -- of blundering again and endorsing Sheehy. Perhaps Trump admires successful businessmen who (like himself) are not overly conservative. Plus an affinity for political neophytes and dilettantes, such as the supposedly "Electable Dr. Oz" in Pennsylvania.

Other party bigwigs also felt the jerk of the puppet strings yesterday and jumped into line behind Sheehy following Rosendale's apostasy. They include Governor Kristi Noem of South Dakota and pathetically ineffective House Speaker Mike Johnson (R-LA). Johnson had originally promised to support Rosendale, but then he received new marching orders and immediately reneged on that promise.

A poll taken last year when Rosendale was merely considering getting into the race against Tester showed that he had much stronger support among Republican primary voters than Sheehy did. This is starting to add up to another "Oz" situation: Sheehy isn't a bad person but he's in way over his head here and all the establishment money in the world isn't likely to save him. Republicans don't have all the money in the world anyway -- but Democrats sure seem to. Tester currently has over $11 million to work with, while neither Rosendale nor the wealthy moderate businessman have as much as $2 million.

Even with Trump's Golden Endorsement, Electable Oz barely made it out of the Senate primary in PA in 2022. Sheehy has a good chance to not get even that far.

If Rosendale wins the primary despite all of the establishment supporting his rival, we'll see where the GOP money goes then. Our guess is that it will dry up completely, proving once again that in any contest between an ultra-liberal Democrat and a conservative Republican, the GOPe prefers the former every time. In this case, Senate control be damned.

Tags:

2024 Senate Montana Matt Rosendale Irate establshment Blundering endorsements


2/8/2024: Final 2023 campaign finance reports -- Democrats way ahead in the key races [RightDataUSA]

[The image is backwards -- the big money is, as always, on the left. The amount on the right is whatever Ronna McRomney at the RNC can spare from her lipstick and botox fund.]

Last week the Federal Election Commission released the 2023 year-end financial data which shows the volume of money raised and spent by each candidate for the U.S. House or Senate. Funds raised which have already been spent are not of particular relevance at this point; instead we focus on the much more important cash-on-hand figures.

Approximately 11 months ago we published a list of 59 congressional incumbents who, based on the nature of their districts and the closeness of their wins in 2022, are obviously the most vulnerable in 2024. On the Democrat side, three of the supposedly Vulnerable 29 have opted not to seek re-election. All of the 30 Republicans who are facing the toughest odds are seeking re-election, except for George Santos (NY-3) who was expelled from Congress last December. Lauren Boebert (CO-3) is running again, but in a different district than the one she currently represents, so those two seats are considered to be open for the moment (NY-3 won't be open after next week).

Let's look at how these incumbents are doing in the money department, and how serious their opposition is likely to be. The vast majority of the nearly 400 other House seats which are up for re-election in November are, as usual, not likely to be competitive. The financial data shown in the following tables is effective as of 12/31/2023. Campaign fundraising and spending will really kick into high gear later this year, but the data even as it stands now illustrates quite nicely how these races are progressing.

Democrat incumbents:

Incumbent District Cash-on-Hand Republican
Cash-on-Hand
Mary PeltolaAK At-Large$1.774 million$382,000
Mike LevinCA-49 $1,242 millionalmost $2 million
Yadira CaraveoCO-8$1.359 million$389,000
Jahana HayesCT-5$1.030 million$372,000
Nikki BudzinskiIL-13$1.399 millionnot seriously trying
Eric SorensenIL-17$1.631 million$218,000
Frank MrvanIN-1$823,000 $192,000
Sharice DavidsKS-3$1.646 million$391,000
Jared GoldenME-2$1.436 million$338,000
Hillary ScholtenMI-3$1.364 million$448,000
Angie CraigMN-2$2.152 million$269,000
Don DavisNC-1$820,000$1.115 million
Chris PappasNH-1$1.255 million$628,000
Gabriel VasquezNM-2$1.247 million$783,000
Susie LeeNV-3$1.585 million$397,000
Steven HorsfordNV-4No report filed but surely over $1 million$483,000
Pat RyanNY-18$2.212 million$198,000
Greg LandsmanOH-1$1.216 millionloose change
Marcy KapturOH-9$1.325 million$665,000
Emilia SykesOH-13$1.113 million$418,000
Andrea SalinasOR-6$1.098 millionnot seriously trying
Susan WildPA-7$1.578 million$343,000
Matt CartwrightPA-8$2.012 million$636,000
Chris DeluzioPA-17$986,000$282,000
Marie Gluesenkamp PerezWA-3$2.181 million$672,000
Kim SchrierWA-8$2.164 millionnot seriously trying


In every single case the Democrats have a large amount of cash on hand; in only 2 districts (CA-49 and NC-1) are the Republican challengers, even if they pooled their money -- coming close. Now let's take a look at some races where those factors do not always hold.

Republican incumbents:

Incumbent District Cash-on-Hand Democrat
Cash-on-Hand
David SchweikertAZ-1$902,000$3.909 million
Juan CiscomaniAZ-6$2.130 million$915,000
John DuarteCA-13$1.417 million$393,000
David ValadaoCA-22$1.442 million$602,000
Mike GarciaCA-27$1.776 million$2.282 million
Young KimCA-40$2.536 million$843,000
Ken CalvertCA-41$2.485 million$2.234 million
Michelle SteelCA-45$3.023 million$502,000
Anna Paulina LunaFL-13$550,000$151,000
Mariannette Miller-MeeksIA-1$1.585 million$1.125 million
Ashley HinsonIA-2$1.441 millionvery little
Zach NunnIA-3$1.595 million$445,000
Andy HarrisMD-1$925,000not seriously trying yet
John JamesMI-10$2.347 million$1.074 million
Brad FinstadMN-1$384,000nothing at all
Ann WagnerMO-2$2.612 millionnothing so far
Ryan ZinkeMT-1$1.892 million$895,000
Don BaconNE-2 $1.548 million$1.113 million
Tom Kean Jr. NJ-7$2.110 million$838,000
Anthony D'EspositoNY-4$1.248 million$647,000
Mike LawlerNY-17$2.500 million$1.580 million
Marc MolinaroNY-19$1.619 million$1.469 million
Brandon WilliamsNY-22$913,000 $497,000
Lori Chavez-DeRemerOR-5$1.608 million$476,000
Scott PerryPA-10$547,000$327,000
Monica de la CruzTX-15n/a but a sizable lead, probablynot much, yet
Tony GonzalesTX-23$1.948 millionnothing, but.... (see note)
Jen KiggansVA-2$1.505 million$94,000


Note: A GOP challenger to Gonzales has $587,000, which is fantastic. Gonzales, who is for all intents and purposes a Democrat (which is why they aren't bothering to oppose his re-election bid), needs to be eliminated in a primary election.

Unlike the Democrats who are facing potentially stiff competition this year, some Republicans in similar circumstances are coming up short. Predictably, the shortfall is hitting conservative incumbents the hardest: Perry, Luna and Schweikert. Luna for the time being is not in any danger but the other two are severely threatened and have a significant probability of losing. The party establishment won't shed a single tear if that happens.

In addition, Democrat challengers as a group are much better-funded than Republican challengers to Democrat incumbents. We noted last March that the list of vulnerable GOP House members was, on average, more endangered than their liberal counterparts. Campaign finance is a major reason why that statement is true.

The next level of competitive House seats are several of the ones which have no incumbent, primarily due to retirements.

Open seats:

District Current Party Democrat
Cash-on-Hand
Republican
Cash-on-Hand
CA-47D$1.9 million$1.7 million
CO-5Rnothing significant to report
MD-6D$1.2 million nobody with even $100,000
MI-7D $1.1 million$649,000
MI-8Dnothing yet$786,000
NC-6Dpuntingover $1 million
NC-13Dabout the same as NC-6
NC-14Dmight forfeit this one too$1.5 million
NJ-3Dnothing to report yet but Republicans obvious underdogs
NY-3R, for a few more daysover $3 million$1.5 million
VA-7D$1.1 million$800,000
VA-10D7 or 8 viable candidates with $$$1 guy with $187,000
WA-6D$550,000nothing


The determination as to which party controls the House after 2024 will be largely -- but not quite entirely -- made in the districts we have highlighted in the 3 tables shown above. First off, black-robed tyrants have already dictated a shift of one seat from Republicans to Democrats in Louisiana, and will likely achieve the same thing in Alabama. Republicans have no chance of holding the Louisiana district and only a small chance of retaining the affected Alabama seat. Similar shenanigans may play out in South Carolina and elsewhere before November.

For example:

New York Democrats, who already had a favorable district map in 2022, are going to gerrymander harder and turn all of those merely "vulnerable" New York GOP-held seats listed above into guaranteed flips. And then try for even more. Same thing in Wisconsin, where Democrats got the map they wanted in 2022 but are going to use their new dictatorial state Supreme Court power to gerrymander the state in their favor to an even greater extent. Specifically in the crosshairs when that happens will be Republicans Derrick Van Orden (WI-3) and Brian Steil (WI-1). Taken all together, these moves will more than offset the undoing of the Democrat gerrymander in North Carolina, where Republicans are set to gain 3 seats -- mainly by simply reclaiming a pair of districts which Democrat judges stole from them in 2020 and continued to hold hostage in 2022.




Here's how things stack up on the Senate side, in any state which could possibly be competitive:

Arizona: ("Independent" incumbent) Kyrsten Sinema (I) $10.596 million, Ruben Gallego (D) $6.542 million, Kari Lake (R) $1.083 million. Neither Sinema as a phony independent nor her equally greasy Democrat colleague are facing any primary opposition and can keep their powder dry until the general election campaign. Lake will face at least one primary opponent, and the Hanoi John McCain wing of the AZGOP will oppose her both in that primary and again in November. Just as they did in 2022.

Florida: (R incumbent) Rick Scott (R) $3.172 million, Debbie Mucarsel-Powell (D) $1.544 million. The best the Rats could do in Florida was to exhume some hyphenated one-term fluke ex-Congresswoman who should lose by at least 10 points to Scott. But the race isn't necessarily going to be as easy as the Republicans seem to think, and note the paltry amount Scott currently has to work with -- in a massive state like Florida -- as compared to what some D incumbents in much smaller states like Nevada and Montana have.

Michigan: (D incumbent) Elissa Slotkin (D) $6.021 million, several hopeless Republicans ~$2.5 million combined. Democrats got off to a quick start here with Debbie Stabenow announcing her retirement very early, and they've parlayed that into a huge war chest. Republicans have stumbled out of the gate, with a pair of failed ex-Congressmen (Mike Rogers, Justin Amash) leading the dreary GOP field. Police chief James Craig has apparently thrown his hat into the ring and should gallop past his rivals shortly. Slotkin is hardly a strong candidate but as things stand now there's every chance that she'll have a Senate career as long as Stabenow somehow did despite accomplishing nothing aside from being a reliable ultra-liberal puppet.

Montana: (D incumbent) Jon Tester (D) $11.223 million, Tim Sheehy (R) $1.266 million. Matt Rosendale (R) has $1.672 million in his House campaign account, but it's looking like he's about to defy his party's liberal establishment and jump into the Senate race! Sheehy, as the presumptive Republican candidate up to now, has been facing a barrage of negative ads from the Tester campaign, along with the negative coverage he gets from the media free of charge to the Democrats. Rosendale's going to get that treatment too of course, but he's run statewide campaigns before and should know exactly what he's up against -- and maybe even how to beat it.

Nevada: (D incumbent) Jacky Rosen (D) $10.650 million, Sam Brown $1.729 million. Brown was runner-up in the GOP Senate primary in 2022, to perennial loser Adam Laxalt. If/when Brown racks up another high-profile loss or two (one is probably coming in November) he can join Laxalt and Danny Tarkanian in the NVGOP Hall of Shame. OTOH, polls keep alleging that Trump is beating President Alzheimer in Nevada, and in the event those polls are accurate then there could be a coattail effect. It may be close, but the Republican record in close elections in Nevada isn't anything to brag about.

Ohio: (D incumbent) Sherrod Brown (D) $14.614 million, 3 GOP challengers combined ~$7.63 million. Another one that's going to be close in November. It's going to be close in next month's primary too. Trump's endorsement of Bernie Moreno should propel him to victory but it may be a very fractious win, with the Frank Larose and -- especially -- Matt Dolan camps possibly failing to unite behind Moreno afterwards. Don't be surprised if Dolan, among others in the GOPe, endorses Brown instead of Moreno or simply sits it out through November.

Pennsylvania: (D incumbent) Bob Casey (D) $9.438 million, Dave McCormick (R) $4.179 million. McCormick can't possibly do any worse than Oz in PA, can he? It's about time for someone to give the Casey pup the boot; incredible though it seems, Empty Suit Casey is actually the dumber of the two PA senators.

Texas: (R incumbent) Ted Cruz (R) $6.176 million, Colin Allred (D) $10.106 million. If you look at only the amounts raised and spent so far, you'd conclude that Cruz is cruz-ing to another Senate term. But as we've mentioned previously, whatever Cruz has spent all those millions on isn't helping him much. Now he's behind in cash-on-hand and is likely to stay there; hopefully that won't matter. One recent poll has Cruz back on top by about 10 points, as he should be, as opposed to another recent (outlier?) poll which had him only up by 2. Some are assuming that Allred is going to have to spend a good portion of his current cash in a contentious Democrat primary. That's not very likely to be necessary; the primary ought to be a breeze, even for a dull candidate whose "celebrity" status is all (aside from lots of $$$$) he has going for him.

Wisconsin: (D incumbent) Tammy Baldwin (D) $8.036 million, the GOP has nothing, not even a viable candidate yet. Just because the filing deadline and primary dates are comparatively late in the election season doesn't mean the Republicans should be wasting time -- but they are. The standard-bearer will almost certainly end up being either Sheriff David Clarke or businessman Eric Hovde. The second tier would be ex-LG Rebecca Kleefisch or another businessman, Kevin Nicholson. None of those four are officially in the race yet, and none are exactly heavyweights though any of them would be acceptable. An ultra-liberal like Baldwin, whose only political "qualification" is her sexual deviance (forgive us for that mental image) should not be unbeatable in a marginal state like this. If this were California, sure. But not Wisconsin.

West Virginia (D incumbent) Alex Mooney (R) $1.766 million (!), Jim Justice (RINO) $1.230 million. The conservative "kid" is out-raising the doddering old moderate who is backed by all of the liberal movers & shakers in the GOP leadership? How is this possible? There's no point in even mentioning Democrat chances here, because they haven't got any. If Mooney wins the primary, no amount of GOPe backstabbing is going to stop him from being elected in November -- which is why they'll spare no expense to stop Mooney in the primary. WV's mega-squish Senator, Shelley Moore Capito, will take the lead on that project. Solidly Republican West Virginia already has one RINO senator; it doesn't need two.



We'll update these races and any other competitive ones as the year goes along. The next batch of FEC reports are due at the end of the first quarter, and of course there will also be non-financial factors which steer the probable outcome in one direction or the other.

Money alone does not determine the outcome of an election. If it did, no Republican would ever win a Senate election except in states where Democrats don't bother trying. Nor would they win anything other than the very safest House districts. But in marginal districts or states, when one candidate (the Democrat) has a sizable financial advantage -- close to 3:1 or greater -- it is rare for the underdog (the Republican) to come out on top. We'll see over the next few months whether these sizable deficits Republicans are facing grow or shrink.

Tags:

2024 U.S. House Senate Democrat $ advantages


1/28/2024: [Ohio] Trump ally rises as top GOP candidate against Ohio's Sherrod Brown [The Hill]

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:

StateDemocrat $Republican $
Arizona$192.4$15.5
Georgia$326.1$68.7
Nevada$64.4$18.6
New Hampshire$42.2$4.2
North Carolina$38.9$15.7
Ohio$57.7$15.6
Pennsylvania$75.7$49.4
Wisconsin$41.8$35.7


In 2022 Senate races in North Carolina and Ohio the anointed Democrats were basically unopposed in their primaries and were very well-supported financially; unlike GOP Senate candidates everywhere, who were drastically outspent. The Rats lost those two races anyway, but did (almost) everything possible to win them.

In the 2020 Senate elections they cleared the field in Colorado, Georgia twice and North Carolina, were fully united, and picked up 3 of those 4 seats.

In 2018 the same applied to Arizona and Nevada and both were successful pickups. Now in 2024 the liberal GOP establishment is, as usual, ramming "moderates" down our throats and marginalizing the supporters of "can't-win" conservatives in West Virginia and Montana and to some extent Ohio, which are the only three states where Republicans have a viable chance of flipping Senate seats from D to R. WV is a sure pickup no matter who the Republicans nominate (they still greatly prefer the squishy old Governor over the young conservative Rep.) and MT and OH are tossups at best.

In Ohio, with pro-abortionist/anti-2A state senator Matt Dolan clearly on the left no matter what fakes to the center his campaign tries, and Bernie Moreno supposedly on the right, Secretary of State Frank Larose is in the middle and will be the deciding factor in the GOP Senate primary -- can he take enough votes to win, and if he doesn't quite accomplish that then which of the other two candidates does he steal the most from to deprive them of the win? Does he split the center-right vote and make Dolan the nominee, or does he split the center-left vote and inadvertently help Moreno? Dolan, a la Nikki Haley, will beg for (and get) support from Democrat interlopers voting in the Republican primary; that is a scheme which he also used in 2022.



The most recent poll in this race is over a month old and favors Moreno -- but with merely 22% for him, and 44% still undecided. None of the three frontrunners are remotely close to pulling away from the others yet, and that may never happen unless one drops out. Larose is currently coming up way short in the money battle, but even Dolan and Moreno combined have less campaign cash-on-hand than liberal incumbent Democrat Sherrod Brown.

Trump endorsed Moreno back in December, a few days before Christmas. Trump's blessing is usually good as gold in a primary (and normally a lead balloon in all but the safest general elections, cherry-picked "winning percentage" aside), and no polls have apparently been taken since that endorsement of Moreno. Bernie ought to get a nice bump in the next one. If or when he becomes the clear favorite however, the media will begin to savage him even harder than the linked article at the top of this commentary does.

Tags:

2024 Senate Ohio Bernie Moreno for the win!


1/21/2024: 14 House Democrats Vote To Denounce Biden Admin's Open-Borders Policies [Daily Wire]


Photo credit: Getty Images

The vote earlier this week involved "Denouncing the Biden administration's open-borders policies, condemning the national security and public safety crisis along the southwest border, and urging President Biden to end his administration's open-borders policies." Here is a link to the text of the resolution: House Resolution 957.

For those who've forgotten their high school Civics class (or "Social Studies", as the course has been known since being dumbed-down and geared mostly towards liberal propaganda) a House resolution like this one is not binding on anyone, is not a bill, does not go to the President for his signature and can not become a law.

It is merely all for show, which was the whole point.

Republicans thought they were soooo smart here (stupid people often believe they are smart; it's part of what makes them so stupid) and figured they would put 200+ America-hating representatives with a (D) after their names on record during an election year as supporting Dementia Joe's open border policies and his other border-related crimes. A brilliant political maneuver, eh?

Nope. Lucy pulled the football away and the party of Charlie Browns landed on its ass again. This stunt may actually wind up costing them seats in the House in November, by failing to capture several currently Democrat-held districts which were ripe for the taking.



Since there is no substance whatsoever to this resolution, it's all about the propaganda value.

Numerous articles popped up immediately in the liberal media, with titles which contain words like "denounce" and "rebuke" with regard to the Biden administration. The titles sound as if they're documenting some huge legislative setback for the White House and imply that stopping the invasion now has bipartisan support and progress is going to be made.

Hardly. The real story -- the only story -- in these articles concerns praise for the 14 courageous Democrat souls who openly rebuffed their party leaders in the House and stood up to be counted on the side of Mom, Apple Pie and America.

We've written about tactical voting on several occasions here. That occurs when certain Democrat plantation slaves who represent marginal districts in the House of Representatives are permitted to briefly leave the plantation. There is no defiance of authority, there is no courage and there certainly is no sincerity in those tightly choreographed and controlled performances.

These 14 leftists did not march into the office of House minority leader Hakeem Homeboy and register any pleas or issue any demands; they were simply told how they would be allowed to vote on this resolution. The only reason that more Rats were not allowed to openly support this charade was that the puppetmasters did not wish to dilute the "courage" angle in the media; it takes no courage to be part of a mob.

Democrat leaders selected a handful of members who needed to shore up their shaky support at home. A different group of vulnerable Democrats will get its chance to fake to the center during a risk-free vote on some other day.

So what the oh-so-clever Republican majority actually ended up accomplishing here was to give certain potentially endangered Democrats a golden opportunity to grandstand without having to put even one dime's worth of money where their mouths are. Now the obedient liberal media lapdogs portray them as heroes for their courageous inconsequential votes. You can't buy that kind of positive coverage, but the liberal media -- with Republican assistance in this case -- can give it to you for free.

Let's see how these 14 vote when it truly counts for something like the upcoming impeachment attempt of the smarmy incompetent (or just corrupt) Biden administration official pictured at the top of this commentary. There won't be any defections then, just a 100% united Democrat party marching in perfect goosestep as usual.



Here is a table which displays data pertaining to the districts of these valiant heroes. It reveals the reason for this sudden deviation from Democrat orthodoxy.

DistrictCook PVI2022 Margin
Colin AllredTX-32D+1430.8%
Yadira CaraveoCO-8even0.7%
Angie CraigMN-2D+15.3%
Henry CuellarTX-28D+313.4%
Don DavisNC-1D+24.8%
Jared GoldenME-2R+66.2%
Vicente GonzalezTX-34D+98.5%
Greg LandsmanOH-1D+25.6%
Susie LeeNV-3D+14.0%
Jared MoskowitzFL-23D+54.8%
Wiley NickelNC-13R+23.2%
Mary PeltolaAK At-LargeR+810.0%
Marie Gluesenkamp PerezWA-3R+50.8%
Eric SorensenIL-17D+24.0%


You may have noticed that one of these things is not like the others. We'll come back to that.

The districts represented by the Fearless Fourteen are marginal or even Republican-leaning, and 8 of the 14 are represented by freshmen whose prospects for re-election this year are (or were) tenuous.

Some notes about this motley crew:
  • Nickel is not running for re-election in North Carolina because the GOP was finally granted its legal right to redistrict the state (which partisan Democrat judges had illegally thwarted in 2022 after mandating a Democrat gerrymander in 2020) and his district is probably more like R+8 now which would have made him a certain loser.

  • Peltola won via Rigged Choice Voting in Alaska and because of an irrevocable fracture between the Palin supporters and Palin haters in the Alaska Republican party. Rigged Choice Voting remains and so does the Stupid Party. Early indications are that they are not any smarter than they were in 2022, and they're going to split the vote again and let the ditzy Democrat win another undeserved term.

  • MGP won in Washington only because the GOPe refused to support conservative MAGA candidate Joe Kent after he defeated a Trump-hating impeachment RINO (incumbent Jaime Herrera-Beutler) in the primary. Kent is defiantly running again in 2024.



The one Democrat on the above chart who is not from any marginal district is ex-pro football player Colin Allred, who played linebacker for four years with the Tennessee Titans and stood on the sidelines most of the time, starting a total of 2 games. CNN nonetheless refers to him as an "NFL star" because of course they do. The link is good for a laugh.

Allred first won election to the House in the anti-Trump annihilation of 2018 when the Rats gained a few dozen seats in Congress. They gained two of those seats in Texas, in similar suburban districts (one near Houston, and Allred's district near Dallas) which were in the process of going into the toilet demographically. Republican redistricters in 2022 abandoned any hope of gaining back either of these deteriorating areas and conceded them to the Democrats for at least the remainder of this decade. The GOP reluctantly fielded a candidate but didn't spend a single dollar against Allred in '22.

Allred didn't vote for HRes 957 on principle (oh, please) nor was he concerned about his re-election chances because he isn't even running for re-election.

Instead he's Beto O'Rourke 2.0 -- the 2024 celebrity Democrat challenger to Ted Cruz for a Senate seat and the new darling of the Hollywood left and other wealthy lunatics. Allred's voting record in Congress is impeccably liberal, rare fakes (like this one) to the center notwithstanding, and he has the full support of the Democrat Money Machine.

Ted Cruz has faced and defeated unqualified liberal dilettantes before, and he is no stranger to fundraising either. He has raised -- but already spent -- millions of dollars in this election cycle. The Democrat cash registers have hardly opened yet, however Allred has more cash on hand than Cruz.

Whatever Cruz has spent $35,000,000 on so far (and that was just through September), it's not working. A poll from earlier this week shows Cruz up only 42% to 40% over his empty-suit opponent. That same poll shows accurate-looking results in the presidential matchup (Trump over Biden by 8 to 10 points, but under 50% overall) so intelligent people cannot easily shrug it off and the emotionally frail ignore it at their own risk.

Trump is certain to win Texas if he is the nominee, likely with over 50% but surely nothing remotely approaching a landslide. Cruz should receive help from Trump's coattails to drag him across the finish line; he may very well need that help.

The Rats won't be spending much in the Lone Star State on the presidential race because they can't win one of those races here (yet) and more pertinently because they don't need to win it. However they will be going all-in on the Senate election, and more data to back up that fact will be available shortly when the FEC releases its 2023 year-end campaign data.

Tags:

U.S. House 2024 Senate Texas Ted Cruz vs. "NFL star" GOP saves endangered baby Rats


1/18/2024: [Michigan] Former GOP Congressman Justin Amash explores joining crowded Michigan Senate field [Fox News]


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.



It's true that the current GOP field for Senate in Michigan (defeated ex-Congressmen Peter Meijer and Mike Rogers and a bunch of other hopeless losers) is woeful -- aside from police chief James Craig, who we trust is not as clueless as he was in 2022 when he naively allowed Democrat operatives in disguise to deliberately gather invalid signatures for him, and was thus disqualified. After the primary Craig would be at least a 5-point underdog no matter what some recent polls have suggested. Nonetheless he remains the best option for this unlikely but still possible Senate pickup.

Amash sees a small opening and wants to capitalize.

He can get back that media adulation by torpedoing Craig and sabotaging efforts to erase the Democrat majority in the Senate. Craig may not be so easy to torpedo in the primary, what with Meijer (liberal) and Rogers (moderate) splitting the non-conservative vote. Amash is probably more likely to jump into this race as an independent than a Republican, though it would be interesting to watch GOP primary debates with Amash challenging Meijer about which of the two of them hates Donald Trump more.

Given the dangerous (as far as Amash is concerned) prospect of "President Trump" becoming a reality in 2025, an Amash campaign would attempt to stymie the possibility of Trump having a GOP-controlled Senate to work with should he somehow win, substituting instead a Rat-controlled Senate which would revive Trump's persecution where it left off. Some believe that the mass exodus of GOP incumbents from the House is being orchestrated for a similar purpose -- handing control to the opposition, just in case.

We'd much rather take our chances with Craig than Amash or any of the other pissants in the general election. The former Detroit police chief might be able to eke out a vote or two in the Detroit ghetto precincts, get within the margin of vote fraud statewide, and at least make the Rats sweat a little before their probable late-election-night-vote-dump victory here in November.

Tags:

Michigan 2024 Senate James Craig Yes Justin Amash No


12/11/2023: [Montana] Rep. Matt Rosendale Throws Cold Water on Efforts to Impeach Joe Biden [Breitbart]


Photo credit: Matt Rosendale

Reacting only to the headline as opposed to what Rosendale actually said, the simple-minded are going to interpret this announcement as "Matt Rosendale thinks Joe Biden shouldn't be impeached!!!!"

However, what Rosendale actually said was this:

    "I do not believe that you're probably going to be able to get an impeachment, a removal, of President Biden," Rosendale told Maria Bartiromo on Fox Business in late November.

    "But I do think that if our Department of Justice acted in a legitimate manner that there's enough facts that are already laid out there on the table because of all the great work that James Comer has done that we can see that the Biden crime family has major problems. And I think the Department of Justice should be picking up a lot of this and starting to make charges and prosecutions"


That's clearly accurate -- the Democrat-RINO Senate will obviously never consent to "removal" of a Democrat President from office. Rosendale is also accurate in pointing out the liberal bias of the Department of So-Called Justice in the matter of the Biden family crimes.

Even so, Rosendale allowing himself to be chosen as point man for this unsurprising revelation that the House GOP utterly lacks the balls to do anything "controversial" in an election year, was not the smartest move for his career if he has any designs on moving up from the House to the Senate.

Real Republicans (i.e. conservatives) have been waiting for Rosendale to enter the Senate race against quite vulnerable liberal Democrat Jon Tester; the GOP establishment squishes have desperately been trying to discourage Rosendale precisely because he is a conservative, and the GOPe much prefers one of their own squishy kind to run instead.

Now it's even more likely that Rosendale's going to turtle, and slink away from any possibility of running for the Senate next year. That leaves the field for the GOP nomination pretty much clear for squishy businessguy Tim Sheehy, who is being boosted by Mitch McConnell, Steve Daines and other establishment wimps.

Furthermore, the pro-abortionists have proclaimed their intention to influence the 2024 elections in Montana by submitting a ballot initiative (apparently not yet approved, though) that would alter the Montana state constitution and try to build on abortionist ballot success in other supposedly "red" states like Ohio, Kansas & Kentucky.

These initiatives have less to do with abortion per se and far more to do with stimulating Democrat turnout in order to influence other items on the ballot. In the case of Montana, the idea is to save the incumbent pinko Senator and perhaps also affect the outcome of the race in the marginal congressional district currently held by moderate Republican Ryan Zinke, who won in 2022 with less than 50% of the vote. That sort of narrow outcome has been habitual for Tester as well, showing why he needs extra assistance (usually the tactical presence of a "Libertarian" candidate suffices to draw votes away from the Republican) to try to eke out a 4th Senate term in 2024.

Tags:

Montana 2024 Senate Matt Rosendale Impeach Biden Jon Tester Tim Sheehy


9/1/2023: [Montana] Rosendale holds big lead over establishment-backed Sheehy in Montana Senate race: poll [The Hill]


Photo credit: Greg Nash

Republican voters in Montana are clearly saying that the conservative alternative in the GOP primary is far more to their liking than businessman Tim Sheehy, the squish who is being pushed hard by establishment twerps like Steve Daines and Mitch McConnell.

This greatly upsets the GOPe, or at least forces them to work harder to rig the primary, because the establishment will always insist that a more liberal candidate has greater "electability" than a conservative one, and they spare no expense in fulfilling that prophecy anytime the voters defy them and select a conservative nominee instead of the officially-anointed moderate. Their backstabbing of conservatives doesn't always work, otherwise Liz Cheney would still be in office, and J.D. Vance would have lost in Ohio. But it almost always works.

Sheehy served his country with honor, runs a successful business, and I'm sure he routinely performs CPR on wounded kittens too. It's possible for him to be a great guy but still be a moderate squish -- and one who is actually less electable than conservative Matt Rosendale.

Sheehy is already facing the typical attacks from the left. You can rely on the fact that anyone who runs a business and who runs for office as a Republican will be hysterically assaulted for being an evil "millionaire" who "wants to raise YOUR taxes" and who "outsources jobs to China!" In other words, they'll claim he fits the profile of a Democrat.

These attacks don't in any way imply that Sheehy is a feared conservative; they just mean that since the GOPe simps favor him, he is very likely to be the nominee so the haters are getting an early start.

Recall that the #1 and only real "stopper" against Rosendale when he ran against Jon Tester and narrowly lost in 2018 was that he was a carpetbagger who had committed the mortal sin of not being a lifelong Montana resident. Apparently the voters -- who in 2020 elected Rosendale statewide in a high-turnout presidential election year -- have forgiven him.

Sheehy OTOH hasn't even been in Montana for 10 years yet, so by all means let's make the Rats' task even easier in 2024 by letting them use the same playbook from 2018. Sheehy is also being attacked for allegedly "lewd" and "racist" posts he made on Facebook years ago, among other things.

Of course Rosendale, if he is somehow the nominee, will be similarly attacked by the media and other Democrats just like he was in 2018, 2020 and 2022. He won the last two of those races anyway, and he has a good conservative political track record on which to run.

The difference is that, if Rosendale is the nominee, he will face not only a lack of support but actual oppostion from the squishes on his own side as well. The ones (like Daines & McConnell for example) who would rather Tester get another term & Democrats keep Senate control than risk some unwashed conservative taking that seat.



This race may be reminiscent of 2022's Senate campaign in Pennsylvania, where we were assured that Electable Dr. Oz was a much better option for the GOP than surging conservative Kathy Barnette who was criticized as inexperienced and as a loser -- even though she outperformed Donald Trump by 3 points in Pennsylvania in 2020 in the district in which she ran (CD-4); a performance which is overlooked or misunderstood by dolts who don't know how to read election results.

It's also a parallel to the 2022 gubernatorial race in Wisconsin, where a weak liberal Democrat incumbent (a la Tester in Montana) was quite vulnerable.... until the GOP primary was decided by Trump's blundering endorsement of empty-suit businessman Tim Michels (similar to Sheehy) over decently conservative former Lt. Governor Rebecca Kleefisch, who had been elected statewide (similar to Rosendale) as running-mate for Governor Scott Walker and had a good record on which to run.

Yet we're told that the GOPe is so much better at picking candidates than conservative voters are. It's a lie.

Tags:

Montana Senate 2024 Matt Rosendale Tim Sheehy "Electability"


7/18/2023: [Montana] Meet the Republicans trying to beat Tester, Manchin, and other vulnerable Senate Democrats [Washington Examiner]


Photo credit: Bloomberg Government

The first paragraph of the article, mainly telling us what we already knew:

Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-KY) and Sen. Steve Daines (R-MT), chairman of the National Republican Senatorial Committee, have been working for months to recruit the most electable candidates in must-win swing states to retake the majority next year.

"Electable" of course means "someone who is a moderate/liberal toady for Mitch McConnell, like Steve Daines is". The liberal Republican establishment is sticking to the lie that the only reason why the GOP isn't in control of the Senate today is because of all the supposedly flawed candidates who lost in states like Arizona, Georgia, New Hampshire and Pennsylvania during the failed "red wave" of 2022. Add in other states such as Nevada which were ripe for a pickup and a couple more ridiculous pipe dreams (Colorado, Washington) and some lunatics seriously expected a GOP majority of something like 10 seats right now, 55-45 or so.

The party seeks to make sure that only approved Mitch Bitches get on the ticket for 2024, and no more "flawed" conservatives. When that strategy fails next November, the GOPe excuse will be that conservative voters didn't do their job and let the party down.

Here's a howler from the article, regarding Montana:

The establishment has "coalesced around former Navy SEAL Tim Sheehy's candidacy while privately dissuading Rep. Matt Rosendale from throwing his hat in the ring. Sheehy has the backing of Daines and Gov. Greg Gianforte (R-MT), while Rosendale has the backing of the well-funded Club for Growth despite not being in the race yet. Party establishment has said that Rosendale's 2018 loss to Tester proves he cannot win statewide."

Then the party establishment consists of idiots, liars, or both. You see, Rosendale, who is a far more conservative option than Squish Sheehy, in fact DID WIN STATEWIDE in Montana in 2020, by nearly 14 points against a very well-funded liberal Democrat to boot.

The article goes on to note that the GOPe is "staying out" of the primary in Ohio -- because they can easily see that the right-ish primary vote will be split between Secretary of State Frank LaRose and MAGA conservative Bernie Moreno, allowing liberal state Senator Matt Dolan to prevail by getting the primary votes of many Democrat infiltrators who will never vote for him in the general. Why should the GOPe interfere when things are going so well for them? You should already be well aware of the liberal machinations in West Virginia, with the GOP backstabbing conservative Rep. Alex Mooney in favor of doddering moderate Governor Jim Justice.

Now back to the "bad candidate" lie of 2022. True that the quality of some of the GOP candidates was less than great (Oz leaps to mind), but it's also been true for a long time that the GOPe will ensure that candidates it doesn't approve of (conservatives) will not succeed in general elections, and the best way to do that is to fail to support those candidates with $$$$ and thereby concede massive financial advantages to the Democrats.

Check this out from the key swing state Senate races in 2022:

Arizona: D spending, $192 million; R spending, $15 million

Georgia: D: $326 million; R: $69 million

Nevada: D: $64 million; R: $18 million

New Hampshire: D: $42 million; R: $4 million

Pennsylvania: D: $76 million; R: $49 million

Even in states the GOP won (barely) in 2022, Democrats still had massive spending margins over their Republican opponents; the Rats made sure that their ultra-liberal Senate candidates in Wisconsin and North Carolina didn't have to rely solely on their melanin advantages, and therefore they also had far more resources to work with than Ron Johnson or Ted Budd. In Ohio, J.D. Vance was outspent by close to 300% (!), but then Ohio isn't supposed to be a swing state so the Democrats theoretically needed to pump in tremendous cash just to have a fighting chance. Ohio will obviously be a lot tighter in 2024 than it was in 2022, and this time all that Democrat cash will be critical.

Looking at the financial picture as it is developing for the 2024 Senate races, in every state where the GOP can even dream of making a pickup -- including West Virginia -- the incumbent Democrat is starting out far ahead in the money race. Even where there isn't a Democrat incumbent who is running again (Michigan) the liberals are still miles ahead in geld. With it still being so early in the campaign season, perhaps that's not the most meaningful way to evaluate electoral chances because incumbents always start out far ahead.

Oh yeah?

The loony left has at most only two semi-realistic possibilities of taking a Senate seat from the Republicans in 2024 and in one of those -- Texas -- GOP incumbent Ted Cruz is already trailing his dumb-as-dirt opponent in fundraising, and that trend is likely to continue through 2024. The Democrats are laser-beam focused on taking Texas because once it finally flips from true blue to commie pinko red, any Republican has a 0.0% chance of ever winning another presidential election. Since the Rats can't make their presidential candidate (presumably Biden, for now) attractive to Texans, they are sinking tons of cash into the Senate race in the hopes that the coattail effect will work up the ticket as well as down.

Tags:

Senate 2024 Montana Ohio West Virginia Democrat mega-$$$$ advantage


7/18/2023: GOP Uniparty Senators Threaten to Leave and Become Democrats [Conservative Treehouse]


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


7/3/2023: Senate rankings: five seats most likely to flip [The Hill]


Photo credit: Matt York, Associated Press

"The Hill", of all sources, contends that every one of the five most allegedly endangered Senate seats up in 2024 are currently held by Democrats! The five are: West Virginia, Montana, Ohio, Arizona and Wisconsin. We know that's hardly wishful thinking on the part of that leftist site, but are these pickups actually realistic or is this just a lot of crocodile tears to go with the veiled warning to Democrats to get busy doing whatever is necessary (wink, wink) to keep those seats, especially with Senate control at risk?

West Virginia: is supposed to be a slam-dunk pickup, perhaps with Joe "I've never lost an election in my life" Manchin deciding to keep his record intact by failing to run again and making the pickup a 100% certainty. The GOPe firmly supports moderate Governor Jim Justice and will do whatever it takes to prevent conservative Alex Mooney from getting the nomination. If Manchin really is as much of a "centrist" as some folks claim, the transition from Manchin to Justice in the Senate probably won't be very noticeable when it comes to their voting records.

Montana: The GOPe is rallying behind businessman Tim Sheehy, which probably tells you everything you need to know about this newcomer's politics. The question remains as to whether 2018 candidate and current congressman Matt Rosendale will enter the race. The Republicans lost Montana in 2018 for the same reason they lost West Virginia -- their candidate was attacked for the crime of not being born in the state (that plus some other Dirty Democrat Tricks, particularly in Montana). If Rosendale tries again in 2024 he'll do better than 2018, but he might be too conservative for his party's establishment.

Ohio: The GOP doesn't even appear to have a viable candidate. State Senator Matt Dolan is a liberal who got barely 20% of the vote in the 2022 Republican Senate primary, most of those votes coming from Democrats; Bernie Moreno is trying to paint himself as the MAGA candidate a la J.D. Vance, and will probably get a Trump endorsement if he can demonstrate a substantial lead in the polls. Ohio is not the solidly Republican state that the hopium addicts wish it was. For proof of that statement look no further than Sherrod Brown's past electoral successes, including 2018 when we were assured that Brown was toast because Trump won Ohio in 2016. Oops.

Arizona: Republicans can always count on a fair election in Arizona of course (LOL) but even if that really was the case their only hope here is for a 3-way race between the slimy "independent" incumbent (Sinema) a really slimy Democrat congressman (Gallego) and whoever the GOP nominates; that way the Republican could win with merely a plurality of the vote, and a plurality is probably the best they can do in this state these days. Some believe that Kari Lake will be back for a repeat of 2022. She was too good to be allowed to win then, and the same applies now. Whether it takes threats, bribes or both, Independent Sinema may not even choose to run for re-election, clearing the field for the Democrat nominee to very likely prevail next November.

Wisconsin: Rebecca Kleefisch, who would probably be Governor right now if it weren't for Trump's misguided and ineffectual endorsement of proven loser Tim Michels in 2022, would be a very good candidate and former Milwaukee County sheriff David Clarke would be good as well. Unfortunately, the GOPe is far more interested in millionaire candidates who will spend their own funds and not waste the apparently limited amount of cash the party has to throw around this cycle ("Pleez send us munney!"). Better still for the GOPe, the typical millionaire-type candidate often tends to be a squish although in this case Wisconsin venture capitalist Eric Hovde is described as a "conservative activist", at least by those on the left who hate him. So maybe he's not bad, but any Republican starts off as a clear underdog here.


Other possibilities, but don't hold your breath: There's Michigan, where incumbent liberal Debbie Stabenow is retiring in 2024 and will likely be replaced by well-funded liberal congresswoman Elissa Slotkin. There are a lot of GOP possibles to take her on, but none of them are serious threats to win. Except perhaps former Detroit police chief James Craig, who tried to run for Governor in 2022 but made the rookie mistake of having Democrat operatives in disguise gather signatures for him, which were deliberately falsified and Craig was kicked off the primary ballot at the last minute, leaving nothing but a field of underfunded and outclassed twerps on the Republican side. Hopefully he'll be smarter this time around.

Then there's Nevada, where the current Democrat Senator barely got 50% in 2018 against former Republican incumbent Dean Heller, who ran screaming to the left in a failed effort to keep that seat. The string-pullers on rare occasions allow the GOP to win a close election in Nevada (e.g. 2022 Governor) when the Republican candidate is acceptable to the left. If Sam Brown or Jim Marchant becomes the Senate nominee: (a) either one would make a great Senator, therefore (b) that is not going to be one of the few times the puppetmasters will allow the Republicans to win a statewide general election in Nevada although the result would likely be close. The GOP could simply nominate an eternal loser such as Adam Laxalt or Danny Tarkanian again, at least that would remove any suspense regarding the outcome.

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Senate 2024 West Virginia Slam dunk Montana Ohio Arizona Wisconsin Wishful thinking Michigan Nevada


4/14/2023: Romney gets 1st likely challenger in '24 Utah Senate primary [ABC News]


Photo credit: Brad Wilson

From the article: "Utah House Speaker Brad Wilson announced he was forming an exploratory committee 14 months before the scheduled primary. Utah needs a 'conservative fighter' who represents its values, not a 'professional career politician,' Wilson told The Associated Press in an interview at his real estate office in northern Utah."

In what clown world is Brad Wilson a "conservative fighter", or a conservative at all? Even if you aren't aware of his moderate (at best) voting record, here's another clue: he wouldn't be Speaker of the Utah House if he really was a conservative; the GOP caucus of squishes in the Utah House wouldn't support that any more than the U.S. House GOP squishes would support someone like Andy Biggs over Kevin McCarthy.

Wilson's probably not as bad as Slick Willard though, and at a minimum would do less damage in the Senate than Romney does. Should Wilson happen to pull off the upset, then as a freshman backbencher at least he wouldn't go sucking up to the hosts of the left-wing Sunday morning TV "news" shows in order to trash conservative members of his own party on a regular basis.

Even though this is allegedly rock-ribbed Republican Utah we're talking about, it is an open question as to whether an actual conservative -- as opposed to a RINO -- can even get elected statewide here anymore, as the Salt Lake City area is well on its way to becoming the "New Austin" (Texas) due to significant Californication and the massive influx of liberals from other states as well. Salt Lake County, which has finally flipped from true blue to Commie red, casts over one-third of the votes in the state.

Senator Mike Lee, an alleged conservative, is portrayed by Utah lefties as being well to the right of Jesse Helms (not even close), and in 2022 Lee barely cleared 50% statewide against a joke candidate who only got votes on the basis of not being Mike Lee, as opposed to anything positive. Lee was beaten by nearly 20 points in Salt Lake County.

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Senate 2024 Utah Mitt Romney Brad Wilson Salt Lake City


4/9/2023: [Montana] GOP lawmakers target Tester re-election bid with 'jungle primary' bill [Helena Independent Record]


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?


1/13/2023: Youngkin's political brand at risk after GOP losses in Virginia [The Hill]

We were told one year ago that the magnificent GOP sweep in Virginia in 2021 was largely the result of learning from the nationwide debacle of 2020 and having GOP poll watchers everywhere in order to minimize Democrat vote fraud. Furthermore, that "Virginia model" for ensuring election integrity was going to be implemented nationwide, and no longer would the Democrats so easily be able to commit massive statewide fraud in places like Arizona, Georgia, Pennsylvania, Michigan, etc.

Oops.

Like Trump's win in 2016, Youngkin's win in 2021 was very much a fluke and had little to nothing to do with suddenly vigilant Republican poll watchers:

1. Both Trump and Youngkin had the luxury of facing the single most repugnant and unpopular Democrat available at the time (Hillary Clinton, Terry McAuliffe).

2. Democrats took both Republican candidates less than 100% seriously and therefore committed just a wee bit less fraud than usual.

3. That overconfidence was costly to the Democrats, and still the Republicans just barely managed to win.

Pick whatever reason you like to explain the outcome (fraud and demographics are two good candidates), but 2025 in Virginia is very likely to look like 2020 did nationwide -- the glorious victory of 4 years prior is almost certain to be reversed. Youngkin of course cannot run again since Virginia prohibits consecutive terms for the same Governor.

As far as what happened in Tuesday's election, nobody aside from leftist media gloaters who are simply trying to damage Youngkin can hold him mainly responsible for the razor-thin GOP loss in a marginal state Senate district. But at the same time Youngkin is clearly no king-maker either, any more than Trump has been.

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Virginia Special election State Senate Glenn Youngkin


12/9/2022: [Arizona] U.S. Senator Sinema leaves Democratic Party, registers as independent [Reuters]

She'll still caucus with the Democrats, the Democrats control which committees she gets to be on.... this changes nothing except that we now have three liberal stooges in the Senate (Sinema, King, Sanders) who are all really Democrats yet call themselves "independent".

In reality, they are all as dependent on Democrats as they ever were, and in Sinema's case this is simply a calculated move (with full Democrat support) to increase her chances of re-election and nothing more than that.

Only the GOP's abysmal performance in the Senate races in 2022 allows this political transvestite to follow her "conscience" and pretend to leave the Democrat party. If Sinema was the deciding vote as to which party controls the Senate, this little charade would never have occurred.

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Senate Arizona Kyrsten Sinema Still really a Democrat


11/7/2022: Final 2022 election predictions! [RightDataUSA]

Sorry we've been out of touch for a couple of months (family issues), but here are some realistic predictions for what will happen Tuesday.

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


8/16/2022: [Florida] Demings up by 4 points in challenge to Rubio: poll [The Hill]

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?


8/2/2022: Senate GOP launches ads in two blue red states [Politico]


Photo credit: J. Scott Applewhite/AP Photo

The states are Colorado and, even more ludicrously, Washington. The plan is to launch some tepid ads in which the Democrat incumbents are revealed to have voted "with Joe Biden" on nearly 100% of all issues. Surely that will convince liberal voters in those two states to come to their senses and vote for Republicans! If you were expecting some ads which would be a little more hard-hitting than that, then you are not familiar with how the GOP does things. Anything effective would be "controversial" and the NRSC, like the RNC, always runs screaming from "controversy".

In a tidal wave election Republicans might have a slender chance of an upset in Colorado, but Washington is a lost cause and has been for years. If the election was simply a beauty contest, Tiffany Smiley would win against Patsy Murray by about 99%; but as it is she will probably lose by 10-15 points. Now watch the NRSC -- even as they are being heavily outspent all across the board by the Democrats -- brainlessly waste money on hail-Mary pipe dreams in Colorado and Washington and at the same time failing to spend sufficient money to try to hold very shaky but quite winnable Senate seats in North Carolina, Wisconsin.... and even Ohio.

The Democrats smell blood -- and an unexpected golden pickup opportunity -- so they are funneling an enormous amount of bucks into the Ohio Senate race, while the supposedly favored (but not actually favored) GOP candidate is woefully underfunded and basically off the air at this time.

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Senate 2022 GOP wasting money Washington Colorado


7/27/2022: Democrats Favored to Win Senate for First Time as Polling Improves: 538 [Newsweek (LOL)]


Photo credit: Getty Images

The leftists at 538 are only just now realizing that Democrats are favored to keep the Senate? Oz is toast in PA and always was, so that's minus-1 for the GOP and the loss is not likely to be offset with a Walker victory in Georgia which was supposed to be (and may still be) the most likely Republican pickup. But "most likely" still doesn't mean "likely" whatsoever. Assuming all other incumbents win too and open seats are held, that means a 51-49 Senate with the GOP on the short end.

If any other seats flip, the reality is that it's much more likely to be R to D than D to R. Wisconsin, North Carolina and maybe even Ohio are not slam dunk retentions for Republicans. Things are not 100% safe even in Utah (!) or Missouri depending on who wins that state's primary next week, however sanity is still favored though not guaranteed to prevail in both of those states in the end.

Aside from Georgia, Senate seats in Arizona and Nevada are the only plausible flips in the good direction; anyone thinking of adding New Hampshire, Colorado, etc. to the list can dream on. But don't forget Alaska, where Tshibaka (R) beating Murkowski (RINO) -- if that actually happens -- should count as a Republican pickup even though it technically isn't.

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Senate 2022 Democrats retain control Pennsylvania Georgia