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U.S. Senator Jon Ossoff (D-GA).

What Will It Take For Democrats To Flip The Senate? A State-By-State Cheat Sheet

The House of Representatives will be a Democratic-led institution after this November’s midterm elections. The big question is whether Democrats can also recapture the Senate—a chamber that, under any rational circumstances, shouldn’t be competitive.

It’s a brutal map for Democrats. Yet, thanks to President Donald Trump’s toxic incompetence and his obsequious party, it’s now in play. This is the first in a regular feature tracking the most competitive races throughout this election season.

Republicans hold 53 seats in the Senate, meaning Democrats need to net four to get past Vice President JD Vance’s tiebreaking vote.

1. North Carolina (R-open, Lean D)

Former Democratic Gov. Roy Cooper has led in every single poll so far as he faces former Republican National Committee Chair Michael Whatley in this open-seat race.

Time after time, Democrats have come close in recent Senate contests in the Tar Heel State. In 2020, the race appeared within reach until a late scandal derailed the Democratic nominee, who ultimately lost by less than two percentage points. In 2022, Republicans won again by about three points. Those margins mirror the state’s Republican lean at the presidential level, underscoring just how evenly divided North Carolina is.

Nothing can be taken for granted. But Democrats have shown they can win statewide, and Cooper remains a popular figure after two terms as governor. He also has a shockingly strong record, having run in six statewide races and won all of them.

2. Maine (R-incumbent, Lean D)

How tough is this cycle for Democrats? This is a Republican-held seat in a state won by Democratic presidential nominee Kamala Harris in 2024.

Once again, Republican Sen. Susan Collins is at the center of one of the most competitive races on the map as she seeks a sixth term in a state that consistently leans Democratic at the presidential level.

This is one of Democrats’ best pickup opportunities, but the path isn’t straightforward. Collins has survived tough races before—most notably in 2020, when she won reelection even as Joe Biden carried the state at the presidential level. Collins continues to benefit from a reputation as a moderate willing to break with her party. At the same time, she’s the only Republican senator representing a state that has largely rejected Trump in every election.

The Democratic primary is still taking shape, with Gov. Janet Mills and oyster farmer Graham Platner facing off in an establishment-vs.-insurgent battle. Emerson College’s latest poll of the race shows Platner dominating both the primary and general. But Collins is a survivor, and history says she can’t be counted out.

At this point, if Democrats can win their two best pickup opportunities, it lifts them to 49 seats in the Senate. For a majority, Democrats need to hold the next two seats, in Georgia and Michigan, and then flip two more.

3. Georgia (D-incumbent, Lean D)

Sen. Jon Ossoff is the most vulnerable Democratic incumbent on the map, defending a seat in a reddish-purple state.

Margins here are razor-thin. Ossoff won his 2021 runoff election by just over 1 point, while fellow Democratic Sen. Raphael Warnock won both his races in 2021 and 2022 by less than 3 points.

Republicans are coalescing around Rep. Mike Collins and will invest heavily. The only public poll released this year, from Emerson College, gives Ossoff a lead of 48 percent to Collins’ 43 percent. In this climate, that should be enough—but there’s little room for error.

4. Michigan (D-open, Lean D)

Democratic Sen. Gary Peters’ retirement has created an open-seat race in Michigan, one of the most important battlegrounds in the country.

The Great Lakes State has leaned Democratic in recent cycles, with the party scoring big wins in state-level races, like the governorship. But federal contests remain competitive. Trump carried the state in 2016, narrowly lost it in 2020, and won it back in 2024, the same year that Democrat Elissa Slotkin won her Senate race by 0.3 points.

Both parties have competitive primaries that won’t be settled until Aug. 4, unusually late in the cycle. Three Democrats—state Sen. Mallory McMorrow, U.S. Rep Haley Stevens, and progressive activist Abdul El-Sayed—are polling neck and neck right now. And without clarity on the candidates, this is currently Lean D, largely due to the broader political environment. It’s difficult to see a Republican fully escaping the drag of Trump’s tariffs, wars, and inflation.

If Democrats hold Georgia and Michigan, they remain at 49 seats in the Senate. But to win a majority, they need to pick up two more among Alaska, Iowa, Nebraska, Ohio, and Texas. See how tough this task is? Yet, thanks to Trump, it’s not out of arm’s reach.

5. Alaska (R-incumbent, Toss-up)

Republican Sen. Dan Sullivan is seeking reelection in Alaska, a state that defies easy categorization—solidly Republican on paper but with a strong independent streak. For example, the state legislature is run by a bipartisan coalition that sidelines MAGA hard-liners.

Alaska consistently votes Republican at the presidential level—a Democratic nominee has won it only once since it became a state—but its large independent electorate and political culture reward candidates who distance themselves from party orthodoxy. That’s helped figures like moderate Republican Sen. Lisa Murkowski repeatedly win. Ranked-choice voting also adds another layer of unpredictability.

Former Democratic Rep. Mary Peltola, who defeated former Gov. Sarah Palin in Alaska’s 2022 House race, is the Democrats’ dream candidate. Public polling shows a tight race, with recent surveys giving her a narrow edge. It’s always difficult to defeat an incumbent, especially one aligned with the state’s partisan lean. But Peltola is a strong candidate, and this is a favorable climate.

6. Ohio (R-incumbent, Lean R)

Ohio shouldn’t be in play. Trump has carried this onetime battleground by eight points or more in all three of his campaigns. It was remarkable that liberal Democratic Sen. Sherrod Brown survived as long as he did, holding office for eighteen years. And even in defeat in 2024, he lost by less than four points while Trump won in the state by 11 points.

Brown is thankfully back this year, running in the special election for the seat vacated by Vice President JD Vance. His opponent is appointed Republican Sen. Jon Husted.

Husted’s lack of true incumbency, combined with Brown’s crossover appeal, gives Democrats a real pickup opportunity. Polling shows a tight race, with both candidates in the mid-40s. That’s a dangerous place for Brown since undecided voters tend to break in favor of the state’s partisan lean. He may be strong enough to defy that, and the national environment helps. But for now, this remains the GOP’s race to lose.Republican

7. Texas (R-incumbent, Likely R)

Republican Sen. John Cornyn is seeking reelection in a longtime GOP stronghold. But MAGA has a habit of sabotaging themselves, and Texas Republicans are flirting with exactly that by rallying around Ken Paxton, the unbelievably corrupt state attorney general who was impeached by members of his own party. (The state Senate acquitted him, so he has remained in office.)

Polling shows a familiar pattern: Talarico in the mid-40s. That usually means undecideds will lean Republican. The question is whether the current climate disrupts that pattern. A Paxton nomination would make that more plausible. For now, though, this remains likely Republican.

8. Nebraska (R-incumbent, Likely R)

Dan Osborn, a political independent and former union leader, nearly pulled off a shocker in 2024, coming within 7 points of upsetting Republican Sen. Deb Fischer, even as Trump carried the state by over 20 points. That’s the value of running without a “D” beside your name in a state as red as Nebraska.

Running again, Osborn faces ultrarich Republican Sen. Pete Ricketts, who is an imperfect fit in a moment defined by economic anxiety. Trump’s tariffs, deportations, and cuts are hitting rural Nebraska especially hard.

The only recent poll comes from the Osborn campaign and shows a tight race, as you’d expect it to. In 2024, undecided voters did the thing and broke toward Republicans on Election Day. Osborn faces that same challenge this year. Still, if anyone can make this competitive, it’s Osborn—and this environment gives him a shot.

Other states to watch

Republicans believe they can make the Democratic open seat in New Hampshire competitive. And there’s a plausible scenario where Iowa joins this list as well.


Senate Republicans Know Why Trump's SAVE Act Would Backfire On Them

Senate Republicans Know Why Trump's SAVE Act Would Backfire On Them

Here’s a delicious irony: Republicans know the SAVE Act would be a disaster for their party, but they can’t get President Donald Trump to see it.

The polarizing legislation behind the Safeguard American Voter Eligibility Act would require people to provide documentary proof of U.S. citizenship—like a passport or birth certificate—when registering to vote in federal elections. Trump and his acolytes claim this would stop noncitizen voting, which is already vanishingly rare. Critics point out the obvious: It would make voting harder for a lot of eligible voters.

Normally, that’s the point. Voter suppression has long been a feature of GOP strategy, not a bug. But that thinking is outdated, as lower-propensity voters are increasingly Republican.

Which makes this GOP-backed bill not just an affront to democracy, but politically self-destructive.

One key provision would require a birth certificate that matches a voter’s current name. It’s driven in part by the GOP’s fixation on trans people, who make up a tiny sliver of the electorate. But the real impact would fall on married women who changed their last names, and they are disproportionately a Republican-leaning group.

In 2024, 52 percent of married women voted for Trump, but only 38 percent of unmarried women backed him, making for a yawning 14-point gap in support. And the women most likely to have changed their names are the same ones more likely to vote Republican.

A 2023 Pew study found that 86 percent of married conservative women took their husband’s last name, compared to 70 percent of liberal women. Education reinforces the pattern: The more educated a woman is, the less likely she is to change her name—and the more likely she is to vote Democratic.

Current passports could solve the documentation issue, but about half of Americans don’t have one. And the same patterns hold: Higher income and higher education make passport ownership more likely, and both of those factors correlate with Democratic voters.

So once again, the burden falls hardest on Trump’s base.

The states where Trump performed best in 2024 tend to have the lowest passport ownership rates. A 2023 YouGov survey found that 52 percent of Trump voters lacked a valid passport, compared to 45 percent of Biden voters. There’s also a gender gap: 55 percent of women don’t have passports, versus 49 percent of men. Among evangelicals—a core GOP constituency—only 38 percent have passports. Urban and suburban residents are far more likely to have them than rural voters.

Women could ostensibly use a marriage certificate to bridge the name-change gap. But that assumes they have one readily available. Many don’t—especially older women who changed their names decades ago and are less likely to still have those documents on hand.

And replacing them isn’t simple. It costs money, takes time, and often requires in-person trips to government offices.

Those barriers hit hardest in rural areas, where government offices are fewer and distances between them longer, and transportation can be a real obstacle. The very voters most likely to face these hurdles—older, rural women—are also a core part of Trump’s base.

That’s how voter suppression actually works: not through one big barrier, but through a series of smaller hassles. Each step increases the odds that someone decides it’s not worth it and drops out. Those pressures hit hardest among lower-income, older, and rural voters—the same voters the GOP now relies on.

That’s the shift Republicans haven’t fully adjusted to.

For decades, lower-income and less-educated voters leaned Democratic, and Republicans built strategies around keeping them from the polls. Trump flipped that coalition and turned out voters who historically sat out elections.

And now this bill risks pushing those same voters back out.

Many Republicans understand that, even if they won’t say it out loud. Senate Majority Leader John Thune, for example, has shown no interest in blowing up the filibuster to pass the SAVE Act, even as Trump pressures him not to cave and end the ongoing government shutdown unless Democrats agree to support the vote-suppressing legislation.

It’s easier to let Democrats take the blame for killing the bill than to tell Trump he’s wrong.

Markos Moulitsas is founder and editor of the blogging website Daily Kos and author of three books.

Reprinted with permission from Daily Kos

South Texas Latinos Who Voted For Trump Have Buyer's Remorse, Big Time

South Texas Latinos Who Voted For Trump Have Buyer's Remorse, Big Time

Amid President Donald Trump’s cratering poll numbers, it’s getting easier to find supporters of his now feeling burned by their 2024 vote. Here’s a clip that went mega-viral this week, thanks to this Trump backer’s blunt, self-aware honesty.

A voter in Pennsylvania shares her thoughts on the war with President Trump.

[image or embed]
— Yashar Ali 🐘 (@yasharali.bsky.social) March 17, 2026 at 7:04 PM

But beyond complaints about gas prices or inflation, there’s a deeper reality taking hold in parts of the country that swung to Trump. This isn’t about marginal cost increases—it’s about entire communities getting wrecked.

One example: South Texas.

The Rio Grande Valley—a predominantly Latino region that long leaned Democratic, if with low turnout—shifted toward Trump in 2024. His law-and-order message and economic promises landed. Republicans saw it as proof that their party was making real inroads with Latino voters.

That shift also reshaped the political map. It’s the kind of region Texas Democratic Senate nominee James Talarico now needs to win back decisively if he’s going to have any shot at flipping a Senate seat long assumed out of reach.

Now those same communities are dealing with the consequences, as Trump’s immigration crackdown has crushed the region’s largest industry: construction.

“I did vote for Mr. Trump. Deporting the criminals is a great policy,” Mario Guerrero, executive director of the South Texas Builders Association, told The New York Times. “These foundations are poured ready to go, and we can’t even start the construction on them. But we voted for the American dream. And unfortunately, right now, we’re not seeing that.”

There was never much ambiguity about what Trump meant when he promised mass deportation. He didn’t limit “criminals” to violent offenders or serious convictions. His position was explicit: Anyone in the country without legal status was a criminal and subject to removal.

That distinction mattered, because there was no controversy over deporting actual criminals. Democratic presidents like Barack Obama and Joe Biden never shied away from doing that.

In a region where entire industries rely on immigrant labor, that definition didn’t just target a narrow group. It put an entire workforce in the crosshairs.

But it was easy to pretend otherwise.

“I’ve supported Mr. Trump in every election that he’s been a part of,” Guerrero said. “We just never thought that this would come and affect us in the construction industry, but most importantly, affect our economy here in South Texas.”

That’s a typical conservative: He starts caring once it directly affects him, because it was fine when he thought it would just hurt someone else.

Instead, it’s hitting the workers who actually sustain the region’s economy. Job sites are stalled. Projects are delayed. Businesses are shrinking or collapsing. The ripple effects are spreading outward into the broader local economy.

But there is a political silver lining, and we saw the first signs of it in the Texas primaries two weeks ago.

“Texas Democrats more than doubled their turnout from 2024 during the primary elections on March 3 in the four counties that make up the Rio Grande Valley,” reported the Texas Tribune. “In the Valley, that energy could help spare two incumbent Democratic congressmen whose districts were redrawn to favor the GOP, and earn the state’s minority party a third congressional district as well as a statehouse district or two.”

The GOP’s 2024 gains here were treated as a realignment. Now it’s looking more like a detour.

Whether that translates into lasting political change remains to be seen. But in a region where Democratic voter participation is needed in order for the party to be competitive statewide, Trump’s malicious incompetence may have finally woken them up.

Markos Moulitsas is founder and editor of the blogging website Daily Kos and author of three books.

Reprinted with permission from Daily Kos

Trump Deputy: Republicans Must Enlist 'Real Americans' To Polish GOP Record

Trump Deputy: Republicans Must Enlist 'Real Americans' To Polish GOP Record

White House deputy chief of staff James Blair is worried about Republicans losing the House this fall—and rightfully so. A Democratic House would not just stymie President Donald Trump’s agenda but also aggressively investigate all the things he’d rather sweep under the rug: Jeffrey Epstein, the Trump family’s corruption, the billions in foreign money flowing through Trump-branded businesses, and the growing list of conflicts of interest tied to his administration.

So at a retreat with House Republicans, he told them to stop touting all the things they’ve been bragging about, such as mass deportations.

But buried in the Axios report was this gem: “Blair also told members to go out and find ‘real Americans’ to highlight wins in the GOP's sweeping legislative package passed last summer.”

Ha, ha, ha—I’m dying here! He wants what?

The “sweeping” legislation Blair is talking about is Trump’s law known as the “One Big Beautiful Bill.” Let’s see what was in there for “real Americans.”

To start, the bill slashed over $1 trillion over the next decade from health programs like Medicaid. It also cut federal food assistance, making it harder for struggling families to feed their kids. Good luck, House Republicans, as you try to find “real Americans” eager to brag about the “wins” of losing their health coverage or food benefits.

Republicans did throw money at Immigration and Customs Enforcement to bolster their thug army, but right now, that murderous crew of “real Americans” aren’t particularly beloved. When Blair is telling House Republicans to avoid talking about Trump’s beloved mass deportations, you know the issue is politically toxic. It’s become obvious that if you have to hide your face to do your job, you’re the bad guy.

There was also massive defense spending under Trump. Defense contractors certainly consider that a “win,” but again, it’s probably not the look that Blair is hoping for.

Hmm, what else is in this law … oh wait. There they are. The real winners.

Billionaires.

The law has showered the ultrawealthy with tax cuts. And many of them are technically “real Americans.” Found ’em for you, Blair!

In the end, Republicans added $3.4 trillion to the nation’s debt while slashing its safety net. There were certainly lots of winners in that boondoggle, and they are “real Americans” in the strictest definition of the term—but they’re not the kind Republicans want parading around their campaign ads.

When Republicans talk about “real Americans,” they don’t mean billionaires or defense contractors. They mean regular joes—people who work for a living and who have increasingly turned to the GOP out of that toxic brew of economic despair, racial resentments, and culture-war grievance politics. These are economically struggling voters, mostly white but not exclusively so, who backed the GOP on the hope it would lower prices, raise wages, and other critical work Republicans were never interested in doing.

Ultimately, Blair’s presentation was as helpful to House Republicans as Trump’s edicts that they should focus on voter suppression and further demonizing trans kids. “It will guarantee the midterms. If you don’t get it, big trouble, my opinion,” Trump told them on Monday.

What hope do House Republicans have if even their Dear Leader can’t follow Blair’s advice?

Markos Moulitsas is founder and editor of the blogging website Daily Kos and author of three books.

Reprinted with permission from Daily Kos

In Texas, James Talarico's Primary Victory Sets Up A Real Senate Race

In Texas, James Talarico's Primary Victory Sets Up A Real Senate Race

There is something afoot in Texas.

In what is likely the most-watched and most-contentious Senate primary of the cycle, for both parties, Democrats nominated state House Rep. James Talarico, while the top two Republicans are headed to a runoff after both failed to hit 50%. That race pits Sen. John Cornyn against crooked Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton. Cornyn’s crime is being a relatively normal conservative Republican at a time when MAGA demands the worst of the worst.

On the Democratic side, Rep. Jasmine Crockett entered the Senate race after she was drawn out of her district by the GOP’s mid-decade redistricting gambit. She has built a strong base of support with her wildly entertaining trolling of President Donald Trump and his lackeys in the Republican Party.

Yet it was that very public and acerbic persona that made her a risk for Democrats in a general election. At a time when Republicans are facing a demoralized and tepid base electorate, Crockett—an outspoken Black woman—threatened to give them new motivation to vote. Talarico looks like a generic white guy and speaks like a preacher (because he’s a Presbyterian seminarian), and that has advantages in a conservative state like Texas.

Yeah, it’s icky to go there, but it’s a political reality. In our discussion this past weekend on the 2028 Democratic presidential field, many of you advocated for white men precisely because it’s the safer bet in our f’d up country. It’s the reason South Carolina’s Black electorate overwhelmingly chose Joe Biden in their 2020 presidential primary: that community knows better than anyone the challenges our country still faces in electing women and candidates of color. In Texas, Latinos, feeling particularly burned by Trump and hungry for blood, went heavily for Talarico.

Crockett was never able to fully neutralize the electability argument, even though polling showed little difference between the two candidates (with Talarico polling only a sliver better). And given the stakes to Texas and our nation, there is real reluctance among Democratic voters to take risks.

Ironically—and despite the efforts of angry stans online—this wasn’t a simple progressive vs. conservadem fight, with race and gender serving as shorthand for ideology. Yes, Crockett is a member of the House Progressive Caucus, but she also had strong detractors on the progressive left who pointed to her donor history, including PAC money from BlackRock and Lockheed Martin. “To call her in any way the progressive or leftist candidate is a misnomer,” Adam Green of the Progressive Change Campaign Committee told NOTUS. “She’s a somewhat effective anti-Trump troll and resistance liberal, but is not one of us when it comes to a progressive populist or anti-corporate warrior.”

That’s a harsh assessment, and probably too simplistic, but it does highlight how messy the ideological lines in this race really were. But given electability concerns, ideology was at best a sideshow.

For his part, Talarico has become a genuine political sensation over the past few years, thanks largely to a style of messaging that Democrats rarely deploy anymore. A former public school teacher and now a seminary student (with a year remaining in his studies), he speaks openly about faith while making an unapologetically progressive case on issues like abortion rights, LGBTQ equality, and economic fairness.

Instead of avoiding religion, he leans into it—quoting scripture while arguing that Christian nationalism has corrupted the faith and that progressive values are closer to the teachings of Jesus than the politics of the religious right. This is stuff you and me both understand intrinsically, but Democrats have failed to effectively message.

That combination—progressive politics delivered in the language of morality and faith—is unusual enough in modern Democratic politics that it’s helped propel Talarico far beyond Texas. It also comes wrapped in a cultural authenticity that resonates in Texas, where he needs actual votes. He’s a teacher, a preacher-in-training, and a guy who can talk about faith, community, and public service in a way that feels natural rather than focus-grouped.

Clips of his speeches and legislative moments have gone viral online, building a national following long before this Senate race took off. The Trump administration sees him as enough of a threat that they are now investigating The View for hosting him, while CBS spiked a Stephen Colbert episode featuring him out of fear of governmental reprisal.

Crockett has it too, but in a different way. Her viral moments come from her willingness to verbally body-slam Republican nonsense, which Democratic voters understandably love after years of watching Democrats bring a spork to a gun fight.

But when it came time for Democratic primary voters to choose between two charismatic candidates, electability loomed large. Both resonate nationally, but all that matters here is what Texans think.

Lone Star Democrats want to win, and they want to win badly. With Paxton a very real possibility on the Republican side, that urgency has only grown.

So when Texas Democrats made their choice, they went with the candidate they believed best fit their state.

In this political climate, Crockett might very well have won.

Talarico certainly can.

Meanwhile, the two noxious Republicans get to blow their cash and beat the crap out of each other for the next three months. Perfect.

Markos Moulitsas is founder and editor of the blogging website Daily Kos and author of three books.

Reprinted with permission from Daily KosReprinted with permission from Daily Kos

'Woke Right' Influencers Splitting From Trump's MAGA Base Over Iran War

'Woke Right' Influencers Splitting From Trump's MAGA Base Over Iran War

There’s a difference between President Donald Trump’s core MAGA base and the influencer class that amplifies him, even if the two might seem to be one and the same.

Trump’s base has an emotional—not transactional—attachment to their idol, akin to cult-like status. Supporting him is part of their core identity. For millions of Americans, Trump isn’t just a politician, but the man who gave voice to their grievances. He symbolizes defiance against a political, economic, and cultural establishment that has financially devastated them.

It’s no accident that there is a correlation between the number of meth labs in a county and Trump support, as well as higher death rates from drugs, alcohol, and suicide.

The “bro-caster” ecosystem is different. A lot of these personalities didn’t build their brands around Trump specifically, but around outrage, anti-elite posturing, toxic masculinity, and cultural grievance. Trump just happens to be the biggest gravitational force in that universe, and handsomely rewarded by the algorithms.

Sure, some of these influencers are true believers, while others are grifters. Has there ever been an easier mark than a conservative desperate to have his or her worldview validated?

But ultimately, their ideology is mostly a vehicle toward clout. If Trump falters, influencers can pivot. His core base can’t.

We’re seeing that dynamic in real time over Iran. Trump’s core base is happily lapping up the “Trump said no new wars, but this is a limited conflict so it’s all good!” reasoning. The 30 percent deplorable MAGA base consists of the dumbest people on the planet..

We already saw some prominent Republicans speak out against Trump’s new war. Now let’s take a look at that influencer crowd, because they’re struggling.

To be clear, these are all vile humans, but they helped deliver critical votes to Trump in 2024. Losing their support matters. (And incidentally, MAGA is now calling these guys the “woke right” as they call themselves “The real America Firsters.”)

Andrew Tate is on an anti-war rampage:

Mike Cernovich has 1.4 million followers on X, and millions more elsewhere.

We don’t want Nazis like Nick Fuentes, but as a vehicle to demoralize Trump’s fanbase?

These guys have 3.5 million followers on X:

This guy has 600,000 followers on X, and 877,000 on YouTube:

Matt Walsh has 4 million followers on X:

KimDotCom has 1.7 million followers on X, and never quite understood why the deplorables love him so much. Probably because like Dear Leader, he’s a criminal.



This guy has 370,000 followers:

This guy has almost 900,000 followers on X:

I could quite literally list similar posts all day, as the examples are endless. But for now, let’s close with former Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene, who was a staunch Trump supporter until 2025:

Trump made a big deal out of stopping wars, and a bunch of morons believed him. When a key segment of your base rebels in this fashion, the consequences are sure to be enormous.

Markos Moulitsas is founder and editor of the blogging website Daily Kos and author of three books.

Reprinted with permission from Daily KosReprinted with permission from Daily Kos


Republicans Keep Pretending That Trump Will Bail Them Out In Midterm

Republicans Keep Pretending That Trump Will Bail Them Out In Midterm

The signs of a blue tsunami keep accumulating by the day, from 2025’s dramatic Democratic victories—where Democrats overperformed Kamala Harris’ 2024 numbers by eye-popping margins—to continued overperformances in special elections, to President Donald Trump himself acknowledging reality in his own authoritarian way.

“It's some deep psychological thing, but when you win the presidency, you don't win the midterms,” Trump mused, before making the leap to “when you think of it, we shouldn't even have an election.”

What’s funny is watching pundits and Republican operatives try to outthink gravity. Take New York Times columnist Ross Douthat, who repeatedly advised Republicans that the solution for a midterm election blowout is for Trump to stop being Trump.

Brilliant. Why didn’t anyone think of that?

On Wednesday night, Mark Halperin reported that the “senior Trump political command” delivered a sober midterm briefing to key Republicans, including Cabinet officials. Among the findings: voters care about the economy (groundbreaking!), and that “Trying to argue about wages being up will not help; voters have to feel it.” They also admitted that “Taking credit for closing the border does not resonate much”—a striking concession that immigration, once a Republican strength, isn’t saving them.

But the best part? Trump’s own campaign pollster, Tony Fabrizio, effectively admitted Trump can’t save Republicans either.

“He acknowledged that Donald Trump will do what he wants to do, say what he wants to say, not be data driven,” Halperin wrote. “Everyone else has to stay on message and be driven by the data. In effect, two separate but related campaigns.”

That’s patently absurd.

Republicans don’t get to divorce themselves from Trump’s chaos. His dominance over the party is absolute. He demands fealty, and they’ve delivered it. Those who stray—on tariffs, on Epstein, on anything—face his wrath. Trump is more interested in settling petty internal scores than deploying his war chest to protect vulnerable Republicans.

There are no “two separate but related campaigns.” Republican candidates can’t claim to care about affordability while Trump loudly proclaims it a “hoax.”

They can’t run on his message because it’s unpopular. They can’t run on his personality because he is hated. And they can’t rely on discipline because Trump doesn’t care—about data, about strategy, or about being a team player. He never has. Even his own political team isn’t pretending otherwise.

And this betrays the GOP’s core insurmountable challenge heading into what will be a political bloodbath for Republicans: Trump can’t help them, and he’s actually a liability.

So while that meeting at least acknowledged the damage Trump is doing to the GOP’s midterm chances—to the point that they’re trying to construct a parallel campaign strategy separate from their albatross—a new story from Axios found Republicans either pretending none of this is happening, or with their heads fully submerged in the sand.

The story on the GOP’s midterm woes starts honestly enough.

“While it is tempting for many in our party to wish away these results,” a GOP operative told Axios, “the pattern is clear that there is at least a current 10-point Democratic over-performance from Trump 2024—and it’s built on a fired-up Democratic base and a sleepy GOP base.”

Axios also notes that Republican strategists admit Trump’s handling of the Epstein files has “turned off parts of his MAGA base, while energizing Democrats and anti-GOP independents.” Left unsaid: Trump’s starring role in those files isn’t helping either.

Still, denial is a powerful drug.

“Let’s not pretend a couple of low-turnout special elections suddenly signal a political earthquake,” said Mason Di Palma, communications director for the Republican State Leadership Committee. Kudos to Di Palma for not hiding behind anonymity, even if he’s hiding behind a convenient strawman.

No one is arguing that “a couple of low-turnout special elections” alone are driving predictions of a coming Republican apocalypse. Take the shocking Texas state senate Democratic pickup: the electorate was 51 percent Republican, and the GOP candidate still got just 43 percent of the vote—in a district Trump carried by 17 points. That’s a 34-point swing. Democrats were only 35 percent of the electorate, yet their candidate won with 57 percent.

You don’t get that kind of shift from low turnout and a depressed GOP base. You get it from defections.

And no, it’s just not a couple of special elections. We have last year’s dramatic Democratic victories, which were anything but “low-turnout.” Trump himself is openly musing about canceling midterms because the party in power almost always gets hammered. Even solidly red Iowa is changing its laws to weaken its own governor ahead of an election where Democrats have a real shot at winning that seat.

But cut that guy some slack; he’s paid to be optimistic. Much worse are the anonymous sources that showered the Axios reporter with ridiculous hopium.

“[Some Republicans] note that Trump's cash-flush political operation didn't aggressively work to turn out the president's supporters in any of the recent elections—something it'll do in U.S. House and Senate elections this November,” reported Axios. “They also point out that Trump plans to hit the trail aggressively, which they believe will help to turn out his supporters.”

Was that mythical turnout machine just sitting it out last year?

And here’s the deeper problem: When Republicans themselves are defecting, higher turnout doesn’t necessarily save you—but it can actually help Democrats. We saw a version of this in 2024, when Democratic turnout operations inadvertently brought new Trump-leaning Latino and young voters to the polls. GOTV is a blunt instrument, and it doesn’t come with ideological guarantees.

Even if Republicans mobilize their evangelical base, traditionally the focus of their GOTV efforts, that won’t counteract erosion among suburban voters, independents, and soft Republicans. And given Trump’s habit of using his cash to settle internal scores rather than build coalitions, the idea of a finely tuned turnout juggernaut feels more like fantasy than strategy.

As for Trump hitting the campaign trail, what could possibly energize Democrats more in an anti-incumbent, anti-GOP environment than a deeply unpopular president parachuting into competitive districts to rant about gilded ballrooms and golf courses before declaring affordability a hoax? Democrats will beg for Trump to show his toxic face anywhere near swingable voters.

Remember, Trump’s own pollster admits that his client will “do what he wants to do, say what he wants to say, not be data driven.” Which competitive district will that help?

So yes, things are tough for Republicans, and the man they insist is their savior is the very weight dragging them under.

Couldn’t happen to a worse bunch.

Markos Moulitsas is founder and editor of the blogging website Daily Kos and author of three books.

Reprinted with permission from Daily KosReprinted with permission from Daily Kos


What Bad Bunny's Halftime Show Told Us About Latino Voters And Trump

What Bad Bunny's Halftime Show Told Us About Latino Voters And Trump

Latino culture is deeply steeped in the very values that conservative America claims to revere—faith, family, and tradition.

The church remains a central institution in many Latino communities, not just as a place of worship but as a social and moral anchor. It is where people gather, organize, grieve, celebrate, and find meaning.

Family is not an abstraction but a lived reality, with multigenerational households, deep obligations to parents and grandparents, and a cultural expectation that family comes before individual ambition or self-actualization.

Traditional gender roles are still present, shaped by long-standing cultural norms rather than academic theory or political fashion. There is a reason Latinos overwhelmingly rejected the “latinx” nonsense and are now rejecting the latest attempt to de-gender the language with “latine.”

These are not marginal or exotic values. They are the same ones conservatives endlessly invoke when talking about “real America,” only to dismiss or sneer at them when they exist in immigrant communities.

Despite his very overt racism and bigotry, President Donald Trump won a shocking 46 percent of the Latino vote in 2024, according to exit polls. Economics played a role, with desperate voters buying into Trump’s absurd promise of “lower prices on day one.”

But plenty of Americans faced economic hardship without resorting to backing Trump. Too many Latinos felt able to do so because, despite Trump’s open racism, there was cultural alignment—an assumption that his bigotry was aimed elsewhere, at other communities, and not at them.

To understand that alignment, just look at Bad Bunny’s Super Bowl halftime show, perhaps the most succinct and accurate depiction of Latino culture ever broadcast on an American stage.

It opens with workers harvesting sugarcane. Latinos are nothing if not hard workers—forming the backbone of American construction, agriculture, hospitality, and service industries—which conservatives claim to love.

The show then rolls through countless expressions of small-business entrepreneurship: the coconut stand, the shaved ice cart, the nail salon, the jewelry table, the taqueria, the bodega, stacks of concrete blocks waiting to become something permanent. This is the original hustle culture.

The show is saturated with multigenerational family. Abuelitas and abuelitos are everywhere—present, visible, respected. When, exactly, was the last time grandparents featured so prominently in a halftime show? Have they even been featured at all? Probably not.

The imagery is unapologetically masculine: boxers training, men working, men leading women in partnered dancing. It is also unapologetically, traditionally feminine—dresses, curves, sensuality—precisely the aesthetic the tradwife crowd claims to demand. Yet women are not sexualized ornamental props. They are mothers, brides, shopkeepers, workers, and entrepreneurs, grounded in family and community.

Yes, there was a gay couple dancing—for a split second—amid an endless sea of opposite-sex couples dancing, socializing, raising children, and getting married. As Caroline Sunshine, Trump’s 2024 deputy communications director put it:

My partner texted me after the show, “this is the most heterosexual, traditionally gendered thing I’ve seen in ages.” She wasn’t wrong.

Children are everywhere, zigging and zagging across dance floors, homes, and restaurants, because Latinos are pro-children even after they’re born—something conservatives bizarrely forget once abortion is off the table. The scene where Bad Bunny wakes up a kid at a wedding landed hard because it was instantly recognizable. Latino parents take their kids everywhere. Kids don’t get left behind so adults can party, kids are part of the party.

And while Bad Bunny drew attention for giving his Grammy to a younger version of himself, what resonated even more to me was the moment after dancing with Lady Gaga when he turns and twirls a young girl as well. Our children are not accessories. They are central characters in our lives.

Even the queer performers—Ricky Martin, Lady Gaga, and others—were not positioned as transgressive or radical. They simply occupied their place within the broader cultural framework. They belonged. They were part of the family.

Where Latinos fundamentally break from American conservatism is joy.

Joy is not a byproduct of success in Latino culture. Unlike cultures that treat professional status or financial achievement as prerequisites for a meaningful life, Latino culture has long defined success more relationally than materially. To our occasional economic detriment, joy is not deferred until we have the house or the fancy car. It has nothing to do with bank balances. Joy is integrated into daily life and shared whether or not circumstances cooperate.

That joy is not abstract or intellectual. It is physical. It lives in the body. It shows up in dancing that starts early and never really stops—children learning complex salsa steps, being twirled by grandparents right alongside them. Movement is not performance; it is participation. Joy is learned somatically, taught through rhythm, proximity, and repetition, embedded before it can ever be articulated.

It is further expressed through touch. Hugs are long and frequent. If you want to leave a gathering, best announce it 30 minutes before you actually leave, because you’re going to get multiple rounds of hugs and kisses around the room before you are allowed to leave. Affection is public and unembarrassed. Look at Bad Bunny greeting Martin:

Music is the vessel that carries all of this. Latino music is not merely entertainment—it is memory, history, grief, celebration, and connection layered into sound. It is how joy is shared within families and exported to the world. The entire energy of a room can change the second a Celia Cruz song or Rubby Pérez’s “El Africano” hits the rotation, landing just as hard with elders as with children. It truly is something to behold.

Songs become communal property, passed down, danced to, sung together, and remade—over and over again—in new styles for new generations. They form shared connective tissue across time.

You did not need to speak Spanish to feel any of that radiating from that stage. The music, the movement, the intimacy were the message. Joy was not a reward for success, but a way of living, collective, embodied, and freely offered to anyone willing to feel it. Even many MAGA conservatives begrudgingly admitted it spoke to them.

Conservatism, by contrast, is dour, punitive, and obsessed with control. It treats pleasure with suspicion, happiness as frivolous, and celebration as weakness. Trump is venerated for being a billionaire—despite inheriting his wealth—and then sneers at the wounded and dead as “losers,” openly telling his followers, “I don’t care about you, I just want your vote.”

And have you ever seen Trump laugh? It’s rare enough to see him simply smile.

Where Latino culture says life is hard so we dance anyway, modern MAGA conservatism insists life is hard so everyone else should suffer too. The joy on that halftime stage was not accidental. It was defiant. And it was deeply incompatible with the grievance-soaked worldview that now defines the American right.

Markos Moulitsas is founder and editor of the blogging website Daily Kos and author of three books.

Reprinted with permission from Daily Kos

Texas Gerrymander In Peril As Special Election Shows Latinos Fleeing GOP

Texas Gerrymander In Peril As Special Election Shows Latinos Fleeing GOP

This past Saturday, an under-the-radar special election for a Texas state Senate seat rocked the political world. The Democratic candidate, Taylor Rehmet, won by 14 percentage points in a district that went for President Donald Trump by 17 points in 2024.

Republicans immediately tried to spin the result, arguing that low turnout made it meaningless. That argument collapses under even minimal scrutiny. More than half of the electorate that showed up was Republican.

This formatting makes the results even more striking:

Voter partisanship:

  • Republican: 51%
  • Democrat: 35%

Results:

  • Republican: 43%
  • Democrat: 57%

The results are extra amazing given that Republicans spent over $2.4 million on the race, while Democrats spent less than $250,000.

Number crunchers are still parsing the data, and it’s wondrous to behold. Particularly noteworthy is the unmistakable fury of the Latino electorate, which foolishly swung hard toward Trump in 2024, giving him 48% of their vote despite the president’s history of bigotry and disrespect toward them.

That support has collapsed.

In this special election, Latino voters backed the Democratic candidate by an astonishing margin, 85 percent to 15 percent, according to VoteHub. This is the political cost of an administration that has chosen xenophobia and cruelty as governing tools, unleashing a campaign of intimidation and violence against immigrant communities and assuming those voters would tolerate it.

This pattern should look familiar. After Democrats stunned observers by flipping the Miami mayoral race this past December—winning it for the first time in nearly 30 years—the common thread was an enraged Latino electorate. At the time, polling suggested Latino voters were moving sharply away from the GOP, but Miami proved it.

"When Cubans in Miami are shifting the same direction as Puerto Ricans and Dominicans in NYC, something significant is happening,” tweeted Latino GOP consultant Mike Madrid after the Miami results.

You can now add Mexicans in Texas to that list.

After Democrats’ strong off-year results in November, election analyst Nate Gonzales examined whether Democrats could overcome Texas’ aggressive GOP gerrymander, which was designed to net Republicans five additional seats. Using what he described as Democrats’ “best-case scenario” based on historical voting patterns, he concluded that the party “would be able to hold three of the seats Republicans targeted with the new map, and flip two other putatively GOP seats—but they would still lose two currently Democratic-held seats (the 9th and 32nd), so the net result would be no gains for either side.” He floated a single net pickup for Democrats as a theoretical possibility but described it as “slim.”

Even a net-zero outcome in Texas would be a win since Democrats are all but guaranteed five new seats in California. That alone would represent a staggering miscalculation by Trump, who launched a redistricting war assuming Democrats would simply absorb the damage.

But Gonzales’ “best case for Democrats” analysis hinged on the idea of Latino voters reverting ro the level of support they showed Democrat Hillary Clinton in 2016, when she won 66 percent of the Latino vote.

This election blew past that.

When 85 percent of Latinos are voting Democratic, and when even some Republican voters are crossing over, the math changes fast. Suddenly, nothing is off the table this November—not just House seats but also statewide races as well, including the governorship and the Senate.

What happened in Texas on Saturday wasn’t a fluke. It was a warning. And the more data that comes in, the clearer it gets: Republicans are in real trouble, and they did it to themselves.

Markos Moulitsas is founder and editor of the blogging website Daily Kos and author of three books.

Reprinted with permission from Daily Kos

Soft TACO: Whiny, Insulting, And Incoherent, Trump Retreats In Davos

Soft TACO: Whiny, Insulting, And Incoherent, Trump Retreats In Davos

Wall Street has a term for President Donald Trump’s habit of making loud threats and then backing down: TACO, short for “Trump Always Chickens Out.” And on Wednesday, he did just that.

After delivering a wildly incoherent speech at the World Economic Forum in Davos, Switzerland, Trump abruptly caved on his Greenland nonsense—along with the tariffs he threatened to impose on Europe for refusing to bend to his will.

“Based upon a very productive meeting that I have had with the Secretary General of NATO, Mark Rutte, we have formed the framework of a future deal with respect to Greenland and, in fact, the entire Arctic Region,” he wrote on Truth Social. “This solution, if consummated, will be a great one for the United States of America, and all NATO Nations. Based upon this understanding, I will not be imposing the Tariffs that were scheduled to go into effect on February 1st.”

Ah yes, a concept of a deal.

“Additional discussions are being held concerning The Golden Dome as it pertains to Greenland,” he added.

The thing is, the United States already has a deal with Denmark to host U.S. military bases, as well as an agreement covering Trump’s stupid Golden Dome missile shield—which will likely suffer the same fate as former President Ronald Reagan’s vaporware Star Wars missile shield.

In other words, Trump has once again backed down from threats on which he couldn’t follow through—but only after causing chaos, sowing turmoil, and further damaging relationships with our closest allies.

He then tried to declare victory for a “deal” that does not exist and—even if it did—would amount to little more than what’s already in place.

Saner heads may have prevailed this time, and there’s some relief in that. But only after Trump made a fool of himself and our nation on the world stage—which his propaganda mouthpiece tried to deny.

How many more of these self-inflicted wounds can this country take?

Reprinted with permission from Daily Kos

Hey! 'Liberal' Is No Longer A Four-Letter Word As Democrats Surge

Hey! 'Liberal' Is No Longer A Four-Letter Word As Democrats Surge

It’s a tale as old as politics itself: The party out of power gains support as frustration with the party in power mounts. Under an administration as chaotic, incompetent, and cruel as Trump’s, those dynamics are supercharged.

A major new Gallup survey finds dramatic gains for Democrats—and for the word “liberal,” a label that’s been demonized for decades.

The topline result is familiar: Americans who identify as “independent” continue to outnumber those who call themselves Democrats or Republicans. As has long been the case, though, that distinction is mostly meaningless. The number of true independents—people who don’t lean toward either party—is small (just 10%, according to Gallup), and they tend to be the least politically engaged.

Once Gallup asks those independents which party they lean toward, the story snaps into focus. Democrats and Democratic-leaning independents now outnumber Republicans and Republican-leaners by 5 percentage points, 47% to 42%. A year ago, Republicans held a narrow edge, 46% to 45%.

..


That alone is striking, but it still understates the scale of the shift.

As Gallup notes, Republicans held a 4-point advantage in party affiliation in the fourth quarter of 2024, during the final days of the presidential campaign and much of Trump’s transition. But that lead vanished in the first quarter of 2025. By the second quarter, Democrats had pulled ahead by 3 points. That advantage grew to 7 points in the third quarter and 8 points in the fourth.


Yup, Democrats are approaching a double-digit lead in party affiliation.

At the same time, something else important is happening. Despite the rise in people calling themselves independents, fewer Americans are identifying as “moderate.” Instead, more people are comfortable calling themselves liberal.

In 1996, at the low point for the label, just 16% of Americans identified as liberal. Today, that number stands at 28%. Meanwhile, the share of Americans identifying as conservative—generally stuck in the high 30s to low 40s for decades—has slipped to 35%.

Among self-identified Democrats, the shift is even more dramatic. A record 59% now identify as liberal. Republicans, for their part, have aggressively purged moderates from their coalition, with conservatives now dominating their party by a lopsided 77% to 20%.

Gallup’s conclusion is straightforward. Negative evaluations of a president’s performance tend to push a subset of voters—especially independents with weaker partisan attachments—toward the opposition party.

“This dynamic has led to frequent changes in the party power structure in Washington in recent federal election cycles, with the incumbent president’s party losing control of the presidency or one house of Congress in each of the past six presidential or midterm elections,” Gallup says.

As CNN data analyst Harry Enten notes, the Democratic advantage is even larger than during the massive blue wave of 2018:


It’s going to be amazing when we clean house this November.

Markos Moulitsas is founder and editor of the blogging website Daily Kos and author of three books.

Reprinted with permission from Daily Kos

Abolish ICE? Surveys Show Americans Are Souring On Trump's Rogue Cops

Abolish ICE? Surveys Show Americans Are Souring On Trump's Rogue Cops

For years, calls from liberals to abolish Immigration and Customs Enforcement were political poison. Much like “defund the police,” the slogan polled terribly, weighed down by a widespread belief that ICE existed to identify and deport dangerous criminals.

Republicans leaned hard into that framing, warning that dismantling the agency would mean allowing violent offenders to roam free. Even as President Donald Trump escalated his rhetoric toward “mass deportations,” most Americans continued to assume that enforcement would focus on serious crimes, not ordinary immigrants and certainly not U.S. citizens.

That assumption is collapsing.

A growing body of evidence suggests that Americans are no longer evaluating ICE as an abstract law-enforcement agency but instead as a visible, often brutal presence in everyday life. This hit an inflection point last Wednesday, when an ICE agent fatally shot Renee Good, an unarmed 37-year-old mother. Her outrageous killing landed amid a deluge of viral videos and firsthand accounts of other ICE abuses, reshaping public opinion quickly and profoundly.

Those numbers reflect more than vague discontent. Majorities believe ICE routinely harms innocent people. Sixty percent say ICE at least sometimes arrests American citizens who have committed no crimes, and 51 percent believe the agency deports innocent citizens at least sometimes. While some respondents may not be parsing the legal distinction between citizens and noncitizens, the broader conclusion is unmistakable: Americans believe ICE is sweeping up people who do not deserve to be targeted at all.

Concerns about the agency’s conduct extend even further. Forty-two percent of Americans say ICE uses unnecessary force “often,” and another 18 percent say it does so “sometimes.” Nearly seven in 10 believe agents should be required to wear uniforms while making arrests, and a majority (55 percent) oppose officers hiding their identities behind masks. And when it comes to people killed by ICE agents or who died in the agency’s custody, 56% agree that those deaths “show that there is a fundamental problem with ICE that needs to be fixed.

ICE is now the least popular of nine federal agencies tested and the only one with net-negative favorability, according to a new YouGov survey that entered the field two days after Good’s killing. Just 40 percent of Americans have a favorable view of the agency, while 51 percent view it unfavorably. Intensity matters here: Only a quarter feels very favorable toward ICE, while 40 percent feel very unfavorably about it.

Overall, support for protests against the agency outweighs opposition, 49 percent to 41 percent.

Perhaps most striking is how far public opinion has moved toward accountability. By a lopsided margin, Americans say ICE needs stricter recruitment standards. Almost 60 percent support criminal prosecution for ICE agents who kill someone, and there is even modest support for shrinking the agency’s overall size. These are not fringe positions. They are mainstream judgments about an institution many Americans once barely thought about at all.

The one line that still has not been crossed, though, is abolition itself. YouGov finds the public’s opposition (45%) to eliminating ICE narrowly exceeds support (42%).

But even that resistance is eroding rapidly. Shortly before the 2024 presidential election, when Trump’s dehumanizing attacks on immigrants dominated the news, support for ICE peaked, with just 19 percent of registered voters favoring abolition and 66 percent opposed, according to data from Civiqs. As of this past Thursday—the newest data—42 percent support abolishing the agency and 50 percent oppose it, representing a seismic shift in public opinion.


Reprinted with permission from Daily Kos


Sorry Mr. President, But The Affordability Crisis Isn't A 'Hoax'

Sorry Mr. President, But The Affordability Crisis Isn't A 'Hoax'

It was yet another performance that left us wondering about President Donald Trump’s failing mental faculties. Speaking to supporters at a rally in Mount Pocono, Pennsylvania last week, Trump was typically unhinged.

And we have two price charts. Do you remember the last time I pointed to a chart? I don't care what these charts say. My all-time favorite chart was the chart I had in Butler. I said, "Let's look at the chart." I don't care how good that chart looks, it's shit by comparison to the one in… It's nothing. I like the Butler chart. Remember that was on how great employment was and all this, but I like it for other reasons. Look at that chart. It's good. But now that I talk about the Butler chart, I don't even want to look at it, doesn't mean anything. But look, Biden price increases and Trump price increases. Look at Biden. Up 37, 24%, 22, 21, 30.7, 30.7 again, 10.4%, 49%. Trump, the price is down 5.1, 4.2, 0.5, down 4%, 2.9. Look at that. Our prices are coming down. Their prices, it's a hoax. They're just … Remember they said the Inflation Reduction Act, remember that? Billions and billions, hundreds of billions of dollars, the inflation, and after they got it approved, because we had a few Republicans that went along with that whole hoax.

If there was a coherent thought buried in all that gibberish, he later tried to summarize it this way: “Prices are coming down very substantially. But they have a new word. They always have a hoax. The new word is affordability.”

He can call it a hoax all he wants, but Trump and his team know affordability is a real problem. That’s why he’s suddenly trying to co-opt the term, like a cringe Truth Social post declaring himself “THE AFFORDABILITY PRESIDENT.” It’s also why his team has sent him out on what it’s calling an “affordability tour,” which is how he ended up in Mount Pocono at the Mount Airy Casino Resort. The largest ballroom there holds about 1,200 people—a telling choice by a campaign clearly afraid of empty seats at a sizable venue.

What should worry Republicans is not just the optics, but the substance. A rally supposedly designed to counter Democratic attacks on affordability instead showcased Trump creating an entire alternate reality.

“We’re getting inflation,” he said. “We’re crushing it, and you’re getting much higher wages. I mean, the only thing that’s really going up big, it’s called the stock market and your 401(k)s that’s going up.”

That line should sound familiar, because Democrats already tried it—and paid the price. President Joe Biden and Vice President Kamala Harris spent much of the 2024 campaign insisting the economy was strong, that inflation was cooling, that wages were up, and that voters simply didn’t understand how good things really were.

Voters didn’t buy it. Telling people they’re wrong about their own financial stress is a losing message, no matter which party delivers it.

Trump is now making the exact same mistake, only he’s louder and more detached from the lives of the people he claims to be fighting for. Instead of acknowledging the pain people are actually feeling, he reached for a familiar crutch: bragging about the stock market, as if that is supposed to mean something to an audience in Appalachia or to anyone struggling to pay rent or buy groceries.

And he couldn’t stop.

“The stock market has set 51, this is in less than 10 months,” Trump said. “The stock market has set 51 all-time record highs. There’s never been anything like that. Bum, bum, bum, bum, bum, bum.” He repeated the claim again for good measure.

Then came a reprise of the “let them eat cake” routine he’s been workshopping for a while. After bizarrely claiming that without his tariffs “you would have no steel,” Trump explained that Americans should simply do without other consumer goods.

“You can give up certain products. You can give up pencils because under the China policy, every child can get 37 pencils. They only need one or two,” he said. “You don’t need 37 dolls for your daughter. Two or three is nice, but you don’t need 37 dolls.”

It’s remarkable watching so many cultish conservatives swing from “Don’t tread on me” to “Please daddy Trump, tell me how many dolls my daughter can have.” For the broader electorate, though, this message is political poison.

Why Miami Is Now The Bellwether Of Anti-Trump Backlash (Latino Division)

Why Miami Is Now The Bellwether Of Anti-Trump Backlash (Latino Division)

Eileen Higgins wasn’t simply elected Miami’s first woman mayor on Tuesday: She will also be the first Democrat to hold the office since 1997, ending a nearly 30-year drought for the party. Higgins beat former city manager Emilio Gonzalez, her Donald Trump-backed opponent, by almost 20 points, 59-41.

It’s the kind of massive Democratic overperformance we’re seeing everywhere, and it’s a shot of energy for the city of Miami and Florida’s long-demoralized Democratic community.

Two major forces contributed to the dramatic Democratic victory, and both should terrify an already skittish Republican Party heading into 2026’s midterm elections.

Voter turnout for Miami’s mayoral races is always low, and for decades that played directly into Republican hands. Miami’s voter registration leans Democratic, but core GOP constituencies—especially the politically dominant Cuban community—have been masters of showing up. Venezuelan and Nicaraguan immigrants, animated by relentless Republican messaging that painted Democrats as “communists,” also became reliable GOP blocs.

And the system itself helped. Elections are held in off-years, with runoffs landing deep into the holiday season. The Republican-Cuban machine loved that setup. In 2021, Republicans won the mayoralty 79-12 with fewer than 25,000 votes cast despite a population of 442,000, per 2020 census stats.

This time, turnout was still anemic—just 36,000 ballots cast in a city of half a million—but something remarkable happened: Even in an election environment tailor-made to benefit Republicans, their vote collapsed. The GOP candidate’s vote total fell from 21,485 in 2021 to just 7,258 on Tuesday, despite the loud backing of both Trump and Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis. Republicans simply failed to get their voters to the polls, while Democrats turned theirs out. That alone is a recipe for more upsets in 2026.

But what if Republicans did turn out—and their votes flipped?

Higgins ran hard on Trump’s ongoing ICE raids and on DeSantis’ embrace of that cruelty, including his grotesque Alligator Alcatraz detention center.

“We are facing rhetoric from elected officials that is so dehumanizing and cruel, especially against immigrant populations,” Higgins told the Associated Press after her victory. “The residents of Miami were ready to be done with that.”

Miami voters certainly were, and it doesn’t look like a case of base turnout. All indications are that Republican voters flipped.

“If you thought the raw percentages looked bad for Republicans, this map is even more alarming,” tweeted Miami-based data scientist Raidel Nabut. “In the Miami mayoral race, Democrats erased the GOP’s gains from last year in Shenandoah, The Roads, and parts of Little Havana. Cuban precincts shifted 15–20 points to the left and Republicans were crushed in Anglo areas like Coconut Grove.”

Little Havana has long been a fortress of Cuban American Republicanism, rooted in decades of preferential immigration treatment and hardened by Cold War-era grievances. That preferential treatment ended in 2017 under President Barack Obama, yet Cuban immigrants still benefited from the Biden administration’s Humanitarian Parole Program for Cubans, Venezuelans, and Nicaraguans.

None of that Biden-era goodwill mattered in 2024, when all three groups voted heavily for Trump. He thanked them by ending the parole program and launching deportations of all three communities (see here, here, and here). Cubans, long accustomed to special treatment from the U.S. government, took particular offense.

Buyer’s remorse quickly followed. A May poll from Florida International University found deep discontent among the Sunshine State’s Venezuelan diaspora.

“[O]f the Venezuelans who voted for Trump in November—often referred to as MAGAzuelans—half in the FIU survey now say they regret or have mixed feelings about their choice,” reported WLRN. “Almost 40 percent of them said they will in the future vote for either a Democratic, independent or non-MAGA candidate.”

Many seemed embarrassed by their original vote. Only 32 percent of Venezuelan respondents who voted in November admitted they voted for Trump, despite his 61 percent showing in Doral. More than one-fifth refused to say whom they supported.

A July Suffolk University survey found broad Latino discontent as well. A majority of respondents—52 percent of whom identified as Hispanic or Latino—opposed Trump’s immigration policies. Sixty-one percent said ICE raids had gone too far. Fifty-nine percent opposed the termination of Temporary Protected Status for Haitians. And 52 percent said deportations of Venezuelans, Cubans, and Argentinians made them less likely to support Trump going forward.

And now we have an actual election showing a dramatic 15- to 20-point shift toward Democrats, less than a year into Trump’s presidency. With the economy wobbling, mass deportations underway, and Trump’s overall toxicity deepening, Republicans are staring at a worsening trajectory.

Amazingly, Higgins will be the first non-Latino elected mayor since 1993. She ran against a Latino who backed Trump’s MAGA agenda, and she won on the strength of the Latino vote. It’s absolute poetry.

But Trump doesn’t give a crap. He’s not on the ballot again, and the only reason he cares about Republicans at all is because they can help carry out his agenda in Congress and in state governments.

His racism is his prime directive, and he’ll act on it even if it punishes the very communities that foolishly backed him. And the rest of his party, perfectly happy to ride his coattails for years, will now face the consequences of tying themselves to his bigotry.

“When Cubans in Miami are shifting the same direction as Puerto Ricans and Dominicans in NYC, something significant is happening,” noted Latino GOP consultant Mike Madrid in a tweet on X.

He wrapped it up nicely: “Turns out Latinos are monolithic—they’re monolithically anti-Trump.”

Reprinted with permission from Daily Kos

Zohran Mamdani

Mamdani Won Big -- So Why Aren't The Wealthy Fleeing New York City?

One of the silliest preelection narratives around the New York City mayoral race was the supposed fear that a victory by democratic socialist Zohran Mamdani would spark an exodus of the city’s wealthy elite.

Billionaire investor and all-around Trumpian asshole Bill Ackman was typical of the lot, crying on X this past summer that both businesses and wealthy people had “already started making arrangements for the exits.” Barstool Sports founder Dave Portnoy, another obnoxious MAGA bro, claimed he might move his company out of New York “because I hate the guy.” His grand plan? Move to New Jersey. Equally high-tax, equally liberal. So … yeah.

Grocery mogul John Catsimatidis, who runs the Gristedes and D’Agostino Supermarkets chains, also threatened a move to New Jersey.

“We may consider closing our supermarkets and selling the business,” the 76-year-old entrepreneur told The Free Press. “We have other businesses. Thank God, we have other businesses.”

And it wasn’t just right-wingers. NewYork’s Democratic Gov. Kathy Hochul fretted about a potential Mamdani win because “I don’t want to lose any more people to Palm Beach. We’ve lost enough.”

Experts have been rolling their eyes at these threats all along.

“There is tax-induced mobility. It’s not non-existent but it’s very small,” Quentin Parinello, a tax expert, told ABC News.In major cities like New York, people value the arts, business opportunities, and the ability to hire talent. ABC’s reporting includes several researchers making the same point: While the wealthy love to complain and posture, they rarely follow through.

“Movement of rich people on the basis of tax differentials is relatively small,” said Northwestern University professor Jeffrey Winters. “It’s very common for them to threaten to move. The risk is grossly overstated.”

Think of everyone who said they’d move to Canada if Donald Trump won the presidential race. Talking is always easier than acting.

Still, the New York Post—being the right-wing tabloid it is—keeps trying to manifest this fantasy.

“‘Mamdani effect’: Miami realtors report 166% spike in inquiries from wealthy NYC residents,” blared a recent headline. But even the story immediately contradicts itself: “Manhattan luxury contracts actually jumped 25% in November… a surge some brokers said shows ‘there is no Mamdani effect.’” The only sources in the Post story claiming otherwise are Miami real estate agents who make money convincing New Yorkers to relocate.

And since the Post didn’t bother providing raw numbers, that “166% spike” could literally mean inquiries went from three to eight. A phone call isn’t a move. Honestly, the number is almost certainly made up.As for real numbers?

“Sales of luxury homes in Manhattan jumped in November, countering fears that the election of Zohran Mamdani as mayor would drive out wealthy residents,” Bloomberg reported. Buyers signed contracts on 176 homes priced at $4 million or more, up 25 percent from the month prior. These included condos purchased for around $24 million each. Not exactly a market in retreat.

There’s an even more telling statistic: Luxury housing inventory is down.

“Inventory actually fell 16 percent in the luxury market from October 2024 to October 2025, indicating that there is no flood of New Yorkers selling their homes and leaving town,” reported USA Today. If the wealthy were running for the exits, inventory would be skyrocketing. Instead, it’s tightening.

Of course no one likes paying higher taxes. Even those of us who believe in a functional government don’t enjoy writing the check every year—we just see it as the cost of a society that works. So it’s natural for wealthy New Yorkers to gripe about an extra two percent tax on incomes over $1 million (which likely won’t happen anyway; Albany leaders seem uninterested in backing Mamdani’s campaign proposal).

But the reality is that New York City’s wealthy residents get a lot for what they pay. Another Bloomberg story features David Bahnsen, a Republican wealth manager who sits on the board of the conservative National Review. He despises the city’s liberal politics, calling them “contemptible.” And while he frets about potential tax increases, he isn’t going anywhere.Bahnsen openly acknowledges that New York gives him advantages he can’t get anywhere else—the clients, the talent, the nonstop drive of the place. What really hooks him, he says, is “the energy of the city, the ambition.” That spark doesn’t exist in the low-tax red-state enclaves conservatives claim are paradise. Certainly not in Florida.

And he’s not just staying—he’s thriving: morning jogs in Central Park, Broadway shows, dining out every night, walking 40,000 steps on a typical weekend, even working out of offices that are steps from the Museum of Modern Art. Sounds pretty good, actually.

And that’s really the dynamic at play: The wealthy stay because New York gives them a lifestyle they can’t replicate anywhere else. The city’s appeal isn’t just the museums, the theater, the restaurants, or the talent pool—though all of that matters. It’s the density of opportunity. It’s being in a place where the most ambitious people in the world cross paths every single day. Deals get made over coffee because everyone who is anyone is already there. Entire industries cluster on the same few blocks. For people with the freedom and means to take advantage of all that, the cost of living is simply baked into the price of admission.

For them, the taxes aren’t a deterrent because New York City delivers something tangible in return: world-class public amenities, a creative and economic ecosystem unmatched anywhere in the country, and an energy that makes even the most stubborn conservative wealth manager admit the city is worth it. As Bahnsen said—perhaps after skimming another anti-tax screed in the magazine he bankrolls—Central Park alone is “worth the cost of living in the city.”

And he’s right. Where else can you step out of a skyscraper, walk a few blocks, and be surrounded by 843 acres of urban wilderness, all maintained and accessible because New Yorkers collectively pay for it? And nothing Mamdani has proposed threatens any of that.But New York City’s price of admission isn’t the same for everyone. The amenities, energy, and opportunity that make New York irresistible to the wealthy don’t trickle down—they get walled off by the city’s staggering cost of housing, child care, transit, and daily life. If you can’t buy your way into the version of the Big Apple that’s thriving, you get squeezed into the version that isn’t. And eventually, you get pushed out entirely.

Northwestern University professor Winters highlights that point.

“We are worried about the outflow of the very wealthiest people… when in fact the biggest outflow of people is among those who can’t afford even the basics of staying there,” he warned.

The rich aren’t fleeing Mamdani’s New York. But the working class and the struggling middle class? They’ve been leaving for years because the price of admission keeps rising while their access to the city’s prosperity keeps shrinking.

That is the energy Mamdani tapped into. That’s what led to his resounding victory.

And that is New York City’s real challenge in the years ahead.

Is This Victory? Tennessee Special Outcome Portends GOP Midterm Doom

Is This Victory? Tennessee Special Outcome Portends GOP Midterm Doom

How do you win an election, yet still lose the night?

While votes are still being counted, Republicans have held on to their House seat in Tennessee’s 7th Congressional District by a ridiculously slim margin—single digits. This is a district Donald Trump carried 60–38 in 2024.

The result isn’t just surprising. It’s ominous.

This race was never about flipping the seat. That remained the longest of long shots. What mattered was the margin. Republicans needed a comfortable win to project strength and momentum heading into next year’s midterms. A mid-teens result would’ve been a flashing yellow light. A Democratic victory would’ve signaled an outright political cataclysm. That didn’t happen, but a single-digit result is something far more threatening. It’s full-throttle "DANGER DANGER Will Robinson!" territory.

While the final tally isn’t yet locked in, Democrats appear to have outperformed Trump’s 2024 margin by roughly 15 points. A swing of that magnitude puts a bullseye on dozens of Republican seats long considered safe in any normal political climate.

But these aren’t normal times.

A shift this large doesn’t just jeopardize the Republican House majority. It puts the U.S. Senate back in play and casts serious doubt on any remaining GOP redistricting ambitions in states like Indiana and Florida. No Republican incumbent—no matter how safe—will want to dilute their partisan advantage with numbers like these hanging overhead. Texas Republicans should be praying that the Supreme Court steps in and tosses out their maps for them.

There’s no sugarcoating what this means. Vulnerable Republican incumbents have already been tiptoeing away from Trump, and that instinct will only intensify. It’s no coincidence he didn’t physically campaign in this district. Polling showed him underwater—47–49%—in a place that should be a fortress of red support.

Buckle up.

The next few months are going to get very interesting, especially if angry and demoralized Republicans start heading for the exits early, as one anonymous senior House Republican recently predicted would happen.

Reprinted with permission from Daily Kos