You are probably correct. But I thought the Governor’s race might be in play too. No?
In play? Sure. But very doubtful.
Agree. Hell, the very own Republicans in TX tried and failed to remove Paxton and are currently reduced to virtue signaling about a candidate for Rail Commissioner or something like that.
Abbott is favorited but Democrats have a legitimate shot. Maybe 1 in 3. Not impossible Democrats sweep the statewide races.
At your service
Turn out at our polling place is very high so far. More than a normal election day’s votes by noon.
Though Booker looks to be re-elected by a lot in NJ.
I took some heat in (I think) this thread for saying I wouldn’t vote for Josh Turek if I lived in Iowa because he’s a transphobic extremist. “Vote blue no matter who” and all that.
Well, Turek just confirmed that he voted for multiple Republicans when he filled out his ballot this morning, so let me reiterate: Fuck that guy.
Smart strategy in a red state. Inshallah he wins and then can use perception as an independent guy to be pretty close to the Dem mainstream on a lot of issues a la Jon Tester.
Don’t recall Jon Tester ever bragging about voting for Republicans.
You know when voted the other day, in suburban Cook, there were many votes to cast that only had a Democratic candidate running. A Republican voting there could leave it blank or vote D.
Him bragging that he voted R when for some items R was the only choice, yeah it is smart politics there.
I get your concern about him. Let’s hope his actual actions reassure after he (hopefully from my POV) wins.
As I said before, if there is only a Republican candidate for the office I don’t vote.
Yeah. I probably wouldn’t either. But if I was a Democratic politician in Iowa wanting to convince my voters that I was an independent minded person … I’d vote R for water reclamation or what have you.
He doesn’t have to actually vote for Rs. Just say he did (presuming it’s good strategy).
I just saw something that Iowa looks to be flipping.
South Carolina is looking interesting for Dems too.
(Is this the place where people are taking about returns?) I’m with my mom in the ER tonight and haven’t been able to do much looking around for a discussion)
You want this thread. Warning, it’s very busy as you’d imagine.
A snippet from an interview a little while back with Abdul El-Sayed that made me recall why I like him so much, and think he might be a special political talent:
But there’s also something about truth to pain. We talk a lot about truth to power, but I think it’s actually a lot harder to speak truth to pain. I say that as someone who went to medical school, realizing that in a lot of our politics right now, we’ve got to get a lot better at speaking truth to pain if we’re going to get through some of these challenges that we have.
What does “truth to pain” mean?
It’s one thing to look power in the eye and say: You’re wrong about this. But there’s a way in which pain is very difficult to reason with. Because when somebody is in their pain, they’re in their trauma. They see that pain, and they may not see what’s causing it.
I remember just very explicitly being in a trauma ward with a gunshot wound patient and watching this big guy with his hand on his gunshot wound. All the folks are trying to pull his hand off his pain, that point of his gunshot wound, this clear vulnerability.
And this emergency room doctor had the presence of mind to be like: Everyone, stop. And she looks him in the eyes, and she’s like: I get that really hurts, and I’m so sorry that you’re here. You don’t want to be here. We don’t want you to be here. But if you don’t let us fix this, you could die. So I’m going to take your hand, and I’m going to move it off, OK? Because I need to get there so that you can live.
She was speaking truth to pain. He understands he’s at the hospital, he needs care, but he also doesn’t want anybody to touch the wound. Which is a natural thing. And I think it is a really great metaphor for how we think about a lot of these challenges we talked about today.
What are the implications of the Texas breakthrough for Presidential elections in the future ? Will Texas become genuinely competitive and how will that change the electoral map ?
My hunch is that Texas might become the new Florida, Democrats will become genuinely competitive and might even win when they win big elsewhere but in a close election when it really matters it probably won’t deliver for them.
Meanwhile Florida has been for years steadily trending towards becoming the new Texas. If both of those trends hold (always a big if), that’s a net gain for the Democrats.
Quite a bit of a whiff here. Senator, Gov., Lt Gov., State Supremes, etc, etc. all go D.
I wouldn’t have done much better.
And AES is giving a victory speech right now at 1:31am in Detroit. So there’s that.