And on cue, Trump blasts Sessions, at least a little bit, on Twitter this morning.
https://twitter.com/realDonaldTrump/...81043881299969
Why are you wasting time here when you could be wasting it by listening to the latest episode of the DBR Podcast?
This isn't congressional, but maybe it can be used for some local election discussion as well?
Just thought it was interesting (and maybe historic?) that the Durham County Board of Commissioners is now 100% female. Looking at the existing construction, it was already 80% female (4 women, 1 man) so maybe it has happened before and isn't a surprise but I just thought it was interesting/a tad surprising.
It also feels really weird that of the 5 elected the highest % of votes received was 15% (with 2 others receiving 13% and the remaining 2 receiving 12%). Feels like a really ineffective way to fill a board that represents the will of most people in the county, but maybe that's the best way. Is this a place where ranked voting would be really useful (with 15 candidates vying for 5 spots in a race)? It also seems like a race where a lot of voters are going to be thoroughly uninformed.
have we noted that Steve Bullock is reversing course and now is preparing to run for the Senate from Montana? No small thing, this.
PPP has new polls in some key senate races. The news for GOP incumbents is not good.
The Democratic pollster has Sara Gideon leading Susan Collins 47-43 in Maine, Mark Kelly leading Martha McSally 47-42 in Arizona, Cal Cunninham ahead of Thom Tillis in NC by 46-41, and John Hickenlooper crushing Cory Gardner 51-38 in Colorado. I think most pundits expect Gardner to lose anyway, but the other results are stronger than many had expected in these states.
Their key finding in Maine is that Susan Collins has really been hurt by impeachment:
-Jason "with Doug Jones likely to go down in Alabama, these four seats may hold the key to control of the Senate (though Dems think Ga and Iowa are also in play)" EvansThe Maine result is most interesting. When PPP first polled the Gideon-Collins match up for a private client last spring, Collins led by 18 points at 51-33. The reason for the 22 point shift since then is that in the wake of opposing impeachment, Collins has lost most of the crossover Democratic support she’s relied on for her success over the years. Last April Collins had a 32% approval rating with Hillary Clinton voters, and trailed Gideon only 59-28 with them head to head. Now she has just a 9% approval rating with Clinton voters, and trails Gideon 81-10 with them head to head.
Why are you wasting time here when you could be wasting it by listening to the latest episode of the DBR Podcast?
I'm really interested in the Kentucky race. It appears to be neck and neck between McGrath and McConnell, with each at around 43%.
Q "Why do you like Duke, you didn't even go there." A "Because my art school didn't have a basketball team."
You call that a little bit?!?! He questions Sessions' manhood and said, oh by the way, you're dumb, too! Remind me to stay on your good side.
Yes, his course reversal puts Montana in play and improves the potential routes to Democrat Senate equity or majority. Certainly no guarantee in deep red Montana but he's a strong, strong candidate for obvious reasons.
It’s the way they report the voting in multiple candidate elections. If I understand correctly, the 15% is of the TOTAL ‘votes cast in the election. If you add up all the percentages reported, they should total 100% (sans rounding. I just added up the numbers reported by the N&O and it was 99.99%) But each voter got five votes each. So, the true percentage would be closer if you multiplied by 5. So the leading candidate received votes from about 73.65% of the democrats voting.
(Not exact, since as you pointed out not everybody votes for five candidates.)
I think this is as good a place as any for this: given how split the country is, gerrymandering and redistricting is a huge issue in determining our leadership. The Supreme Court basically punted it back to the states recently, rather than giving national guidance on the issue. Both parties are guilty of it, though it has been more egregious in some states (such as North Carolina) than others.
The Democrats now have a full majority in Virginia and could have used it as an opportunity to redistrict in 2021 to strengthen their hold. Instead, several Democrats joined with all of the Republicans to support a measure delegating redistricting to a bipartisan committee. This apparently happened a few weeks ago but I just read an op-ed in the NY Times on it (I am posting the news story, rather than the op-ed).
https://www.nytimes.com/2020/03/06/u...stricting.html
Money doesn't equate to wins, of course, but it usually does equate to enthusiasm. Kentuckyians seem to be enthusiastic for Amy McGrath.
https://www.yahoo.com/news/mcconnell...132714560.htmlHours after McConnell's campaign reported raising nearly $7.5 million in the quarter, McGrath upped the ante. She reported taking in $12.8 million during the same period. She's dramatically ahead of fundraising by other Democrats vying to challenge McConnell this November.
Q "Why do you like Duke, you didn't even go there." A "Because my art school didn't have a basketball team."
The article doesn't specify the source of contributions, but I suspect that a lot McGrath's contributions come from out of state. Dems nationwide are very keen to get rid of McConnell. Folks in state may well be enthusiastic, too, but I'd be cautious about using fundraising as a proxy for enthusiasm in this particular race. Polling still suggests that McConnell is in the lead, albeit narrowly.
(sorry wrong thread)
Last edited by OldPhiKap; 04-08-2020 at 08:34 AM.
Wow. This thread had dropped to the 4th page. Over a month since the last post.
Anyways, there's a lot of polling out today about the 2(!) Senate races in Georgia.
https://projects.fivethirtyeight.com/polls/
My instant takeaway from the polls is that incumbent R Loeffler (she's the one who dumped a bunch of stocks earlier this year after a coronavirus briefing) is very unpopular. That bodes poorly for any other pols that did the same (Burr-NC is getting a lot of press but he's not up this year, and I think there were a couple more).
Can somebody please explain how this is going to work? My rudimentary understanding: States never have both Senate seats up at the same time, but somebody is retiring (or maybe it was Loeffler got appointed). Georgia also has a jungle primary, right? So are both seats being contested at the same time, or are they doing one seat and then everybody that didn't make the top 2 go for the second seat? Or does the pol have to say which seat he/she is vying for? Thanks in advance to anyone who can unravel this.
P.S. to Georgians...After your fun governor's race, and throw in the Presidential race which is currently tied (4 polls this month, 2 for Biden, 2 for Trump, neither with a lead greater than 2 points), this should be a hoot.
The other seat is a normal election. Loefflers seat is a jungle primary with top 2 advancing if no one gets 50%. This is my best recollection but happy to be corrected if anything is wrong.
The two senate seats are being contested as separate races.
In one, Senator David Perdue's term is up, and he's running for reelection. There is an ongoing primary (early voting has started) to select an opponent. Prominent candidates include former congressional candidate Jon Ossoff and Teresa Tomlinson, mayor of Columbus, GA. Perdue and the Democratic candidate will then face off in November.
In the other, there is an election for the remainder of former-Senator Johnny Isakson's term. Kelly Loeffler was appointed by the governor and is running to retain the seat. There is no primary election for this race--it will be a jungle primary, meaning all candidates will be on the November ballot. Others running are Republican Congressman Doug Collins, and Democrats Raphael Warnock (pastor of MLK's old church), Ed Tarver (former state senator and US Attorney) and Matt Lieberman (son of Joe Lieberman). The most likely outcome here is that no candidate garners 50% of the vote, so the top two candidates will go to a runoff. Then, whoever wins the runoff will get to serve two years before the term expires and there's another election in 2022 for a new six-year term.