The Democrats Find Their Tea Party Movement

Rep. Jasmine Crockett (D-TX)

This week, Rep. Jasmine Crockett announced she was running for the Senate race in Texas.  We've talked about Crockett before, but she starts out as the prohibitive frontrunner for the nomination.  She's a sitting congresswoman, one with a national profile, and likely will have both heavy fundraising and she'll have access to tons of free media.  She'll also, if she's the nominee, lose in spectacular fashion.  There have been a lot of bad faith actors on social media who have been saying criticism of Crockett isn't fair, saying that "we don't know what the Democrat who finally breaks our losing streak in Texas will look like" and while that's not entirely untrue (the entire gamut from Wendy Davis to Beto O'Rourke to MJ Hegar, all different ends of the political spectrum, have run statewide in Texas & still never won), if the Democrats who ended longstanding Senate losing streaks in Alabama, Alaska, Arizona, & Colorado this century are any indication, it will have been with someone who ran as a moderate (all four of these states that's what happened).  Leftists and hard-core left wing voters dismiss this idea out-of-hand, but we run their types of candidates all the time in red/pink states...they just never win.

Democrats do have a better candidate.  While State Rep. James Talarico isn't as moderate as Rep. Colin Allred (who dropped out to make room for Crockett), he cuts a more moderate profile, speaking about trying to win over Republicans & disaffected voters (Crockett foolishly said that she won't need Trump supporters to win, something that is factually untrue given even in the best of circumstances at least 10% of a winning coalition will have voted for Trump in 2024), and he also has experience running in tough elections (he flipped a red seat in 2018 when he won in the State Legislature).  I don't know if Talarico can win, but he's the better of the two candidates, and unlike Crockett, I could see him winning in the right circumstance.

Crockett's entry, though, alongside Graham Platner in Maine, is yet another look at what might be emerging as a Democratic Tea Party.  The Tea Party is frequently talked about in terms of the conservative movement that it brought about, ultimately morphing in some capacity into MAGA.  But in 2010 & 2012, it was more well-known for something far different: costing Republicans winnable Senate seats.  During this time frame, 5 Senate races came up where a moderate ran against a Tea Party conservative, and in all five races two things happened: the Tea Party conservative won, and (despite polling that showed otherwise) the Democrat ended up winning the seat.  Across the two cycles you had three in 2010 (Delaware, Colorado, Nevada) and two in 2012 (Missouri, Indiana).  While these seats vary in terms of the course of their race (with one featuring an incumbent as the moderate, others having everyone from gadflies to members of the House as the Tea Party challengers), all of them had some clear distinctions.  

First, in all five cases Republican voters knew what they were getting into.  None of these races had someone running as an extremist only after he or she won the primary.  All five of the Tea Party challengers (Christine O'Donnell, Ken Buck, Sharron Angle, Todd Akin, & Richard Mourdock) ran to the right of more palatable general election candidates on the backbone of being a Tea Party conservative.  While some (like O'Donnell & Akin) would have opposition research leak about them in the weeks that followed the primary win, any Republican voter who complained had to know what they were getting into-they were making a risky bet.

Second, polling underlined this fact.  One of the only general election polls to test both Moudock and Richard Lugar (the moderate) in Indiana showed Mourdock tied against Rep. Joe Donnelly, while Lugar led him by 21-points.  Research 2000 had Chris Coons up 16-points on Christine O'Donnell, while Rep. Mike Castle (the moderate) was ahead by 12-points.  In all five of these races, it was framed how the moderate was the path to victory, and giving this seat up was putting the seat needlessly at risk.

And third, and most importantly-these losses proved consequential.  Had either Akin or Mourdock won, the Affordable Care Act would've been repealed during the first Trump administration (that was decided by one vote, let's not forget).  The Senate majority would've been on a knife's edge for 2010 & 2012 (it would've been tied both times) had they cleared all of these seats (which, I'm going to be honest, they likely would have), and much of President Obama's second term agenda would've been a pipe dream.  These losses mattered, not just in the election that was in front of them, but for years that followed.  Republicans have not won a Senate seat in Delaware since, and incumbent Michael Bennet is still a US Senator in Colorado.

Polling in this race is limited, but the legitimate polling that has leaked shows Talarico in a better position than Crockett.  But even if you dismiss polling as premature, the types of campaigns they're running are critically different.  Talarico is running the kind of campaign that Castle & Lugar ran-inclusive, open to ideas from both parties, and willing to welcome Republicans into the fold for a "one-time" exception to vote for a Democrat (generally how you win in a situation like this), while Crockett is running against Donald Trump (who won the state overwhelmingly last year), and has made the campaign about herself, not extending a hand to Trump voters who might be willing to look the other way this one time & vote for a Democrat due to frustration about the economy.  Putting it bluntly: Crockett is the Tea Party, cathartic but ultimately more interested in her own self-aggrandizement than actually winning a seat, her eyes feeling less focused on a Senate seat and more on the cushy job of an MSNBC contributor, while Talarico has spent years trying to get to this exact moment, ready to be the moderate that might eventually paint Texas blue.  The assumption is that Crockett will win, and that in the process the Democrats will have had a true-blue Tea Party moment, giving up a potential Senate win just to make a point...but my hope is that our party is smarter than the Republicans, and unwilling to be so idiotic.  In the coming months we'll see if I'm right. 

Dissecting the Globes' Box Office Prize

The Golden Globes have always been a tad ridiculous, and honestly, that's been a good chunk of their charm through the years.  This year, and we'll be visiting this in two articles this week, they largely proved that they weren't, in fact, ridiculous.  For example, the Best Musical/Comedy category, which in the 1990's cited films as indisputably comedic (and otherwise outside of what would ever be considered for a Best Picture award at the Oscars) as Honeymoon in Vegas, Mrs. Doubtfire, and Home Alone has now graduated into only black comedies and "this is actually really funny" pictures like Bugonia, One Battle After Another, and Blue Moon.

So in a way, it's kind of refreshing that the Globes now have a category like "Cinematic and Box Office Achievement" because it's such an absurd throwback to the days when the awards were decided by the Hollywood Foreign Press Association (and their frequently eyebrow-raising acceptance of bribes from actors & studios).  The category is supposed to be about recognizing "the year's most acclaimed, highest-earning and/or most viewed films" and in order to be nominated, it must have raised at least $100 million (and at least an additional $50 million internationally) and/or have "commensurate digital streaming viewership."  This year, the nominees are Avatar: Fire and Ash, F1, KPop Demon Hunters, Mission: Impossible - The Final Reckoning, Sinners, Weapons, Wicked; For Good, and Zootopia 2.

This list is mildly ridiculous for multiple reasons.  For starters, one film 100% does not qualify based on the criteria set forth.  There is no doubt that Avatar 3 will hit the financial markers (only an idiot would think otherwise), and is likely to be one of, if not the highest-grossing films at the US domestic box office...but it technically hasn't opened yet.  How on earth are we to know whether or not it deserves a box office prize when we haven't seen its box office yet?  KPop Demon Hunters was surely a global phenomenon, and almost certainly qualifies under the streaming numbers, but given that there isn't an objective body like there is for the box office for streaming numbers, it's worth noting that it didn't achieve these box office numbers-its global box office was a paltry $24 million, hardly a "box office champ."

Looking deeper, all of the other films that premiered hit the touchpoints, but not all of them are considered to be financial successes.  Wicked: For Good, despite a strong debut and limitless buzz, will make $150-200 million less that its predecessor despite a built-in audience, and while it turned a profit, it definitely didn't hit its overall expectations.  Mission Impossible 8 likely didn't even make a profit, as even if its lowest estimated cost (it was made for $3-400 million) barely covers costs against a $600 million gross.  So if you want to get technical, four of these eight films barely cross the line into being considered an undisputed box office champ.

So I was thinking-if you're going to do this, who should have been nominated?  I'll keep the four that feel qualified as I agree-the box office on F1, Weapons, Sinners, and Zootopia 2 by all measures belong on this list (for the record, I suspect Avatar 3 will be universally-considered success, but it's too early to know that for certain).  For the last four remaining ones, I'm going to break the rules a little bit-I think, regardless of gross, the film needs to have been a true, unexpected outperformer at the box office.  A film that, say, made $80 million against a $10 million budget is far more impressive than Wicked 2.

I would add in A Minecraft Movie, a stupid film that made almost $1 billion against a budget of $150 million despite a critical drubbing and in the process surely started a franchise off of just a computer game (a steep hill in today's Hollywood).  I'd also find room for The Conjuring: Late Rites, another movie that critics didn't like but the box office on it was mammoth-it made nearly $500 million on a $55 million budget, and made $100 million more than the most successful film in the franchise (and more than double the last Conjuring movie).

Both of these two films fit the Globes rules (Minecraft, in particular, feels like a pretty foolish skip for the awards body).  For the final two, I'll bend them, but with good reason.  The first film I'd nominate is Dog Man, an extension of the Captain Underpants franchise, and a movie that did surprisingly well despite a January release date (usually a bad time to open a children's film), making $145 million on a $40 million budget, outearning the first Captain Underpants movie, and launching another franchise.  This feels worthy-it's likely that it can make a ton from merchandising on top of a sizable gross, and if they can keep their future budgets in check (the most famous voice actor in the movie is Pete Davidson, who is hardly in a position to, say, demand Chris Pratt in Mario-sized paychecks), it's a good source of income for Universal going forward.  Certainly they're excited-it should be a movie they nominate.

The last nomination is maybe the year's single most impressive achievement at the box office (aside from Sinners): Materialists.  A romantic drama without any source material (i.e. this doesn't come with a Colleen Hoover name attached) to boost its box office and despite solid reviews, not an award campaign in sight, Materialists made a gargantuan $108 million on a $20 million budget.  Coming off of a string of high-profile flops, this was a godsend for Dakota Johnson (and quite frankly Chris Evans) in terms of keeping them in leading roles, and is the type of film that doesn't make $100 million anymore-can you think of another film this year that so unexpectedly crossed the line into $100 million?  And not that it matters, but Materialists is very good-it having "Golden Globe-nominated" wouldn't be the worst thing...particularly since its box office more than deserved it.

Why the DGA is Playing Long Odds in the Midterms

State Sen. Lynne Walz (D-NE)

This past week, Democrats got two very strong candidates in a pair of ruby-red states in the South.  In Alabama, former US Senator Doug Jones decided to run against the man who beat him in 2020, Sen. Tommy Tuberville, setting up not just a rematch, but (as far as I can tell) the first gubernatorial general election to feature two US Senators since the dawn of the Republic (certainly since the passage of the 17th Amendment).  In Nebraska, former State Sen. Lynne Walz has set up an exploratory committee to run for governor; Walz was term-limited in 2024, but she held a district that went to Donald Trump by 33-points, a gargantuan achievement given the letter behind her name.

Jones & Walz are on top of a really impressive recruitment cycle so far for the DGA in states that Donald Trump won by more than 10-points in 2024.  From key state legislators in Alaska, Kansas, Oklahoma, Texas, & South Carolina to former members of Congress in Florida to statewide officials in Iowa to prominent government officials in Ohio, the DGA has kind of knocked out of the park in terms of recruitment in states that Donald Trump won by a large enough margin that, well, Democrats are likely going to lose.  In the Obama era, and exacerbated even more so in the Trump & Biden eras, ticket-splitting, even for gubernatorial races (where voters are historically more willing to look at the other party than in federal contests), has started to go out of fashion.  So is there a purpose to getting candidates this quality into these races if they're just going to lose?

Since 2009, twelve states that Obama/Trump/Biden won by 10+ points still flipped to the other party in a gubernatorial election while they were in office: NJ-2009, ME-2010, MI-2010, PA-2010, NM-2010, WI-2010, IL-2014, MD-2014, MA-2014, KS-2018, KY-2019, and VA-2021.  Given that all fifty states have had elections 4+ times during that run, that's not a lot, and that number is inflated by President Obama's gargantuan win in 2008 (making swing states like Pennsylvania & Wisconsin just barely inch outside of the regular 10-point margin).  Since Trump first won, it's only happened three times: Laura Kelly, Andy Beshear, & Glenn Youngkin, an infinitesimal number of races (it's worth noting that Kelly is currently the DGA Chair and Beshear will be for 2026, so they picked the right candidates for this job if they want to get more red-state Democrats elected).

But those Trump numbers underline that there's more going on below-the-surface than what we're led to believe.  In 2018, for example, Democrats got shockingly close to winning the governorship of South Dakota.  Same with Mississippi in 2019, and on the flip side, Republicans nearly winning New Jersey in 2021 and Oregon in 2022.  These are all races that the party out of power was able to recruit a really good candidate, like we're seeing this cycle, and then hope the party with the clear advantage falters in the process (which it's too early to tell if that will happen).

When you hear of quality candidates like this, you oftentimes hear "even if they lose, they'll help down-ballot" which isn't wrong.  While Jack Ciattarelli was doing surprisingly well in the gubernatorial race of 2021 he'd ultimately lose, Republicans picked up 2 seats in the State Senate and 6 in the General Assembly.  Same in Oregon in 2022, where the Republicans picked up two State House seats and a seat in the State Senate.  Winning, though, matters more (Republicans picked up 7 seats and the majority in the Virginia General Assembly in 2021 on the coattails of Glenn Youngkin's statewide victory).

But ultimately none of these candidates are doing this out of the goodness of their heart-they want to win.  They want to pull off that Kelly/Beshear/Youngkin moment, and find a way to become the very rare red-state Democrat in modern culture.  And to be honest...my guess is one of them does it.  Even with long odds, betting this big this many times is a really good way to try to get at least one victory, which the Democrats will probably need to get a clear majority of the governor's mansions for the first time since 2009 (technically staying in seats that Haris won or lost by less-than-ten-points could get them to 27, but that would mean flipping New Hampshire & Vermont, which at this vantage point seems unlikely).  And in an era where Democrats are outperforming in special elections, and Trump is increasingly unpopular, voters wanting to give the other party a chance, particularly when it isn't in a federal race, could be back in fashion.  People like Walz & Jones usually lose, but a couple of them have won in the past decade, and I suspect we'll see at least one who does next year.

Donald Trump & Gavin Newsom: More Alike Than You Think

Gov. Gavin Newsom & President Donald Trump

One of the weirder quirks about American politics in the last 50 years has been that America is bizarrely indecisive and frequently has no consistency when it comes to choosing their leaders.  This is true if you look at midterms (with the exception of the aftermath of 9/11 in 2002, every midterm in the 21st Century the party in the Oval Office has had a net loss of House seats), but it's also true when you look at presidents.  Presidents are oftentimes the answer to what the public didn't want in their predecessors.  The Nixon years were greeted by Jimmy Carter, an intensely honest & decent man who could wipe away the scandals of the previous administration.  Carter, reserved & humble, was replaced by a glamorous movie star couple.  The patrician George HW Bush was backfilled by a young man who grew up in rural Arkansas, while Bush's successor Clinton was followed by a devoted family man (the younger Bush), who was then succeeded by a literal professor after eight years of Bush's frequent verbal gaffes.  Obama, the first Black president, was succeeded by an openly racist billionaire who was surrounded by scandal, who was then succeeded by a morally upright & decent man who (like Jimmy Carter) didn't remotely excite the press, and therefore was once again succeeded by a celebrity.

If patterns serve, if a Democrat wins in 2028, it will likely be someone who is in reaction to President Trump in some capacity.  Trump's second term has been marked by growing authoritarianism, mass corruption, allegations of infidelities & worse (through the ongoing push to release the Epstein List), and Trump's noted cognitive decline.  It's also been punctuated by Trump's shocking cruelty, his blasé attitude toward the American public (literally showing videos of identifiable American citizens being covered in excrement at his bidding), and his lack of professionalism, with not just Trump but members of his administration like JD Vance, Pam Bondi, Kash Patel, & Karoline Leavitt being shockingly undignified about the jobs they hold, taunting members of the public & press without any sense of shame.

If the pattern were to continue, this would mean the next president would be a strong, intelligent public speaker, likely a devoted spouse and parent, someone noted for their professionalism, and someone who is quite dignified in their approach.  There are definitely Democrats that are looking at the nomination that would fit this bill.  Jon Ossoff went to the London School of Economics, Chris van Hollen & Pete Buttigieg both went to Harvard (Buttigieg doubles down by also going to Oxford), & Andy Beshear went to Vanderbilt.  All of them are on their first marriage, all of them have children, and all of them have a sense of honor in what they do and how they conduct themselves in public.  But none of these men is emerging as the Democratic frontrunner.  Instead, the guy who you could arguably say is the leader in this (very early out) race for the nomination is a guy who, let's be honest...sounds an awful lot like Donald Trump.

Gov. Gavin Newsom is a cocky, ambitious politician, one whose professional life is far more consistently successful than Trump's failed bankruptcy-checkered business career, but one who grew up the son of a wealthy attorney for the Getty family (at one point J. Paul Getty was the wealthiest man in the country), and relied on those connections with the Gettys to start his business career (i.e. the same exact path as Trump, leaning in on his father's connections).  Newsom is a potent public speaker (which, to be fair, so was Trump at one point), but not one who is famous for academia like Obama (he didn't go to an Ivy League school, which is technically a difference from Trump, though one would hardly point to Trump as a prototype of the Ivy League academic).  Newsom, like Trump, has a personal life more attuned to Page Six than Ladies' Home Journal, with a divorce from future Fox News host (and girlfriend of Donald Trump, Jr....and US Ambassador to Greece somehow) Kimberly Guilfoyle, as well as notably scandalous romantic relationships, including dating a 19-year-old waitress when he was 38, and having an affair with the wife of his chief of staff.

Newsom's biggest connection to Trump, though, has been his approach in recent months to mirroring the president's rhetoric, using his social media accounts to echo the vain and bombastic ways that Trump's Truth Social posts frequently attack other people.  Newsom lies on these (admittedly as parody, but it still has his name on them), using random capitalization (like Trump) and insulting Republican figures, sometimes on a personal level.

That Democrats are eating this up, and rewarding him with much stronger poll numbers than virtually any other figure in the party save for Kamala Harris & Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (and even then, he sometimes bests them), shows how much the Democrats have hated the "when they go low, you go high" approach that Michelle Obama once espoused.  Democrats are tired of turning the other cheek, and love that Newsom not only fights back with the same cruelty toward Trump they've had to endure, but also that Newsom is walking the walk.  While other governors (and potential presidential hopefuls) like Wes Moore & JB Pritzker have just sat on their hands during the redistricting wars, Newsom actually did something about it, and passed a gerrymander that will win Democrats an additional four seats next year.  Democrats like that (I'm not even a fan of Newsom's as a whole, but I was damn impressed & he scored points in my books while Pritzker & Moore just sat there and watched, losing my vote in any Democratic Primary in the process), and Newsom is standing out in a way that is getting him noticed in the shadow primary before the midterms.

But I do wonder how long it can last.  Newsom's past scandals are going to hurt him if used correctly, and history would teach us that the Democrats will pick a nominee that feels different than the president in charge.  The country as a whole, if they reject a Republican successor to Trump, will be doing so because they don't want more Trump (otherwise they'll just give the party another term in office), but running as a guy who is basically the Democratic version of Trump is a risky proposition.  Newsom's schtick works now because Trump can't be replaced, and this is the best way to feel some catharsis.  But when it's clear you can just rid yourself entirely of Trump, will Democrats really want a guy whose best attribute is that he provides a counter to a guy who is no longer in office, or (like most of the past 50 years) will they instead pick someone who is Trump's true opposite to try a new chapter?

Chi Ossé's Uphill (and Unwelcome?) Primary Challenge

Chi Ossé (D-NY)

House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries has only been in his leadership office for a little over two years, and I'll be honest-I'm relatively underwhelmed.  It has to be next to impossible to succeed Nancy Pelosi, inarguably the best congressional leader in decades, maybe even since the era of Sam Rayburn & Lyndon Johnson, but Jeffries' feels thin by comparison.  He doesn't have the ability to wrangle his caucus the way that she did (the entire Marie Gluesenkamp Perez/Chuy Garcia debate it's impossible to see happening when Pelosi was in charge), and he isn't as strong at public relations or reading the room on congressional messaging.  I am not as mad at him as I am Chuck Schumer, whom I'm actively hoping steps down at this point as Senate leader, but if you gave me a magic wand to get rid of him and replace him with someone like Katherine Clark or Ted Lieu...I'd probably take it.

The thing is, there is a New York City Councilor attempting to give the voters of Jeffries' district just that.  In the past few days, Chi Ossé has filed to run against Jeffries in a primary.  This is part of a wave of Democratic challenges in the Big Apple coming off of Mayor-Elect Zohran Mamdani's upstart campaign to win control of America's largest city.  Not just Jeffries, but Rep. Dan Goldman looks likely to get one from New York City Comptroller Brad Lander, Yvette Clarke already has one, and other representatives like Adriano Espaillat & George Latimer are expected to have ones as well.  But it's Ossé's that's most notable because he's challenging the Democratic leader.  

It's also notable because of the rather swift cold shoulder it's gotten from Democrats in the party who have a history of disrupting the paradigm and going after established politicians.  Mamdani was demure, but clear with his public comments about Ossé, stating "while I appreciate the great work that Councilmember Ossé has done on the council...I believe that there are many ways right here in New York City to...deliver an affordability agenda" and according to The New York Times, Mamdani publicly discouraged Ossé from running.  Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez was more direct, saying, "I certainly don't think a primary challenge to the leader is a good thing right now."

This is the sort of behavior that is always a little laughable, but inevitable, when someone "unexpectedly" wins power in the American system.  While there are exceptions (David Hogg being the best recent example), by-and-large when a candidate like Ossé (or, when they started their campaigns, Mamdani & Ocasio-Cortez) runs for office, they have to do so by railing against the establishment, demanding that there be change in government that only new voices can solve.  When they actually win, though, they realize that they are rare-most incumbents win reelection for major US office (certainly they do in primaries), so beating an incumbent like Mamdani & Ocasio-Cortez did makes them stand out.  They also realize that 1) because they're rare, they either need to assimilate or risk not being in the room when decisions are made and 2) that not all of the "establishment" that they are railing against are that bad, and in many cases are nice backbenchers who are trying to do similar things to themselves (but who ultimately aren't successful because governance in a country as evenly-divided as America is hard).  This reads as hypocritical (and it is...this is very much "listen to what I say, not what I do"), but it's also reality-Mamdani & Ocasio-Cortez got the lottery ticket, and (unlike Hogg) they wanted to keep it, and so they adapt to the realities of actual governance, and part of that is not taking down the people of their party they work with everyday.

But I'm not a sitting member of Congress or a Mayor-Elect...I don't have a vested interest in making my fellow coworkers happy (metaphorical ones...on the off-chance this is read by any of my actual coworkers, I do have a vested interest in them being happy).  And yet, despite not really wanting Jeffries in office & knowing a primary challenge is probably the only way that he isn't our next Democratic Speaker...I agree with Mamdani & Ocasio-Cortez.  The reason for this is pretty straight-forward: it's a distraction when we don't need one.

Primary challenges to congressional leadership happen regularly, most of them without much fanfare (Nancy Pelosi has had one pretty much every cycle she's been leader).  There are exceptions though, with the two most recent ones being House Majority Leader Eric Cantor and House Caucus Chair Joe Crowley.  In the case of both men, each was expected (like Jeffries) to be his party's next-in-line for Speaker.  In both cases, they were challenged by virtual unknowns who managed to take their party base's anger at leadership not doing what they wanted (like Ossé), and shock the political world by defeating one of the most powerful people in Washington.  Crowley, you may know, was the guy who lost to Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (Cantor lost to Dave Brat, who enjoyed a few unremarkable terms in office before losing in 2018 to now Gov-Elect Abigail Spanberger).

And in both cases, the headlines of it were bad for the party.  We had weeks of people saying that this was a public rebuke to Speaker John Boehner & House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi, respectively, and in the case of Boehner, he would barely hold on a year after Cantor's loss before he would choose (because he was basically forced to) to step down as Speaker.  It's a bad look-it makes your party look weak.  There are, in my opinions, better ways to improve your leader's position (for starters, giving him a majority), and so as a result I don't support Ossé's quest here, even if I understand it (and might be hypocritical myself in thinking Schumer deserves this path...but that's a conversation for another day).  Jeffries is not a strong leader, but he's also not to the point where he has proven ineffective (we still haven't seen him with an actual majority yet, and leader styles are very different from majority to minority), and while I think that in the future this might have to be the path worth taking, in the wake of Mamdani's unexpected victory, I don't think it's wise for us to spend much of the 2026 election wondering who will succeed Hakeem Jeffries rather than focusing on the more pressing task of winning majorities in both houses of Congress (and given people like Mamdani & Ocasio-Cortez are already standing in his way, I doubt Ossé has a chance to make this competitive enough for that to happen).

The 2016 Democratic Divide Remains Alive & Well

Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-VT) with Maine Senate
candidate Graham Platner

The Maine US Senate race continues to be a source of fascination, and honestly, endless frustration.  In recent days, both camps released internal polls showing their candidate leading, which is admittedly a terrible look for Gov. Janet Mills, who is the sitting governor, running against a virtual unknown.  In an internal poll from Graham Platner, he's losing among Democrats (which may be why he has become more comfortable on the campaign trail running against the party whose nomination he wants), but winning among independents by large enough margins to make up for that; in an Emily's List poll (Emily's List has endorsed Mills) he is behind Collins by 9-points, and in a loaded, biased question talking about Platner's past comments that should be taken with a GIANT mound of salt given that it's intended to make Platner look bad (even though, admittedly it is what Collins is going to do to him on the campaign trail) that lead of Collins' increases to 19-points.

While this back-and-forth is happening, Platner's campaign continues to have a conga line of red flags coming out of it.  Two of the latest are that Platner is apparently paying his wife Amy Gertner a salary out of the campaign funds.  This isn't illegal, for the record (if Platner's wife is an actual campaign staffer, she's allowed to be paid out of campaign contributions, even if she's a family member...in fact, Platner could even pay himself this way), but it's worth noting given that Platner himself might not be able to take a salary without disrupting his veterans' benefits.  This comes in the wake of Platner's campaign manager quitting (and on the heels of his political director also quitting, quite publicly in this case).  And it now appears that Platner has not released a personal financial disclosure form, which under federal law should've been filed by September 17th (almost eight weeks ago)...something you could take up with his campaign treasurer or finance director, but they've both recently quit as well.

All of this, I'm going to be honest, is driving me a little insane.  Platner, to me, reads as a giant red flag, and at this point, feels an awful lot like a con-artist trying to take advantage of a disgruntled blue base.  His demeanor as a straight, white man with blue collar aesthetic (despite having a very wealthy father and going to an elite boarding school, which would eschew the blue collar vibe) is providing cover for the fact that he has a sketchy history as a progressive (as recently as a a couple of years ago, he was stating racist & homophobic things online that feel a lot more akin to Donald Trump than Zohran Mamdani), and his continued focus on the campaign trail of railing against Democrats rather than keeping his message trained primarily on Susan Collins and Donald Trump...I can't help but think of another Democrat who had a similar push just three years ago, who has gained a lot of comparisons to Platner (some good, some bad), but has been nothing but a disappointment for Democrats: John Fetterman.

In 2022, Fetterman was running (like Platner) against a Democrat with a more established presence in the party.  Conor Lamb had a track record in the US House you could point to (something Fetterman, who had never been a legislator despite holding several public offices) did not.  More pertinently, Fetterman had to talk about an incident in 2013 where he followed an unarmed Black jogger, whom he detained with a shotgun.  At the time, the incident was dismissed, both because (unlike Platner) Fetterman had elected experience, a much more progressive background (Fetterman supported gay marriage before it was legal in Pennsylvania, for example), and that the jogger had stated publicly that he thought Fetterman should be forgiven & he hoped he'd win the race...even though the jogger also said that Fetterman had lied about all of facts of the incident.

Cut a few years later, and it's hard not to notice the buyer's remorse any progressive has here.  John Fetterman is (by far) the most conservative Democrat currently in the Senate, regularly supporting & praising Donald Trump, and feels increasingly at-risk of switching parties (something that he has denied...though he's done so during interviews on Fox News).  Conor Lamb, meanwhile, the boring second place finisher in this race (i.e. the Janet Mills, not the exciting newcomer who doesn't look like a typical politician) is consistently in public statements & social media someone who has stood against Trump.  In fact, in a Twitter exchange with Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (D-NY), she literally said of Conor Lamb "I was wrong about you and I'm sorry...where do I submit my Conor Lamb apology form?"  In this case, the tried-and-tested Democrat was clearly the best bet, and going with the exciting newcomer a terrible decision that Democrats regretted.

Sen. Sanders with Sen. John Fetterman (D-PA)

I'm going to be picking an old wound here, so bear with me, but I need to go a little further here.  The AOC/Lamb exchange happened due to this post, one where Fetterman, in March, taunted the congresswoman about voting to keep the government open during a looming shutdown that many Democrats (myself included) wanted the party to not allow Trump the luxury of getting a bill passed without more concessions.  In the photo in the post, you'll note that a man that ties together all three of these figures (Platner, Fetterman, & AOC) is present: Bernie Sanders.

Sanders has already endorsed Graham Platner in the Senate race in Maine, and while I cannot find evidence that Sanders endorsed Fetterman before the primary (i.e. when there was still a question mark over whom the candidate should be for the left), Sanders did endorse Fetterman in the 2018 Lieutenant Governor's primary, so he had supported him in the past and Sanders would campaign in-person with Fetterman during the 2022 Senate campaign.  Democrats do not like it when you bring up the 2016 Democratic Primary, mostly because it's still an insanely raw nerve, with the Sanders camp accusing Hillary Clinton's people of conspiring with the DNC to hurt his campaign (they say costing him the nomination) while Clinton's supporters will frequently cite Sanders' inability to get his supporters in-line (and his relatively tacit backing for Clinton in the general election) as a reason she lost to Trump.  

In both cases, this is a bit specious (I think both sides have a slight point, but not enough to have cost either of their candidates the race on its own), but to pretend that this isn't a clear echo of that race is absurd.  Like Clinton, Janet Mills is a creature of government, someone who has worked as a Democratic Party politician all her life.  She's not particularly flashy, but the results of her tenure mark her as perhaps more liberal than she'd give herself credit for (both Clinton & Mills are WAY more progressive if you look at what they've done in office than if you talk to the average voter about their opinions on them given they're so staid in their speaking style).  Platner, on the other hand, is (like Sanders) a New England contrarian, one with some pronounced liberal viewpoints, but with a shaky connection to the Democratic Party and not a lot to show for his time in office (Sanders consistently has one of the weakest bill-to-law rates of any US Senator).  

That Democrats continually find these same lines, the ones who support Clinton and the ones who support Sanders, shows that the schism we all are encouraged to believe doesn't exist anymore, is still very much there.  I will own that I supported Clinton in 2016 in the primaries, and am supporting Mills in the 2026 primary.  But I am not uniform in this-for example, I supported John Fetterman in the 2022 primary because I bought the hype that a different type of politician would be a good thing in a swing state (I was wrong, but I'll own that I was hoping he'd beat Lamb at the time).  This is perhaps why I want Democrats to wake up before it's too late on Platner.  He is running a campaign that in many ways mirrors Fetterman, which Democrats regretted when he won, and in more ways his rhetoric mirrors Sanders & his supporters are starting to match it (i.e. a primary campaign that hurts our general election chances if they don't win).  Sanders is a true believer progressive even if he's not a Democrat (unlike Fetterman or Platner, I have no doubt in the consistency of his economic liberalism), but his judgment in primaries since he rose to becoming the leader of the left wing of the American political sphere a few years ago has been repeatedly questionable (I haven't brought up Tulsi Gabbard in this article yet...but know she's also a billboard for Sanders' shocking ability to attract terrible ideas).  This sort of blind allegiance to a candidate, even when confronted with new and oftentimes damning information (like we ignored with Fetterman, and many seem to be ignoring with Platner) is a good way to get another senator whose true beliefs are constantly in question, or worse yet, another term for Susan Collins.

The New Utah Map Poses a Challenge for Ben McAdams

Rep. Ben McAdams (D-UT)

In an era of gerrymandering races to the bottom, it is heartening to see something like what we saw in Utah this past week.  After years of lawsuit and ballot initiative campaigning, the people of the Beehive State officially have fair maps for Congress.  While Republicans overwhelmingly have won every statewide race in Utah in the 21st Century, the voters of Salt Lake County (and there are 1.2 million citizens there) have increasingly swung blue in the past few election cycles, with Hillary Clinton, Joe Biden, and Kamala Harris all winning the county by double digits.  1.2 million is a lot bigger than the roughly 760k needed to make a congressional seat, and so under a fair map, given that Salt Lake County is quite compact, it would get a blue district, and one of Utah's four districts would lean to the left.  The people of the state agreed, choosing to have an independent commission draw their district lines, but the state legislature ignored the commission's recommendations (which gave the state a blue seat), and gerrymandered Salt Lake County to get rid of this district.  This week, Judge Dianna Gibson decided that the amended map by Utah Republicans was not constitutional, and declared one of the commission's maps, one that has a congressional district that Harris won by 24-points, to be the law, and that will be what is on the ballot in 2026.  Given that the bluest seat currently held by a federal Republican that Harris won is Susan Collins in Maine, and that state was only +7 points for Harris...Utah is guaranteed to send a Democrat to the House under these maps.

It has been fascinating to watch what has happened in the wake of this.  For starters, Republicans seem to have lost their minds, claiming that this is judicial overreach (it's not-Gibson was just backing the voter initiative...the overreach was from the Utah state legislature), and to claim that the district is "unfair" because it doesn't have a mix of urban, suburban, and rural voters.  This is one of those lines-of-attack that's so silly you kind of can't believe it came out of someone's brain, but to clarify-there are no rules that congressional districts must have a mix of different community types.  In fact, it's generally acceptable to have like communities together.  If it was true, I can pretty much guarantee that there wouldn't be a single Republican in the Illinois, California, & Oregon congressional delegations, and even a state like Washington would be at serious risk of losing a few more GOP seats.  Suffice it to say, Salt Lake County got the congressional seat that it deserved.

It was also interesting to see the gambit that Republicans were willing to play with their initial map.  They had actually drawn a map that might've passed muster, even if it wasn't specifically giving Salt Lake County a blue map, by drawing two districts that Donald Trump only won by single-digits, which in 2026 would've been at risk, but in 2028 or 2030 would've been much more winnable and they could've once again gone 4/4.  My thought is that the Democrats got the better deal here.  Even if they would've won two seats in 2026, that wouldn't necessarily have helped their cause too much because it's likely they'll earn a large majority that year regardless due to Trump's sixth-year itch.  But now they have a seat that basically is banked for the rest of the decade-as long as this map stays in place, even in a red wave year you can't flip a seat this blue, and so the Democrat who runs will be fine.

But it does make the calculus much different than if it was a narrow seat.  Utah hasn't really had (in my lifetime, at least) a seat this blue-while Democrats have won House seats in the 21st Century, they've won moderate districts, and (as you might imagine) those sparing wins brought about moderate Democrats, one of which was Ben McAdams, who was the last Democrat to win a House seat from Utah, losing it in 2020 as Donald Trump dominated his district.  McAdams is only 50, and has announced his intention to win back a seat in Congress...but whereas his moderate profile was once an asset, it's likely to be used against him in a seat this blue.  McAdams has a mixed track record on abortion, for example (he has called himself "pro-life") and to survive in a pink district, he was publicly critical of the first impeachment of Donald Trump (though he ultimately voted to impeach Trump on both counts).  

I would imagine that other Democrats will use this against him.  So far State Sen. Kathleen Riebe (who ran in a special election for Congress in 2023) has announced a run for the seat, and went straight after McAdams, saying of him "I know that something that's been brought up to me, frequently, is his support of independents.  And Democrats want a Democrat.  So I feel like that's going to be the big difference between him and I."  Riebe will hardly be alone in this.  I would imagine State Sen. Nate Blouin, a progressive (with a vocal Twitter following), will also run, and I would think that Salt Lake County Mayor Jenny Wilson, who ran for the Senate in 2018, has to be looking at this as an opportunity to cap off an impressive career after recently turning 60.  Utah has essentially not elected a true progressive since...ever?  And while McAdams' name recognition (and the potential for liberals to split the vote if too many of them run) might help him in the race enough to win, it would be extremely unusual for a district this blue to elect someone of his moderate profile.  It's possible McAdams was looking at this map, and (despite conventional wisdom) wishing he was running under tougher lines.