The Left Takes a Turn

Senate President Troy Jackson (D-ME)

This past weekend, in Maine, it appears that the race to replace Graham Platner as the Democratic nominee has come to a close.  In what essentially became a "runner-up" contest from the recent gubernatorial race, State Senate President Troy Jackson has won the nomination in all but technicality, to the point where two of his chief opponents (Secretary of State Shenna Bellows and Dr. Nirav Shaw) have already dropped out of the race.  This will hopefully end Platner as a public conversation piece (though I expect Collins to bring him up as often as possible, particularly given that Jackson and Platner had previously shared a stage together and endorsed each other's candidacies), but it also gives the Dems a genuine chance at the US Senate seat currently held by Collins, which is a must win not just for the 2026 majority, but honestly the 2028 & 2030 majorities as well.  Dems cannot afford to have a Senate seat from a state won by Clinton, Biden, and Harris be in the hands of a Republican, even a moderate one.

Jackson's win is also a win for the Bernie Sanders wing of the party.  While Sanders did not endorse in the Senate caucuses, he did endorse Jackson in the gubernatorial primary, and given that Jackson was a delegate for Sanders in 2016 (when most delegates from Maine were supporting Hillary Clinton), he is very much a victory for that camp in an election cycle where a number of Sanders-endorsed candidates have come out on top.  Jackson's victory is unusual because of the way it came about (a straight-up statewide primary may have resulted in a different result...he was always going to be helped by the convention/caucus approach), so you can't really read into it, but it is a victory for Sanders in his continued quest to create a legacy in the US Senate (and in shaping the Democratic Party in his image).

In the coming weeks, though, the Democratic Party will have three actual primaries that I think will set the tenor of what the Sanders wing (and the frequently associated, though not directly connected, DSA) will consider success in a cycle that has already resulted in major victories with people like Melat Kiros, Darializa Chevalier, & Brad Lander all beating incumbents to win House seats.  These three races, at least from public polling, have shown three races that have a decided Sanders/DSA branch vs. establishment branch (in all three races either Sanders or the DSA or both have endorsed against a more mainstream candidate), all of them appear to be (in somewhat limited polling) competitive, and in all cases they are marked by a truly nasty primary, way more vicious than you'd typically expect from a Democratic Party primary.  These races are the Wisconsin gubernatorial and the Michigan & Minnesota Senate primaries.  I thought it'd be interesting to take a look at the similarities and differences in these races, as they are all serving as canaries in the coal mine for the remainder of the midterms (and 2028).

Director Abdul El-Sayed (D-MI)

Michigan

Without a doubt, the biggest of these races is in Michigan, where we last discussed State Sen. Mallory McMorrow had just exited the race.  The contest has now become a one-on-one race between Rep. Haley Stevens and Health Director Abdul El-Sayed, with Stevens the favorite of the establishment and El-Sayed endorsed by figures on the far left like Sanders, Rashida Tlaib, & Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez.

Based on pretty much all aggregate polling, I'd probably prefer to be El-Sayed in this race right now.  With the exception of the Detroit News poll (which, admittedly, is the most reputable poll in this race in the past few weeks), El-Sayed has had a marginal lead over Stevens.  But Stevens is closing well, and seems to have found a groove in the race.  For starters, she's been far less deferential to Bernie Sanders & his supporters than other Democrats in her position have been, referring to the "complaining class" as a related reference to them, and being shockingly on message.  She's also started to own the quirkiness of her personality as an asset, walking the fine line of embracing it & admonishing those who mock it.  This has resulted in maybe her best ad of the cycle which she takes a viral speech her opponents called "cringe" and turned it into a showcase of how she's passionate about her state, as well as El-Sayed having to actually apologize for how supporters have treated Stevens.  Stevens had the momentum, in my opinion; El-Sayed was caught off-guard by McMorrow dropping out and does not seem to be doing anything to gain support amongst Black voters, which Stevens has exploited.  The fact that Obama hasn't corrected anyone on the ad where it looks like he's endorsing Stevens is telling, and Stevens has made a point of showcasing her support for Biden/Harris in 2024 while El-Sayed was uncommitted, are both signs that Stevens is trying to drive this crucial voting bloc in Michigan.  If Stevens wins this race, the way that she was able to create energy for an establishment candidate and upend El-Sayed with the Sanders/AOC backing will be studied.  It also must be noted that a late-breaking endorsement from, say, Kamala Harris would probably be welcomed here, and I think would be a wise move from the risk-averse candidate (i.e. if Harris wants to be president in 2028, she needs to prove she can take some bets that pay off, especially after a badly-misjudged endorsement of Jasmine Crockett)

Rep. Angie Craig (D-MN)

Minnesota

While (one of) the candidates in the race may disagree, the Minnesota Senate race (unlike Michigan & Wisconsin) does not appear to be a race where the left-leaning candidate would put the seat at risk; either Rep. Angie Craig (the moderate) or LG Peggy Flanagan (the liberal) should be able to hold this seat in November given the national environment.  Craig has claimed otherwise, but I think she's wrong, even if margins may matter.  But the fight has gotten nasty (it's been overshadowed by Michigan, but it's become the meanest primary I can remember in DFL history this century in Minnesota), and it's not entirely clear who's winning given a dearth of quality polling.

Overall, like in Michigan, I'd rather be Flanagan than Craig.  She has the stronger hand (she's the DFL-endorsed nominee, which helps in terms of party structure, and has led in more polls), but I'll own that she's run a lousy front-facing campaign even if her organization with the party elite has been impressive; unlike Michigan where figures like Debbie Stabenow & Gary Peters have gone for Stevens, the powers-that-be in Minnesota seem to largely side with Flanagan save for one big name.  That name is Governor Tim Walz, who Flanagan was joined at the hip with in their first term (it's safe to say had Walz not kept this a partnership in the public eye she'd never have be in this position), but he has point-blank refused to back her in the primary, to the point where I have to assume he's probably going to actually vote for Craig in the privacy of a ballot box, pointing to signs that the two have had a major private falling out that will hopefully come to light after the election when Walz's memoir comes out because I am curious.

Craig's biggest mistake in the race was backing the Laken Riley Act, which at the time was dumb given she was no longer running in a swing House district general but instead a DFL primary, and if she loses it'll be because of that (if she hadn't taken that vote I think she'd be winning right now).  But Flanagan's fundraising has been pathetic-she has yet to beat Craig in a single quarter (in Q2 Flanagan's fundraising was roughly half Craig's, and honestly looked like she was running for a House seat it was so small), and Craig has been able to define Flanagan in the public eye quite a bit, particularly focusing on her time leading the fraud oversight that cost Tim Walz his chance at the nomination earlier this year.  I live in Minnesota, and until about a week ago I hadn't actually seen an ad directly from Flanagan, and that she started with an attack ad tells a tale that she's nervous.  There's been a lot of talk about how Amy Klobuchar will pick the runner-up here so they're both competing for Senate seats that they'll likely get, but I'll be honest-Flanagan has had the deck so stacked in her favor and still underperformed that if Craig wins the primary...I think Klobuchar picks somebody else (same goes for Craig if this race is decided by more than 8-points in Flanagan's favor).  All-in-all, Flanagan is the favorite, but not by what she should be, and Craig might be able to pull off a squeaker.

County Executive David Crowley (D-WI)

Wisconsin

Wisconsin had the biggest change-up in the past week, as first Milwaukee County Executive David Crowley dropped out of the race, then LG Sara Rodriguez (whom Crowley had endorsed) was involved in a financial scandal with one of her campaign managers mismanaging her funds, and she dropped out, allowing Crowley to come back in, this time with the endorsement of Gov. Tony Evers.  Crowley was a distant fourth before he dropped out (and Rodriguez was third), with DSA favorite State Rep. Francesca Hong and former LG Mandela Barnes both running for toward the top of the ticket.

It's unclear here exactly what Evers was thinking. In a perfect world, he would've chosen to run himself, if we're being honest, but logistically that can't happen (even if he would've instantly become the frontrunner).  Crowley had a great first 24 hours of fundraising (in a race where no one on either side has been a great fundraiser), but he's still dramatically behind, and it's hard to see incentive for either Barnes or Hong's supporters to abandon him when it looks like a two-person race.  It's also not clear why Evers (who once served alongside Barnes) has an issue with his former LG.  Barnes' past support for "Defund the Police" cost him in 2022 for the US Senate (hence I was initially hoping for Rodriguez, and would favor Crowley over either of these two), but losing a high-profile race isn't always a death knell, and I think Barnes could win in a bluer environment.  Part of me wonders if there's a scandal here that no one is bringing up but is a known secret, because it's honestly giving off those vibes as this can't just be personal dislike.  Decent electability isn't remotely the case for Hong, who is the most extreme candidate I've listed here, and is basically a guaranteed loss in November.

I think, at this point, that this race is headed to a nightmare, and I would wager that Hong is going to win at this point, meaning that Tom Tiffany is pretty much guaranteed to succeed Evers, who clearly retired in the hopes of handing off to another Dem in a blue wave year (same as Gary Peters above).  She's too extreme, and Tiffany is not a Marjorie Taylor Greene type that it'll be easy for her to vilify.  I personally see an easy path for Flanagan to win (even if it's only by 4-6 points) and El-Sayed might win, but Hong is a guaranteed loss in the same way Christine O'Donnell was in 2010.  After spending decades trying to get back a Democratic trifecta, the Wisconsin Democratic Party are going to to forego it because they seemed to confuse the electorate of Madison with a statewide electorate.

Conclusion

All-in-all, this looks like the DSA/Bernie wing is going to have three major victories coming up shortly after a solid one with Jackson.  I will note that, given I stuck my neck out and said that I could not vote for Graham Platner after decades of being an ardent yellow dog Democrat, I would vote for all of these candidates (Hong, specifically, I'd struggle with but ultimately choose to vote for, though either she or El-Sayed I don't think I could donate money to if we're being honest as that's a higher bar with me...I never gave money to Joe Manchin either)...I just have very ardent preferences in the primaries, and in both Michigan & Wisconsin I think that making the wrong move will cost us a seat we cannot afford to give up.  But that is the way this year is shaping up-a series of Democratic risks that the party seems hell-bent on taking.

Lindsey Graham's Complicated Legacy (and the Future of His Senate Seat)

Senators Darline and Lindsey Graham (R-SC)

I've been so out-of-practice in writing political articles in recent memory that I have largely been foregoing any discussion of it here, and I think that while I'm fully in the "writing quotas are not a part of this blog" era post 2024 as I'm focusing on other writing tasks...there's too much going on in the world of politics right now, and I want to talk about it.

The biggest story of the past week (now exactly one week ago) was the untimely death of US Senator Lindsey Graham of South Carolina.  I've talked about how, with me having followed politics since the mid-1990's, that there are very, very few politicians in DC who have basically been part of my vernacular since I made this a hobby (i.e. I have no memory of following politics where they weren't players), but Graham was one of them.  My first memories of Graham were probably during the Clinton impeachment trials, where Graham was the only Republican on the House Judiciary Committee to vote against at least one of the four articles of impeachment against Clinton (in Graham's case, it was that Clinton had committed perjury during the Paula Jones case, one of the two articles of impeachment that did not have enough votes to get to the US Senate which is why it might not sound familiar).

Being a Clinton impeachment manager was something of a curse on most of the 13 men who did it from the House.  Within five years of the trial, Ed Bryant, George Gekas, Bill McCollum, & Bob Barr would all lose continued bids for Congress, and eventually Chris Cannon & Steve Chabot would follow (Steve Buyer just a few weeks ago required a presidential pardon, proving this curse is still alive-and-well).  But not Lindsey Graham.  Graham skated through easily into the Senate (despite polling showing a closer race against University President Alex Sanders), and never struggled to win reelection.  He spent much of his career straddling a strange line between moderate (he regularly supported judges nominated by Democratic presidents, including Elena Kagan who spoke about Graham during a House testimony this past week) and almost sycophantic devotion to Donald Trump, a man of whom he once said "if we nominate Trump, we will get destroyed...and we will deserve it."  Graham's legacy is odd-his slavish devotion to Trump followed a career where he was often compared (favorably) to the maverick nature of John McCain, and was very popular amongst his colleagues.  I once was at an event with a US Senator (whom I'm going to not name because it was related to my job, and I don't think it'd be appropriate to name as a result) and someone asked her (she was a Democrat) who her favorite Republican was.  She replied pretty much instantly, saying "Lindsey Graham...he's great to work with, he just plays a crazy person on TV."

Graham's legacy is one that is severely tarnished by Trump, and one wonders if he (in part) figured he'd outlive the Trump Era and could rebrand after it.  He was running for reelection this fall, for a term that would extend not just outside of the Trump presidency but likely outside of Trump's expected life range, and like many Republicans, one wonders if he figured the stain of his devotion to him would disappear in the same way much of the Bush administration's worst elements have disappeared from public memory.  But that is not to be the case, though the Graham legacy is very much alive in his sister Darline, who became the first woman to ever represent South Carolina in the US Senate on Tuesday.

Despite what Twitter (heaven forbid they look up something before tweeting) may think, it's relatively common in the United States for a family member to succeed a member of Congress to complete their term, and while it is unusual for a sister to succeed a brother (it's never happened in the US Senate, in fact), Graham was a lifelong bachelor (which invited a lot of speculation about his sexuality, which also may have been a part of his lasting legacy) and didn't have a wife or children who could step in, and had indicated during his 2016 presidential run that his sister would have served as his First Lady had he won, so it makes sense she'd succeed him for the remaining months of his term.

What I did not expect with Darline Graham was that she planned on running for a full term, which was indicated when President Trump (who pushed for her appointment) endorsed her publicly and encouraged her to run.  Now-Senator Graham is not a practiced politician like her brother.  She has worked with people with disabilities and has a Master of Arts, but the extent of her political tenure is literally just involving her brother, doing ads and speeches for his various runs.  Her running was not expected, and is clearly riling up South Carolina Republicans, who haven't had an open seat for the US Senate in 22 years.  Already Rep. Ralph Norman has jumped in, and Rep. Nancy Mace is actively exploring a bid.  I wouldn't doubt LG Pamela Evette might also look at the contest.

Norman, Evette, & Mace, though, are coming off of losses in the gubernatorial primary, where Trump's endorsement mattered, and all of them running against even a novice like Graham will be hard to beat if she has Trump's full backing given the state does not have ranked-choice voting.  This seat is not expected to be competitive even if the Democrats have a relatively quality nominee (Dr. Annie Andrews), as only Mace would put this into "Lean R" territory, and honestly Andrews might've had a better shot against the late senator than most of these other contenders.  If my belief that Lindsey Graham was planning on trying to outrun Trump's legacy by reforming after he left office is to be believed, the only possible way that could happen is through his sister...who seems likely to try and follow in those footsteps by doing what her brother did best in the past ten years: clinging as hard as possible to President Trump.

5 Thoughts on the Graham Platner's Allegations

Well, I did not expect to get two political articles out in two days after a relatively long drought for them, but that's the way the political news crumbles sometimes.  Without further adieu, let's discuss the horrifying allegations faced by Graham Platner, the (present) Democratic nominee for US Senate in Maine.

Graham Platner (D-ME)

1. Graham Platner Must (and Will) Drop Out

For those unaware, Graham Platner, who has faced multiple scandals involving a Nazi tattoo, racist & sexist Reddit comments, physical abuse, and extramarital affairs, added to that list with an allegation of rape from Jenny Racicot, a 41-year-old woman who dated Platner on-and-off for two years.  Racicot, a registered Democrat, said that she was initially reluctant to come forward because she agreed with Platner's politics, but said "I'm just here to tell my story to give a clearer picture of who he is and the type of past he has."

Platner initially vehemently denied the allegations & refused to get out of the race, but that tenor had softened in a Twitter video he posted, where he said he would step back for a few days and consider what to do next (while still denying the allegations).  The deadline to drop out and be replaced (without any issue) by the state party is next Monday, and I'll be honest-Platner will be forced out sometime before then, I suspect within the next 48 hours.  Already an avalanche of US Senators and Senate candidates have issued statements asking for him to step aisde, and combined with flagging poll numbers & potentially soft fundraising numbers (he hadn't yet released his Q2 numbers, always a warning sign this far into the month), he will step aside, likely saying he's doing so "to not be a distraction," but nonetheless disappearing into political anonymity.  Either way-a week from now Graham Platner will not be the Democratic nominee for the US Senate.

Senate President Troy Jackson (D-ME)

2. Democrats Will Pick a Replacement-But Whom?

Under the pretty clear assumption that Platner will drop out of the race before the Monday deadline, Democrats will get to pick a replacement.  While Gov. Janet Mills would probably be the frontrunner for this if she hadn't run, she did run and turned in an underwhelming performance (and she also seems pretty much done with politics), so I doubt she's the candidate.  The same seems to be the case for Rep. Jared Golden, who is retiring at the end of this term, but otherwise would be our best candidate and could easily beat Collins.

Therefore, it's likely to be someone with a less obvious national profile.  The far left, including Hasan Piker, are making the argument that Platner represented their ideals and while he should go, they should get the opportunity to replace him with someone from their line (former Senate President Troy Jackson).  But Jackson has a relatively robust connection with Platner (there's literally video of Platner saying that he's "proud to share a stage with him") which Collins would pretty quickly weaponize against him, and also (on a personal level) I'm feeling pretty heartily burned by the Sanders/Khanna wing of the party (more on that in a second) so I honestly hope that they pick someone other than Jackson, though online sentiment (and for what it's worth, betting markets) seem to think he's the frontrunner.

Personally, I think you could make an argument that they could go with the second place finisher in the Maine gubernatorial race, which would be Dr. Nirav Shah, but he also is a first-time candidate and (again) the party should feel a bit burned there.  It honestly feels like the Democrats, given the charges against Platner, might pick a woman as his replacement (this was a big consideration when Al Franken resigned, and ultimately ended up being a good decision), though there are men who aren't first-timers and might be in the mix (Attorney General Aaron Frey and State House Speaker Ryan Fecteau being the top ones).  State House Speaker Sara Gideon, Rep. Chellie Pingree, or Secretary of State Shenna Bellows would all work...but they've all lost to Collins before, even though I think they'd all three go in potentially as favorites if they ran this time.  Ultimately this in some ways enters VP speculation (i.e. it's mostly a guessing game where no one knows how it turns out), but I'm going to throw in one additional name I'd be looking at if I was in the contest: current Senate President (and Jackson's successor to that office) Mattie Daughtry, who is young (she's 39), a woman, a longtime & respected state leader, and because she hasn't run statewide doesn't have any of the "far left vs. establishment" baggage many other candidates have.

Sen. Susan Collins (R-ME)

3. Susan Collins Race Just Got Completely Changed

There was mixed opinion on whether or not Susan Collins would be happy or sad about this change, and I am going on record as saying that Collins was probably miserable when this leaked yesterday.  A good comparison is the 2012 race where Republicans begged Todd Akin privately to get out of the race (according to most reports State Treasurer Sarah Steelman was ready to take over for him as a replacement), but Claire McCaskill stayed silent and only tacitly spoke against him because she knew she'd lose to Steelman.  Collins is in the same boat-she clearly wanted Platner as her opponent, likely was aware of this story (or the rumors about it), and may well have had more ammunition about Platner in her research bag.

Now Collins will have to run against a different candidate, admittedly one who is less vetted & will start out with a cash disadvantage...but that will pretty quickly evaporate.  There's no evidence this close to the election that voters punish congressional replacement candidates (this is not a Biden/Harris situation), and as long as they don't pick someone with a similar scandal or who has strong ties to Platner, he likely will be a political asterisk by November.  Instead, Collins will have to run the kind of campaign she would've had to run in 2018-where the only option to send a message to Trump is to vote her out, and she has to convince Democratic voters why they should keep her against a candidate they'll like.  I have long-maintained that 2018 might be the only election cycle since she was first elected that Collins would've lost.  2026 could well become that case, and without Platner in the race, she becomes the mild underdog in my estimation.

Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-VT) at a campaign rally
with Jackson (left) and Platner

4. The Left Needs a Reality Check (or a Time Out)

I've resisted so far in this article saying "I told you so" but I'm going to say it now less to be "that guy" and more because I think it needs to be underlined.  Platner, for starters, was always a bit of a silly choice for the US Senate.  He had no political background, had never held (or even run) for political office, and he was hardly a compelling speaker if you compare him to, say, Jon Ossoff or Beto O'Rourke.  His aesthetic and personal history became a weird sort of Rorschach test for people desperate to not run yet another long-tenured political officeholder against Collins.

But the scandals were obvious, and plentiful, and the fact that so many Democrats were willing to take the risks and ignore the giant red flags of a Nazi tattoo, assault allegations, and years of casual online racism & misogyny should reflect badly on them.  Bernie Sanders, Elizabeth Warren, Martin Heinrich, Ro Khanna, David Hogg, and the hosts of Pod Saves America should be ashamed of themselves.  They will claim "no one could've seen this coming" but it was very, very obvious in the same way it's always obvious Trump will have more scandals, and either they are aggressively stupid (which they aren't...well, most of them aren't) or they genuinely don't have strong beliefs beyond winning power and influence.  They were willing to nominate a Nazi-tattooed man who had had rape allegation rumors surrounding him for months for the most consequential Senate race in the country, just because it might endear them to his far-left supporters.  I'm sorry, but that is exactly what people like Marco Rubio, Chris Christie, & Ted Cruz attempted to do in 2016 in glomming onto Trump, and they deserve to be uttered in that same breath after their behavior here.

Abdul El-Sayed (D-MI)

5. Will This Influence Any Other Races?

The DSA/Democratic Tea Party train has already left the station a bit in New York and Colorado, but honestly-so far that hasn't really caused an issue like Maine, where a swing state (and in this case, a flip) was made vulnerable by nominating a candidate that was politically toxic.  It's also not clear (to me) how much legs this story has, or whether or not people will associate Platner's candidacy with the people who carried water for him (i.e. the Bernie's and the Ro Khanna's) or if this will totally be put into the confines of the scandal.

But I am definitely watching Michigan right now.  Both for the US Senate and for the 7th district, we have a duplicate of this race-a more established Democratic woman, being portrayed as the favorite of the establishment, facing off against someone backed by the Sanders/Khanna wing of the party.  In both cases, if the party doesn't back Haley Stevens & Bridget Brink (and instead backs Abdul El-Sayed & William Lawrence), they're not necessarily (hopefully) going to have a scandal of this magnitude, but they are going to be coming into the general with a coalition that we were seeing in the past few days was falling apart in Maine post the the primary glow even without the recent Platner news, and could potentially take winnable races off of the map.

The Fallout of Mallory McMorrow's Exit

State Sen. Mallory McMorrow (D-MI)

Yesterday, State Sen. Mallory McMorrow suspended her campaign in the US Senate primary in Michigan.  This isn't super surprising.  McMorrow started with a lot of promise in the race.  After going viral in 2022 for a speech attacking Republicans, McMorrow seemed like a rising star in the party, and I'll own that much of her campaign (in terms of quality) was considerably sharper than her other two opponents: Rep. Haley Stevens and Wayne County Public Health Director Abdul El-Sayed.  But McMorrow struggled in the race.  In an era where the conflict in Gaza disproportionately impacts Democratic primaries compared to the general electorate's concerns, McMorrow was stuck in the middle.  She did not receive money from AIPAC (which Stevens has), but she was not as ardently anti-Israel as El-Sayed, and she pissed off the far left by criticizing El-Sayed's campaigning with Hasan Piker, who has been accused by many (including me) for being a dangerous force within the party, and of trading in antisemitic dogwhistles.  In retrospect, McMorrow would've been better off still going for a promotion, but instead for Stevens' House seat and backing Stevens from the get-go while still getting a national platform in the process.

McMorrow's campaign has shown something challenging in the Democratic primaries, and something that could be a harbinger of things to come in the 2028 presidential election: there is not room for a candidate in-between a moderate establishment type (like Stevens) and a candidate who embraces the far left (like El-Sayed).  Her campaign was sharp, she ran it textbook, and much better than Stevens, who has struggled with being socially awkward in a number of public debates and El-Sayed, who seems to be an unserious candidate; while other top Senate candidates like Josh Turek, Roy Cooper, & Mary Peltola were featuring photos of them at parades & Independence Day events in their states on social media, El-Sayed had a video of him line-dancing in an American flag cowboy hat & skin-tight black v-neck to Taylor Swift's hit "You Belong with Me."  All-in-all, McMorrow felt like a really good compromise candidate-a true progressive who would push the Senate left while still being palatable enough to moderate audiences to win swing voters in a state that Donald Trump won in 2024.  But if there's a recurring theme in the Democratic Party in 2026, it's that no one wants compromise (except me-I endorsed McMorrow and donated to her campaign).

This now sets up a really interesting dynamic in the race though: a true one-on-one, no incumbent race between an establishment figure and a far left figure.  Other races like this have either A) not featured a race relatively light on scandal, which honestly this is (as far as I can tell, there's no actual scandal involving either Stevens or El-Sayed...people just don't like their politics or their approaches, but this isn't an Andrew Cuomo situation) or B) featuring an incumbent that people can say "throw them all out to!" in the way they did Diana DeGette & Adriano Espaillat (Stevens is a sitting member of Congress, but she's not a senator).

Aggregate public polling shows Stevens in a better (but not impenetrable) position, though El-Sayed has shown up in the lead in at least some public polling against Rep. Mike Rogers.  In terms of the primary, in the past few weeks there's been a lot of candidate or PAC-backed polling, but reading through the weeds it feels like El-Sayed has a lead, though a small enough one that McMorrow's supporters could make the difference if they break toward Stevens, and there's at least some polling to show they might.  This race has entered tossup territory, and it will be interesting to see how this turns out.

This is because there's a lot of vested interest from both sides for their candidates to win this race.  Stevens started that avalanche with an endorsement from Attorney General Dana Nessel immediately after McMorrow's exit (as well as powerful SuperPac Emily's List).  I would anticipate that at least some combination of Gretchen Whitmer, Gary Peters, Jocelyn Benson, Elissa Slotkin, & McMorrow herself will also get into the race, probably to endorse Stevens.  Whitmer's endorsement would be the most consequential-she's still popular (she'd have closed down this race had she won), and there's apparently a lot of bad will from El-Sayed's campaign against her in 2018.  If she backed Stevens, it'd be worth a few points in her direction.

But if you look to the presidential races of 2024, you also see some lines being drawn.  Chris van Hollen & Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez both have endorsed El-Sayed.  This is notable in particular for AOC, as she refused to get into the Maine Senate primary recently with another left-supported candidate (Graham Platner).  On the flip side, Ruben Gallego & Catherine Cortez Masto have both endorsed Stevens, and so has Nancy Pelosi, perhaps the most lauded establishment Democrat in the party.  It's pretty clear that if you're an establishment Democrat, you want Stevens, and if you are supporting the emerging Democratic Tea Party movement from the left, you want El-Sayed.

If you've read this blog very long, you'll guess where I stand, though I will own that (like McMorrow) I feel a bit adrift.  I am a relatively conventional Yellow Dog Democrat, but one who is probably considerably more progressive than most of the politicians I support, and I was excited we had looked like another Tammy Baldwin/Tina Smith-style liberal who can easily code as a moderate.  But I also care about who we are nominating-I don't like full-on litmus tests, especially in purple/red districts like this and I also don't approve of some of the public misogyny & coded xenophobia that is coming from El-Sayed's camp, and sometimes from him himself.  I also don't think someone who publicly supported "Defund the Police" is a good candidate in Michigan, and brings insane amount of risk with him.  I therefore am hoping for Stevens, even if (as of right now) I'd bet on El-Sayed ever so slightly...though there's a lot of game to play, and if Stevens pulled an Angela Alsobrooks (i.e. a candidate who closed well enough to win in what would've been seen as an upset a few weeks earlier) I wouldn't be surprised.

Assessing the Democratic Tea Party

This blog is old (if you look far enough back, you'll find posts that go back over 20 years), but I only started writing regularly on it in 2012.  That means that, for the large part, I avoided most of the Tea Party movement that sprung up in the GOP during the Obama administration.  I have talked about this a lot, but essentially for those unfamiliar-the Tea Party movement, championed by figures like Sarah Palin & Glenn Beck, had Republicans essentially going after establishment or more traditionally moderate-to-conservative figures and supporting incendiary pols in the party, ones who were less general election-friendly, but appealed to a base that could not understand the appeal of President Obama.  Ultimately, this led to the 2016 election and the MAGA movement, which would elect Donald Trump to two terms in the White House.  But in its infancy, the Tea Party movement was shorthand for a gift to the Democrats.  In 2010 & 2012, five Senate races (in Nevada, Colorado, Delaware, Indiana, & Missouri) saw establishment figures, including long-time incumbent Richard Lugar, lose their primaries and in the general election, saw winnable seats go to the Democrats.  This was a big part of how the Democrats held the Senate for six of the eight years that Barack Obama was president...through mistakes made by the Republicans.

Until 2026, while Democrats have seen House races go poorly or be forfeited because of a left-wing candidate ousting a House member and then losing the general (most specifically OR-5 in 2022 and NE-2 in 2018, where wins by Reps. Kurt Schrader & Brad Ashford likely make those seats blue), mostly they've avoided this, even with the rise of a stronger left-wing.  Figures like Zohran Mamdani, Ilhan Omar, Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, & Rashida Tlaib represent a leftist viewpoint on the national stage, but due to coming from deep blue seats, they all have kept these seats in Democratic hands.  This year, though, four races have come to the forefront that feel like they are truly serving as a harbinger of a Tea Party for the Democrats, complete with sacrificing winnable races (during a wave election) that could mean disastrous consequences, specifically for control of the US Senate.  I wanted to profile these races, and my read on both how likely it is that we get a truly bad candidate, and if they can win even with clear issues with their candidacy.

Mayor Keisha Lance Bottoms (D-GA)

Georgia Governor

The Moderate Candidate: Jason Esteves & Geoff Duncan

The Far Left Candidate: Keisha Lance Bottoms

Their Credentials: This race is actually over, as Bottoms already won the primary (which is not yet the case for the remaining three contests), but for posterity Bottoms is a former Mayor of Atlanta, while Esteves is a State Senator and Duncan a former Lieutenant Governor (and former Republican).

What's the Problem?: Georgia has not elected a Democratic governor since 1998, and not because we've run total gadflies.  In fact, we've run decent candidates multiple times, but the state (even as they've shown a willingness to elect a Democrat to the US Senate) simply doesn't seem capable of going blue for the State House.  That felt like it was going to change this year, as both Esteves & Duncan have the sort of moderate profile that Raphael Warnock, Joe Biden, & Jon Ossoff used to get to victory in the Peach State.  But Bottoms won, and with her came a tumultuous time as Mayor of Atlanta (including spikes in crime, as well as a dip in popularity during the Covid shutdowns).  Bottoms is considerably more liberal than any of the three men I just name-checked, and would be the most liberal Governor of Georgia...ever?  Additionally, big city mayors generally struggle to win governor's races, and that's really her only calling card.

Can She Win?: Unlike the other candidates here, Bottoms' problems are more aesthetic/political than ingrained into her campaign (she is easily the most talented of the candidates in terms of ability).  She's actually run a successful major campaign before, and has been better about trying to unite Democrats, joining quickly with Jon Ossoff (who is expected to win) to try and ride his coattails to a victory.  The Republicans are also making a calculated error in a blue-trending state with a run-to-the-right primary runoff.  I think Bottoms might be able to ride the tide and become the first Black woman to ever be governor in November, even if I will own that Esteves or Duncan would be the heavy frontrunner by now while she's in a tossup race.

Graham Platner (D-ME)

Maine Senate

The Moderate Candidate: Janet Mills

The Far Left Candidate: Graham Platner

Their Credentials: Mills is a former two-term Attorney General and two-term Governor, the only Democrat to win statewide in Maine in over a decade.  Platner is an oyster farmer and a Marine veteran of the Iraq War & War in Afghanistan.

What's the Problem?: We have talked ad nauseam about Platner, and my distaste for his campaign here, but suffice it to say he is not ready for primetime, and was badly vetted before entering the race.  He has a history of racist, sexist, & politically damning rhetoric online, has voted multiple times for the woman, Susan Collins, he's now attacking (in many cases for things she did before he stopped voting for her), and as was revealed this weekend, maintained a dating app and romantic correspondence with 6-12 women during the early years of his marriage (which, I'll be honest, were in the past few years as Platner hasn't yet been married three years yet, so this is shockingly recent history and proof he appears to have cheated on his wife for most of his marriage).  Platner has maintained a healthy lead in the polls, to the point that Mills is not technically a candidate even though she's still on the ballot & has refused to endorse Platner yet, but with all of this fire, it seems inevitable that Collins (who is smart) hasn't shared the worst yet (keep in mind that not a single of the dozens of Republicans who ran against Donald Trump found the Access Hollywood video before he was the nominee...Collins likely has stuff Mills didn't).  For example, what was contained in those correspondences with potentially as many as a dozen women (including, theoretically, sexually explicit material or photographs) have not come to light yet...but certainly will given Collins' impressive election skills.

Can He Win?: Maybe, but I'm doubtful.  Polls show he can, and this might be a case where Maine voters (loathsome of Trump) want to send a message, and this is the only way they can.  I've maintained on this blog for some time that Collins likely would've lost had her race against Sara Gideon been in 2018 instead of 2020.  But Platner's candidacy is toxic, and he has done nothing to win over Collins voters; while Platner can win solely with Democratic voters (Biden & Harris both won Maine), he'll still need about 40-70k voters who voted for Collins in at least one of her 2008/14/20 races, and are therefore comfortable with splitting their votes if he wants to win.  It's hard not to look at the mountain of scandals that have engulfed Platner, and not think that Collins is saving the body blow for when it's too late for Platner to drop out (in the same way Claire McCaskill did to Todd Akin in 2012), and will be able to use that to keep those Biden/Collins & Harris/Collins voters on her side one last time.

Health Director Abdul el-Sayed (D-MI)

Michigan Senate

The Moderate Candidate: Haley Stevens...but also Mallory McMorrow

The Far Left Candidate: Abdul el-Sayed...but also Mallory McMorrow

Their Credentials: Stevens is a 4-term US congresswoman, while McMorrow is a State Senator (since 2019) and el-Sayed briefly served as Wayne County health director, as well as ran for governor in 2018.

What's the Problem?: This is a weird race because it started with a very clear differential between Stevens (viewed by many as the moderate, including Chuck Schumer who has not been shy about his preference for her candidacy) and McMorrow/el-Sayed, both of whom are from the left of the party.  But the far left itself seems to have coalesced around el-Sayed, leaving Stevens getting much of the moderate wing and McMorrow in a bizarre position where she has voters from across the spectrum.  This is in part because McMorrow is objectively the best candidate in terms of actual quality (she's relatable, good in a debate, and would be a national figure pretty quickly if she won), but also at this point it's clear that McMorrow and Stevens are splitting their vote, and polling shows certainly Stevens (and probably McMorrow) could win in 2026, whereas el-Sayed does the worst against Mike Rogers.

Can He Win?: No, I do not think el-Sayed can win this race.  Stevens has shown herself to be abysmal on the campaign trail, and McMorrow has not handled some controversy over old social media posts super well, but both are going to beat Mike Rogers in a wave election.  Michigan is too blue, and they are not controversial enough, to actually lose here, particularly against a guy who just lost a Senate race.  But el-Sayed's support of Defund the Police, his embrace of controversial figures like Hasan Piker, and his statements about the death of Ayatollah Khamenei all add up to a candidate that is not ready for primetime, and that can be easily attacked by the Republicans.  If he wins the primary, Mike Rogers would be the heavy favorite to flip this seat in November.

State Rep. Francesca Hong (D-WI)

Wisconsin Governor

The Moderate Candidate: Sara Rodriguez

The Far Left Candidate: Francesca Hong...and also Mandela Barnes

Their Credentials: Rodriguez & Barnes both served as lieutenant governor, with Barnes giving up the seat when he ran for the US Senate (unsuccessfully) in 2022.  Hong is a state representative first elected in 2020.

What's the Problem?: Hong is the most obvious problem here.  She's a Democratic socialist, one who has pushed to abolish the police, and even has espoused getting rid of the prison system entirely.  In a state as moderate as Wisconsin, this is tantamount to political suicide, and makes her totally unelectable.  I know this in part because of Mandela Barnes' embrace of the Defund the Police movement in 2022.  Hong is actually doing some favors to Barnes in the primary, in part making him look more moderate by comparison, but it's hard not to remember that while figures like John Fetterman, Raphael Warnock, & Mark Kelly were winning tough races in a theoretically red wave in 2022, Barnes lost to Ron Johnson, the only major Senate race that the Dems couldn't sink the basket on that cycle.  Rodriguez, who is polling in third right now (in an under-polled race, so it's hard to get a read if she's really that bad) is the clear moderate choice and would be able to beat Tom Tiffany & hold this seat...but again, she's in third, and it seems unlikely that the powers-that-be are going to try and save her.  It should be noted that Milwaukee County Executive David Crowley is also running, but unlikely to win and will probably play spoiler.

Can She Win?: Hong cannot-if she wins, Tiffany will flip the governor's mansion, and Evers strategically-timed retirement (similar to Gary Peters' above) will look like foolishness.  Barnes is slightly different-it's not clear whether this is a case of the Democrats being able to ride a weak candidate in a better cycle (like, say, John Thune or Dave McCormick for the Republicans) and get a win here, or if he's also totally toxic.  I wouldn't say this is a lost cause if he were to win, but I do think it makes it much harder than it would be with Rodriguez.

A Brief History of Congress Members on the Supreme Court

Sen. Ted Cruz (R-TX) & Mike Lee (R-UT)

In a midterm election year, one where the president has a trifecta in his party, it has become a common discussion around Supreme Court retirements.  Bill Clinton, Barack Obama, Donald Trump, & Joe Biden all had appointments during their first midterm of a like-minded justice retiring and being replaced by someone whose belief system matched the president, and George W. Bush had this happen preceding his second midterm.  Rumors have abounded for weeks over a plausible retirement, many of them centering around Associate Justice Samuel Alito, and while Alito has claimed he'll stay on through the end of the year...I'll believe it when I see it.

One of the interesting things that has popped up with this conversation has been around politicians who are interested in Alito's seat.  Sen. Chuck Grassley has publicly floated the names of Sens. Ted Cruz & Mike Lee for a theoretical opening, and there are reports from Axios that Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis has been "begging" for a job in the Trump administration, or even a shot at the open Supreme Court seat.  This all feels a little odd for most modern Court watchers, who have largely seen established or career jurists on the Court.  Of the current nine members, all but one (Elena Kagan) served previously on the federal bench in a lower Court but it's not crazy for jurists to have a more blatantly political background before joining the Court.  While none of the current members have held political office (the last Supreme Court justice to have held political office in their career was Sandra Day O'Connor, who was an Arizona State Senator in the early 1970's), many have served in political offices prior.  Kagan was a member of the Clinton & Obama administrations, Thomas & Alito both served in the Reagan administration (Alito would also serve in George HW Bush's, as would John Roberts), Neil Gorsuch served in the second Bush administration, and Amy Coney Barrett & Brett Kavanaugh were both attorneys for the Bush campaign during the 2000 Florida recall.  So I thought it'd be interesting today to take a look, specifically at members of Congress, and their history of serving on the Supreme Court given the possibility that Lee or Cruz might join them.

Prior to the 17th Amendment, there was a relatively common history of members of Congress being nominated for or even winning seats on the Supreme Court.  Edward Douglass White is maybe the most notable member to do this, having served as a US Senator from Louisiana for a few years, and was chosen as a compromise option by President Cleveland after two previous nominees he'd put before the Senate were rejected (White would go on to become Chief Justice, appointed by William Howard Taft, the man who would eventually succeed him to that position, and would serve a total of 27 years on the bench).

But we'll focus this article on those chosen after the 17th Amendment, when senators & House members were both elected directly by the public.  During that time, just five US Senators and one House member were chosen for the Supreme Court: George Sutherland, Hugo Black, James F. Byrnes, Harold Hitz Burton, Sherman Minton, & Fred Vinson.  The most recent of these was Minton in 1949 (it's worth noting that Earl Warren, who had been Governor of California prior, and is generally the most commonly-cited politician/Supreme Court jurist outside of Taft, was appointed later than this in 1953 by President Eisenhower), so there's not a lot of recent precedence for this.

Justice Hugo Black

Historically, senators had a much easier time in the very clubby upper chamber getting appointed to the Supreme Court.  George Sutherland, for example, was confirmed on the day of his nomination to the Supreme Court, as was James Byrnes, and Harold Burton was confirmed the day after his nomination, as was Fred Vinson.  The only two nominations of these six that appeared to have any sort of resistance were Black's and Minton's.  In Black's case, it was allegations that he was a member of the Ku Klux Klan (which turned out to be true), and in Minton's case there were allegations of cronyism, given he was a close friend of Harry Truman's from when they were in the Senate together.  But all six would be confirmed, either by voice vote or overwhelming margin.

This would not, however, be the case for Homer Thornberry.  While Minton was the last member of Congress to be put on the Supreme Court, Thornberry was the last time one was nominated.  Thornberry was nominated by President Johnson in 1968 for the Supreme Court, and at that point in many ways his time as a congressman from Texas (who had succeeded LBJ into the House) had been eclipsed by his appointment to the 5th Circuit in 1965 by Johnson.  Johnson had wanted Thornberry to take over for Associate Justice Abe Fortas, who had been nominated to succeed the late Earl Warren as Chief Justice.  But Fortas was in a contentious battle at the time of his nomination with Sen. Storm Thurmond (R-SC), who alleged that legal (but questionable) payments that Fortas had received through American University would color his judgment, and Fortas's views on pornography in relation to free speech had made him a cause celebre for Thurmond.  Eventually Fortas's nomination was lost as a result of the filibuster (signs of things to come) and given Fortas was a sitting Associate Justice, without him getting a promotion, Thornberry didn't have a place to go (and for reasons that aren't entirely clear, Johnson didn't just try to nominate Thornberry directly to be Chief Justice), and so Thornberry remained on the 5th Circuit bench for the remainder of his career.

Thornberry is the last time that a member of Congress was formally nominated, but that doesn't mean that rumors haven't come up repeatedly in recent decades that the trend could return.  Ronald Reagan looked at Orrin Hatch, Howell Heflin & Paul Laxalt for his open Supreme Court Seats, and John Danforth was considered by George HW Bush.  This has continued on with Joe Lieberman & George Mitchell mentioned by President Clinton, John Cornyn, Mike Crapo, Mike DeWine, & Mel Martinez by President George W. Bush, and during the Obama administration Cory Booker, Amy Klobuchar, & Claire McCaskill were all mentioned.  In fact, during Trump's first administration Cruz & Lee were also rumored for spots.  The only recent president to not have publicly floated names of a member of Congress is Joe Biden.

All of this is to say that the Cruz & Lee thing feels right on schedule-it would be weird if we didn't have Senators on the list of potential Alito replacements.  But as we've seen in the past 70 years, just because you're on the list, doesn't mean you won't be considered.  Trump's atypical approach to the job could change this, but this is definitely "believe it when I see it" instead of expecting Lee or Cruz to be truly considered.

Abdul El-Sayed and the Limitations of a Blue Wave

Dr. Abdul El-Sayed (D-MI)

This past weekend, the Michigan Democratic Party had their convention, where they nominated several candidates for major office, including Garlin Gilchrist for Secretary of State and Eli Savit (in something of an upset) for Attorney General.  The Senate race did not have a nominating component (the nominee will be chosen in the primary later this year), but that doesn't mean that the Democrats running weren't still speaking, and it was very clear which candidates had the most support.  Rep. Haley Stevens was literally booed at the convention, and as State Sen. Mallory McMorrow was leaving the stage, Dr. Abdul El-Sayed was already getting cheers from the crowd, with chants of "Abdul!" coming before McMorrow was gone from the podium.  Had the US Senate primary been decided by the convention, it's clear El-Sayed would become the Democratic standard-bearer to replace Sen. Gary Peters.

But conventions didn't decide this, nor should they (if you've read this blog for any length of time, you'll know that I think nominating conventions and caucuses are deeply undemocratic, and primaries choosing nominees is always preferable).  However, it's hard to ignore the clear momentum that El-Sayed has coming out of this with the base, and wonder what this could mean for the Michigan Democratic Primary, arguably the most competitive blue-held seat on the map in November (I think this is more at risk than Georgia).

While there is currently what looks like a blue wave approaching, Michigan is one of the swingiest of swing states in the country currently, and someplace the Democrats shouldn't be worried if they want to have the Senate majority, but polling shows that the race is close for the general election between all three of the Democratic candidates and presumed Republican nominee, former Rep. Mike Rogers (who just barely lost here in 2024).  Aggregate polling shows Stevens up over Rogers by 2-points, while he's up by less than a point over McMorrow, and up 2-points over El-Sayed.  None of these aggregates, it's worth noting, has either candidate above 45% of the vote.  This indicates to me that while this looks like a close race, it's one that will be decided by independents, likely people who have voted for Trump (at least once), but have been open in recent years to Joe Biden, Gary Peters, Elissa Slotkin, and especially Gretchen Whitmer.  If you want to win this, it'd be wise to pull a play from Whitmer's playbook: someone who is results-focused, charismatic, and willing to bend across the aisle when needed to get stuff done for the state even if they're generally reliable blue.

El-Sayed does not have that reputation.  While Stevens (as the moderate) has clear crossover appeal, and McMorrow's plain-spoken directness (and honestly her really impressive retail politicking skills) cover that she's nearly as liberal as El-Sayed (a similar tactic that James Talarico is employing in Texas), El-Sayed has a number of red flags that are going to make winning over Trump/Whitmer voters challenging.  He has actively courted the support of Hasan Piker, the controversial far-left activist who has faced increased scrutiny from those in the party who think he's an unhealthy addition to the coalition (it's worth noting that Elissa Slotkin, who successfully won a Senate seat while Donald Trump won her state last year, basically the definition of whom we should model a race upon, has refused to meet with Piker).  He has also vocally endorsed the "Defund the Police" movement, something neither Stevens nor McMorrow have backed.  Regardless of your opinions on this movement, this is not a popular one, certainly not in purple state Michigan.

I will own, because I've gotten comments on various platforms about Graham Platner, that unlike Platner I would be able to hold-my-nose and vote for El-Sayed even though I don't agree with him on everything.  But I do sincerely feel that he puts this seat not just at risk, but I think he would be the underdog.  Stevens is a generic Democrat (and a lousy campaigner), but she'd win the seat because it's a blue wave and she's a left-of-middle House member.  McMorrow is certainly to the left of the median Michigan voter, but she'd also be able to win this race, and given her talent and age (she's only 39), having a talented progressive representing a swing state would be a great way for us to prepare our bench for the 2030's & 40's.  She'd have six years to basically pull a Jon Ossoff (i.e. be known as a workhorse who's secretly more progressive than her public statements let on), but she seems capable of doing that.

But El-Sayed-I don't buy it.  This is, at best, a Keith Ellison situation-where a much-to-the-left of the state candidate wins based off of a large swath of voters electing him even though though they don't like him much (and lucking out to get into two midterms that were either blue or abortion-focused).  But Michigan is not Minnesota (hence why, even though I'm not voting for her in the primary, Peggy Flanagan doesn't really get this sort of scrutiny from me as I think she'd still win the general, even if it's by less than Craig would).  A blue wave is not magical, and sometimes people's stats-based analysis ignores that there are outliers, and usually those outliers in a wave have something in common.  In 2010, Sharron Angle & Ken Buck lost races that they were expected to win...because they were lousy candidates and the states weren't willing to go that extreme with more generic Democrats as options.  The same can be said for Andrew Gillum & Mandela Barnes, the former losing a state that the Democrats had just barely lost two years prior (just like Michigan) by running too far to the left and the latter losing Wisconsin (about as close to Michigan as you can get) in a big part because "Defund the Police" was used against him.  These four candidates all feel very similar to Abdul El-Sayed, who like Graham Platner, seems unusually vulnerable to lose the same voters that his opponent (in this case a pretty generic Republican in the form of Mike Rogers) can take advantage of; the only problem is that while Platner has continually proven through polling that Maine might just discard its past trends (i.e. Susan Collins closing well with moderate, Dem-POTUS favoring women), polls in Michigan back up the theory that El-Sayed could easily lose to Mike Rogers.  And if El-Sayed loses here...the Democrats' Senate majority dreams go up in smoke.

Can Susan Collins Pull a "Never Trump" in Maine?

Sen. Susan Collins (R-ME)

Ten years into his presidency, the "Never Trump" movement feels like a weird thing to discuss.  Ten years ago, headed into the 2016 general election, it was a much bigger deal that Donald Trump was not the choice of many Republicans, and it's worth noting that the list of Republicans who didn't support him publicly was very long.  From refusals to endorse from figures like the Bush Family (both former presidents, as well as Governor Jeb Bush), to then sitting officeholders like Govs. John Kasich, Larry Hogan, & Brian Sandoval, to members of Congress like Rob Portman, Ben Sasse, & Mark Kirk, the Never Trump movement in many ways was a group of people who assumed that Trump was a flash-in-the-pan, someone that they could survive with one loss in 2016 (putting up with Hillary Clinton for four years), and pretend never happened in 2020 when someone more appropriate was the nominee.

But Trump won the 2016 election, and took much of the Never Trump movement with him.  Of the dozens of members of the US House who refused to endorse Trump in 2016, only two (David Valadao & Mike Simpson) are still in office.  Many of these figures either lost future elections (Barbara Comstock, Eric Paulsen, & Mia Love, for example, all went down in general elections during the 2018 blue wave), or were driven out of the party.  People like Portman & Jeff Flake chose to forego running for reelection all-together rather than deal with the fallout.  Some senators survived, mostly in states like Utah & Alaska where (despite being red states) MAGA isn't nearly as powerful as it is in most of the rest of the country, but by-and-large the movement dissipated.  Liz Cheney & Adam Kinzinger in 2024 were pretty much the last prominent Republicans to help a Democratic nominee.  At this point, all of the Never Trump Republicans are relegated to history, are out of office, or are now Democrats.

All except one: Susan Collins.  Collins has never publicly backed Trump in any of his three presidential elections.  Collins publicly said she wrote in Paul Ryan's name in 2016 and Nikki Haley's name in 2024 (it's worth noting that, as far as I can find, Collins never publicly stated whom she voted for, Trump/Biden/otherwise, in 2020).  Collins is also one of the only federal Republicans (possibly the only Republican) to have survived the entire Trump era in a blue state.  Collins had the good luck to not be on the ballot in 2018 (when I think she would've lost), and had the even better luck in 2020 to be able to vote against Amy Coney Barrett, a crucial bipartisan moment for Collins that may have won her the race against House Speaker Sara Gideon that year.  Part of this is skill (Collins is, in my opinion, the most talented cross-party federal politician still in office in the country of either party at this point), but it's worth noting I think Collins would've lost in 2018, and probably loses in 2020 if Ruth Bader Ginsburg hadn't died.

But recent polling in Maine seems to be spelling out something that might help Collins in a way I never would've imagined.  A recent Emerson poll showed that in the Maine Democratic Primary, Graham Platner enjoyed an incredible lead over Janet Mills (55-28%), and had a 7-point lead over Collins in the general.  This is one of many such polls for Platner, who has essentially taken on the distinctive frontrunner status in Maine, a Senate race we've talked about a lot here.  What was interesting to me in this Emerson poll was the favorability ratings across the Democratic Party between Mills & Platner.  Platner's voters generally liked Mills (56-36% favorability rating, a solid position to be in in a tough race).  But Mills voters seem to hate Platner, with only 18% of them having a favorable viewpoint of him and 56% disliking him.

Normally, these numbers are things that people shouldn't worry about, and that I wouldn't normally care about-the Never Trump movement is maybe the best indication of that.  Given a general election matchup that's competitive, the party gets in-line even if they don't love the nominee, and while there were a lot of very prominent Never Trump endorsees in 2016, the GOP largely just voted for their nominee en masse (it's how he won).  In this case, I would normally think that the Mills voters would see Platner winning, complain for a minute, and get in-line.

But there's a problem here-Collins is famous for peeling off disaffected Democratic voters, and Platner is a uniquely tough candidate to swallow if you aren't already backing him (I have said, for the first time in my life, that he's a federal Democrat in a major federal race that I simply could not vote for & would ultimately leave the ballot blank if I lived in Maine).  He has been deeply critical of the kinds of Democrats that don't like him (hence why they don't like him), and most of these Democrats, particularly those over 40, have likely voted for Collins in at least one of her elections.  They are very comfortable with splitting the vote for her (Collins won with both Barack Obama and Joe Biden at the top of the ticket), so it begs the question-can Collins do something Hillary Clinton couldn't?  Can she get the NeverPlatner voters to come to her side?

These Emerson numbers make me think that she can.  Collins is in a position where, if the Republicans are so bad off in November (and with the rise of both oil prices & unemployment, they might get there) she can't win at all; she needs Trump in better shape than he is to have a shot (in some ways, she might mirror Norm Coleman in 2008 where a large swath of Democratic voters didn't back their Senate nominee because they actively disliked him, but it was too blue of a year for that to ultimately make the difference).  But if she does win (and she has never lost a Senate race in nearly 30 years), it will almost certainly be because of this contingent: Democrats who have voted for her before (and also voted for Janet Mills before), but who have shown an outward dislike of the man the Democrats are about to nominate.  If I'm the Collins team, I have to like what I'm seeing in this polling...and am surely prepared to try to do the reverse of what the NeverTrump movement never could.

5 Thoughts on Tuesday's Elections

I'm not letting Tuesday's primaries go without weighing in a bit, even if we're a day later than I usually get this out (I had lunch plans yesterday, and evening plans, and...well, I have a life, I ain't make excuses for it).  But here are where I stand after the elections on Tuesday, the biggest being in Illinois.

1. Juliana Stratton Wins the Democratic Primary

The biggest news of the night was in the Illinois Democratic Senate primary, where Lt. Gov. Juliana Stratton emerged victorious, beating two members of Congress (Raja Krishnamoorthi & Robin Kelly).  Stratton's win, at least on paper, was something of a mild upset, as Krishnamoorthi had led in virtually every poll up until the last couple of weeks before the election.  In many ways, this mirrored the Maryland Senate primary in 2024, where an establishment favorite was taking on a congressman with a gargantuan amount of money (by all accounts, Krishnamoorthi has basically spent his entire time in Congress waiting for this moment, and still managed to fail spectacularly), and then lost when polls closed because there was more excitement around her candidacy (aided by the endorsement of the extremely popular Gov. JB Pritzker).  In both cases, a Black woman emerged victorious, as Stratton (given the strong blue tilt of Illinois) will surely become the sixth Black woman to serve in the US Senate come January.

It's also worth noting that Krishnamoorthi & Kelly's losses come on the heels of Jasmine Crockett losing a few weeks ago.  Three House members all losing in rapid succession, particularly given Angie Craig's precarious polling position and Haley Stevens being in a basically tied race in Michigan, has me wondering if Democrats are punishing House members & wanting new blood in Washington.  It's hard not to start drawing a pattern here, particularly given the polling love for people like Graham Platner in Maine as well.

Mayor Daniel Biss (D-IL)

2. Daniel Biss Takes on the Squad (and AIPAC)

The other big story of the night was Daniel Biss in the 9th district, which is open due to Rep. Jan Schakowsky retiring.  Biss was seen by many (including me) as the heavy favorite, particularly given his noteworthy run for Governor in 2018 and his longtime tenure as a local politician (serving as both a State senator and mayor of Evanston).  His margin, though, was honestly kind of pathetic given how many advantages (the entire Democratic establishment backed him), as he only beat liberal activist Kat Abughazaleh by under 4-points.

Biss's win was in part a victory over the Squad (who had gone hard behind Abughazaleh), and in part a rebuke of AIPAC (which had heavily backed State Sen. Laura Fine, who came in third).  This makes it seem like he was a centrist or moderate choice, which is insane (Biss is very liberal, and will likely become one of the most progressive members of Congress when he's sworn in in this Harris +36 district), but more so that he kind of just wasn't that impressive of a candidate (and maybe his loss to JB Pritzker wasn't just about Pritzker's dominance, but also his own failings as a retail politician), and there was a win on the table for Abughazaleh if she'd been a better candidate.  That said, this seat is likely off the table for a while for someone like Abughazaleh.  Biss is only 48, and incumbents continually prove near-impossible to beat in Democratic primaries, so it's unlikely he'll have much issue in two years.

Rep. Melissa Bean (D-IL)

3. Melissa Bean Returns to Congress...

Incumbents are also challenging to beat when they aren't even incumbents, I guess.  Melissa Bean, whom some will remember as being the Democrat that finally beat Phil Crane in 2004 (just to lose to arch conservative-turned-liberal convert Joe Walsh) became the first former member of Congress to win a primary to take back their old seat this year.  The 64-year-old Bean will have no problem winning this seat in November, though it remains to be seen what kind of a congresswoman she'll be.  Bean struck a very moderate profile when she was first in office, but her seat has changed pretty dramatically, and isn't the swing seat it once was.  While she might still stay moderate, she won't be able to be so too strongly without putting her left flank at risk in a primary.  Then again, it's also not clear how long Bean, who made a fortune in between her congressional runs working for financial institutions, wants to serve in Congress.  At 64, this could be something she's looking to do indefinitely, or something she just wanted to prove she could do.  Either way, she'll be part of a likely blue House majority in November.

Rep. Jesse Jackson, Jr. (D-IL)

4. ...While Jesse Jackson, Jr. Does Not

She will not be joined by her former colleague in the House Jesse Jackson, Jr., though, as he came in a distant second to Cook County Commissioner Donna Miller on Tuesday.  Jackson was considered by most to be the frontrunner here, but he had little establishment support, with Miller and State Sen. Robert Peters splitting the establishment and left flank endorsements.  This was driven in part because Jackson was found guilty of wire and mail fraud in 2013 (it's the reason he had to resign from the House in 2012), which most people did not want to have their names associated with even though Jackson's name recognition, particularly days after his revered father's funeral, might have otherwise gotten him the victory.

It's worth noting that Jackson Jr. spent a rather memorable part of his eulogy for his father publicly chastising Presidents Clinton, Obama, & Biden, saying they "do not know" his father.  While his brother Jonathan (who is a sitting member of Congress already, and won his primary on Tuesday), chose to keep silent on such personal feuds, his brother did not, and you have to wonder if insulting the well-regarded last three Democratic presidents in such a blue primary was, even in a moment of grief...ill-advised.

Rep. Elaine Luria (D-VA)

5. Warning Signs in Virginia for Redistricting

Most of the news on Tuesday came out of the Land of Lincoln, but not all of it, and not all of it was good news for the Democrats.  In a Trump +15 open General Assembly district in the Old Dominion, Republican Andrew Rice actually outperformed Trump by 10-points, a pretty impressive margin, and running counter to virtually every other narrative right now that has the Democrats looking at a blue wave.  This feels, to me, like a rejection of the recent move from the state legislature to redistrict the state, essentially gerrymandering Virginia to give the Democrats a probable path to a 10-1 majority, netting four seats, and potentially a House majority with it.  If you're Abigail Spanberger or Hakeem Jeffries right now, you're seeing this overperformance and have to be worried that the Democrats may have overshot their hand, and will have very public egg on their face if this doesn't pan out (not to mention high-profile congressional candidates like Shannon Taylor, Dan Helmer, Dorothy McAuliffe, and former House members Tom Perriello & Elaine Luria, who until Tuesday were probably already buying new drapes for their future offices, and are now in a situation where their blue districts are extremely at risk).  Much to watch here, but Democrats are likely to overspend & send in the A-Team (expect Obama, Harris, & AOC to start campaigning) given how much is at stake.