1. Yes, @kkondik is spot on in terms of the assessment here. In my forecast- which comes back out Sunday, the NC Senate seat is seat 50- although there are reasons to believe it was looking soft before this happened. Primary bc the @CalforNC was focused on wooing Indies & mod Rs
2. to the exclusion of any other efforts and messaging as I knew it would be when I was fervently hoping a stronger nominee would emerge. Sadly, NC's bench sat out, failing to realize how good the atmosphere would be in 2020- looking at 2020 & Burr's open seat which si DUMB,
3. my research being blacklisted off election twitter, it was hard for me to convince people back in 2019 that come fall of 2020 it would be a dominant environment to topple Tillis. So they end up w Tillis, and for the 2nd time the Ds find themselves getting screwed by the sexual
4. appetites of older white men. But this will also give us a good test of how much the D electorate will tolerate. We know how bad the R electorate is- they tried and almost succeeded in sending a child molester to the Senate in Alabama. They weren't thwarted in that effort by
5. R voters- they were thwarted by a surge of Dems and Indies. Control of the senate is on the line. I don't see Tillis dropping out and I don't see the Dems dropping him. Maybe he'll realize too that the only way he ever could win this race was via NC's college educated Ds & Is
6. and driving massive black turnout by focusing on the stakes of control of the senate and tying Tillis to Trump. That was the campaign he should have been running all along- and the fallacy of his "get Rs to bail on Tillis plan" was already apparent. But in terms of "guy wanted
7. to cheat on his wife" scandal rendering him unelectable? I'm guessing no, not in this environment with control of the senate at stake.
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Shit has hit the fan in LA and other Blue cities as the realities of rounding up millions of people, many of whom have lived in the U.S. for years or came as children and have grown up American begin to take root. thecycle.substack.com/p/the-cycle-mo…
For those of us who’ve spent the last 6 months discussing how Trump would use mass deportations to create chaos is the Blue states and then use that chaos as an excuse to declare a national emergency and seize total power, things are right on schedule.
Although MAGA seems to think Democrats created the illegal immigration problem, the issues with illegal immigration dates back decades and is a byproduct of decisions made by the last 8 or 9 presidents combined.
Here’s the truth they don’t teach in high school civics or scream about on Fox News: America didn’t always have a “border crisis.”
🧵There are serious implications to the end of Elon and Trump’s partnership.
I have mentioned before, even having Elon exit stage left was great news for us, but having him kill off Trump’s Big “Beautiful” Bill.
Well, that could change everything.
Not only may we end up in a 2026 scenario where a major player (and his money) have removed themselves from the game, now we might even see Elon actively undermine Republicans up and down the ballot.
I would forfeit every Christmas gift I get from now to the end of time if we could only get Elon spending and working against Trump.
But wait….because it gets even better!!
🧵Trump's Executive Orders Serve One Sinister Purpose:
Inside Team Trump's Shrewd Strategy to Kill Democracy
Many times I’ve asked you to imagine what it would be like, what your thoughts, feelings, and beliefs about contemporary America would be like, if you were one of the 100 million plus Americans who can’t name their own state’s senators.
Vox dropped a recent piece that is firewalled, but I want you to read this short excerpt from their reporting:
Now, don’t focus on the particular demographics of this particular disenchanted voter.
She could be anyone: a man, a woman, old, young, Black or White. Believe it or not, there are even college educated Americans who have this kind of limited, simplistic frame for interpreting political events.
🧵STAT of the Week
Voters Have No Idea What Democrats Stand For
I want to show you something very important.
You know I talk non-stop about how Republicans have intentionally trashed the Democratic Party’s brand, but today I want to focus on how Democrats help them get away with it.
Last week David Shor from Blue Rose Research released their election autopsy. You can find the entire presentation this slide comes from here in a conversation between Ezra Klein and David Shor.
But I want to focus on just one key chart in Shor’s data, this. 👇
And I want to talk about it differently than Shor does in his interview. He doesn’t even notice what I am am going to show you.
🧵What is the Overton Window and Why Is Elon Musk Breaking It?
Elon Musk Bought Twitter to Make the Unacceptable Acceptable. And It's Working.
So many political science terms, so little time.
As I meet with more and more people from the upper tiers of Democratic Party politics it is becoming clear to me that there are key findings from peer-reviewed political science research that simply never trickled down to the general public.
Long time subscribers to this distinguished ‘Stack should know two of those political science concepts well by now: 1. the strength of party identification on public opinion and vote choice for the vast majority of the electorate and 2. the stunningly low levels of civic knowledge of American voters.
🧵STAT(S) Of the Week:
Never Interrupt Your Enemy When They Are Making a Mistake
I think, and I believe many of you must agree, it is best to live and strategize in the world we actually live in and not the one we wished we lived in.
Unfortunately, in the real world, even after two months of the terrible headlines we have been reading, the average public still likes Donald Trump way more than Democrats.
He still beats us by 20 points!
As I explained in a prior post, some of that low approval rating is coming from Democrats who don’t think the party is doing enough and saw the CR fight as the first chance to put up a fight.
Now, I want you to keep our 29% favorability rating in mind while considering last week and the decision by 9 senate Democrats to vote for the CR rather than shut down the government.