Fun fact: One of the first challengers for the U.S. Senate in the 2024 cycle is a Republican named Barack Obama Mandela. (I can't tell if he changed his name to this for electoral purposes or it's actually his given name. But he has a personal history that almost rivals George Santos, except any research I can do shows that his story is likely pretty true.)

Potential development in the NCAA Skiing National Championhips. Vermont's Justine Clement, one of the favorites in the Women's Giant Slalom, did not finish her first run. Will have a major impact on the team competition as well. Only four schools have a full complement of 12 skiers. Vermont was likely Utah's only competition for the title, and the Catamounts lost one of their biggest point-scoring opportunities on their first run.

Arizona Dems were so expecting a red wave that they strategically did not even run enough Arizona House candidates to win a majority.

Pretty clear that Lake/Masters dragged the ticket down enough that Dems would have had the majority had they fielded a full slate. The Arizona House has 30 districts, each of which elects the top two vote-getters. So Dems strategically ran only one in some swingy districts to try and poach a few second-place finishes. That plan worked in LD-16. But in two other districts, the lone Dem took first place.

I have received many questions over the last 24+ hours about the standard Jewish legal position on abortion. I will not specifically answer them or go into depth on the topics, but I will give a few broad points.

1. The mother's life comes first. If the pregnancy threatens her.. life, you abort the baby. That is universally agreed upon.

2. You will see many on here claim that Judaism permits all abortions in the first 40 days (~8 weeks by current pregnancy counts). That is without question incorrect. No one mainstream ever said such a thing. The single

The last time West Virginia had multiple Black Republicans in the state legislature (all served in the House of Delegates) was in the 1920s. That may change next year.

Caleb Hanna is currently serving in the HoD (HD-44). Hanna has no primary challenge and the district is ~R+20. Hanna should be treated as a near-lock to win in November.

So where could the second Black Republican come from? Let's look at HD-97.

This is an ~R+15 district along the Maryland border, split between Berkley and Jefferson Counties. West Virginia changed its format for HoD...

Whoa! Huge surprise in Iowa's legislative special. 75% of the vote reported (including absentees, I believe), and Andrea Phillips (D) has a 300-vote lead. She got apparently got massive election day support today relative to her 2020 E-Day numbers. I don't know which precincts haven't yet been counted, so this still could be a relatively easy gap for Bousselot (R) to overcome. Or it could be very difficult. But it's a lot closer than I ever expected it to be after 8,700 votes were counted.

Today has pretty much convinced me that Ron DeSantis could never beat Donald Trump or fully garner the support of Trump's followers. And the reason is very simple.

Thread:

Donald Trump is a leader. Ron DeSantis is not.

You might not like what Trump does with his leadership... abilities and positions. You might not like what he inspires or brings out in his followers. But it's very clear that Trump leads. He doesn't care what his followers think or want to hear. He says what he thinks, and people who like him respect that enough, even when they...