MICHIGAN CALLED NOW

Colom still in it for MS, still reporting a lead of 43 😭😭😭

Bad news for Vance in 28. Surely he'll be primaried now.

Trump could avoid that by standing down in early 2027 and then Vance would run as sitting President. Could stand for his own 2 terms.

Edited 13 hours ago13 hr by CRAZY CHRIS

Watched as late as I possibly could, went to bed seeing a few wins but woke up seeing the biggest ones.

Texas being blue is just shocking and it wasn't even close, the Latino community absolutely will have helped here and showed up.

El-Sayed winning Michigan was wonderful news to wake up to, he ran a very charismatic campaign.

And of course, Trump has taken no accountability of any of this stating "if my name was on the ballot it would be different", blaming all the candidates for not running good campaigns and also making a dig at Fox News not being republican enough

Just incredible news

A turning point? Hopefully.

Also do we think Mamdani helped with all of this? I feel like seeing all his success in NY definitely gave people the hope they needed for the first time in YEARS

The blue wave is so overwhelming that any discussion of the virtues of progressive vs. moderate D seems slightly buried for now, which I think is a relief.

Also Blississippi is unbelievable. This is the US equivalent of South West Norfolk voting Labour (over Liz Truss).

2 hours ago, Tafty said:

Just incredible news

A turning point? Hopefully.

Also do we think Mamdani helped with all of this? I feel like seeing all his success in NY definitely gave people the hope they needed for the first time in YEARS

Mamdani has just been an absolute revolution, his popularity is through the rough.

Have you seen the tweet he put in response to JD Vance and how much he has ratio'd him? As of writing this, 67m views 2m likes! Hilarious.

2 hours ago, Tafty said:

Also do we think Mamdani helped with all of this? I feel like seeing all his success in NY definitely gave people the hope they needed for the first time in YEARS

Yes, I think so - El-Sayed and Talarico's campaigns were massively styled on his. He kind of turned the Democratic Party into one that had a bit of clarity and purpose behind it after that bruising loss in 2024. Also the emphasis on running charismatic candidates that people want to vote for, the Republican senator who's taken Misssissippi to a knife's edge is one of the most ludicrously uncharismatic politicians I've seen in my life. Kind of the American Liz Truss in a way.

kind of a shame after all this that we have Schumer and Jefferies as presumptive Majority Leaders, but maybe Schumer will use this as a good opportunity to retire, he's surely gonna get primaried in 2028.

Vance and Rubio are done for 2028, I think anyone close to the administration will be, either they're too hapless to disassociate from it (Vance) or too smart to run into a bad environment (Rubio). Meanwhile Dems stocks for Ossoff or AOC very high at this, still, I have to stress, ludicrously early stage.

The Georgia governor race going to the Dems as well surely clears the way for Ossoff to be a big contender for 2028 (as his seat would then just be filled with another Democrat) - but yes, very early.

Looks like it'll be a little while before the last 2 Senate seats are called, Alaska always takes forever and Mississippi is insanely close and coming down to trickling provisional ballots (which apparently there is good reason to believe will be Dem-leaning - I'll still hold off on celebrating Blississippi for now but it looks promising and that'd be a great cherry on top if it was confirmed, though I am already satisfied with the South Carolina result meaning they've outdone my realistic expectation). 56 seats for Dems if they both come through which is wild given the overwhelming consensus as recently as a few months ago was that it would be an uphill battle for them to scrape 51 on this map even in a favourable environment.

Polling for Kansas was strong enough that it's not exactly a surprise but still worth highlighting that this is the first Dem senator from Kansas since 1932. Seems they've also held onto the governor race there too which was much less expected!

3 hours ago, Tafty said:

Just incredible news

A turning point? Hopefully.

Also do we think Mamdani helped with all of this? I feel like seeing all his success in NY definitely gave people the hope they needed for the first time in YEARS

I’m not so sure, it’s more about the war in Iran, petrol prices and the economy, Reps stay on their hands and didn’t vote or voted for the Dems to kick the GOP up the arse to change their tune and of course many dems came out to vote in great numbers for popular progressive talented politicans.

 

Well this is better than I ever expected which is fantastic to see. The thought of a Dem like El-Sayed as senator after the trash campaign the Reps ran undermining him by creating fear is great to see. Calling him a Jihadist on the one hand and a communist on the other is just weird frankly.

Guess now Trump will have to just call him Mr Senator if he really can’t understand how to say his name.

Edited 8 hours ago8 hr by Steve201

2 hours ago, Harve said:

The blue wave is so overwhelming that any discussion of the virtues of progressive vs. moderate D seems slightly buried for now, which I think is a relief.

But to expand on this slightly (as I think Jonjo was perhaps indirectly asking about that), you can certainly create a narrative that says moderates running in swing states is essential but I really don't think the progressive performance is that bad. I just think that economic matters ending up trumping identity or flavour of Democrat, largely.

Minnesota had a progressive running for senate. She won by 10%, and the average dem victory for the 5 statewide races was 11% (including the moderate electoral juggernaut who ran for gov, Amy Klobuchar).

Michigan had a progressive running for senate who won by 7%, and the average dem victory for the 4 statewide races was 9%.

Florida had a progressive running for senate who lost by 3%, and the average dem loss for the 5 statewide races was 2%.

Maine had a progressive running for senate and there is a clear case of underperformance but the circumstances were very odd with the Platner scandal, and there was only one other statewide race (governor) and the latter WASN'T against a known incumbent and overperformer (Collins) which I think is the main factor here.

Compared to Texas, Kansas, Iowa etc. these states weren't amazingly impressive for democrats up and down the ballot all things considered, but I don't think that can be put down to the partisan lean of one of many candidates.

So a very slight underperformance but not clear enough to really deter an El Sayed-style campaign rhetorically or to consign progressive policies to history. That will matter for whether AOC runs in the primary.

I may be a little buoyed by how soundly he ended up winning anyway but El-Sayed's victory could be one of the most important. He's a candidate who is honestly a generational talent at speaking and making his arguments on the campaign trail, very well adapted for a social media age and incredibly willing to fight for progressive causes. He also faced huge levels of ratfucking that might have sunk a lesser candidate - Mamdani's vote total was also not the most impressive, but his impact on politics in the last year - huge!

Running a tad behind the other candidates feels more like an indictment of how much establishment forces are willing to deploy irrelevant questions and stumbling blocks into the campaigns of these kinds of candidates and as you say Harve, it's not by all that much in the grand scheme of things! Something that will be a consideration for running a progressive candidate for President, but if the Trump administration continues to be this unpopular, a good progressive candidate as President has the opportunity to both get in office comfortable, and once there completely overhaul American politics. Which a more standard moderate may not do.

Been so long since I've woken up to good news from the States! I guess you can't fault Americans for being consistent - the economy was ultimately what lost the Democrats the last election and, tariffs and a pointless war later, things aren't really improving so naturally they'll go the other way.

I don't want to read too much into this for the presidential election as a lot can happen until then and the previous midterms pointed to a very different picture to what happened (indeed Trumpism seemed like a poisoned chalice there so soon after Jan 6, but...), but the Democrats have got a great opportunity here, indeed it's too early to say whether a progressive candidate is the answer, but El-Sayed will certainly be a story that's remembered.

Over the moon that Trump's last two years will be a whimper before he finally sods off for good, I hope the Democrats put pressure on him and make it as tough as possible for his fascistic tendencies to go through, a chance of investigations into his personal finances and a third impeachment could well be on the cards!

Kansas and South Carolina flipping and even the slight prospect of Mississipi feels like a fever dream, I don't think even the most optimistic could've predicted the latter!

Couldn't have asked for a better result and it still may get better with Alaska and Mississippi yet to call. Hopefully the democrats can keep up this momentum into the 2028 election and start to repair some of the damage caused by Trump's administration.