#Georgia governor race

[batboyblog]

But I don't live in a swing state?!

every 4 years I see people talking about how they live in a red state (or more rarely a blue state) so their vote doesn't matter and I just want to briefly point out that I think nearly every state is either a swing state for the Presidential election, having a key Senate Race that will decide control of the Senate, has one or more key House races that'll decide control of the House, or is having an important Governor's race that'll could flip control of the state

Presidential Swing states:

Arizona

Georgia

Michigan

Nevada

North Carolina

Pennsylvania

Wisconsin

Key Senate Races:

Arizona

Florida

Maryland

Michigan

Montana

Nevada

Ohio

Pennsylvania

Texas

Wisconsin

States With Key House Races:

Alabama

Alaska

California

Colorado

Connecticut

Florida

Illinois

Indiana

Iowa

Kansas

Maine

Maryland

Michigan

Minnesota

Montana

Nebraska

Nevada

New Hampshire

New Jersey

New Mexico

New York

North Carolina

Ohio

Oregon

Pennsylvania

Texas

Virginia

Washington

Wisconsin

Swingable Governor Races:

New Hampshire

North Carolina

there are lots of local and state level races that are very important to, but my point was basically odds are very very good, you live somewhere where your vote will help decide what America looks like in 2025. Don't get tricked into thinking just because your state isn't one of the ones always mentioned in the news as a swing state that it doesn't matter what you do

[justinspoliticalcorner]

A.B. Stoddard at The Bulwark:

1. Trump’s Not Taking the L. . .

The last two weeks—the unveiling of the Harris-Walz ticket, and Kamala Harris’s surge in the polls—feels like some surreal dream state. Everything has changed. Have you noticed Harris has pushed Donald Trump right out of the comfy lead he’s held for an entire year? He’s noticed. From FiveThirtyEight to RealClearPolitics—pick your polling average—they all now show Harris out in front after only two and a half weeks.

Trump is no longer on track to win the election—which he has been for more than six straight months. Instead, the momentum, money, voter registration, volunteering, grassroots organizing, polling, and online engagement all favor the Democrats and it looks now like Trump could easily lose. But that won’t happen, because Trump doesn’t lose. He beat Joe Biden in 2020—remember? So if he’s not the rightful victor on November 5, an entire army of Republicans is ready to block certification of the election at the local level. No need to worry about mayhem on January 6, 2025 when Congress meets in joint session; the election deniers plan to stop a result right away if it looks like Harris is winning. Their goal: Refuse to certify anywhere—even a county that Trump won—and prevent certification in that state, which prevents certification of the presidential election. A Harris victory could become a nightmare.

An investigation by Rolling Stone identified “in the swing states of Arizona, Georgia, Michigan, Nevada, North Carolina, and Pennsylvania . . . at least 70 pro-Trump election conspiracists currently working as county election officials who have questioned the validity of elections or delayed or refused to certify results.” Of those 70, 22 of them already have “refused or delayed certification” in recent past elections. Nationwide, Republicans have refused to certify results at least 25 times since 2020, in eight states—the most in Georgia.

The article describes social media posts from the zealots who have infiltrated election administration as showing “unapologetic belief in Trump’s election lies, support for political violence, themes of Christian nationalism, and controversial race-based views.” There are more than enough such individuals in these key posts to bring us to a constitutional crisis. “I think we are going to see mass refusals to certify the election” in November, Democratic election lawyer Marc Elias told Rolling Stone. “Everything we are seeing about this election is that the other side is more organized, more ruthless, and more prepared.” Sit with that.

Then there is this. Trump’s self-destructive attacks on Georgia’s popular governor made the headlines from his Atlanta rally last Saturday, but he also singled out for praise three little-known Georgians—Janice Johnston, Rick Jeffares, and Janelle King—calling them “pitbulls fighting for honesty, transparency, and victory.” Who are Johnston, Jeffares, and King? They are three of the five members of Georgia’s State Election Board. Three days after Trump’s speech, this past Tuesday, those three Republicans approved a new rule requiring a “reasonable inquiry” prior to election certification that—while vague and undefined—could be exploited to delay certification and threaten the statewide election certification deadline of November 22.

The law in Georgia, where Trump and fourteen1 others are charged with plotting to overturn the 2020 election result, requires county election boards to certify results “not later than 5:00 P.M. on the Monday following the date on which such election was held”—so this year, by the evening of November 11. The secretary of state is then to certify the statewide results “not later than 5:00 P.M. on the seventeenth day” after the election, so November 22.

Across the country, the November election results will have to be certified in more than 3,000 counties, and all state results must be final by the time electors meet in each state on December 17. Members of county election boards are not tasked with resolving election issues; certification is mandatory and “ministerial,” not discretionary. Disputes over ballot issues are separate from the certification process—investigated and adjudicated by district attorneys, state election boards, and in court. Election experts say the new rule could disrupt the entire process across the state by allowing local partisans to reject results. And Georgia appears to be at the center of Trump’s plans. Casting doubt on Fulton County, which makes up the bulk of Democratic votes in the state, will help him claim he won the Peach State as the rest of the results come in red.

But even without an explicitly permitted “inquiry” like the new Georgia rule provides, Republicans in other swing states still plan on acting at the county level to slow or stop certification. Because questioning the outcome at the very start of the process will create delay. Any doubt and confusion, and perhaps even violence, makes it easier to miss essential deadlines and can threaten the chance that the rightful winner prevails. Election deniers also hope that sowing chaos might prompt GOP legislatures to intervene—in Georgia, Arizona, or Wisconsin for example—a dangerous scenario I wrote about in April.

[...] It’s crucial that these plans are widely publicized. And they can be. Just like Project 2025, which was virtually unheard of and is now in the forefront of the political debate. Putting a media spotlight on this issue will force Republican officials to address what they are well aware of and are refusing to call out. Yesterday CBS News reported Biden said in his first interview since leaving the presidential race he is “not confident at all” there will be a peaceful transfer of power if Trump loses. Harris isn’t likely to talk about this in her campaign, so it’s critical that other high-profile surrogates do. President Obama, President Clinton, Hillary Clinton, and others must educate voters about the plot underway to force more public pressure and accountability on the process. Every Republican must be asked about local certification of elections, electors honoring the popular vote of their state, preventing political violence—all of it. Repeatedly. As Elias told an interviewer, there are things we can do, as citizens willing to invest some time, to take action. This isn’t a threat from abroad. This year—and likely for years to come—we will all have to continue to fight against what our fellow Americans are doing to subvert elections. Because without free elections—and facts and truth—we cannot be a free country.

A.B. Stoddard wrote in The Bulwark that Republicans will seek to cause chaos post-election to try to block certification of a potential Kamala Harris win.

[tomorrowusa]

Trump probably can't win the presidential election without North Carolina. 🤔💡

It would be difficult though not out of the question for Kamala Harris to win without Pennsylvania. But it would be close to impossible for Donald Trump to win without taking North Carolina.

If Trump loses North Carolina, it could be an early night — and curtains for GOP

Democrats hope that momentum determines the presidential winner and even changes the contours of election night. North Carolina polls close early, at 7:30 p.m. Moreover, state law allows processing of mail-in votes well before Election Day, making an early count possible. (Some states, including Pennsylvania and Wisconsin, cannot start processing until Election Day, which could result in delays of several days before a winner is determined.) Should Harris win North Carolina’s 16 electoral votes, Trump’s chances of victory diminish greatly. He would need a virtual sweep of other battleground states (and likely all of the blue-wall states).

A quick reminder that North Carolina was the state which gave Trump his narrowest victory in 2020. It was won in 2008 by Barack Obama. So we're not exactly talking Tennessee or Idaho here.

An early-evening victory in a state Democrats have not won for 16 years would reverberate through the country, potentially depressing GOP turnout in Western states and diminishing the appetite for stunts to refuse certification of results in states such as Arizona and Georgia (which would not be determinative if Harris holds the blue wall and wins North Carolina).

Republicans are more likely to vote on Election Day than Democrats who have adopted early voting in greater numbers than Republicans. So an early call for Harris-Walz in North Carolina on the night of the election would more likely depress Republican votes in the Western US.

One thing which may negatively affect Trump in the state is the awful Republican candidate for governor of North Carolina.

[T]he North Carolina governor’s race might have a “reverse coattails” effect. The Republican nominee, Lt. Gov. Mark Robinson, is an extremist conspiracy nut, a “fount of social media conspiracy theories and vile proclamations about the LGBT community, Jews, and other minority group,” the Daily Beast noted this year. From Holocaust denial to thundering that “some folks need killing” to his support for an abortion ban from “zero weeks,” he symbolizes everything wrong with today’s MAGA Republican Party. Robinson’s Democratic opponent, Josh Stein, the state attorney general, has opened a 10-point lead. If Democrats tie Robinson (a Trump favorite) to Trump, voters might run from both. At the very least, Republicans could suffer a drop in turnout as disgusted North Carolinians simply stay home.

A better than average turnout of Dems in NC would help flip the state. If you live just over the border in deep red South Carolina or Tennessee then consider doing some volunteer work in North Carolina. It could have an impact which extends far beyond the Tar Heel State.

[kcrabb88]

I don’t know what to say. I spent years post 2016 doing electoral activism. Comms. Fundraising. GOTV. I watched those things work. I watched democrats win races that just needed a little attention. Every election since 2016 has been much more blue. Statehouses turned blue that had been red forever. Democratic governors won back the midwest. Biden won. Abortion protections passed after the fall of Roe in a lot of states. Georgia got two democratic senators. I could go on. Kamala Harris had a pristine ground game. The best. He had nothing and he won. There was a right swing in this country in a way that just. Didn’t fit with what I thought I knew. What I’d been seeing. With the work I did. I dunno what that means or if it just means that people falling for an authoritarian broke through all that.

All I know is we have to take care of each other. That good people are out there. Those things, I know for sure.

[mariacallous]

Republicans on Monday conceded defeat in their push to change how the state of Nebraska counts its electoral votes as a way to help Donald Trump beat Kamala Harris in November.

“Our governor had considered a special session of the legislature in order to make that change, but the votes aren’t there to do it,” U.S. Sen. Deb Fischer (R-Neb.) told reporters on Monday after a key Republican in the Nebraska Legislature announced his opposition.

“It’s over,” she said.

Trump and Republican members of Congress last week urged Nebraska Republicans to change their electoral rules just weeks before the November presidential election so that the state’s five electoral votes would likely all go to Trump instead of allowing one to go to the Democratic candidate based on how Nebraskans vote. Nebraska and Maine are the only states that don’t follow a winner-take-all formula.

Sen. Lindsey Graham (R-S.C.), a top Trump ally on Capitol Hill, even traveled to Nebraska to urge lawmakers to support the change, but the effort appeared to stall out after state Sen. Mike McDonnell (R) balked, denying proponents a filibuster-proof majority in the legislature.

“I have taken time to listen carefully to Nebraskans and national leaders on both sides of the issue,” McDonnell said in a statement on Monday. “After deep consideration, it is clear to me that right now, 43 days from Election Day, is not the moment to make this change.”

The state’s 2nd Congressional District, including Omaha and its suburbs, has swung toward Democrats since Trump was elected in 2016. In 2020, President Joe Biden won the district and its one electoral vote by 6.5 percentage points. Recent polling of the district shows the Democratic nominee, Vice President Harris, with a similar lead over Trump.

Changing the way Nebraska awards electoral votes could potentially have a major effect on the presidential race. If Trump receives an additional electoral vote, as he likely would in a winner-take-all allocation, Harris would need to sweep in the Rust Belt states (Michigan, Wisconsin and Pennsylvania) as well as carry an additional Sun Belt state (Arizona, Georgia, Nevada or North Carolina) to avoid a tied election.

Sen. Pete Ricketts (R-Neb.) called the lack of support for the voting change “disappointing.”

“I’ll have to talk to the senator to see if he can change his mind, but until he does we don’t have the votes,” he added on Monday.

[dreaminginthedeepsouth]

Clay Jones, Claytoonz: The new GOP mantra

* * * *

LETTERS FROM AN AMERICAN

July 25, 2024 (Thursday)

Momentum continues to build behind Vice President Kamala Harris to become the Democratic Party’s presidential nominee, and the national narrative as a whole has shifted.

Democrats appear to be generating significant enthusiasm among younger Americans. Yesterday, for the first time in their history, the March for Our Lives organization endorsed a presidential candidate: Kamala Harris. Students from the Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School in Parkland, Florida, organized March for Our Lives after the shooting there in 2018. Executive director Natalie Fall said that the organization “will work to mobilize young people across the country to support Vice President Harris and other down-ballot candidates, with a particular focus on the states and races where we can make up the margin of victory—in Arizona, New York, Michigan, and Florida.”

Andrea Hailey of Vote.org announced that in the 48 hours after President Biden said he would not accept the Democratic nomination, nearly 40,000 people registered to vote. That meant a daily increase in new registrations of almost 700%.

People are turning out for Harris in impressive numbers. In the hours after she launched her campaign, Win With Black Women rallied 44,000 Black women on Zoom and raised $1.6 million. On Monday, around 20,000 Black men rallied to raise $1.2 million. Tonight, challenged to “answer the call,” 164,000 white women joined an event that “broke Zoom” and raised more than $2 million and tens of thousands of new volunteers.

Another significant endorsement for Harris came yesterday from Geoff Duncan, the Republican former lieutenant governor of Georgia, who wrote on social media: “I’m committed to beating Donald Trump. The only vehicle left for me to do that with is the Democratic Party. If that requires me to vote for, speak for, or endorse [Kamala Harris] then count me in!” Duncan’s public announcement offers permission for other Georgia Republicans to make a similar shift. In 1964, South Carolina senator Strom Thurmond similarly paved the way for southern Democrats to vote for Republican presidential candidate Barry Goldwater.

Harris’s appearances are generating such enthusiasm from audiences that when she delivered the keynote address this morning at the convention of the American Federation of Teachers in Houston, Texas, the applause delayed her ability to begin. After a speech defending education and calling out the cuts to it in Project 2025, Harris ended by demonstrating that after decades of Democrats being accused of being anti-American, Trump’s denigration of the country has enabled the party to claim the position of being America’s defenders.

“When we vote, we make our voices heard,” Harris said. “So today, I ask you, AFT, are you ready to make your voices heard? Do we believe in freedom? Do we believe in opportunity? Do we believe in the promise of America? And are we ready to fight for it? And when we fight, we win! God bless you and God bless the United States of America.”

Today the Commerce Department reported that economic growth in the second quarter was higher than expected, coming in at 2.8%, thanks to higher spending driven by higher wages. The country’s changing momentum is showing in media stories hyping the booming economy Biden’s team tried for years to get traction on. “Full Employment is Joe Biden’s True Legacy” was the title of a story by Zachary Carter that appeared yesterday in Slate; CNN responded to today’s good economic news with an article by Bryan Mena titled: “The US economy is pulling off something historic.”

With Harris appearing to have sewn up the nomination, the question has turned to her vice presidential pick. That question is fueling the sense of excitement as potential choices are in front of cameras and on social media advocating Democratic positions and defending the United States from Trump’s denigration. Pennsylvania governor Josh Shapiro listed the economic gains of the past years, and said: “Trump, you’ve got to stop sh*t talking America. We’ve got to start standing tall and being patriotic and showing how much we love this amazing nation.”

The vice presidential hopefuls appear to be having some fun with showcasing their personalities, as Minnesota governor Tim Walz did in his video from the Minnesota State Fair where he and his daughter went on an extreme ride. So are social media users who have dug up old videos of, for example, Transportation Secretary Pete Buttigieg explaining how he would pilot a small starfighter that had lost its auxiliary shields, or Arizona senator Mark Kelly’s identical twin brother Scott pranking a fellow astronaut on the Space Station with a gorilla suit Mark smuggled on board.

That sense of fun is an enormous relief after years of political weight, and it has spilled over into making fun of the Republican ticket, most notably with a false story that vice presidential candidate J.D. Vance wrote about—and I cannot believe I am typing this—having sex with a couch. The story is stupid, but worse are the denials of it, which have spread the story into populations that otherwise would likely not have seen it.

Just two weeks ago, Vance appeared to be the leader of the next generation of extremist MAGA Republicans, but now that calculation seems to have been hasty. Vance is a staunch opponent of abortion—the key issue in 2024—and he has been vocal in his disdain of women who have not given birth, saying in 2021, for example, that the U.S. was being run by “a bunch of childless cat ladies who are miserable at their own lives and the choices that they’ve made and so they want to make the rest of the country miserable, too.” He went on to say that people who don’t have children “don’t really have a direct stake” in the country.

Republican commentator Meghan McCain noted that Vance’s “comments are activating women across all sides, including my most conservative Trump supporting friends. These comments have caused real pain and are just innately unchristian.” Actor Jennifer Aniston, who tends to stay out of politics, posted: “I truly can’t believe this is coming from a potential VP of The United States.” Vance had called out Harris by name in those 2021 comments, and Second Gentleman Doug Emhoff’s ex-wife Kerstin Emhoff took to social media to defend Harris from Vance’s attacks on her as “childless,” calling her “a co-parent with Doug and I. She is loving, nurturing, fiercely protective and always present. I love our blended family and am grateful to have her in it.” Harris’s stepdaughter chimed in: “I love my three parents.”

Vance also ties the Republican ticket firmly to Project 2025. The Trump camp has worked to distance itself from Project 2025—not convincingly, since the two are obviously closely tied, but it turns out that Vance wrote the introduction for a forthcoming book by Heritage Foundation president Kevin Roberts, who was the lead author of Project 2025. The book appears to popularize that plan, right down to its endorsement of a “Second American Revolution,” and according to the book deal report, proceeds from the book will go to the Heritage Foundation “and aligned nonprofits.”

Now Vance’s words praising Project 2025 will be in print, just in time for the election. Yesterday, Trump posted: “I have nothing to do with, and know nothing about, Project 25 [sic]. The fact that I do is merely disinformation put out by the Radical Left Democrat Thugs. Do not believe them!”

Trump is clearly aware of, and concerned about, the changing narrative. This morning, he called in to Fox & Friends, saying, “We don’t need the votes. I have so many votes. I’m in Florida now…and every house has a Trump-Vance sign on it. Every single house…. It’s amazing the spirit…. This election has more spirit than I’ve ever seen ever before.” Tonight the Trump campaign proved their worry by backing out of debates with Harris, saying debates can’t be scheduled until she is the official nominee, although Biden was not the official nominee when they met in June.

The larger narrative shift has affected the media approach to Trump, who is accustomed to shaping perceptions as he wishes. Now, 12 days after the mass shooting at his rally in Butler, Pennsylvania, there is increasing media attention to the fact that there has still been no medical report on Trump’s injuries, although he wore a large bandage on his ear at the Republican National Convention and said at a rally in Grand Rapids, Michigan, on Saturday that he “took a bullet for democracy.”

Yesterday, FBI director Christopher Wray told Congress that it is not clear whether Trump was “grazed” by a bullet or by shrapnel, words that former federal prosecutor Joyce Vance called “FBI speak for, ‘it’s unlikely it was a bullet.’”

CNN chief medical consultant Dr. Sanjay Gupta noted last week that the people need a real medical evaluation of Trump’s injuries, explaining that “gunshot blasts near the head can cause injuries that aren’t immediately noticeable, such as bleeding in or on the brain, damage to the inner ear or even psychological trauma.” But, as Josh Marshall at Talking Points Memo has noted, much of the press has kept mum about the story.

Media outlets have reported Wray’s testimony, though, and in a social media post today, Trump called on Wray, whom he appointed to head the FBI, to resign from his post for “LYING TO CONGRESS.” Tonight, he reiterated that “it was…a bullet that hit my ear, and hit it hard.”

Perhaps eager to get back to their districts, House Republicans canceled their expected votes on appropriations bills scheduled for next week and left town today for their August recess. The House will not reconvene until early September. The government’s fiscal year 2025 begins on October 1.

LETTERS FROM AN AMERICAN

HEATHER COX RICHARDSON

[petervintonjr]

"I wonder if our white fellow men realize the true sense or meaning of brotherhood? For two hundred years we had toiled for them; the war of 1861 came and was ended, and we thought our race was forever freed from bondage, and that the two races could live in unity with each other, but when we read almost every day of what is being done to my race by some whites in the South, I sometimes ask, 'Was the war in vain? Has it brought freedom, in the full sense of the word, or has it not made our condition more hopeless?' In this 'land of the free' we are burned, tortured, and denied a fair trial, murdered for any imaginary wrong conceived in the brain of the negro-hating white man. There is no redress for us from a government which promised to protect all under its flag. It seems a mystery to me. They say, 'One flag, one nation, one country indivisible.' Is this true? Can we say this truthfully, when one race is allowed to burn, hang, and inflict the most horrible torture weekly, monthly, on another?"

Everybody raise a glass to the memory of Susie King Taylor (neé Baker), teacher, author, field nurse, and Civil War hero. Susie holds the singular distinction of being the first Black woman to write and publish a memoir of her wartime experiences. Born enslaved in 1848 Savannah, Georgia, Susie was fortunate enough to be able to attend secret schools taught by Black women --despite the state's harsh literacy laws regarding slaves. Her principal teacher was a free woman of color who is only ever named as "Mrs. Woodhouse," a friend of Susie's grandmother, Dolly Reed, and over the years Susie would herself surreptitiously educate other enslaved persons. At the age of 14 she became free when her uncle led her out to a Union gunboat patrolling near Fort Pulaski (in Confederate hands at the time). Along with many other formerly-enslaved Black refugees in the aftermath of the Battle of Port Royal, Susie sought safety behind Union lines on the South Carolina Sea Islands.

Expediency led Susie to attach herself to the 1st South Carolina Volunteers, later known as the 33rd U.S. Colored Troops --the very first Black regiment in the U.S. Army. Formed in 1862, this unit boasted a large number of Gullah recruits. Having originally signed on as a regimental laundress and cook, Taylor's literacy quickly elevated her to the role of reading and writing instructor for many of the black Union soldiers during their off-duty hours. She also served as a field nurse. Military governor Rufus Saxton took notice of Taylor's talents and entrusted her with munitions and equipment responsibilities far beyond the scope of a laundress. She married a Sergeant Edward King of Company E in 1864, and the 33rd Regiment itself ultimately dissolved in 1866. The Kings settled in Savannah and established a school for Black children; unfortunately Edward died in a dockside accident only a few months after the birth of their son. Susie moved to Boston in 1870 and joined the Women's Relief Corps (of which she would eventually become president).

By 1879 Susie had remarried a Russell Taylor of Boston, and while she continued her work with the Women's Relief Corps, had also begun work on a memoir of her time with the regiment --originally intended for her son, she instead opted to publish the essays in 1902 as Reminiscences of My Life in Camp with the 33D United States Colored Troops, Late 1St S. C. Volunteers.

So... yeah. Go pick that one up and give it your undivided attention. And then pour one out for Susie, who died on this date (October 6), 1912, in Boston. She is buried at Mount Hope Cemetery.

[zaprowsdower27]

So, the Des Moines Register, a big newspaper in Iowa, pays polling company every election to poll specifically Iowans. This polling company polls just Iowa, not just for the newspaper but in general. They're supposedly the gold standard in polling. In the last twelve years, the most their poll has been off was five percentage points in the 2018 governor's race - and other than that it's all under 3 percentage points.

Their latest poll has come out.

It has Harris beating Trump in Iowa by three percentage points. For context, Trump beat Biden by about eight percentage points in Iowa in 2020 (Selzer predicted a seven point margin).

If you plug that into the fivethirtyeight election map, the one that lets you pick which way you think a state is going to go and then incorporates that assumption into how it models the other states, it says that if Iowa goes blue, other things that are likely

Arizona, North Carolina, and Georgia go from 'lean R' to 'likely D'

Pennsylvania, Wisconsin, Michigan, and Nevada go from 'toss up' to 'solid D'

Florida, Texas, and Ohio go from 'Likely R' to 'Lean D'

Alaska goes from 'Likely R' to 'toss-up'

Overall, the map goes from saying 226 likely/solid D electors, 50 toss ups, and 43 electors leaning R to saying 407 likely/solid/leaning D electors and 3 toss-ups

The last time a president won with over 400 electoral votes was thirty-six years ago in 1988

If there was a D presidential victory margin that wide it would likely put the Senate back in play, particularly vis-a-vis Ted Cruz and Rick Scott in Texas and Florida

I'm going to assume that this poll is somehow an inaccurate outlier despite the widely respected gold standard pollster because I don't think my brain is capable of processing that level of hope at this point

[anghraine]

Belatedly: block #election night hell 2024 if you don't want to see anything about it. I don't really have the strength of will to not obsess over it in real time. >_>

Thus far, there's nothing much unexpected in the results thus far. Red states are going red, blue states are going blue.

ABC has already projected a winner for North Carolina's governor's race—Josh Stein (Democrat) is beating Mark Robinson (Republican), but Robinson is such a wildly awful candidate in so many ways that this doesn't necessarily tell us much else about NC otherwise.

538 is reporting that what data is already available from Georgia indicates that the suggestions of a drop in support from Black voters in Georgia (vs Biden 2020) doesn't seem to be happening. Until more of Atlanta's votes come in, it's difficult to know exactly what's happening there.

[self-loving-vampire]

"On the first day of the Republican National Convention, prominent Republicans used their national platform to target transgender people. This signals that the party is not abandoning its efforts to curtail transgender and LGBTQ+ rights if they gain power in the next election. This comes after the vice presidential running mate pick of JD Vance, the lead author of a Senate bill that would institute a national ban on transgender youth care and bar all medical schools from teaching about transgender care, including adult trans care. ... The willingness to lean into anti-LGBTQ+ policies on the first day of the Republican National Convention may seem puzzling. Attacks on LGBTQ+ people have faltered in 2024 compared with 2023, with far fewer laws passing. Several states that had targeted trans people in previous years, such as Florida, Georgia, West Virginia, and Kansas, failed to pass anti-LGBTQ+ policies this year, despite over 80 bills proposed in those states targeting the community. In many elections where anti-trans policies were a major issue, the Republican Party suffered setbacks: 70% of Moms for Liberty and Project 1776 candidates lost their races in 2023. Other losses Republicans have suffered on this issue occurred in the Virginia legislature elections, the Arizona Governor’s race, the Michigan legislature elections, the Wisconsin Supreme Court election, the Walker-Warnock Senate race, and in dozens more places. Furthermore, recent polling from Gallup, Navigator, and the LA Times indicates fading public support for such laws, with huge majorities of respondents seeing them as a distraction and opposing bans on trans youth care. Still, Trump’s selection of Senator JD Vance as his running mate indicates that he and the Republican Party have not backed off from this issue."

[batboyblog]

How are you feeling about the election currently?

I'm optimistic, so far basically all nation wide polls show Harris ahead.

now we don't vote nationally, we vote by state in the electoral college and that picture is messier with the polls of the swing states, Wisconsin, Michigan, Pennsylvania, North Carolina, Georgia, Arizona, and Nevada being kinda all over the place.

however, basically every poll of the swing states together show Harris leading in enough of them to win, now which ones she's ahead and by how much is very kinda all over the place with different polls showing different states up and down.

but on the other hand, the Democrats running for Senate in Wisconsin, Michigan, Pennsylvania, Arizona, and Nevada, and the Democrat running for Governor in North Carolina are all showing MUCH! stronger numbers, winning by A LOT. Which is hopeful, that their strength is a side of Harris' strength and that undecideds will break her way.

That being said, NO! ONE! should take the election for granted, look at one good poll, or what I say and go "oh I can relax" no, it is dead tie, a neck in neck race, basically a tie. We are with-in the margin of effort, we are in a place where each and every person who volunteers has the power to change the outcome of this election. so please please please

VOLUNTEER

last weekend I volunteered up in northern Maine, Maine splits it's electoral votes and Trump in 2016 and 2020 won an electoral vote for the 2nd Congressional District in Northern Maine. So I went up there and knocked doors, talked to a dozen or so voters. This is just a little snap shot, but I was talking to voters who were not sure thing Dems, independent voters mostly. And all of them, pretty much, were very enthusiastic about Harris, even the one Republican (not on my list) I ran into had nothing to say about Trump, nothing, liked the District's Democratic Congressman (a lot). Walking around and driving I didn't see one Trump sign, not one sign for the Republican running for Congress either. I saw a number of signs (in lawns) for Harris/Walz I also saw no Trump signs on the road up. Rural Maine used to be infested with Trump signs, they've disappeared. Does that mean anything? idk, but take my little snapshot to say, come out and canvas right now guys, people are friendly and pumped up and will thank you and you'll feel great.

The only cure to election fear and stress is to do something, to volunteer and talk to voters.

[redistrictgirl]

Fight Song

I’m about to tell you a story. Take yourself, if you will, to a pivotal presidential election we’re all familiar with.

Woah, Trump just won North Carolina.

It’s just after 11:00 PM on the East Coast, and while the state was certainly close, Democrats were definitely favored in the Tar Heel State. But depending on how the rest of the night unfolds, we could have our first woman president, and she’s certainly the favorite. Besides, the next governor of NC will still be a Democrat - hardly a shock.

Oh, Ohio was called a while back, and by a weirdly convincing margin for the billionaire. But Virginia held for Democrats! What could possibly go wrong for them?

Things start going wrong for Democrats.

Liberal dreams of blue Iowa and Georgia are dashed. Arizona is close but it seems Republicans still have it. Okay, Minnesota and New Hampshire are on the board late in the game. That wasn’t anything anyone was counting on. Oh hey, a solid win for Dems in Nevada, maybe this race isn’t over.

Where is Michigan?

It looks like the election is going to come down to the four northern Rust Belt States and New Hampshire.

Here’s where things take a turn from this very familiar scenario.

Minnesota and New Hampshire are called first, both turning blue. Michigan is next, but it also refuses to budge from last cycle. Then comes Arizona - it stays as red as the polls said, though.

So it all comes down to Pennsylvania and Wisconsin.

Trump loses the Keystone State sometime Wednesday morning. Wisconsin is going to a recount. We’re in for a long three months.

But on Saturday, you get a notification on your phone.

“Kamala Harris projected to become the 47th president of the United States.”

This is what my model predicts will happen if undecideds break the exact same way they did in 2016. In short, Ms. Harris can now survive a Hillary Clinton-sized disappointment on Election Night.

Full forecast to come on Sunday as usual.

[politicalfeed]

Summary: Harris Makes First Trip to Battleground Wisconsin Since Launching Presidential Campaign

Vice President Kamala Harris held her first rally in Milwaukee, Wisconsin, since launching her 2024 presidential campaign, following President Joe Biden’s decision to drop out of the race and endorse her. Harris aimed to unify the Democratic Party ahead of the Democratic National Convention and the upcoming election against Donald Trump.

Harris’ speech in Milwaukee emphasized her record as a prosecutor and drew sharp contrasts with Trump, echoing Biden’s campaign themes but with a clearer, forward-looking economic message focused on building up the middle class. She also criticized Trump’s “extreme Project 2025 agenda,” reaffirming her stance against regressive policies.

In just 36 hours after Biden’s exit, Harris secured enough support from DNC delegates to become the Democratic nominee and raised over $100 million from 1.1 million donors. Key endorsements from top Democrats like Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer and House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries followed.

Harris’ campaign has a strong infrastructure in Wisconsin, with numerous coordinated offices and a significant increase in volunteer sign-ups. Her visit marked her fifth trip to Wisconsin this year, reflecting the state’s critical role in the election. The campaign also considers other swing states like Arizona, Nevada, North Carolina, and Georgia for broader electoral strategy.

Former Attorney General Eric Holder’s law firm, Covington & Burling, will vet potential vice-presidential candidates, with names like North Carolina Governor Roy Cooper and Arizona Senator Mark Kelly being considered. Harris’ campaign shows renewed energy and organization as it gears up for the final stretch before the election.

[littlegodzilla]

Chapter 17 is coming!

Our Story.

Daryl Dixon x Wife / Daryl Dixon x Reader.

Series. Part 17.

Masterlist.

Warnings: Slow burn. Panic attacks. Feelings.

Words: 3700

Summary: You and Daryl run away together and find a empty cabin.

Taglist: @minervadashwood @green-eyedladywrites @livingdeadblondequeen @phoenixblack89

**********************

Chapter 17:  Alone.

You keep running, never looking back, your hands clasped together, Daryl squeezing yours so hard you feared he might break your fingers, but at no time did you ask him to stop, or to let go, you just kept running beside him, leaving the prison behind you.

Escaping from your home.

The survival instinct is the first thing that activates in both of you. Especially in him. With his mind on autopilot, he tracks and hunts everything he considers edible; squirrels, birds, even snakes. You've never eaten snake before, and it's certainly a morsel you wish you'd never eat again. Ever since the governor knocked down your defenses and destroyed the prison forcing you to run out of there, Daryl hasn't opened his mouth, always stuck in his head, lips pursed tightly together, face transformed into a grimace you can't read. He's dealing with the situation in his own way, or not dealing, just trying to bury it as deep as he can to forget it. It hurts you, you've both lost a lot of dear people, you wish he'd talk to you about it, but it's clearly not in his plans.

"Daryl..." You say one night, as the two of you stand by a fire you've lit, small and almost lifeless, just enough to warm you. "Maybe we should go back..."

He watches you silently as you chew what's left of the snake, you've finished your share, but it hasn't left a good taste in your stomach. You're still weak from the flu that hit you no more than a few days ago, you're stronger, that's for sure, but you still feel a little strange still. He doesn't say anything, he keeps eating and that bothers you, you feel like he's shutting down on you again.

"Daryl..." You insist. "Our companions may be looking for us..."

"There's nothing anymore, we're not coming back." He cuts you off instantly. 

"You don't know that..."

"Neither do you." He grunts one last time and lies down on the floor to sleep.

For a moment you're tempted to get up and leave him there, if he doesn't want to find the others, you'll go alone, but not far away you hear thunder rumble and you both look up at the sky. At that time, the weather in Georgia is changeable and unstable, so you soon see the clouds begin to gather and darken. Daryl gets up from the campfire without a word, gathering his things to get going.

"Daryl, wait!" You ask him picking up your stuff as well to run after him.

The storm catches the two of you halfway through, walking through the woods to try to avoid it, but each time the rain is getting heavier, Daryl is ahead at a time and you realize you're having a hard time keeping up with him. The curtain of water is so dense that you suddenly feel alone. Your feet stop, panting and nervously, you look around.

"Daryl?"

But Daryl is not there. You are unable to detect him, between the deafening noise and the column of water that keeps falling on you, you feel isolated, lost, alone. Your pulse starts to race, your mind asks you to calm down and start walking again, but you have turned around so many times that you don't know where you have to go. The sky is so black you can't even be guided by the moon or the sun.

"Daryl!" You scream in a desperate attempt to make him hear you.

Your feet start moving with no concrete direction, the only thing in your mind is that you want to find the archer, make sure he's okay and get out of that hellish rain. It's not cold, but staying too long in the rain, even if it only drops the temperature slightly, could make you sick and that would be dangerous. You press your backpack against your body with all your might wanting to keep everything inside from getting wet. Suddenly, a strong grip on your shoulder startles you, out of instinct you grab your knife and turn quickly to face whatever is holding you, but another hand stops your attack, grabbing your wrist.

"Hey, hey, it's me. It's me." The growl of Daryl's voice instantly reassures you, even though it's still raining cats and dogs, you discover his form in front of you, his hair covering most of his face, but he's still managed to find you.

"I thought I'd lost you!" You shout above the noise of the rain and see him shake his head.

"Come on, I found a place." He tells you and takes your hand, guiding you through the trees and the storm.

You have to admit; he never ceases to amaze you, no matter the situation, Daryl always seems to find a solution, be prepared to deal with it and move on. That survival instinct so characteristic of his. Maybe it's the one good thing the Dixon family was able to teach him. Even if it sometimes came to blows. You take a deep breath walking faster to be almost glued to his back, even though you are holding hands, you still fear you might lose sight of him.

You don't know how long you walk or where to, for you the landscape doesn't seem to change, however, Daryl seems totally focused, with this rain the dead are the least threat, they too suffer the consequences on themselves, the hunter's mind is more concerned about yourselves, clothes soaked to the bone, no food, nothing to build a fire with. He fears you may relapse from your flu and now have nothing to save yourself with. He lost you for a few minutes, confident that you were right behind him, he picked up the pace wanting to find a safe place when he came upon that hut. At first his stomach clenched, it reminded him too much of where he came from, but it was all you had now. He turned to tell you that you would hang out there until the storm stopped and then he discovered he was alone.

Panic became a huge stone in his stomach. He looked around expecting to see you appear at any moment, perhaps protesting that he had gone too fast, that you had almost lost track of him.

Nothing.

His pulse quickened suddenly, breathing agitatedly like a cornered animal, trying to see you through the rain. Suddenly the sensation of the water falling on him chilled, even his skin tingled as if touched by acid. He shouted your name several times hoping for an answer not too far away. But you still did not appear.

Without further thought he entered the forest again, following your footsteps, trying to follow them. He felt stupid for a few seconds because he had never had problems in the forest. It was his best ally. Fuck at eight years old he had gotten lost in the woods and he knew how to get back home by himself, no one noticed his absence. The only person who cared was your sister when she came back to school and asked him how he had spent the weekend. Nothing else.

But at that moment he was not able to think clearly, his mind was divided, wanting to remember the way, and on the other hand just screaming at him:

Find her. 

Find her.

Find her.

The anxiety and tension was building by the minute, feeling like he had lost himself.

"Daryl!" 

Your voice sounds in the distance, he raises his head like a coyote in search of its prey, not far away, he distinguishes your silhouette not far from where he is, so he runs and grabs your shoulder. He must admit he feels a certain pang of pride when you turn around with your knife raised and he has to hold you by the wrist.

"Come on, I've found a place." He tells you and holds your hand to lead you back towards the hut.

You enter quietly and carefully, in case there is someone or some Walker inside that might truncate your plans, but you are strong, it is abandoned and there is nothing dangerous in it, except for all the dirt that surrounds it, but you are not going to get fussy about that. Daryl secures the doors and windows so that neither water nor cold can get in, also to protect you in case any Walkers show up. You clean the chimney and light a fire to keep warm as well as being able to dry your clothes.

"Look what I found." You say to him entering back into the hut with a box with several jars in it.

"Alcohol?" he smiles seeing the surprise on your face. "I would have been surprised if this place didn't have an illegal distillery," he says.

"Why do you say that?" You look at him curiously putting the box down on the table.

"This shack is exactly like my old man's. He distilled his own alcohol too, in a place like the shed you found."

"Oh..." You whisper suddenly feeling somewhat uncomfortable and sad to make him remember that. "We can wait out the storm a bit and be on our way."

"Nah, the weather's too rough, we'd better stay here until tomorrow. Make sure the storm passes completely."

You nod, crossing your arms not quite sure what to do. Daryl puts his crossbow aside, no longer worried that something might happen to you, everything is secure, the weather will calm down and the dead aren't going to come in. You see him heading down the corridor, curiously you follow him as he enters the different rooms, he seems to be looking for something, he takes several blankets out of the closets and you understand what he is doing, he is looking for dry clothes and something to cover you both and avoid the cold, so you decide to help him, between the two of you, you take out two thick blankets that will protect you from the change of weather due to the rain and some clothes. It's all men's clothing, but you find something that fits your shape, plus a thick, loose-fitting jacket.

"Do you mind if I keep it?" You say to Daryl showing him the jacket.

"Nah, keep it." He shrugs looking sideways at you.

You nod smiling and grab the rest of your clothes to head back towards the fireplace Daryl has lit and decide to undress before your partner returns so you don't put yourselves in an awkward situation. When Daryl returns to the main room where you are buttoning your temporary pants, he too has changed clothes, he is wearing a somewhat tight shirt over his biceps and jeans ripped at the knees, he walks barefoot, leaves his boots by the fire and sits down next to you.

"Do you want me to trim your sleeves?" you offer grabbing a pair of scissors you've found among the kitchen drawers, seeing that he nods.

You stand next to him giving the fabric a little snip before carefully cutting around his shoulder. Daryl's eyes are fixed on the fire, on the line of rope you've made between two chairs in front of the fireplace to place your clothes there, you've even left a hole for the archer's clothes, but he's left them in the other room. His saliva catches in his throat as his eyes search through all your clothes and discover your bra hanging next to your shirt. He tries to quickly avert his eyes from there, but curiosity gets the better of him; it's a basic, flesh colored, thin strapped bra, nothing flashy, which Daryl wants to understand, you're in the freaking apocalypse, who cares what your bra looks like or what color it is? Possibly your thought in looking for it is for comfort to hold your... he needs a second, he shakes his head wiping those thoughts from his mind because if he's honest, he thinks that bra is small for the size of your....

"Fuck..." He growls low and you jump up beside him.

"I'm sorry, did I cut you?"

"What?" He turns his head to discover you still sitting next to him.

"With the scissors... Did I cut you?" You ask him again pointing to the cut sleeve in your hand and the scissors. You wonder where his mind was to be so distracted.

"N-no... sorry, it wasn't that, just..." He shrugs, not sure what to say, he doesn't want to make you feel uncomfortable or have you think he's a pervert.

"Do you want me to cut your hair too?" you joke hearing him huff and turn away from you.

"Drop those scissors, woman." He warns you and a giggle escapes you.

You sit back down next to him and allow yourself to lean against his shoulder as you pick up two vials of the illegal alcohol and offer him one. Daryl is tempted to turn it down, alcohol has never been his best ally and he can be a real dick sometimes, but after everything that has happened to you guys in the last few days, he definitely needs a drink. You clink your flask against his in a toast and take a long swig.

"Shit..." You gasp grimace and cough a little.

"Too strong for you, princess?" he teases giving you the second swig.

"How can you just drink it like it's nothing?" You protest in a thread of a voice that makes him smile.

"I tell you, this place is like my father's old cabin, I'm used to it."

"Show-off." You stick your tongue out at him and go back to drinking. "God, I think my nose hairs are on fire." You confess after holding back a burp.

Daryl can't contain himself and lets out a long, loud laugh at your comment, you mimic him laughing heartily as well. Your body feels relaxed and your head feels a little dizzy, it's possible that the alcohol is taking its toll on your body. You stay like that for a few minutes, without saying anything, just drinking and eating some cans you found in the house, you leaning on his shoulder, he without moving an inch.

"Do you think we'll find them?" you say suddenly, breaking the silence.

"Who?" he asks, disoriented for a moment.

"Rick and the others..." You shrug. "I'm sure they escaped... I'm sure... maybe they went back to the prison..."

"What for? The Governor destroyed everything, it was full of Walkers, plus you don't know who else got out alive... it's stupid to want to go back..."

"But it was... our home, we can't think there's nothing left..."

"It's that there's nothing left! That...drone showed up with a tank and reduced everything to shit, captured Michonne, and Beth..." He bites his lip clenching the vial in his hand.

Daryl and Beth didn't have a great relationship, like with Carl and Sophia, Daryl cared and looked out for her, like the rest, but they didn't usually engage in great conversation, the archer had always had more affinity with Maggie, more trust with Hershel, but that didn't mean he didn't feel for the young woman's death, at the end of the day she was part of the group, she was family.

"I know, she didn't deserve what happened to her... she still had a lot to live for." You feel your voice shake a little and you sniffle through your nose, you're a little drunk, and the alcohol is making you sensitive. "Hey, did you finally tell them what you were working on?" you ask curiously.

Beth's boyfriend Zach was having a game with several other young men inside the prison, since Daryl didn't talk too much about his past life, they were trying to guess things about him, the last time she was attentive to their speculation, Zach was trying to figure out what the archer had worked on. Daryl smiles and shakes his head.

"There wasn't much to tell, I was never anything." He shrugs.

"That's not true..." You set your flask down on the table, Daryl mimics you and you settle back to look at him, he sits up better too and gives you a sidelong glance.

"Yes it is... my whole life I depended on Merle." He shrugs. "I followed him around like a dog looking for his approval." he sighed, beating and biting his lip. "When I met your sister, you, your family, I thought I could change, that I could leave the Dixon stigma behind and be someone, do something, but... then your sister died and I didn't..." He swallows hard, you continue to stare at him, letting him vent. "So I went back to where I thought I was supposed to be, in that crappy cabin with my dad, with Merle, being a Dixon..."

"Daryl that's not true, you're not...like your father. You never will be." You shake your head. "You're a good man Daryl, just because you're a Dixon doesn't mean you won't be, I think that stigma was lost on your father." Try to make him see. "Even Merle, his last will, although stupid and suicidal, was to take care of you and protect you...I never saw him that way because he always seemed willing to drag you into the bad stuff, but I think Merle always tried to take care of you, in his own way, but...I think he was trying." You try to smile to cheer him up a little more. "We all have our bad moments, our dark side, but the important thing is to come out of it and move on and you've done that, Daryl. You need to be proud of who you are."

Daryl needs a moment to process it, he feels a little overwhelmed by your words, but at the same time he feels his heart pounding, that you think that about him, it makes him feel good about himself, it makes him feel different, like he really is somebody. He smiles and stretches his arms towards you, you accept his invitation instantly and hug him giving you permission to kiss him on the cheek, you can feel his skin stretch under your lips in a smile.

"Zach thought I had been a homicide cop." He tells you again, changing the conversation and a laugh escapes you. "What, you think I don't look like one?"

"Yes, of course." You laugh again. "Homicide cop for squirrels." You joke again.

Daryl opens his eyes wide, pretending to be offended by your words, unfortunately you're unaware of the disadvantage you're at right now until Daryl catches your wrists with one hand and starts tickling you with the other. A squeak escapes your mouth, you squirm in his arms, but it's impossible to let go, the archer's grip is firm, though not intended to hurt you, as his fingers slide and sting across your belly and over your ribs sending cramps throughout your body making you giggle and squirm.

"Daryl, stop!" you laugh smacking yourself against his chest.

"Be a good girl and apologize for what you said." He orders you raising his voice a little over your laughter.

"Come on! I just don't..." But another chuckle nips your words in the bud. "Okay, okay! I'm sorry! Zach's right, homicide cop looks good on you!" you laugh and move around trying to run from his hands, Daryl stops his torture and you take a shaky breath.

"Such a good girl." He smiles, voice turning to a growl.

You stare at each other, one hand clinging to your waist as his grip on your wrists loosens. You feel your heart beat a single hard beat before it begins to pound. You see Daryl's eyes dilate but you're sure yours are too. Your hair stands on end as his fingers brush against the bare skin of your waist, his thumb very slowly caressing your side. Daryl releases your wrists completely as he leans into you, you stretch your neck towards him, your noses brushing.

CRACK!

You both jump in place, skin crawling with shock, your eyes looking around you, alert. Daryl gets up like a spring, running away from the situation, making sure everything is all right. You follow shortly after, grabbing his crossbow in case he needs it, using it as a prop to hide the trembling in your knees. Daryl is looking out the window, but seems calm.

"Walkers?" You ask with concern.

"Nah, the storm has increased the wind speed and snapped off a branch, but it didn't break the glass." He shrugs. "The branch strengthens the crystal for us, no problem."

"Well, then..." You rub your lips nervously. "Maybe we should try to sleep?"

"Yes, if the storm has passed tomorrow we'll go out and look for the others." He mutters and you look at him in surprise, then smile.

"Great... good thing we'll be able to sleep in a decent bed for a day." You smile again, but Daryl shakes his head once more.

"Nah, you go and sleep, I'll take first watch."

"But... you said there's no danger... we can both sleep."

"There's no danger, but I don't want to let my guard down either, go and rest." He insists taking his crossbow from between your hands.

"Okay, but let me know to change shifts, you need to sleep too." He warns you. "If you don't wake me up I'll kick you in the balls." You threaten him.

"Okay, now go to bed."

"Well... good night, Daryl."

"Good night, little girl."

You wander down the small hallway to enter one of the bedrooms, the sheets and mattress don't look very hygienic but after spending time sleeping on the floor or in a poorly made tent, that's like heaven. You sigh and lie down on the bed trying to sleep, but your heart is pounding so hard you're afraid you won't be able to fall asleep.

Daryl in the main room sits back down on the floor, leaning against the old worn out couch, closes his eyes and runs a hand over his face. what the hell just happened?

"Shit..." He grunts as he squeezes his crotch with his other hand and feels a cramp of pleasure run up and down his spine.

**

[dreaminginthedeepsouth]

Clay Jones

* * * *

LETTERS FROM AN AMERICAN

December 29, 2023

HEATHER COX RICHARDSON

DEC 29, 2023

When asked at a town hall on Wednesday to identify the cause of the United States Civil War, presidential candidate and former governor of South Carolina Nikki Haley answered that the cause “was basically how government was going to run, the freedoms, and what people could and couldn’t do…. I think it always comes down to the role of government and what the rights of the people are…. And I will always stand by the fact that, I think, government was intended to secure the rights and freedoms of the people.”

Haley has correctly been lambasted for her rewriting of history. The vice president of the Confederacy, Alexander Stephens of Georgia, was quite clear about the cause of the Civil War. Stephens explicitly rejected the idea embraced by U.S. politicians from the revolutionary period onward that human enslavement was “wrong in principle, socially, morally, and politically.” Instead, he declared: “Our new government is founded upon…the great truth, that the negro is not equal to the white man; that slavery—subordination to the superior race—is his natural and normal condition.” 

President Joe Biden put the cause of the Civil War even more succinctly: “It was about slavery.” 

Haley has been backpedaling ever since—as well as suggesting that the question was somehow a “gotcha” question from a Democrat, as if it was a difficult question to answer—but her answer was not simply bad history or an unwillingness to offend potential voters, as some have suggested. It was the death knell of the Republican Party.

That party formed in the 1850s to stand against what was known as the Slave Power, a small group of elite enslavers who had come to dominate first the Democratic Party and then, through it, the presidency, Supreme Court, and Senate. When northern Democrats in the House of Representatives caved to pressure to allow enslavement into western lands from which it had been prohibited since 1820, northerners of all political stripes recognized that it was only a question of time until elite enslavers took over the West, joined with lawmakers from southern slave states, overwhelmed the northern free states in the House of Representatives, and made enslavement national. 

So in 1854, after Congress passed the Kansas-Nebraska Act that allowed the spread of enslavement into previously protected western lands, northerners abandoned their old parties and came together first as “anti-Nebraska” coalitions and then, by 1856, as the Republican Party. 

At first their only goal was to stop the Slave Power, but in 1859, Illinois lawyer Abraham Lincoln articulated an ideology for the new party. In contrast to southern Democrats, who insisted that a successful society required leaders to dominate workers and that the government must limit itself to defending those leaders because its only domestic role was the protection of property, Lincoln envisioned a new kind of government, based on a new economy.

Lincoln saw a society that moved forward thanks not to rich people, but to the innovation of men just starting out. Such men produced more than they and their families could consume, and their accumulated capital would employ shoemakers and storekeepers. Those businessmen, in turn, would support a few industrialists, who would begin the cycle again by hiring other men just starting out. Rather than remaining small and simply protecting property, Lincoln and his fellow Republicans argued, the government should clear the way for those at the bottom of the economy, making sure they had access to resources, education, and the internal improvements that would enable them to reach markets. 

When the leaders of the Confederacy seceded to start their own nation based in their own hierarchical society, the Republicans in charge of the United States government were free to put their theory into practice. For a nominal fee, they sold farmers land that the government in the past would have sold to speculators; created state colleges, railroads, national money, and income taxes; and promoted immigration. 

Finally, with the Civil War over and the Union restored on their terms, in 1865 they ended the institution of human enslavement except as punishment for crime (an important exception) and in 1868 they added the Fourteenth Amendment to the Constitution to make clear that the federal government had power to override state laws that enforced inequality among different Americans. In 1870 they created the Department of Justice to ensure that all American citizens enjoyed the equal protection of the laws.

In the years after the Civil War, the Republican vision of a harmony of economic interest among all Americans quickly swung toward the idea of protecting those at the top of society, with the argument that industrial leaders were the ones who created jobs for urban workers. Ever since, the party has alternated  between Lincoln’s theory that the government must work for those at the bottom and the theory of the so-called robber barons, who echoed the elite enslavers’ idea that the government must protect the wealthy. 

During the Progressive Era, Theodore Roosevelt reclaimed Lincoln’s philosophy and argued for a strong government to rein in the industrialists and financiers who dominated society; a half-century later, Dwight Eisenhower followed the lead of Democrat Franklin Delano Roosevelt and used the government to regulate business, provide a basic social safety net, promote infrastructure, and protect civil rights. 

After each progressive president, the party swung toward protecting property. In the modern era the swing begun under Richard Nixon gained momentum with the election of Ronald Reagan in 1980. Since then the party has focused on deregulation, tax cuts, privatization, and taking power away from the federal government and turning it back over to the states, while maintaining that market forces, rather than government policies, should drive society. 

But those ideas were not generally popular, so to win elections, the party welcomed white evangelical Christians into a coalition, promising them legislation that would restore traditional society, relegating women and people of color back to the subservience the law enforced before the 1950s. But it seems they never really intended for that party base to gain control.

The small-government idea was the party’s philosophy when Donald Trump came down the escalator in June 2015 to announce he was running for president, and his 2017 tax cuts for corporations and the wealthy indicated he would follow in that vein. But his presidency quickly turned the Republican base into a right-wing movement loyal to Trump himself, and he was both eager to get away from legal trouble and impeachments and determined to exact revenge on those who did not do his bidding. The power in the party shifted from those trying to protect wealthy Americans to Trump, who increasingly aligned with foreign autocrats.

That realignment has taken off since Trump left office in 2021 and his base wrested power from the party’s former leaders. Leaders in Trump’s right-wing movement have increasingly embraced the concept of “illiberal democracy” or “Christian democracy” as articulated by Russian autocrat Vladimir Putin or Hungary’s prime minister Viktor Orbán, who has demolished Hungary’s democracy and replaced it with a dictatorship. On the campaign trail lately, Trump has taken to echoing Putin and Orbán directly.

Those leaders insist that the equality at the heart of democracy destroys a nation by welcoming immigrants, which undermines national purity, and by treating women, minorities, and LGBTQ+ people as equal to white, heteronormative men. Their focus on what they call “traditional values” has won staunch supporters among the right-wing white evangelical community in the U.S.

Ironically, MAGA Republicans, whose name comes from Trump’s promise to “Make America Great Again,” want the United States of America, one of the world’s great superpowers, to sign onto the program of a landlocked country of fewer than 10 million people in central Europe.

MAGA’s determination to impose white Christian nationalism on the United States of America is a rejection of the ideology of the Republican Party in all its phases. Rather than either an active government that defends equal rights and opportunity or a small government that protects property and relies on market forces, which Republicans stood for as recently as eight years ago, today’s Republicans advocate a strong government that imposes religious rules on society. 

They back strict abortion bans, book bans, and attacks on minorities and LGBTQ+ people. Last year, Florida governor Ron DeSantis directly used the state government to threaten Disney into complying with his anti-LGBTQ+ stance rather than reacting to popular support for LGBTQ+ rights. Missouri attorney general Andrew Bailey early this month used the government to go after political opposition, launching an investigation into Media Matters for America after the watchdog organization reported that the social media platform X was placing advertising next to antisemitic content. “I’m fighting to ensure progressive tyrants masquerading as news outlets cannot manipulate the marketplace in order to wipe out free speech,” Bailey said. 

Domestically, the new ideology of MAGA means forcing the majority to live under the rules of a small minority; internationally, it means support for a global authoritarian movement. MAGA Republicans’ current refusal to fund Ukraine’s war against Russian aggression until the administration agrees to draconian immigration laws—which they are also refusing to participate in crafting—is not only a gift to Putin. It also suggests to any foreign government that U.S. foreign policy is changeable so long as a foreign government succeeds in influencing U.S. lawmakers. Under this system, American global leadership will no longer be viable.

When Nikki Haley said the cause of the Civil War “was how government was going to run, the freedoms, and what people could and couldn’t do,” she did more than avoid the word “slavery” to pander to MAGA Republicans who refuse to recognize the role of race in shaping our history. She rejected the long and once grand history of the Republican Party and announced its death to the world. 

LETTERS FROM AN AMERICAN

HEATHER COX RICHARDSON

[coochiequeens]

Dear Democratic Party,

don't fuck up 2026

By Mandy Taheri Weekend Reporter

Republicans clinched control of the Senate on Tuesday, setting up a challenging situation for Democrats to overcome in 2026.

Earlier this week, Republicans flipped three Senate seats in West Virginia, Ohio and Montana, tipping the chamber's control away from the Democrats. As of Friday, the Republicans have 52 Senate seats and the Democrats 45.

Before this week's election, Democrats held a narrow majority of 51 seats (including four independents who caucus with the party), while the Republicans had 49.

Democrats trailed Republicans in all political races on Tuesday, with President-elect Donald Trump winning the White House, Republicans securing a Senate majority and the GOP possibly maintaining a GOP majority in the House. Not all House races have been called as of Friday morning.

Unlike the House, where candidates are up for reelection every two years, senators serve six-year terms.

Thirty-three Senate seats are open for election on November 3, 2026. Of those, 20 are held by Republicans and 13 by Democrats.

The following states will have Senate seats up for election that year: Alabama, Alaska, Arkansas, Colorado, Delaware, Georgia, Idaho, Illinois, Iowa, Kansas, Kentucky, Louisiana, Maine, Massachusetts, Michigan, Minnesota, Mississippi, Montana, Nebraska, New Hampshire, New Jersey, New Mexico, North Carolina, Oklahoma, Oregon, Rhode Island, South Carolina, South Dakota, Tennessee, Texas, Virginia, West Virginia and Wyoming.

Map shows seats up for election in the U.S. Senate in 2026. Ballotpedia

To flip the Senate in 2026, Democrats would need to win all 13 seats and flip at least three others.

While there are paths for Democrats to secure the majority, they currently seem less likely than Republicans holding their lead.

The following states are likely to have key races in the 2026 Senate elections.

Potential Seats to Flip

Maine

Maine is a political split state, with Republican Senator Susan Collins and independent Senator Angus King representing the state, which is led by Democratic Governor Janet Mills.

Collins has represented the state since 1997. She is considered a moderate Republican who spoke out against Donald Trump during his first term.

In her most recent election, in 2020, she won the seat with 51 percent of the vote, with the Democratic challenger garnering 42.4 percent. In 2014, she won by an even larger margin, 67 percent to 30.8 percent.

The Maine Senate seat could be a potential path for Democrats to flip a Republican seat, but given Collins' long electoral history and support, it is unlikely.

North Carolina

Republican Senator Thom Tillis has had two competitive elections in the state, having won the seat originally in 2014, 48.8 percent to Democrat Senator Kay Hagan's 47.3 percent.

In 2020, Tillis secured 48.7 percent of the vote, winning the seat again.

Given North Carolina's history of ticket splitting, most recently seen in this week's elections when a majority of voters backed Trump for president and Democrat Josh Stein for governor, it is possible Democrats could try to flip the state.

Potentially Contested Democrat-Held Seats

Georgia

In 2020, Democratic candidate Jon Ossoff won a tight Senate runoff election against Senator David Perdue. Ossoff clinched the seat by garnering 50.6 percent to Perdue's 49.4 percent.

Ossoff, who will run for reelection in 2026, is expected to face a tight race against a Republican candidate. To flip the Senate, it would be crucial for Democrats to keep Ossoff's seat, although this is likely to be a closely contested race.

Michigan

Democratic Senator Gary Peters took office in 2015, beating out the Republican challenger by 13.3 percentage points. In 2020, he was reelected by a much tighter margin, 49.9 percent to the Republican candidate's 48.2 percent.

Because Peters' victory margin shrank that year, this is a seat Republicans might work to flip. Securing his seat in 2026 would be essential for the Democratic Party's regaining control of the Senate.

New Hampshire

Democratic Senator Jeanne Shaheen has held her seat in New Hampshire since 2009. In 2020, she secured the seat with an over 15-point lead, while in 2014 she had a closer race, winning 51.5 percent to a Republican challenger's 48.2 percent.

Democrats would need to keep the New Hampshire seat to flip the Senate.

While New Hampshire has two Democratic senators, the state's governor, Chris Sununu, and the Legislature are Republican.

Virginia

Democratic Senator Mark Warner assumed office in 2009 and will run for reelection in 2026. He narrowly secured the seat in 2014, with 49.1 percent of the vote versus his Republican challenger's 48.3 percent.

In 2020, he won the state with 56 percent of the vote.