Independent News

This post was originally published on this site

Tim James, a Republican who is running to be the next governor of Alabama, issued a truly disturbing TV ad targeting a public charter school in the Birmingham area. The principal of the school, Michael Wilson, told local outlet CBS 42 he was stunned to realize images appearing in the Republican’s ad featured a school fundraiser including not only the teachers’ faces but also the students. He believes the pictures were taken from the school’s social media. 

“And now, right here in Alabama,” James says in the ad. “Millions of your tax dollars are paying for the first transgender public school in the South. Enough of this foolishness.” As his voice bellows out, images of the Magic City Acceptance Academy run, including one from a drag show fundraiser. According to Wilson, less than 10% of the student population is openly trans, and while the school is explicitly inclusive, students don’t have to be LGBTQ+ to attend.

And the ad isn’t it. While that would be violence enough, according to Wilson, someone drove by the school, which serves just over 200 sixth to twelfth-grade students, and shouted slurs at students standing outside. Beyond that, Wilson says a woman attempted to film students on campus before staff intervened.

RELATED: Dad says stranger spewed anti-LGBTQ hate at his young children while trapped on a train

Wilson says he spoke to some of the students featured in the Republican ad and said they’re “angry” and have a right to be. At least one parent has already filed a cease-and-desist letter with James’ campaign, according to Wilson, and while the campaign edited that child out of the photo, they left the others in.

Listen and subscribe to Daily Kos Elections’ The Downballot podcast with David Nir and David Beard

The campaign released a press statement saying they didn’t receive such a letter but did receive an email from the parent. Communications director for the campaign Elizabeth Jordan suggested that if parents were truly concerned, they could pull their children from the school. Lovely! 

“What he’s doing and what others are doing in the way they’re campaigning is pushing voters away instead of bringing them in,” Wilson told the outlet. “It’s absolutely disgusting the angry nature of nearly every candidate’s commercials.”

“What should scare mothers and fathers of these children is what the faculty is doing by presenting this ungodly display through the drag show to which the children were subjected,” the statement reads in part. While there’s nothing wrong with exposing children to age-appropriate drag shows, like storytime events at a local library or classroom, Wilson says the children came up with the drag show idea but weren’t actually present for the fundraiser anyway.

Wilson stressed that the sheer hate spewing from James’ ads could incite violence in the community. He said ads like those “empower and embolden” people who have enough hate in them to “take action.”

In speaking to AL.com, Wilson said the ad is “scaring the hell” out of students and that the id is “nothing short of an adult bullying children,” adding that it’s bringing students more anxiety, especially cruel given the higher rates of reported depression, anxiety, and suicidal ideation in LGBTQ+ youth.

In addition to inaccurately describing the school as the first “transgender” school in the south, James also misgenders swimmer Lia Thomas by calling her a “man in a woman’s bathing suit.” He also includes a misleading clip of Honorable Ketanji Brown Jackson from her confirmation hearings. 

“Male and female, He created them,” James says in the closing moments of the ad. “It’s time to fight back.”

Well, if that’s not a latent call to violence, I’m not sure what it is.

You can see the ad below, which is ripe with transphobia. The kicker? It’s called “Genesis.” Sigh.

This post was originally published on this site

There’s a scene in the animated film The Nightmare Before Christmas, where the big bad, the Oogie Boogie Man, is revealed to be nothing more than a chaotic collection of insects and worms sewn into a crude burlap covering. As the pile of squirmy things falls apart, Oogie continues issuing threats, only his voice becomes increasingly tiny, and tinny, before it is finally silenced with the crushing of a single bug.

In the past 50 days, since sending tanks into Ukraine, Vladimir Putin’s stitching has begun to sag open at the seams. More than a few of those creepies, crawlies, and long-leggedy beasties have escaped. And his threats  just seem … a lot less threatening.

On Thursday evening, The Washington Post reported that Putin delivered a threatening letter to President Joe Biden. That letter expressed “Russia’s concerns in the context of massive supplies of weapons and military equipment to the Kiev regime.” It warned the U.S. to stop sending “most sensitive” weapons to Ukraine, and moaned that the U.S. was ignoring “the threat of high-precision weapons falling into the hands of radical nationalists, extremists and bandit forces in Ukraine.” 

In short, Putin’s letter could be boiled down to “You better stop sending people who are trying to fight back against us things that are effectively helping them to fight back. Or else.” But what that Or Else might be, Putin doesn’t specify.

Most of the attention seems to be directed at the idea that Russia might move to stop the West from supplying more weapons to Ukraine. That could translate into more bombs falling on both Kyiv and the border city of Lviv, as well as attempts to destroy railway lines in western Ukraine. Some experts believe that Russia might also go after NATO supplies in NATO territory … which would be blisteringly foolish, unless Putin wants to see why F-15s flown by U.S. F-15 pilots have a 104 kills, 0 losses record in aerial combat. There are also probably a lot of generals who would appreciate the chance to check out the latest upgrades to the Abrams M1 tank … though to be honest, U.S. tanks also have a crappy record when it comes to going up against the highly advanced Guy Carrying Anti-Tank Missile.

Also on Thursday, Reuters reported that Russia was making threats toward Finland and Sweden as both nations continue on a fast track to joining NATO. The deputy chairman of Russia’s Security Council said that Russia would “have to strengthen its land, naval and air forces in the Baltic Sea” if the Nordic pair signed on to NATO. However, threatening to send more Russian naval forces into the Baltic Sea just doesn’t seem so scary following events earlier in the week. Just like how a month of watching Russia operate on the ground in Ukraine has knocked about eight feet off the formerly 10-foot metaphorical height of Russian troops. 

Timing, as they say, is everything. And this is the wrong time for the Russian military to be making threats.

At the moment, it is absolutely clear to everyone that Russia has bitten off more than it can chew in Ukraine alone. The threat that they’re about to extend conventional hostilities anywhere else is not so much a threat as it is the desperate squeaking of those scattering bugs.

But of course there is one thing, and one thing only, that keeps everyone from going all in to grind Putin under the heel of a ridiculously tiny boot.

Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky told CNN Friday that “all of the countries of the world” should be prepared for the possibility that Russian President Vladimir Putin could use tactical nuclear weapons in his war on Ukraine.

Frustrated by an inability to secure quick victory and demonstrating their anger after the sinking of the Moskva missile cruiser, Russia has responded by lobbing more missiles in Kyiv and opening fire on civilians in what was supposed to be another of those safe corridors. Zelenskyy has a good reason to be concerned about those tactical nukes as Putin’s next option to express his anger.

Should Putin follow through on concerns about “attacking NATO weapons in NATO territory,” he would immediately trigger NATO’s famous Section 5 and generate a pile-on of multiple military forces. Those forces might stop at pushing Russia completely out of Ukraine. They might not. In short, dropping a weapon anywhere in NATO territory is a formula by which Putin would almost certainly lose Crimea and the Donbas region, along with his army.

But if Russia did deploy a tactical nuke inside Ukraine, the response would be … honestly, I don’t know. There’s a very good chance that neither President Biden or President Zelenskyy knows the answer to either what would happen next, or what should happen next. The use of a tactical nuke by Russia would be a desperation move on the part of Putin. It wouldn’t make the people affected by the weapon any less dead.

What could Russia do with a tactical nuke on the battlefield? Really, there’s not a lot. One of the reasons that research into these weapons dropped severely over the past 50 years is a recognition that there are few roles such a weapon can play. A tactical nuke might be useful in digging an opponent out of a heavily fortified bunker. It might destroy a large number of forces gathered at a military base. In terms of clearing the road so your tanks can drive through, it’s hard to find a workable scenario. But then, this is the army that dug entrenchments in a dead forest next to Chernobyl, so concerns about how this tactic would affect their own soldiers may be way down the charts.

The bigger concern, seeing what Russia has done so far, is that it could also throw one of these up-to-Hiroshima sized weapons into a Ukrainian city using one of the same Iskander missiles its already using to attack those cities on a daily basis. The world should definitely think about how it would respond to that. 

Such concerns have to weigh heavily on world leaders, especially Zelenskyy, and some form of this threat is behind every little squeak issuing from the vicinity of Putin. But that doesn’t mean anyone should start taking his threats seriously and letting them affect planning.

When you have the Boogie Man on the run, you don’t give him a chance to get his sh#t back together.

This post was originally published on this site

Republican Nebraska gubernatorial candidate and CEO Charles Herbster claims his opponents are behind accusations that he committed sexual assault against eight women.

The Nebraska Examiner first reported the allegations, which cites one GOP state senator and seven women (who prefer to keep their names private) who told the outlet that Herbster touched them inappropriately and without their consent.

Sen. Julie Slama confirmed to the Examiner that in 2019, in the middle of a crowded event, Herbster walked by her and put his hand up her skirt. Slama also has a witness who confirmed the act to the Examiner. That witness, along with two others, added that at the same event they saw Herbster touch another woman on the buttocks.

RELATED STORY: Even Trump must be sick of Trump whining about Russia and the Bidens

In a statement to Omaha’s KETV-7, Slama said:

“I indirectly referenced the assault in a February 2022 floor speech in the Legislature and prayed I would never have to relive this trauma. When the Nebraska Examiner contacted me about a witness account of my assault and the seven other women who shared their stories, I was not going to deny the truth. … I am not seeking media attention or any other gain, I simply was not going to lie and say it did not occur. I would request my family’s privacy be respected at this difficult time.”

Herbster has been accused of groping the women during political events or at beauty pageants, dating back from 2017 to this year. Sound familiar?

Listen and subscribe to Daily Kos Elections’ The Downballot podcast with David Nir and David Beard

Herbster’s campaign manager Ellen Keast challenged al of the claims in a public statement released Wednesday, saying, “this is a political hit-piece built on 100% false and baseless claims.”

Keast added:

“Charles W. Herbster has a lifetime record of empowering women to lead … His company, farm, and campaign are all run by women. Despite leading hundreds of employees, not once has his reputation been attacked in this disgusting manner.”

KETV-7 reports that Herbster’s campaign has called the claims “libelous” and “100% false.”

“For over thirty years, I’ve employed hundreds of people. I’ve respected and empowered women to run my company, my farm, and now my campaign,” Herbster said. “Not once has my integrity EVER been challenged in this manner. It’s only after I’ve threatened the stranglehold the establishment has on this state do they stoop to lies this large. This story is a ridiculous, unfounded dirty political trick being carried out by Pete Ricketts and Jim Pillen.”

Two of the women told the Examiner they are hoping to simply move on from the incidents, while three others said they are no longer involved with politics as a result of Herbster’s groping. Two women told the outlet they are now in therapy, and one reports she carries a gun for protection.

Theresa Thibodeau, Herbster’s former running mate and now a candidate running against him, told the Examiner she had never witnessed him grope anyone and had only just learned of the allegations.

However, Thibodeau told the Examiner that after she left his campaign she was disturbed by the fact that Herbster continued to work with former Trump campaign manager and aide Corey Lewandowski, even after it was reported in September 2021 that Lewandowski made lewd and unwelcome advances to a GOP donor at a Las Vegas fundraiser.

Thibodeau told the Examiner that Herbster issued a statement saying he’d asked Lewandowski to “step back,” but campaign staffers confirmed to the outlet that Lewandowski continues to work with Herbster.

This post was originally published on this site

Buoyed by falling gas prices and a strong labor market, consumer sentiment jumped “unexpectedly” in early April to hit a three-month high, according to the University of Michigan’s sentiment index.

Due to continued inflation, economists had expected the sentiment index to continue its downward trend to 59 after a final reading of 59.4 in March. Instead the index rose to 65.7 in early April, a reversal that marked the measure’s first improvement since December.

The 10.6% bump in sentiment was primarily fueled by improved consumer expectations.

“A strong labor market bolstered wage expectations among consumers under age 45 to 5.3%—the largest expected gain in more than three decades, since April 1990,” wrote Richard Curtin, chief economist for the Surveys of Consumers.

Consumers also expect the national unemployment rate will continue to “inch downward,” which has boosted their perception of the overall economy.

Another positive sign: Consumers are also starting to feel more optimistic that the surge in gas prices is slowing, a reaction to falling fuel prices that was “immediately recognized” at the pump.

“Perhaps the most surprising change was that consumers anticipated a year-ahead increase in gas prices of just 0.4 cents in April, completely reversing March’s surge to 49.6 cents,” Curtin writes. “Retail gas prices have fallen since the March peak, and that fact was immediately recognized by consumers.”

President Joe Biden moved aggressively in late March to release 1 million barrels of oil a day from U.S. strategic reserves in order to ease Americans’ pain at the pump—a gamble that appears to have paid dividends for now.

Curtin cautioned, however, that April’s relatively modest gains in sentiment remain “too close to recession lows to be reassuring.” Continued economic uncertainty, new COVID-19 variants, and the war in Ukraine still pose significant risks to consumers’ overall economic outlook.

All that being said, trending up is certainly preferable to trending down.

This post was originally published on this site

Democratic Rep. Ian Mackey spoke on behalf of the Missouri House Democratic Cause on Wednesday, April 13, and shared a passionate story about his own upbringing. The Missouri House of Representatives had a floor debate that included a discussion of the Republican effort to ban trans athletes from participating on sports teams that align with their gender identity. Mackey, who is openly gay, used his time to call out Republican Rep. Chuck Basye, and the effort majorly paid off.

For some context, the state House of Representatives gave preliminary approval to House Bill 2140,  a voter ID law requiring residents of Missouri to show a form of photo ID at polls. Basye weaseled in language that would let voters within individual school districts decide if trans athletes can participate in the sports that align with their gender identity.

This is a bad idea for all of the obvious reasons; it’s harmful to students, it’s confusing for schools, and it’s not a system that’s easily replicated for other forms of play, like at the college level. It’s hateful, it’s discriminatory, and that’s obviously the goal here. 

RELATED: Inclusive school says students are being accosted on campus after Republican ad singled it out

According to Missouri Net, Basye said it sounds like “local control” and that he feels “very, very confident” that many people in the state don’t feel they have a voice and are afraid to speak out.

“I want to let them know that I’m speaking for them, and I’m proud to speak for them,” he stated. 

Mackey, on the other hand, was not trying to hide behind vague or broad language to suggest oppression and fear that doesn’t really exist. Here is that video clip.

Mackey began by asking Basye a simple question. “Do you remember your remarks on the floor last year when you brought this up?”

“Um, you’d have to give me a specific,” Basye replied. “I mean, I made a lot of remarks last year.”

“Sure. So, I recall a story you told. About your brother.”

“Okay,” said Basye.

“And I remember you said that your bother, or, rather, your mother called to tell you that your brother had some news that he was afraid to tell you.” 

“Okay,” said Basye.

“And your brother wanted to tell you that he was gay, didn’t he?”

“Um, he was expressing that to the family, and he thought that uh, that we would hold that against him and not let him my children be around him.”

Makey asked, “Why do you think he thought that?”

“Uh, I don’t know. It never would have happened, I’ll tell you that. My kids at that point in their life adored my brother.”

“Can I tell you, if I were your brother? I would have been afraid to tell you, too.”

“Well, I’m sorry,” said Basye. And that was meager remark was enough to let Mackey really unleash the heart of his argument. 

“I would have been afraid to tell you, too. Because of stuff like this. because this is what you’re focused on, this is the legislation you want to put forward. This is what consumes your time. I would have been afraid to tell you, too.

I was afraid of people like you growing up and I grew up in Hickory County Missouri. I grew up in a school district that would vote tomorrow to put this in place. And for eighteen years, I walked around with nice people like you. Who took me to ball games, who told me how smart I was, and went to the ballot and voted for crap like this.

I couldn’t wait to get out. I couldn’t wait to move to a part of our state that would reject this stuff in a minute. I couldn’t wait. And thank God I made it out, and I think every day of the kids who are still there, who haven’t escaped from this kind of bigotry.

Gentleman, I’m not afraid of you anymore because you’re going to lose. You may win this today, but you’re going to lose.”

From here, only one more vote in favor is needed to send the bill to the Senate.

This post was originally published on this site

The Daily Kos Elections Morning Digest is compiled by David Nir, Jeff Singer, Stephen Wolf, Daniel Donner, and Carolyn Fiddler, with additional contributions from David Jarman, Steve Singiser, James Lambert, David Beard, and Arjun Jaikumar.

Subscribe to our podcast, The Downballot!

Leading Off

● FL Redistricting: Republican Gov. Ron DeSantis released his proposed new map for Florida’s congressional districts on Thursday, following an extraordinary announcement by GOP legislative leaders on Monday that they would abdicate their authority to draw new boundaries and instead bequeath that power to the governor.

According to Dave’s Redistricting App, the plan would establish 20 districts that Donald Trump would have won versus just eight that Joe Biden would have carried, compared to a 15-12 Trump advantage under the current map (Florida is gaining a district thanks to reapportionment). But don’t be fooled by the visually pleasing borders: This map is a perfect example of a compact yet extreme gerrymander, since the cracking of major population centers is blatant even though the shapes look neat.

The centerpiece of DeSantis’ new proposal, which for months he’d pushed in the face—until now—of strenuous opposition by state lawmakers, is the dismantling of the 5th District, a plurality-Black seat represented by Democratic Rep. Al Lawson that stretches across the northern tier of the state from Jacksonville to Tallahassee.

The new map breaks Jacksonville apart to create a revamped district that would almost certainly elect a white Republican instead of a Black Democrat like Lawson: The 5th would transform from a district Biden won 63-36 into a 57-41 Trump seat—a swing of 43 points. The reshaped 4th District would become considerably bluer, going from a 60-39 Trump advantage to just a 53-46 Trump edge, but Republicans should still easily be able to hold it in November. (It’s not yet clear which district GOP Rep. John Rutherford, who represents the current 4th, might seek re-election in.)

A key reason that even Republican legislators have resisted DeSantis’ efforts to demolish the 5th is because a set of amendments reforming the redistricting process that voters added to the state constitution in 2010 (often known as the “Fair Districts” amendments) prohibit, among other things, the “retrogression” of minority voting rights. As ACLU attorney Nicholas Warren puts it, “This means no backsliding in minority voters’ ability to elect candidates of choice”—which in the case of the current 5th District would mean a Black Democrat.

That district was created following a 2014 lawsuit that successfully challenged the congressional map Republicans passed in 2012 under the Fair Districts amendments, based on an agreement between lawmakers and plaintiffs that was ultimately blessed by the state Supreme Court. While the Supreme Court has become much more conservative since then following DeSantis’ appointments, Warren points out that “the anti-retrogression mandate is a clear and uncontroversial part” of state law, adding, “There’s consensus on what it means, and the practical effect for Black voters” in northern Florida.

Elsewhere, the map would make further changes to boost the GOP’s fortunes, chiefly in the middle part of the state:

• In the Orlando area, DeSantis would pack Democratic voters into the 10th District to make it even more safely blue in order to turn the neighboring 7th red. This open seat would jump from 55-44 Biden to 52-47 Trump. This long-anticipated transformation might explain why Democratic Rep. Stephanie Murphy announced her retirement last year (though she insisted at the time that redistricting wouldn’t play a role).
• Along central Florida’s Gulf coast, DeSantis would revive an egregious gerrymander that was struck down by the courts by having the Tampa-based 14th District cross Tampa Bay to pack Black voters in eastern St. Petersburg into this solidly blue district. That would flip the open 13th, in the remainder of the St. Petersburg area, from 51-47 Biden to 53-46 Trump. (Democratic Rep. Charlie Crist, who represents the 13th, is running for governor.)

Some revisions would weaken some GOP-held seats, most notably the 2nd (which would go from 67-32 Trump to 55-44 Trump) and the 15th (54-45 Trump to 51-47 Trump). Rep. Neal Dunn should, however, have no problem holding the former given the looming midterm environment, while Rep. Scott Franklin could instead run in the 18th, a 61-38 Trump district smack in the center of the state that we’re regarding as the “new” district Florida won in reapportionment.

(Note also that a number of districts in southeastern Florida would change numbers, though all have clear predecessors with similar partisanship.)

With Republican lawmakers going supine and likely to succumb to DeSantis’ whims—he’s pushed for a maximalist gerrymander both to prove his partisan bona fides and because feuding with the legislature is an easy way to inflame his base—the major question will be how the state courts react to this radical reshaping of Florida’s map. While the Supreme Court is now packed with conservatives, it unanimously rejected a request from DeSantis earlier this year to pre-emptively approve his vision for the 5th District, so the governor may not receive the welcome he’s hoping for when the inevitable legal challenge makes its way before the justices.

1Q Fundraising

The deadline for federal candidates to submit their fourth quarter fundraising totals is April 15.

• CO-Sen: Michael Bennet (D-inc): $2.48 million raised, $6.1 million cash-on-hand
• GA-Sen: Raphael Warnock (D-inc): $13.6 million raised, $25.6 million cash-on-hand
• OK-Sen-B: Luke Holland (R): $900,000 raised (in one month)
• WI-Sen: Sarah Godlewski (D): $600,000 raised, additional $1.5 million self-funded, $1.6 million cash-on-hand; Alex Lasry (D): $450,000 raised, additional $3.45 million self-funded
• AZ-Gov: Karrin Taylor Robson (R): $755,000 raised, additional $2 million self-funded
• MN-Gov: Scott Jensen (R): $250,000 raised, $825,000 cash-on-hand
• NV-Gov: Steve Sisolak (D-inc): $1.55 million cash-on-hand, $9.55 million cash-on-hand
• RI-Gov: Helena Foulkes (D): $900,000 raised, additional $400,000 self-funded
• CA-15: Kevin Mullin (D): $384,000 raised; Emily Beach (D): $164,000 raised
• IL-01: Karin Norington-Reaves (D): $290,000 raised, $237,000 cash-on-hand  
• IN-01: Frank Mrvan (D-inc): $178,000 raised, $428,000 cash-on-hand
• MI-10: John James (R): $1.5 million raised (in two months)
• MN-01: Matt Benda (R): $183,000 raised (in three weeks), $170,000 cash-on-hand
• MN-05: Don Samuels (D): $350,000 raised, $320,000 cash-on-hand
• NJ-05: Josh Gottheimer (D-inc): $1.2 million raised, $13 million cash-on-hand
• NJ-06: Sue Kiley (R): $105,000 raised, additional $100,000 self-funded
• NV-01: David Brog (R): $284,000 raised (in six weeks), $264,000 cash-on-hand
• NV-03: Susie Lee (D-inc): $575,000 raised, $2.1 million cash-on-hand
• TX-15: Monica De La Cruz (R): $722,000 raised  
• UT-01: Blake Moore (R-inc): $296,000 raised, $540,000 cash-on-hand; Tina Cannon (R): $24,000 raised, additional $82,000 self-funded, $42,000 cash-on-hand; Julie Fullmer (R): $22,000 raised, additional $90,000 self-funded, $107,000 cash-on-hand; William Campbell (R): $0 raised, additional $265,000 self-funded; Andrew Badger (R): $43,000 raised, $17,000 cash-on-hand
• VA-02: Jen Kiggans (R): $434,000 raised, $590,000 cash-on-hand

Senate

● AZ-Sen, AZ-Gov: The Republican firm OH Predictive Insights, which did not identify a client, takes a new look at the state’s two most prominent August GOP primaries. First are the Senate numbers, with the firm’s January numbers in parenthesis; note that the earlier numbers used a registered voter model, while this survey samples likely voters:

Attorney General Mark Brnovich: 21 (25)

businessman Jim Lamon: 16 (7)

former Thiel Capital chief operating officer Blake Masters: 9 (6)

retired Air Force Maj. Gen. Michael McGuire: 6 (11)

Corporation Commissioner Justin Olson: 3 (4)

Lamon’s team has also released a new internal from Remington Research Group that argues he’s actually in the lead with 32%, while Brnovich is in second with 20%.

Next up are OH’s gubernatorial numbers, which also find a big shift from January for second place even as the overall leader remains the same:

former TV anchor Kari Lake: 29 (21)

Board of Regents member Karrin Taylor Robson: 22 (6)

former Rep. Matt Salmon: 11 (17)

2018 secretary of state nominee Steve Gaynor: 3 (5)

● NV-Sen: Democratic incumbent Catherine Cortez Masto’s latest spot touts her work “with Republicans and Democrats to invest in manufacturing in America, creating jobs, and cracking down on prices.” Cortez Masto is one of several vulnerable senators who began advertising weeks ago, but she has an especially good reason to get on the air early: The New York Times, citing data from the Democratic firm TargetSmart, recently wrote, “Almost half the voters on Nevada’s rolls have registered since Ms. Cortez Masto was last on the ballot in 2016.”

● OH-Sen: NBC reported Thursday that Trump had decided to back venture capitalist J.D. Vance in the May 3 GOP primary, and former state Treasurer Josh Mandel soon made an effort to halt the endorsement with a poll arguing that the Hillbilly Elegy author was a sure loser. Remington Research gave Mandel a 23-17 lead over businessman Mike Gibbons, with Vance in fifth with just 10%.

Mandel’s memo also argued that Vance “would still lose” even if he got Trump’s support, while his endorsement would secure victory for the former treasurer. Respondents, when asked how they’d react if Mandel got the Trump nod, gave him 33% of the vote, while Gibbons and state Sen. Matt Dolan were far back with 15% each. Remington also asked participants about a scenario where Vance got Trump’s backing and found Mandel still ahead with 19% as Vance, Dolan, and Gibbons deadlocked with 15% apiece.

● PA-Sen: Franklin & Marshall has released a survey of each party’s May 17 Senate primary, though as we’ll discuss, there was a big development on the GOP side just as the poll concluded. For Democrats, Lt. Gov. John Fetterman leads Rep. Conor Lamb 41-17, with state Rep. Malcolm Kenyatta at just 4%. Kenyatta, for his part, has gone up with an ad to introduce himself to voters where he says, “They say we can’t win. I’m Black, I’m gay, I’m from a working class family in North Philadelphia.” Kenyatta continues by arguing naysayers are counting his supporters out and touting his progressive record.

F&M, meanwhile, has TV personality Mehmet Oz edging out former hedge fund manager David McCormick 16-15, with author Kathy Barnette at 7%: The poll, which was conducted March 30 through April 10, finished the day Trump endorsed Oz. Two state congressmen have also backed each of the frontrunners, with Glenn Thompson supporting McCormick as Lloyd Smucker jams it up with Oz.

Governors

● GA-Gov, GA-Sen, GA-SoS: The University of Georgia attempts to measure Donald Trump’s influence in the May 24 Republican primary with a poll that includes two different randomly assigned groups: A sample where respondents are simply asked who they’ll vote for, and a separate group where participants are informed which candidate Trump has endorsed and then asked who they’ll support.

In the race for governor, the first sample (known as the control group) favors Gov. Brian Kemp 48-37 over former Sen. David Perdue. The participants who have been told about Trump’s support for Perdue, who are called the treatment group, meanwhile support Kemp by just a slightly smaller 46-39 margin. It’s possible that, because Kemp and Perdue are each so well known, most voters have already made up their minds about both of them. Perdue himself is betting this isn’t the case, though, as his ads have largely featured footage of Trump bashing Kemp and praising the former senator.  

The Senate numbers, by contrast, show former football star Herschel Walker dominating state Agriculture Commissioner Gary Black either way: The control group goes for him 64-8, while his lead expands to 76-8 with the treatment group. However, UGA shows a truly massive shift in the lower-profile primary for secretary of state. While far-right Rep. Jody Hice starts out with a 30-22 edge over incumbent Brad Raffensperger with the control group, his edge balloons to 60-16 with the sample that’s told the congressman is Trump’s man.

● MD-Gov: Former Anne Arundel County Executive Laura Neuman announced Thursday that she was leaving the July Democratic primary and endorsing state Comptroller Peter Franchot.

● NE-Gov: In a story published Thursday by the Nebraska Examiner, Republican state Sen. Julie Slama and seven other women accused agribusinessman Charles Herbster of groping and other forms of sexual assault. Herbster, who has Donald Trump’s endorsement in Nebraska’s May 10 primary for governor, responded, “These libelous accusations are 100% false.”

Reporter Aaron Sanderford writes that a woman in 2019 saw Herbster reach up Slama’s skirt when she walked by him, an allegation she confirmed. Six other women also, in Sanderford’s words, said “that Herbster touched them inappropriately when they were saying hello or goodbye to him, or when they were posing for a photograph by his side” in incidents that occured between 2017 and this year. Another woman, Sanderford writes, says the candidate “once cornered her privately and kissed her forcibly.” All of Herbster’s accusers, who were “in their late teens to mid-20s at the time of the incidents,” have remained anonymous out of fear of retaliation, apart from Slama.

Following the publication of the Examiner’s article, every woman serving along with Slama in the Nebraska Senate signed on to a joint bipartisan statement declaring, “Herbster’s actions as outlined by the Nebraska Examiner render him unfit to serve.” Termed-out Gov. Pete Ricketts, who is supporting University of Nebraska Regent Jim Pillen in next month’s primary, also denounced Herbster, saying he “should beg forgiveness of the women he has preyed upon and seek treatment.”

● NV-Gov: Better Nevada PAC, which is supporting Clark County Sheriff Joe Lombardo in the GOP primary, is running an ad attacking North Las Vegas Mayor John Lee over his lengthy past as a Democrat before he switched parties to run this cycle, claiming he “tried to raise the fuel tax” and tying him to Barack Obama and Hillary Clinton. By contrast, Lee is airing his own attack ad that argues it’s Lombardo who is the true “RINO,” cramming in several typical GOP buzzwords and tropes on topics such as guns and immigration to argue he’s the true conservative.

● OK-Gov: Gov. Kevin Stitt earned a not-tweet endorsement from Donald Trump last month back before the June primary was anywhere as close to as expensive as it is now, and Trump will be giving the incumbent a larger boost by headlining a fundraiser for him.

● PA-Gov: Businessman Dave White has launched an ad as part of a $400,000 buy that is heavy on lies about the 2020 election outcome in order to attack former U.S. Attorney Bill McSwain in the May 17 GOP primary. White’s spot opens by calling McSwain “Never Trumper Pat Toomey’s puppet,” associating him with the retiring senator’s vote to remove Trump from office and contending that McSwain refused to investigate (bogus) 2020 voter fraud. White closes by highlighting Trump’s anti-endorsement of McSwain days earlier and white’s support for new voting restrictions.

Meanwhile, election officials told the Pennsylvania Capital-Star that it would have been too late to fulfill GOP state Senate President Pro Tempore Jake Corman’s aborted request to remove his name from the ballot on Tuesday even if he hadn’t abruptly reversed course hours after his initial filing and announced he was staying in following Trump’s intervention to oppose McSwain.

House

● CA-15: Assemblyman Kevin Mullin has publicized an internal poll from FM3 that gives him a 31-17 lead over San Mateo County Supervisor David Canepa, a fellow Democrat, in the June top-two primary: Republican Gus Mattamal and a third Democrat, Burlingame Councilmember Emily Beach, are at 9% and 8%, respectively. The only other poll we’ve seen was a February survey for Canepa that showed him ahead with 19% as Mullin outpaced Mattamal 17-13 for the second general election spot.

● MD-04: With little time to spare before Friday’s filing deadline, state Del. Jazz Lewis announced he was dropping out of the Democratic primary and would seek re-election instead. Lewis had the support of House Majority Leader Steny Hoyer, who represents the 29% of the new 4th District that is currently located in Hoyer’s old 5th District, but he struggled to gain traction in a field that includes former Rep. Donna Edwards, former Prince George’s County State’s Attorney Glenn Ivey, and former Del. Angela Angel.

● MD-06: Republican state House Minority Leader Jason Buckel announced on Wednesday with the Friday filing deadline swiftly approaching that he is considering challenging Democratic Rep. David Trone in the recently redrawn 6th District. However, in a sign of his lack of seriousness, he touted a poll from the notoriously erratic John McLaughlin—a pollster we’ve flat-out banned from Daily Kos Elections for spewing conspiracy theories about the 2020 elections—to argue he would be competitive against Trone in this recently redrawn 54-44 Biden district.

● MT-01: Attorney Monica Tranel has launched her first ad ahead of the June Democratic primary, arguing that she won’t let Montana “become a playground for billionaires” while “regular people” struggle to afford to live there. The spot highlights her roots of growing up on a Montana ranch and her record of standing up to powerful corporations; the commercial hits very similar themes to the debut ad that public health expert Cora Neumann went on the air with earlier in the week.

● OH-13: Attorney Shay Hawkins is running a 15-second TV ad ahead of the May 3 GOP primary that plays up his bona fides as an “America First Conservative,” claiming he worked to pass Trump’s tax cuts and will fight for “stronger borders” if elected.

● OH-15: Franklin County Recorder Danny O’Connor, citing the newest GOP-gerrymandered map, announced Thursday that he was ending his campaign to take on Republican Rep. Mike Carey. Candidate filing closed back in March, and the only Democrat who remains on the ballot is Gary Josephson, whom Cleveland.com’s Jeremy Pelzer says unsuccessfully ran for state party chair with a platform that called for recruiting Dave Chappelle to run for the Senate and for Democrats to support two Republican incumbents, Gov. Mike DeWine and Secretary of State Frank LaRose, who incidentally were instrumental to passing the new gerrymander.

● RI-02: While Democratic Lt. Gov. Sabina Matos didn’t rule out running for Congress back in January, she announced this week that she’ll be campaigning to keep her current post.

● SC-01: Freshman Rep. Nancy Mace has announced a “six-figure” opening ad buy for her June Republican primary against Trump’s endorsed candidate, 2018 nominee Katie Arrington. Mace uses her first spot to try to claim Trump’s xenophobic rhetoric for herself by declaring, “Washington needs to stop treating illegal immigrants better than our brave men and women in uniform.”

● TN-05: While GOP Gov. Bill Lee allowed a bill to become law without his signature on Wednesday that would impose a requirement that House candidates have voted in the previous three statewide general elections to be eligible to run, it won’t go into effect this cycle because candidate filing already closed last week.

This legislation, which could have a tough time surviving a court challenge, was widely interpreted as aimed at blocking former State Department spokesperson Morgan Ortagus, who only moved to Tennessee last year. Ortagus, who is Trump’s pick, doesn’t have a clear shot to the ballot, though, because the Tennessee Republican Party’s executive committee removed her and two other notable candidates last week for not meeting the party’s definition of a “bona fide” Republican; the rejected candidates will have their chance to appeal before the primary lineup is finalized on April 21.

● TX-28: Conservative Rep. Henry Cuellar is airing a negative ad for the first time in his May 24 Democratic primary runoff against attorney Jessica Cisneros, though it’s the same spot he ran months ago during the first round of voting. Cuellar, just like in 2020, uses the type of language you’d normally expect to find in a Republican commercial, with a narrator arguing that Cisneros’ agenda would result in “open borders that would make us less safe.” The spot concludes with the sound of a siren as the narrator describes the challenger as “a risk we can’t afford.”

● TX-34 (special): Candidate filing closed Wednesday for the June 14 all-party primary to succeed Democratic Rep. Filemon Vela, who resigned early to take a job at the lobbying and law giant Akin Gump, and two Democrats and two Republicans are competing. A runoff would take place if no one takes a majority of the vote, though a second round won’t be scheduled unless it’s actually needed.

The Republican field consists of Mayra Flores, who is already the GOP nominee for the new version of the 34th District, and Janie Cantu-Cabrera, who took just 7% against her in the March primary. Biden carried the current version of this Rio Grande Valley constituency 52-48 while he would have taken the new one 57-42, but Republicans are hoping that a Flores win in the special will give her a better chance for an upset in November.

The Democratic contenders are former Cameron County Commissioner Dan Sanchez, who sports endorsements from Vela and 15th District Rep. Vicente Gonzalez, and city civil service director Rene Coronado. Neither of them will be on the ballot in November, though, as Gonzalez is the nominee for the regular two-year term.  

● Virginia: The candidate filing deadline for Virginia’s June 21 primaries was April 7, and the state now has its list of contenders here. We’ll be taking a look at the state of play in each competitive congressional race after first quarter campaign finance reports are in following the FEC’s April 15 deadline.

The Old Dominion allows parties to nominate candidates using one of three methods, though Democrats are relying on the traditional state-run primary in all 11 congressional districts. Republicans, though, will only be doing this in seven seats, including the competitive 2nd and 7th Districts: They’ll instead be employing a convention in the 5th District, where freshman Rep. Bob Good has no serious intra-party opposition, and the safely blue 8th and 11th Districts.

Finally, Team Red will hold a party-run “firehouse primary” to choose its nominee against Democratic Rep. Jennifer Wexton in the 10th, a Northern Virginia seat Biden would have won 58-40 but where Republicans are hoping to regain lost ground. The event will take place Saturday May 21 from 9 AM to 4 PM ET at 11 sites (absentee voting will take place in one location on May 12), and voters will be presented with an instant-runoff ballot. State-run primaries, by contrast, take place on Tuesdays with far more polling sites and also have significantly longer polling hours and early voting periods and locations; the rules are different as well, because candidates only need to win a plurality.

● VA-05: Former Henry County Supervisor Andy Parker failed to make the Democratic primary ballot because of what party officials say was a lack of valid signatures, though Parker said he’d take “a few days to perform a forensic audit on our petition signatures. When that is complete we will explore our options.” Josh Throneburg, who owns a cleaning company, is the only Democrat on the ballot against Republican Rep. Bob Good in a seat Trump would have carried 53-45.

Redistricting

● AK Redistricting: Alaska’s redistricting board approved a revised state Senate map in a 3-2 vote on Wednesday after the state Supreme Court struck down the panel’s original map as an unconstitutional partisan gerrymander last month, though the latest boundaries will face further judicial scrutiny. The board’s two independent members, who both opposed the map while all three Republicans voted in favor, argued that the pairing of House districts (two make up each Senate seat) continues to improperly favor the GOP, with one warning that “it’s very audacious for us to actually think that” the courts aren’t “going to sniff this out.”

● OH Redistricting: The Ohio Supreme Court on Thursday struck down the fourth set of legislative maps that the state’s Republican-dominated redistricting board passed late last month, giving the panel until May 6 to try a fifth time. The court ruled that the latest maps, which were barely changed from the previous set, continued to violate the state constitution’s requirement that they reflect the two parties’ statewide voting shares over the past decade and instead unduly favored Republicans.

The justices, however, declined to impose any further remedies sought by the plaintiffs, noting that that the state constitution forbids them from imposing a map of their own. They did, however, strongly encourage the board to complete a map created by a pair of independent experts that the panel abandoned at the last minute, saying that the plan was “on track to being constitutionally compliant.”

● TN Redistricting: The Tennessee Supreme Court overturned a recent lower court ruling that blocked the state’s new map for the state Senate from taking effect this year, holding that the decision would harm election officials by requiring that the candidate filing deadline be extended. A panel of three state court judges had found that the map violated the state constitution by failing to number districts within the same county consecutively. Though the injunction barring the map’s use was lifted, the map could still get struck down when the lower court judges issue a final ruling.

This post was originally published on this site

This week on The Downballot, cohosts David Beard and David Nir dug into some interesting news that has come out over the last week:

• A hard-to-explain decision by a major Democratic super PAC to take sides in an Oregon House primary;
• What the 2022 version of a well-established prediction model says about the midterms;
• New York’s confusing system for electing and replacing lieutenant governors;
• And the results of the first round of France’s presidential election.

This week’s guest was Nathaniel Rakich of FiveThirtyEight, who joined the hosts to share his thoughts on redistricting, gerrymandering, and what Democrats can expect heading into November.

You can listen below, or subscribe to The Downballot wherever you listen to podcasts. You can also find a transcript for this week right here. New episodes come out every Thursday!

House Majority PAC (HMP), whose founder Ali Lapp joined Beard and Nir on the podcast last week, took recent action in a race in Oregon that has seems to have ruffled some feathers. This seat, OR-06, is a brand new district that the state gained thanks to population growth in reapportionment. As Nir pointed out, “Joe Biden would’ve carried it by about a 55-42 margin. So it’s a blue-leaning district, not a safe blue district.” A total of seven Democrats are seeking the nomination for this new seat.

One of these candidates is economic development advisor Carrick Flynn, who has never run for office before. This week, HMP started spending over $1 million on ads boosting his campaign. This came as a total shock for many reasons, including the fact that HMP has never gotten involved in a partisan primary in this way before.

Another huge factor that’s really generated a lot of anger here is that many of the other candidates running are women. In fact, several are women of color, Nir noted. The candidate who is likely to be the leading candidate, state Rep. Andrea Salinas, has received endorsements from the governor and most of the major progressive groups and unions and is a woman of color. If Salinas won, she would be the first Hispanic person to represent the state in Congress. On the other hand, Nir said, “Carrick Flynn is a white man, and no one really understands what on earth HMP is doing.”

What’s more, the statement that HMP put out was “really just was impossible to believe”:

They said that they’re ‘dedicated to doing whatever it takes to secure a Democratic House majority in 2022. And we believe supporting Carrick Flynn is a step toward accomplishing that goal.’ That really doesn’t pass the smell test, because there’s nothing so special about Flynn that he simply has to be the Democratic nominee in order for Democrats to win this seat … HMP has never gotten involved in a primary in this way. They spend almost all of their money on general elections, running negative ads to beat Republicans. They have helped in a couple of open seat races in California … but in those cases, the party was worried about getting locked out of the general election because of California’s special top-two primary rules. That simply doesn’t apply here.

Digging deeper, Nir delved into what could have led to this decision. Prior to this endorsement, Carrick Flynn had received almost $6 million in outside support from a Super PAC called Protect Our Future, which is run by a 30-year-old billionaire named Sam Bankman-Fried who made his fortune creating a cryptocurrency exchange and has this year started spending heavily on a number of Democratic races, apparently to influence policy in DC:

Bankman-Fried is supposedly worth $24 billion, according to Forbes. There have been a number of arguments made about why he has been helping Carrick Flynn. Supposedly it’s because the two of them care a great deal about pandemic preparedness. It’s really hard to understand why that alone would be enough of a reason for a billionaire to spend $6 million on an untested candidate who, at best, will be a very junior member of a caucus that’s likely to be in the minority next year.

But what a number of folks have hinted at—including the campaign manager for one of the other candidates, including Andrea Salinas herself—is people are wondering whether Sam Bankman-Fried offered to give a huge donation to House Majority PAC, which can accept unlimited donations, in exchange for HMP deciding to boost Carrick Flynn. Even that feels very strange because Bankman-Fried can obviously dump as much money as he wants into his own Super PAC. So why would he need to sort of get involved with HMP here, unless he’s really looking to exert even broader influence over a major arm of the Democratic Party?

Next, the hosts pivoted to discuss the predictions for this year’s elections from Sabato’s Crystal Ball, a project of the University of Virginia Center for Politics. Based on the current generic ballot polling, Republicans are leading by about two points right now, and Crystal Ball predicts a 19-seat loss in the House—taking it from a five-member Democratic majority currently to a 14-member Republican majority. As Beard put it, “I would’ve expected worse news than it put out … obviously, we don’t want that, but is relatively narrow and something you can look towards to winning back in 2024.”

Beard thinks the predictions are even better for the Senate, as the “crystal ball” would predict no change in the Senate for an R-plus-two generic congressional ballot. “So for me, I think no change in the Senate would be great news, given the cycle that we’re facing,” he added. However, he added a caveat that generic ballot polling can change:

It often does [change] from, say, April of 2022 to November of 2022, when the election actually takes place. It can very often move against the party in power. We’ve definitely seen that happen before over the course of an election. So we can’t sit here and be like, “Oh, great.” It’s R plus two. So maybe it’ll even be better … But we also have to prepare for the idea that maybe it’s R plus four. Maybe it’s R plus six.

But even in those scenarios, the model is not that bad, largely due to the fact that the majority is already so narrow in the House. And because of the Senate seats that are up, there are only a few really great targets for Republicans to try to pick up in the Senate. And there are some surprisingly good targets for Democrats to go after states like Pennsylvania and Wisconsin. That’s some surprisingly good news in my view. Obviously, and we don’t want to lose the House, but if the model ends up being correct and the generic ballot says, “It’s not that bad,” I would take what they’re giving out at R plus two right now in a heartbeat.

Lastly, Beard and Nir quickly covered the latest scandal in state politics in New York, Lt. Gov. Brian Benjamin, a Democrat, just resigned his post after being arrested on corruption charges. He is being accused of steering state money to a real estate investor in exchange for political contributions while he was state Senator—contributions that also appear to have been straw donations, which themselves are illegal.

What’s tricky now is that Gov. Kathy Hochul, who is running for reelection this fall, is likely to get stuck on the same ticket with Benjamin due to antiquated election rules in New York. Nir explains:

The difficulty here is that New York’s primary is a couple of months away, but the filing deadline has already passed. New York uses a totally bizarre and completely stupid system for electing lieutenant governors. People have referred to it as a shotgun marriage. What happens is that candidates for governor and candidates for lieutenant governor run in separate primaries, but the winner of each primary gets stuck together on the same ticket in November.

What happens is that you have candidates who try to run as informal tickets before the primary, but you could still get stuck with someone. You could win the nomination for governor and get stuck with someone who you don’t like, or you’re totally at odds with. This has happened in New York. It happens a lot in Pennsylvania, which is one of only a half a dozen other states that uses this system.

Beard and Nir wrapped up the weekly hits with another trip across the Atlantic, over to the elections for prime minister in France.

Beard offered and overview of the process: “Two candidates from the first round will advance to the runoff, which takes place two weeks later, on April 24th. So, very soon—they do not have a long period here where they campaign in the runoff.”

Incumbent President and centrist Emmanuel Macron took first place with 28% of the vote, and far-right candidate Marine Le Pen took second place with 23% of the vote. And while that was expected, Beard said, “The real surprise of the first round was left-wing candidate, Jean-Luc Mélenchon, took a surprisingly close third place with 22% of the vote. And when you really break it down and see sort of all the candidates who got a few percent here or there, it’s really possible that Mélenchon could have advanced over Le Pen depending on how the different candidacies would’ve worked out.”

In the end, however, the French are left with a Macron-versus-Le Pen battle, which represents the center versus the far-right. A number of other candidates have already endorsed Macron (or done as Mélenchon did, who didn’t endorse Macron but said, “Don’t vote for Le Pen, whatever you do”). “So basically saying you could vote for Macron or you could stay home, but don’t vote for Le Pen, which is not an endorsement, but is, I guess, better than nothing or obviously better than endorsing Le Pen,” Beard said.

One of the big issues now looming over the race is that Macron proposed raising the retirement age a few weeks ago from 62 to 65 over the next 10 years—something particularly unpopular while there’s also a cost of living crisis that a lot of voters are not happy with. Both Le Pen and Mélenchon opposed raising the retirement age.

At this point, Rakich joined the hosts to offer his perspective on what to expect in months leading to November. As Rakich put it, things are a little more evenly divided than either parties think: “Even no matter how Florida, and New Hampshire, and Missouri go, I think we can say that the overall congressional map is going to be pretty evenly divided between the two parties in a way that it really hasn’t been in recent decades.”

However, he added that that doesn’t necessarily mean that the map is fair:

So we did this calculation over at FiveThirtyEight. We have our metric FiveThirtyEight partisan lean, which basically says whether it’s kind of similar to Cook PVI, which says whether a district leans five points toward Republicans relative to the nation or 10 points for Democrats or something like that.

And we estimate that there will be about 220 to 223 districts to the right of the nation as a whole and 212 to 215 districts to the left of the nation as a whole. So that’s pretty evenly split, especially when you consider this enduring Republican bias that’s been in the House lately. So for instance, we also calculated that the median seat of the House for the last several elections has been about five or six points to the right of the nation, which means in practical terms that, in theory—and kind of throwing out candidate quality things—that Democrats need to win the House popular vote by five or six percentage points in order to take control of the chamber.

Obviously, that’s a strong Republican bias, which is due in no small part to gerrymandering after the 2010 elections. This year, that bias—it still exists. There’s still slightly more Republican seats probably than Democratic seats, but it’s down to maybe one or two points depending on kind of how things break, especially in Florida. And so that is definitely historic, and it means that the House will be fought on this kind of balanced playing field for the first time in a long time.

But the reason that those districts or that the map is relatively balanced is that Democrats really stepped up their gerrymandering game this year in states like New York, as you guys have covered on the newsletter and on the podcast. And they’ve really kind of matched Republicans’ fire on that front. So if you look at some of the individual maps, you see a lot of really high efficiency gaps, which is this metric that you can use to measure gerrymandering, which is kind of a notoriously difficult thing to pin down.

Next, the trio discussed redistricting commissions, which make important decisions about how maps are drawn within some states. Rakich thinks there are essentially four different types of redistricting commissions: independent commissions, bipartisan commissions, politician commissions, and advisory commissions—of which independent commissions are the most successful at achieving the goal of reducing bias.

In closing, Rakich offered some advice on where he recommends people pay more attention, pointing in particular to state legislative races:

State legislative redistricting, obviously super important as you guys know. State legislatures, as we have seen time and time again, passed some of the most consequential, most controversial legislation in the country—especially as Washington is gridlocked. I would say that the big trend in state legislative redistricting has been similar to congressional redistricting, which is the decline of competitive seats and competition in general.

This is both because of gerrymandering, but also just kind of because of natural polarization—there are fewer swing states than ever. I don’t think it’s reasonable to consider the Alabama legislature or the Massachusetts legislature to ask that to be competitive. So you already have this kind of small window of potentially competitive state legislatures. But gerrymandering has taken a lot of those off the table.

The Downballot comes out every Thursday, everywhere you listen to podcasts. As a reminder, you can reach our hosts by email at [email protected]. Please send in any questions you may have for next week’s mailbag. You can also reach out via Twitter: @DKElections.

This post was originally published on this site

If Republicans were to pick a presidential nominee today, who do you think it would be? Not Mitch McConnell or Mitt Romney, that’s for sure. And at this point, even Ron DeSantis — no matter how much more Trump than Trump he tries to be — wouldn’t be the nominee. That’s right, it’s the party of Donald Trump.

Which means it’s the party of Vladimir Putin, or at least the party of love and deference to Putin. That should be a very, very tough place for the Republican Party to be right now. I sure hope their calls to get tougher, send more weapons to Ukraine and blame Joe Biden for everything don’t make people forget just how pro-Trump and pro-Putin the party has been.

The problems between Russia and Ukraine didn’t start at the end of February 2022. Trump and his cronies have been complicit in weakening NATO and undermining Ukraine for years. As thousands of civilians die and an expansionist dictator bombs hospitals and apartment buildings, lets hope voters here in the United States remember who Putins’ pals have been.

If you’ve already given to a relief organization like Nova Ukraine . . . consider supporting my work by joining me on Patreon! Thanks.