#Primaries and Caucuses

[youthchronical]

Eric Adams’s Fund-Raising in Last Two Months Plummets to $19,000

Mr. Adams said at a news conference on Monday that he was not worried. “Everyone is catching up to me,” he said. “I started raising early.” The mayor actually received $36,000 in contributions, but he ended up netting only $19,000 after adjustments and $21,000 in refunds, including $3,700 to Brock Pierce, a cryptocurrency investor who was recently photographed with Mr. Adams at President Trump’s…

[darnellclayton]

Why Voting For Nikki Haley To Stop Donald Trump Will Fail

There is a rational albeit flawed movement within never trump conservative circles who desire Democrats & Independents to register as Republicans & stop Donald Trump in the GOP Primaries. Note: Featured image of Nikki Haley via Britannica. One of those states is New Hampshire, where unaffiliated voters make up a plurality of the electorate and can participate in the primary of their choice.…

[uboat53]

You know, there's been a lot of liberal critique of The New York Times and other mainstream outlets lately accusing them of "normalizing" Trump. These outlets have generally responded that, in the interest of covering all sides, they need to publish pieces from a conservative viewpoint that liberal readers disagree with. They're both right and wrong when they say this and, to understand why, I need to explain how they're repeating exactly the same mistakes they made in 2016.

In 2016, you have to remember, Trump took the GOP by storm. The party itself tried to stop him with both the official party apparatus and peripheral apparatus like FOX News doing their best to diminish his support, but none of it worked. Instead, Trump won the primaries despite never winning more than a plurality in any contested state even while he was still opposed by a huge number of Republicans.

Of course, if you read or watched political news outlets in October of 2016 you wouldn't know any of that, because the immediate action of just about every political news outlet to Trump's nomination was to fire all of their conservative commentators who opposed him and hire a bunch of conservative commentators who supported him. By the time the general election debates were happening, you could be forgiven for thinking that all Democrats supported Clinton and all Republicans supported Trump.

(Note: Nothing similar happened on the Democratic side because nearly all liberal commentators already supported Clinton. Sanders' support in the primaries was surprising, but not overwhelming. He tended to win primaries or caucuses that limited turnout in some way to more enthusiastic supporters while Clinton tended to win primaries that were more broad-based and that was reflected in most of the coverage.)

In other words, by removing the many anti-Trump conservative voices from their air/pages, news organizations gave the impression that all Republicans supported Trump, effectively activating partisan loyalties and subtly encouraging Republicans with doubts about Trump to fall in line. This is what we mean by "normalizing."

They're doing the same thing today. They're not publishing articles where they examine the claims of their MAGA columnists (or their liberal ones for that matter!) and they're not publishing articles about the divides that still remain in the Republican Party and the conservative movement generally (Trump was consistently losing 30%-40% of the vote in 2024 even after it became clear he was going to win), they're just publishing articles arguing for/against Harris and Trump with no deeper analysis whatsoever.

This is why liberals are correct that mainstream political news organizations, even those like The New York Times which are often seen a liberal, are complicit in "normalizing" Trump. These outlets are correct that they need to cover conservative points of view which their liberal readers may find uncomfortable, but they don't have to present them as "the one true conservative" point of view.

By presenting Trump as if he represents all of conservatism rather than just the MAGA faction of conservatism which is staunchly opposed by more traditional conservative factions, these media organizations have fed fuel into a narrative us "us vs. them" which has done as much or more than partisan media to build the partisan polarization of this country.

[boreal-sea]

Who is Tim Walz?

Kamala Harris has apparently picked Tim Walz as her running mate. He seems good, based on his record. He's also responsible for the widely spreading "Republicans are weird" meme I've seen quite a lot of.

He has a good record. Just like I did for Kamala Harris in a post that has become quite popular, I will do a simple review of things I like from Tim Walz' political history. Again, as with Harris, this is just from his Wikipedia page. Let's go!

House of Representatives

Opposed increasing troop numbers in Iraq

Co-sponsored a bill to raise Minnesota's minimum wage

Voted for stem cell research

Voted to allow Medicare to negotiate pharmaceutical prices

Voted against the act to Prohibit Federally Funded Abortion Services

Voted to advance the ACA

Has received a 100% rating from many progressive organizations like Planned Parenthood and the ACLU

Was a member of several caucuses, including the LGBT Equality Caucus

Governor of Minnesota

Signed into law police reforms after the murder of George Floyd

Had Minnesota join the National Popular Vote Interstate Compact, meaning that all of the state's electors will vote for whichever candidate wins the popular vote nation-wide.

Under his governance, Minnesota passed laws for requiring paid leave, banning non-compete agreements, cannabis legalization, abortion rights, universal free school meals,

Political stances

Pro cannabis

Against bailout bills that loan taxpayer money to large banks and auto manufacturers

Was a former teacher for many years, and is very pro-education and supporting public schools. He is against merit pay for teachers (this is a good thing), and supports lowering tuition costs

Used to be pro-gun, but after Parkland he changed his mind, and as Governor he signed a bill mandating universal background checks

Pro-LGBT - has voted for LGBT rights many times, including as Governor, where he signed bills banning conversion therapy and protecting gender-affirming care

Supports veterans rights and support

Supports abortion rights and women's rights

I am going to copy-paste the entire section for his views on the Israel-Hamas war, because I don't want people claiming I am taking anything out of context. Overall, he has views that echo my own in many ways:

Walz condemned Hamas's October 7 attacks in Israel and ordered flags to be lowered to half mast in the following days. After the 2024 Minnesota Democratic presidential primary, in which 19% of voters cast "uncommitted" ballots, Walz took a sympathetic view toward those doing so to protest President Biden's handling of the war in Gaza, calling them "civically engaged". Of the protests against U.S. funding of the war in Gaza, Walz said: "This issue is a humanitarian crisis. They have every right to be heard... These folks are asking for a change in course, they're asking for more pressure to be put on… You can hold competing things: that Israel has the right to defend itself, and the atrocities of October 7 are unacceptable, but Palestinian civilians being caught in this… has got to end." Walz also said he supports a ceasefire in Gaza.[100]

[nathan-nathan]

One of my friends requested the election results in Destiel format, and I am drunk enough to deliver.

Is it officially called? No. But I'm nothing if not a pessimist.

[deadpresidents]

What was wrong with the Kerry Edwards ticket in 2004? I'm not really old enough to remember it properly.

Oh God, where do I start?

First of all, it was an immensely winnable election for the Democrats because there was a big segment of the country just asking for a reason to vote for someone other than George W. Bush. The Iraq War was going terribly, the Abu Ghraib scandal was very fresh, and there was very little confidence in Bush's ability to lead and possibly even tie his shoes.

When the Democratic primaries started, there was some real energy and excitement behind former Vermont Governor Howard Dean, who built an online campaign that was ahead-of-its-time and was running on a progressive platform that set him apart from many of the Democratic candidates who had long been part of the Washington establishment like Kerry, Joseph Lieberman, Dick Gephardt, etc. However, Dean's campaign was torpedoed because, in a moment of excitement during a speech following the Iowa Caucuses, Dean made a weird scream. In an example of how insane American politics has become in just 20 years, Howard Dean made an awkward noise and that basically disqualified him as a candidate for the Presidency.

John Kerry, who was extremely qualified for the job of President of the United States yet virtually nobody's first choice (or second choice or third choice or fourth choice) for the Democratic nomination, basically had an open path to the nomination from that point. As I said, Kerry was undoubtedly qualified -- and few people really wanted to vote for him. Then, Kerry started campaigning and energized almost nobody for the next 10 months. He was just not good at campaigning. He was uninspiring, he was corny, he had a record that was easy to run against because of his long Congressional career and the frequent "evolution" of many of his beliefs over the years. It wasn't good.

Kerry picked then-North Carolina Senator John Edwards as his running mate. Edwards was still in the midst of his one (and only) term in elective office at that point. Some people thought he was smooth and charismatic. But he was (and is) a piece of shit. He came across as an overly ambitious, former ambulance-chasing lawyer -- because that's basically what he had been during his legal career. He seemed like the type of guy who would cheat on his wife while she was dying of terminal cancer and then try to convince a campaign aide to tell people that the child he fathered out of wedlock (while his wife was dying of terminal cancer, in case that wasn't clear) belonged to the campaign aide, not him. He seemed like that type of guy because that's 100% what he did when he ran for President four years later. Edwards is one of the slimiest, most contemptible major party candidates for President or Vice President of my lifetime, which is really saying something. He was also utterly unprepared for the Presidency or Vice Presidency. This whole post could be about John Edwards, but I'd have to take six showers after writing it.

But the biggest problem of all was John Kerry's inability to energize voters. Most people thought that he won the three debates between him and Bush, but despite all of Bush's many, many, many faults, George W. Bush was really good at connecting with people on the campaign trail. He might have said some goofy things and usually made people think he was flat-out dumb, but he wasn't. Bush knew that people underestimated him and he weaponized that, and people forget that he was pretty solid at retail politics. Kerry was not even a little good at that part of campaigning, and it was obvious. When some Bush supporters "swiftboated" Kerry -- making an ultra-unfair and untrue campaign ad criticizing Kerry's military service during the Vietnam War -- it definitely hurt Kerry's campaign, and Kerry's communication shortcomings made it difficult to respond to such attacks.

This is just a quick overview because there's obviously a lot more that could be said about the 2004 election and Kerry's campaign, but the point is that he was the wrong guy at the wrong time and he lost a very winnable campaign.

And the crazy thing is that John Kerry still almost won in 2004! That's why it was such a missed opportunity. Bush won the Electoral College vote 286-251, and won the popular vote by just over 3 million votes nationally (still the only time a Republican has won the popular vote in a Presidential race in the 21st Century). If Kerry had won Ohio -- which Bush won by 2.1% in 2004, but Barack Obama won by 4.6% just four years later -- he would have defeated Bush and won the Presidency.

[meret118]

The 9 democratic senators and one independent who helped republicans pass trump's budget to gut medicaid and other social services in order to give the money to billionaires:

Chuck Schumer of New York

Sen. John Fetterman of Pennsylvania

Sen. Catherine Cortez Masto of Nevada

Dick Durbin of Illinois

Brian Schatz of Hawaii

Gary Peters of Michigan

Maggie Hassan of New Hampshire

Kirsten Gillibrand of New York

Jeanne Shaheen of New Hampshie

Also Angus King, a Maine independent who caucuses with Democrats.

source

The budget resolution that passed the House last month on a party-line vote would cut Medicaid by $880 billion, while food stamp spending would be slashed by $230 billion.

At the same time, the Republican budget package would expand Trump’s 2017 tax cuts through Fiscal Year 2035, which the Congressional Budget Office has estimated will cost $4.5 trillion. The Center on Budget and Policy Priorities (CBPP) said previously that legislation was “skewed to the rich, expensive and failed to deliver on its promises.” The CBPP estimated that the richest households would get more than triple the tax cuts that lower and middle-class households would get.

Source

Democrats need to immediately vote to replace Schumer as minority leader. It needs to happen today to show voters that all democrats aren't traitors and nazi collaborators. I personally think Chris Murphy would be a good choice.

I hope schumer not only loses his leadership position, but is primaried as well. AOC perhaps?

I called my senators to thank them for their votes against it.

[stele3]

This is going to be a fucking nightmare. Basically, Democratic primaries and caucuses have already been held in most states, and Biden was the nominee chosen by voters. Any Republican-held state legislature can argue that by swapping in a candidate AFTER the vote has been made, the Democratic Party is countermanding the will of the people.

This'll probably go to the Supreme Court and...well, we'll have to see, then. Kamala Harris is at least his running mate; they can argue she's already on the ticket because of that. Also, due to campaign finance rules, she's the only one who can access his campaign funds, which is significant.

Get right with Kamala, now. It's got to be her.

[warsofasoiaf]

Aside from the obvious Tsarist, Republican, and Bolshevik factions, who were some of the other most powerful groups fighting in the Russian civil war for control of the country?

There were the Greens, who were peasant communities mobilized against the governmental factions and whose primary goal was to stop the factions from pillaging their supplies.

Then there were the separatists, who were primarily Russian colonial territories like the Baltics, the Caucuses (such as but not limited to Azerbaijan, Armenia, and Georgia), Poland, and Ukraine. Their goal was primarily national independence from Russian occupation and rule, which was opposed by both the Reds and the Whites who wanted Russia to remain possession of their imperial territories.

Thanks for the question, Anon.

SomethingLikeALawyer, Hand of the King

[mariacallous]

A potential breakthrough arrived earlier this month in California’s years-long debate over ethnic studies, in which Jewish groups fought to ensure that a curriculum mandate would not lead to teachers presenting Jews unfairly or singling out Israel. For the first time, influential lawmakers from several racial and ethnic caucuses offered to help the effort — as long as ethnic studies did not draw exclusive scrutiny.

The result is a collaboration between the state legislature’s Jewish Caucus and the chairs of the Black, Latino, and Asian American and Pacific Islander caucuses on a bill to address concerns about antisemitism throughout the state’s education system.

“There was a level of ownership around ethnic studies by folks that are in those ethnic communities, and nervousness that in our desire to prevent antisemitism in that discipline, it looked like it was an attack on ethnic studies, when it wasn’t,” Assemblymember Rick Chavez Zbur, a member of the Jewish Caucus who is one of the bill’s two primary authors, said in an interview.

The concerned lawmakers came up with the idea of broadening the effort during legislative negotiations earlier this month, according to Zbur, who isn’t Jewish himself but whose Los Angeles district has one of the highest concentrations of Jews in the state.

“They said, Why don’t we actually focus on antisemitism in all the ways in which it’s appearing in our schools and do a bill that’s more broadly focused on antisemitism,” Zbur said. “There’s a genuine desire to stand with the Jewish Caucus to remedy what’s happening.��

The compromise comes amid a broad spike in antisemitism globally, widespread concern about antisemitism in K-12 schools and as some politically progressive educators appear to be promoting criticism of Israel in their classrooms.

It also turned out to be particularly timely. In California, the ethnic studies mandate that was approved in 2021, requiring that all high schoolers take an ethnic studies course to graduate, was about to take effect this fall. But then, two days after the unveiling of the new bill, Gov. Gavin Newsom announced he would not fund the mandate in next year’s budget, effectively blocking it for now.

[youthchronical]

Walz, Newsom and Buttigieg Are Among Democrats Stirring 2028 Presidential Chatter

Pete Buttigieg, the former transportation secretary, ruled out a run for statewide office in Michigan in 2026 and made it clear that he was keeping his 2028 options open. Gov. JB Pritzker of Illinois is headed to New Hampshire next month, visiting a traditional battleground in the presidential primary campaign years before any campaign is underway. And even if Iowa isn’t still Iowa, Gov. Tim Walz…

[justinspoliticalcorner]

Igor Bobic at HuffPost:

The Senate confirmed former Fox News host Pete Hegseth as the nation’s next secretary of defense on Friday after weeks of debate about his slim qualifications and his alleged history of alcohol abuse and domestic abuse. The vote was 50-50, with GOP Sens. Susan Collins of Maine, Lisa Murkowski of Alaska and a surprise Mitch McConnell of Kentucky standing in opposition. The three Republican no votes forced Vice President JD Vance to cast a tie-breaking decision in Hegseth’s favor. It’s the first time in U.S. history that a defense secretary was confirmed by a tie vote in the Senate. Hegseth, a 44-year-old veteran who has vowed to end “woke” military policies, was nominated by then-President-elect Donald Trump in November to the bewilderment of much of the national security community. He is set to begin the job as the least experienced defense secretary in modern history. Republicans defended the pick, saying that an unconventional leader with experience outside government is needed to shake up the department and “restore American strength” abroad. Those who initially expressed concerns were quickly met with threats of primaries by Trump’s allies. McConnell’s no vote came as a slight surprise after he voted to advance Hegseth’s nomination earlier this week. In a statement shortly after his vote, McConnell pointed to Hegseth’s lack of experience for the role that oversees 3 million people employed by the armed forces and manages a nearly $1 trillion budget.

The Senate voted 51-50 to confirmer drunken domestic abuser and sexual assaulter Pete Hegseth to serve as the Secretary of Defense under Trump, with VP JD Vance providing the 51st tie-breaking vote to confirm, since Republican Sens. Lisa Murkowski, Susan Collins, and Mitch McConnell voted no and so did all Democrats and Dem-caucusing Indies.

I just don’t see Hegseth lasting the entire term, as he could bail out back to right-wing media commentator world or into defense lobbying within a year or so.

See Also:

The Guardian: Trump’s controversial Pentagon pick Pete Hegseth confirmed by Senate 51-50

AP, via Daily Kos: Hegseth confirmed as Trump's defense secretary in tie-breaking vote

[touchstoneaf]

Look. I know you're angry. Furious, even; that this is what we have to work with, that we're stuck in this position again and again, that our will never seems really to be heard, much less done. And I get it. I was angry (nay, furious), too, in 2016. I was FURIOUS that my excitement for the future was purposefully derailed and my primary vote literally BURNED or 'lost', so that we couldn't get Bernie, the most Progressive and promising candidate ever in US history, to run against Trump; because it seemed he would have been a shoo-in. That I was forced to vote for Hillary instead, because in comparison she seemed so flawed. That I had to go with the 'lesser of two evils' option. That my vote wasn't good enough for the Dems in the primary, got flushed away like it was nothing, only for them to come back and beg me for my vote a couple months later. "If they didn't want my vote in the primary, they can't have it now", I said. I also didn't actually believe that the Orange Menace, Cheeto Voldemort, could actually ever be electable. I knew he was worse than Hillary could ever be... but I truly believed that enough people were either deeply pro-Hillary or would vote for her as a matter of necessity that they didn't actually need my vote. I thought that if we managed to get a Black man elected, IN THE US, *TWICE*--if we motivated enough voters, did enough caucusing, mobilized enough callers and got enough people registered (and i did it all, even after losing the Bush/Gore one), we would have no real trouble getting a white woman from US political royalty with relatively conservative views in the big seat. I still believed in that momentum, that beauty we found during Barack's first run. Anything was possible, so why worry, really? I couldn't in good conscience abstain, but surely voting my conscience with a third party candidate wouldn't hurt anything, really. Not with a Dem powerhouse on the ballot, right? And then it happened. The impossible, the unthinkable. The ableist, racist-dogwhistle idiot with the speaking ability of a chimp, with a cadre of absolute morons at his back, actually got himself elected. (Sort of. Or even that he could cheat the system enough to slide by, which was even more frightening.) And I knew I had made a terrible mistake, and so did enough others as to help to cause this insanity to happen. That night, clinging to my then-wife with my heart in my throat at how close it was, terror rising in me... I would have taken it back in a microsecond. But i couldn't. And you won't be able to either. And this time we are fully aware that it could happen again. That it will be worse this time. TBC

[blamebrampton]

Need some American help for a story! What would happen if two Democratic Presidential nominees had almost identical levels of wins in primaries and from caucuses in the lead-up to the DNC? Would they run off at the convention as in the old days or would the small percentage advantage be enough? Is it possible for them to have identical support and thus the decision has to go to the DNC?

(I know I should know this, but frankly I know far too much about US politics as it is and I resent the amount of brain space devoted to it.) Thanks for any help!

[aparrotandaqrow]

I'm gonna need everyone to get real savvy and real skeptical real fast about political polls and election models in the next 4 months. News organizations are starting to grasp for polling numbers to understand how Kamala Harris will match up against Trump, and I need you all to remember and repeat this maxim:

Electoral opinion surveys and preference polls are not useful without precedents.

The media is going to turn to them because they are desperate for narratives and we are going to be starved of information up until votes get counted.

Do not be misled; the media are effectively running to soothsayers. Both if polls show Kamala doing well, and if they don't.

Here's the thing you need to understand about election polls in the US. Predicting a winner in a presidential election is extremely nontrivial, because of the Electoral College. Outcomes depend on margins in a handful of states; this is why you see organizations like 538 talking about the "Path to 270" and the make-or-break states for individual candidates. A huge fraction of American voters live in California, and their preferences largely don't matter statistically, since California always votes blue. So a straight random poll of Americans will always show the Democrat ahead, because so many Americans live in California and New York (yes this is also why the Electoral College sucks).

To counter this trend, pollsters will use statistical models to adjust the polling sample, trying to guess at who will vote in which state, and rebalancing their polling sample (often by applying statistical weights) to try to get a more accurate sense of how the race will actually break.

So right off the bat, that introduces a serious degree of uncertainty. Good pollsters account for that in the poll's margin of error (not that the media ever let a margin of error get in the way of a narrative), but estimating the margin of error due to statistical weights itself relies on statistical models. Pollsters look at past elections and the variability in turnout relative to polling results (since there are polls that try to measure turnout specifically) to build a model for how uncertain their turnout predictions are.

And that is the key point here. A presidential election opinion poll rests entirely on a prediction of future voter behavior based on past behavior.

That works fine in normal elections with normal candidates. This was not a normal election before Biden dropped out, and it certainly is not one now. No major party's candidate and presumptive nominee has dropped out after the main nominating contest. Not since the advent of the modern party system with primaries and caucuses that are open to the average voter. No major party has fielded a campaign for the presidency during a standard election year in only 15 weeks. Ever.

We do not know what impact that will have on voter turnout, in any demographic or in any region. We have no precedent for this.

So if someone tries to sell you a narrative about how the election is going? They are lying to you in order to sell you a narrative, either for propaganda reasons (a campaign) or financial reasons (a for-profit media enterprise).

I know it is tempting to grasp at every straw of information to understand how the campaign is going. Trust me, I have 3 weather forecast apps and 4 weather radar apps on my phone. I know how compelling it is to want to know what's happening and what will happen.

The best we can do is have conversations with the people in our lives who are not convinced they want to vote for Kamala Harris or aren't convinced they want to vote, and honestly and earnestly get them to come out to vote. Doesn't matter what state you vote in. Don't let historical precedents that do not apply dictate your actions. Have those conversations.

And for fuck's sake, ignore the media pundits losing their minds trying to fill the airwaves with predictions. They don't know what's going to happen any more than you do.

[the-psudo]

Welcome to the Twenty-Seventh Day

We're not a one-party state yet. At least not nationally. Be on guard against any steps in that direction. The one-party state has rendered elections irrelevant.

We have seen that already on the local level in countless communities across the country. That helped create the cozy, safe districts that allow politicians to go to crazy extremes and still get elected. That has helped create the radical minorities who run fringe primary challengers against any candidates that aren't fringe enough.

Participate in local politics. Make local elections competitive, so that people have a real choice between at least two candidates that genuinely reflect local values. Push for greater and more diverse participation in party caucuses, where they pick their candidates for office.

You can always change a few minds in your local neighborhood a lot more easily than you can change the millions of minds it would take to overturn a Presidential election. Do your work on the small scale. Living room discussions. Book clubs. Local charity work. Local protests. The more people who do that, the less power the horrible faction will have in the future. It is the mass movement of small actions that will make the change you're looking for.

2025-02-15