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JFC, are there no editors left at that goddamn rag?

You come for women, you’re gonna get your ass kicked.

The lights are all blinking red.

We still have time to mess this up!

Republicans: slavery is when you own me. freedom is when I own you.

Too often we confuse noise with substance. too often we confuse setbacks with defeat.

Not so fun when the rabbit gets the gun, is it?

When you’re in more danger from the IDF than from Russian shelling, that’s really bad.

“Jesus paying for the sins of everyone is an insult to those who paid for their own sins.”

People are complicated. Love is not.

He wakes up lying, and he lies all day.

rich, arrogant assholes who equate luck with genius

Never entrust democracy to any process that requires republicans to act in good faith.

Whoever he was, that guy was nuts.

Let’s not be the monsters we hate.

Never entrust democracy to any process that requires Republicans to act in good faith.

The unpunished coup was a training exercise.

They think we are photo bombing their nice little lives.

An almost top 10,000 blog!

Yeah, with this crowd one never knows.

Many life forms that would benefit from greater intelligence, sadly, do not have it.

You know it’s bad when the Project 2025 people have to create training videos on “How To Be Normal”.

Putin must be throwing ketchup at the walls.

Teach a man to fish, and he’ll sit in a boat all day drinking beer.

You are here: Home / Open Threads / Take Back The Senate 2020: MJ Heger

Take Back The Senate 2020: MJ Heger

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I’m going to keep reminding everyone that if we don’t take back the Senate, nothing will change. If we can take back the WH, our candidate will face the same or worse obstruction by the turtle as Obama did.

If you want to send me links to candidates that interest you, I’m happy to front page them. And hopefully, DougJ will continue his ActBlue posts.

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37Comments

  6. 6.

    trollhattan

    That is goddamn inspiring. She’s a natural. (Note: natural takes a lifetime of work.)

    She could legitimately be a better opponent for Cornyn than Beto.

  8. 8.

    Dan B

    If Mitch goes who would be the most likely replacements? That is if we don’t flip the senate.

    Is the DNC or anyone else doing analysis on which Senate races are most likely to flip? We’ve been so focused on the pres race, and Trump, and Supremes, that we have not been paying attention to that other important body.

  10. 10.

    Another Scott

    @Dan B: DCCC handles House races, DSCC handles Senate races. Both of them mostly fly under the radar (the News section of the DSCC.org web site hasn’t been updated in 3 months).

    HTH.

    Cheers,
    Scott.

  11. 11.

    chopper

    And hopefully, DougJ will continue his ActBlue posts.

    i dunno, silverman said he was ripping everyone off with those act blue posts, so who knows?…dun dun DUUUUN

  14. 14.

    Jeffro

    @justawriter: That doesn’t even count as ‘culture war’, Cornyn! That’s so C-list it looks like my grades from senior year!! Come ON, man!

  15. 15.

    Adam L Silverman

    @Dan B: @Another Scott: And they know where the vulnerable seats are. There are, based on the demographics of the states where the Republicans are defending their 22 seats, only about five or so that are really good opportunities to flip: Gardner in Colorado, Collins in Maine, Thillis in NC (he barely one in 2014 and there were a lot of irregularities that may be part of the long pattern that now has NC Republican officials facing criminal charges), Ernst in Iowa, McSally who is serving out McCain’s term in Arizona, Roberts is retiring in KS, so that’s going to be an open seat and may be flippable with the right Democrat running, and that’s about it. If Roy Moore gets the Republican nomination again in Alabama that should allow Doug Jones to squeak out a reelection. Hyde-Smith has to stand for reelection in Mississippi, all she won in 2018 was the right to serve out the term she was appointed to. That race was closer than expected, so Espy might be able to flip it, but it’s Mississippi. Cassidy is up in LA, but the only way I see that seat flipping is if Mitch Landrieu is the Democratic challenger. Tennessee is completely open as Alexander is retiring, but it’s Tennessee, so… Capito is also up in WVA, but it’s WVA.

  16. 16.

    KenK

    I’ve decided that between now and election day 2020, I’m going to devote my limited campaign contribution capacity to Democratic Senate candidates in tight, swing state elections. To that end, can someone give me a good source or sources of info identifying which races these are?

  19. 19.

    tobie

    Didn’t Joacquin Castro announce he was going to challenge Cornyn, or is he still in the exploratory phase?

  21. 21.

    janesays

    There is a worse outcome than not taking back the senate. Not taking back the senate and not taking back the presidency. That’s indisputably worse.

    I do fully agree that if we win the White House but still have a divided legislature, it’s going to be nearly impossible for anything resembling a progressive policy agenda to be enacted, which I think was your point.

    We need to take back the senate and the White House, and then sometime early in 2021 we need to encourage Justices Ginsburg and Breyer to retire, because we’ll only have a guaranteed 2 year window to fill those seats. We can’t assume that the senate will stay in our control for any length of time beyond the current term, and we can’t run the risk those seats being hijacked by a potential future GOP senate majority leader in 2023. We need two 40-something RBG clones in those seats, and if possible we need to expand the court by another two seats.

  24. 24.

    janesays

    @Adam L Silverman: That list seems pretty spot-on.

    Texas would be great, but it’s not very likely. Cornyn is a hell of a lot more popular there than Ted Cruz, and Ted Cruz was able to beat one of our best campaigners in the last cycle. I just don’t see that as a realistic pickup opportunity.

    Here are my rankings…

    1. Colorado
    2. New Hampshire
    3. North Carolina
    4. Arizona
    5. Iowa
    6. Kansas
    7. Georgia

  26. 26.

    ??? Goku (aka Amerikan Baka) ??

    @Adam L Silverman:
    Related, but I don’t understand why the House Dems haven’t expanded the number of seats in the House. I know the investigations take up a ton of time, but it needs to be done to counteract the Senate, the Supreme Court, and the Electoral College

  27. 27.

    Adam L Silverman

    @janesays: Jeanne Shaheen is the Democratic incumbent in New Hampshire. It wouldn’t be a pick up, it would be a hold.

    As for Cornyn, no argument here. I like Heger, but she has a huge lift here. However, the more places that the Democrats can make the Republicans actually expend time and money, the better. I’d love for the Democrats to have someone to be able to seriously challenge Cotton in Arkansas and Graham in SC, but I don’t know of anyone in Arkansas who could do the former, and I’m not really sure that given his death grip embrace on the President, the latter is even of interest to any South Carolina Democrats.

  28. 28.

    Adam L Silverman

    @??? Goku (aka Amerikan Baka) ??: It will take legislation signed by the President. McConnell won’t bring it up in the Senate and even if it passed there, the President will veto it and there aren’t enough votes to override the veto. Locking in the number of seats at the 1920ish numbers was done through legislation and it can only be undone through legislation. Also, while it might have an effect on the Electoral College, it will have no effect on the Supreme Court or any other Federal court as only the Senate handles those nominations.

  29. 29.

    plato

    So happy to see so many women taking on donny disgusting and his traitorous thugs head on. More power to them.

  30. 30.

    ??? Goku (aka Amerikan Baka) ??

    @Adam L Silverman:
    Huh, I forgot about that. Do you think Pelosi et al would actually attempt such an move if we did have the the Presidency and Congress? I have a feeling none of our current Democratic leaders would do that. Same can be said for packing the Surpeme Court

  32. 32.

    Adam L Silverman

    @??? Goku (aka Amerikan Baka) ??: I have no idea. I have never seen this brought up as a serious concern or issue to be addressed by any elected Democrat or any Democratic Party official. I’ve seen discussions of making DC and Puerto Rico states. I’ve even seen arguments of “give the Republicans what they want, split California into four states, that’ll give us four additional Democratic senators and only two additional Republican ones, and the new Republican majority state will be bankrupt and financially non-viable as soon as it comes into existence.” But that’s about it.

  34. 34.

    piratedan

    her chances may actually be better depending upon how much the investigations of the Trump Administration uncover. If you take Mueller’s observations that the DJT Campaign was too stupid and inept to conspire… okay, then who did the GRU conspire with, did they manage to wreak havoc on their own or did they find willing partners to work with…

    based on the behavior of our Senators, is it so impossible to believe that the GRU found a willing partner with the GOP?

    If that’s true, and the current Senator from Texas being involved in the decision making process for the party, who knows how Texans feel about treason…

  36. 36.

    Dan B

    @Adam L Silverman: Thanks for your rundown on the Senate races. It doesn’t seem likely Dems will retake the senate. But can some of the Repubs be persuaded to slow the Federalist / Christianist takeover of the courts? Otherwise our options get limited to protest.

  37. 37.

    Lumpy

    The music in the commercial sounds a lot like ‘Sympathy for the Devil” unfortunately…

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