Come for the politics, stay for the snark.

Battle won, war still ongoing.

Seems like a complicated subject, have you tried yelling at it?

When I decide to be condescending, you won’t have to dream up a fantasy about it.

You cannot love your country only when you win.

Since we are repeating ourselves, let me just say fuck that.

Michigan is a great lesson for Dems everywhere: when you have power…use it!

This fight is for everything.

We are aware of all internet traditions.

Let’s bury these fuckers at the polls 2 years from now.

The gop is a fucking disgrace.

Alternative history is always a weak argument. Always.

They are lying in pursuit of an agenda.

You are so fucked. Still, I wish you the best of luck.

This isn’t Democrats spending madly. This is government catching up.

Meanwhile over at truth Social, the former president is busy confessing to crimes.

Following reporting rules is only for the little people, apparently.

If you thought you’d already seen people saying the stupidest things possible on the internet, prepare yourselves.

Live so that if you miss a day of work people aren’t hoping you’re dead.

Optimism opens the door to great things.

Pessimism assures that nothing of any importance will change.

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

We’ve had enough carrots to last a lifetime. break out the sticks.

“The difference between stupidity and genius is that genius has its limits.”

Second rate reporter says what?

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North Carolina notes on a shitty morning

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This sucks.

I think we’re going to be looking at North Carolina in a few weeks once both data becomes available and our heads become clearer as we try to figure out what next.  Right now, it just looks like a near uniform 5 point shift right with a few exceptions that are concentrated in the swing states.

North Carolina Democrats had a pretty good night at the state level.

    • Governor
    • Lt. Governor
    • Attorney General
    • Secretary of State
    • Superintendent of Public Education

Most importantly, it looks like the Democrats broke the Republican super-majority in the State legislature.  The governor’s veto actually means something now.

They also held onto the single competitive seat in Congress after the state got aggressively gerrymandered.

I’m not sure where I’m going with this beyond looking for shimmers of good news somewhere, but I think North Carolina will be a center of figuring out what is next.

But that is not a today problem.  I’m gonna just get through the day while checking in on my friends and having them check in on me.

 

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Florida jackals — the sea and the sky may hate election day voting

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Hey, Florida folks:

I don’t necessarily want to raise huge alarm bells or anything, but looking at the GFS and other hurricane models, and the National Hurricane Center’s current Tropical Weather Outlook….

….maybe DEFINITELY try to vote early this week, if you haven’t already. Very definitely.

— Mari Ness, writer of things (@mariness.bsky.social) October 27, 2024 at 4:31 PM

Building on Rose’s post from earlier today, go vote early if you’re a Jackal living in a state that touches the Gulf of Mexico.

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Dems Abroad UK Day of Action Report: The Speaker Emerita

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Today was the Democrats Abroad UK Day of Action. All DA chapters across the country met for fellowship or for GOTV activities. My local chapter held a ballot-request event a few weeks ago, so for us this was mostly about connecting in person. We huddled around phones in a pub to watch the national Zoom rally. It was broadcast from the London campaign office—we’ve never had a campaign office before—and the VIP speaking from London was Nancy Pelosi.

DA UK Announcement flyer

The pub was just busy enough that it was hard for us to hear her. She didn’t quite know where to look—her instinct was to address the staffers in the office, but she eventually found the camera and spoke to those of us in the virtual cheap seats. She focused on the practical: you, voters abroad, could be the margin of victory in many swing states; please make sure that your ballot is received, not just sent; try to get two friends to send in their ballots, too, even if they have to vote provisionally.

She was very positive and energetic and warm, pulling out that now-famous line, “You have to be willing to throw a punch, for the children.” There happened to be a lull in the background noise when she spoke about January 6, so we were able to hear her clearly.

One of the people at our table said, “They would have killed her if they’d found her.”

There were a lot of empty beer glasses on our table, but we were very sober for a moment after that. Most of us plan to go back to the US someday, and we want to make sure there is a country to go home to.

Turnout for voters abroad is abysmal, but this year I think it will be better than it has ever been before.

Someone here has to have an American friend abroad. There’s a real good chance she hasn’t voted. Only 8% of voters overseas did in 2020.

Make sure she sees THIS: www.votefromabroad.org

[image or embed]

— L O L G O P (@lolgop.bsky.social) October 12, 2024 at 6:51 PM

October is peak Democratic panic time. It felt good this year to be able to do more than fret from afar, even if it’s not as much as many of you have been doing. (I have been telling people at home for years about the fundraising efforts WaterGirl arranges here at the Beej, and how donating to ground-game organizations or down-ballot candidates gets you more bang for the buck.)

If you are a US expat abroad, visit the Federal Voting Assistance Program webpage or Vote from Abroad ASAP to request your ballot if you haven’t. You may still be able to vote a provisional ballot. If you can afford to, pay for expedited posting from your country of residence to ensure your ballot arrives before your state’s postal deadline. (I always send mine signed delivery.)

That’s what I’ve got for this evening. I swear I do have my follow-up post about the Google ad tech trial in the drafts folder, and I’ve been pestering my parents for details about the haunted B&B. In the meantime, tell us how your weekend has gone so far.

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Notes from the Heartland: Osborn and Vargas In Nebraska

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I just got off the phone with my brother, we were catching up on making sure our FL family is safe and evacuated from Tampa/FT Myers/Cape Coral. Of course then we had to hit the politics. Osborn is the talk of the town – it’s small town of about 35K a couple of hours outside of Omaha. Osborn has been there several times, stood with my brother’s family during the big parade, he’s back this week and  hitting a couple of local, and somewhat famous, watering holes. He has challenged Fischer to a debate at one of the bars – such a NE thing to do. She probably doesn’t even know where that little town is, LOL. No one expects her to show. But I’m sure the beer will flow.

My brother also said that Don Bacon is in trouble in District 2, which I suspected but good to hear from an actual Nebraskan. My brother (along with my dad,  my SIL and my niece who gets to vote this year for the first time)  is clearly a blue dot in a sea of red. He argues with the guys he works with, but he also listens to them, so I was interested to hear that they like that Osborn guy. He also pitches hard for anyone but Trump – and I know his guys listen to him to a degree because he’s a Vet who was in that famous (in NE) firefight in Iraq.  So I’m sure he’s swayed a few to Osborn.

Nebraska 2 House polls, Bacon vs. Vargas

Vargas has a 5.1% lead based on 8 polls.

Notes from the Heartland: Osborn and Vargas

 

I know the best we’ll do in the presidential race in NE is picking up the District 2 electoral vote for Harris, but it would be a nice surprise if we flipped the Senate seat and a Congressional seat.

Thanks to WaterGirl for putting up fundraising for NE and thanks to everyone who has contributed.

 

This is an open thread.

Also, I’d like you all to meet me here on Saturday, I have some news.  xo

 

 

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Big Weekend Plans

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The weekend has arrived, and it’s a great time to do something to help defend democracy.

My local Democrats Abroad chapter is holding a little event tomorrow at a trendy city pub (one of the owners is a Maryland voter). A team will be on hand to help expats check their voter registration and request their ballots. Happily, the t-shirt I ordered back in August arrived just in time:

a very plain and pretty wrinkled Harris-Walz t-shirt

The DNC is also doing its bit in these last weeks of the campaign! Commenter Scout211 flagged up a DNC press release in the morning open thread: for the first time, they’ll be sending cash to the party committees of all 50 states (and our seven territories) to support downballot candidates. The announcement states that $2.5 million is being disbursed as grants, and that some of this of grant money is earmarked for supporting GOTV organizations focused on Black, Puerto Rican, and native voters (among others).

There’s a POLITICO story (sorry) which offers some more context on exact amounts:

  • $400,000 to Florida
  • $100,000 to Missouri, to help break the GOP’s state legislature supermajority
  • $70,000 to Idaho, with a focus on GOTV for the Nez Perce nation

Democrats in array! What are your plans for the weekend, GOTV or otherwise? I’ve got a ton of batch cooking planned: soup stock, bread, pulled-turkey taco meat, and tomato sauce, since a friend has given me some of her last tomatoes.

Open thread.

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Make plans to vote early

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Early voting is starting real soon in some states.

It is advantageous to a campaign to get as much as its vote in early. An early vote counts the same as an Election Day vote but an early vote removes variance. A campaign, like Harris that is highly likely in the lead at this point in time wants there to be less variance while a campaign that is behind (Trump now, Biden in June) wants more variance.

Every campaign will score the voting universe on some combination of the likelihood of an individual actually voting and then likelihood of that individual voting for a particular candidate. I should be scored in both the Harris and Trump GOTV models as Exceedingly Likely to Vote & Exceedingly Likely Harris. Some people might be Iffy to Vote but Exceedingly Likely Harris so the Harris campaign will try to mobilize this class and the Trump campaign will try to demobilize. Other voters might by Likely to Vote and FLIP A COIN at which point both campaigns will try to persuade that voter. Different combinations of scores will produce different strategies.

If I vote early on the first day of in-person early eligibility, I’m transitioning in the data from Exceedingly Likely to Vote to VOTED. Individually that means the Harris campaign can now completely forget about contacting me for anything other than money or volunteer hours. They don’t need to mobilize me. More importantly, if a campaign’s modeling says that they are on pace if by Day 5 they have 52% of people like me already voted to be on track for a win, but 57% of people like me have voted, they can systemically shift resources either within or between states to target mobilization and persuasion of less likely voters. Remember, in all the polling, the Dems have dominated this cycle on 2020 voters. Trump is competitive because he is doing well enough with the seldom to never voters.

Most importantly, an early vote makes that voter information agnostic. No new information that arrives after the vote is cast will change the vote.

So make a plan to vote as early as you can, and then get the people in your life who are less politically attached than routine readers of an Almost Top-10,000 politics blog to vote early with you.

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