I did not see that coming! A loss, yes, but not conceding without a fight.
That is all.
Okay, that is not all.
Open Thread: Kamala Harris, Testing the Waters
Kamala Harris says she might run for president again. 😍
WE’RE READY WHEN YOU ARE MVP!— Joyful Trouble (@mini-marshmallows.bsky.social) April 10, 2026 at 2:47 PM
Kamala Harris: "It's bigger than Trump. We have midterms coming up. Anyone who is facilitating this by their silence or actively needs to be held accountable. It's gonna take more than one election – "
Crowd: "RUN AGAIN!"— Craig R. Brittain (@craigbrittain.com) April 10, 2026 at 1:16 PM
To tie this into the all-important MIDTERMS: There are a boatload of wypipo, mostly men, currently befouling every social media link about Harris, wailing about Killer Kamala taking money from JOOS AIPAC. And I believe it is useful to keep a list of these people, so we know who can’t be trusted in 2026. Because I am very sure that Black Democrats have already compiled such a list, and I think y’all know by now that Black voters — especially Black women voters — are the actual base of the Democratic party…
BREAKING: Kamala Harris just gave the clearest signal yet she’ll run for president again in 2028.
“Listen, I might, I might. I’m thinking about it,” Harris told the Rev. Al Sharpton at the National Action Network convention.— Politico (@politico.com) April 10, 2026 at 12:22 PM
… The former vice president has toyed with the idea before, but her comments Friday took on a new meaning in front of an audience full of Black lawmakers, influential power brokers and voters at what amounted to the first major cattle-call for the potential 2028 Democratic field.
“I know what the job is and what it requires,” she told Sharpton.
Harris was the sixth possible 2028 contender to take the stage at the conference for a fireside chat with Sharpton, a tacit acknowledgement that whether the hopefuls ultimately decide to run or not, they know they can’t skip this room. Black voters make up a huge chunk of the Democratic primary base and will play a major role in determining the party’s next presidential nominee…
Harris repeatedly attacked President Donald Trump — on Iran, foreign policy and voting rights, among other topics — throughout her conversation with Sharpton.
But she also nodded to the influence Trump and the GOP had on certain voters of color in 2024, when a significant number of Black and Latino men decided to move away from the Democratic Party.
Democrats, she said, shouldn’t expect support because of longstanding relationships.
“I think we need to be transactional voters,” she said to scattered cheers in the room. “Here’s what I’m suggesting in addition: get yours. Vote and say, ‘I’m voting because I expect something out of this’…. I’m saying it’s okay to also give people permission to be transactional, and to say, if you will get my vote, this is what I expect. I expect to get something out of this.”…
I'm not sure why so many people on this site are militantly against Harris potentially running again. She's not my number one pick but she is also a lot better than what is on offer from a lot of other potential Dem nominees. She's a solid top 5 for me at least.
— Michael Senters the Sigillite, ABD. (Yang Wen-li stan) (@mikesenters.bsky.social) April 10, 2026 at 2:58 PM
Open Thread: Kamala Harris, Testing the WatersPost + Comments (193)
Something to think about, and follow up on
So many people commented yesterday about a comment from wonkie that I thought maybe we should consider what
heSHE had to say, in a post of its own.The comment was written in the context of the great results in Tuesday’s elections. Everyone who spoke up agreed with this comment from wonkie. We obviously have no control over what the powers that be do, so this is up to us.
So my question is this: What can WE – each of us or all of us collectively in our own circles – do about this?
~ WG
Something to think about, and follow up onPost + Comments (217)
Seriously Great Showing Last Night in Georgia and Wisconsin
It was clear that Democrats did very well last night, but it’s always great to hear from the numbers people.
Just how well did the Democrats do last night? Really fucking well – even beating the averages in 2025 and 2026, where Dems had already been over performing. Jackie sent me a link to this fellow, and at first blush he seems to be someone worth watching.
That’s a 4-minute video, and here are excerpts from the transcript. I like his intro!
If there’s one thing Donald Trump knows how to do, it’s make a winning electoral coalition disappear.
A quick video here reacting to the special elections tonight. These are the first real elections since Donald Trump started his war in Iran on February 28th. There are two races: first, the Wisconsin Supreme Court race, and second, a special election to fill Georgia’s 14th Congressional District — the district left open by Marjorie Taylor Greene, who retired earlier this year.
So let’s take a look at the results.
Wisconsin
In the Wisconsin Supreme Court race, Democrat Chris Taylor just absolutely crushed it. And I don’t say that in a boosterish sense — that is the statistical word for winning an election by 20 percentage points. This map from the New York Times shows a 21 percentage point shift to the left since the 2024 presidential election, and in fact a 10-point shift to the left since another Wisconsin Supreme Court race last spring.
Georgia
Georgia’s 14th is really even more bullish for Democrats, just mathematically. This is Marjorie Taylor Greene’s old seat. She won it by 29 percentage points in the 2024 election. Donald Trump won it by an even larger margin — 37 points in 2024. Yet today, the Republican nominee and now winner Clay Fuller won it by just 12 points. That’s a 25 percentage point shift toward Democrats based on Trump’s margin, in what is one of the reddest districts in America.
Key Takeaways
First, these aren’t blue districts having a good night just because Democrats are turning out. These are competitive seats with lots of voters in counties that are supposed to be safely Republican. And yet those counties are moving 20 points to the left. That’s a pretty broad-based shift away from the party in power.
The two swings tonight — 21 points in Wisconsin and 25 points in Georgia — are much larger than the average swing in special elections in 2025 and 2026. According to tracking from The Downballot, the average swing in special elections in those years is just 11 points. So is the dam breaking because of Iran and the cost-of-living crisis?
Polls in Wisconsin had Chris Taylor winning by just seven points on average, but a large share of people were undecided. If you do the math, she must have won the undecided voters by something like 20 or 30 points. A lot of people out there are wondering: are the polls right now underestimating Democrats in November?
The Bottom Line
This is what happens when you push public policy dramatically to the right across issue domains, when you start an unpopular war that causes gas prices to spike by 40%, and when your approval rating is 20 points underwater.
But because national polls can seem abstract, I also map them onto the local geographic level: Donald Trump is really unpopular pretty much everywhere, including in 135 GOP-held House and Senate seats. Other special election results Tuesday night showed similarly good results for the Democrats.
Between TACO Tuesday on Iran and the election results from last night, my hope is that all of us will be inspired to do something constructive to impact election results in November.
Seriously Great Showing Last Night in Georgia and WisconsinPost + Comments (258)
Wisconsin and Georgia Elections Tonight (and TACO Tuesday!)
When do the polls close?
Georgia: polls close at 7:00 PM Eastern.
Wisconsin: polls close at 9:00 PM Eastern.
GEORGIA
Georgia’s 14th Congressional District – House seat to replace Marjorie Taylor Greene
You might recall that a runoff for the House special election to replace Marjorie Taylor Greene was scheduled because no candidate received 60% of the vote. This is a very conservative / Republican district, – I think Trump won this district by something like 37%. So it’s a long shot for a Democrat to win.
Republican prosecutor Clay Fuller and Democrat Shawn Harris
Both candidates are veterans.
Trump endorsed the Republican, which may actually help our side!
The Republican candidate loves him some Iran War!!! A recent poll showed that something like 57% of those surveyed in the district are against this no good, very bad, serves-no-good-purpose war.
Other Races in Georgia
There are 3 other runoffs for Georgia seats:
Georgia State Senate 53
Georgia State House – District 94
Georgia State House 130
WISCONSIN
Wisconsin State Supreme Court Seat
A Republican / conservative (they pretend there are non-partisan races) is retiring.
Because it” currently a republican seat, no matter who wins, our side will still hold the majority on the court.
But the seat still matters a lot, because a win by our side would cement the good-guy majority through the end of the decade.
Other Races in Wisconsin
There are other races in Wisconsin, but they are mostly local, with a mayoral race, school boards, etc. So I’ll leave it to our Wisconsin peeps to fill us in on anything we would want to know there.
Election Results
I plan to follow 270toWin for election results.
Wisconsin and Georgia Elections Tonight (and TACO Tuesday!)Post + Comments (116)
Open Thread: Strategery
I'm a conservative former Republican-turned-independent, and if they tear down the f-ing ballroom, they have my vote.
— Patrick Chovanec (@prchovanec.bsky.social) March 30, 2026 at 11:48 PM
Been a hot minute since we had one of these discussions…
The notion that the opposition has to have some unified field theory of what they will do in office is nonsense. The primary political task of the opposition is to hold those in power accountable. Period.
“Throw the bums out” has won far more elections than “let me show you my white paper”.
In fact, from a strictly Machiavellian perspective, it’s an incredibly BAD idea for Democrats to tell everyone exactly what they would do instead. It’s a recipe for dividing the “sick and tired of Trump” vote.
Every single thing that has his name on it needs to be renamed or decommissioned or torn down. Federal funding should be withdrawn from the noncompliant.
The aim should be to make clear, both legally & symbolically, that this entire episode was an anathema to the meaning & honor of the Republic.— Nils Gilman (@nilsgilman.bsky.social) March 31, 2026 at 5:12 AM
And send the bill for the restoration to the corporations that donated to Trump’s ballroom.
— seearekay.bsky.social (@seearekay.bsky.social) March 30, 2026 at 11:58 PM
Implode it by sundown on inauguration day. Seriously. Would be unbelievable.
— Dan Grove (@grove.cx) March 30, 2026 at 11:51 PM
As soon as Roberts finishes the oath the charges are set off. Fireworks rise from the rubble
— Achedes (@achedes.bsky.social) March 31, 2026 at 1:03 PM
Until he’s gone forever, I am a single issue voter.
Destroying trump, his legacy, and all those who supported him. And I mean in the most ruthless manner possible.— bigsteven.bsky.social (@bigsteven.bsky.social) March 31, 2026 at 12:53 AM
Particularly this year and in '28, demanding accountability for the lawlessness has to be on the top of every candidate's list. No forgive and forget. Fair – not vindictive – but folks need to go to jail!
— wingador.bsky.social (@wingador.bsky.social) March 31, 2026 at 12:17 AM
I'll state this plainly. It will be misread anyway, but that's your problem.
Trump is president until he's not, and he retains all the power of that. He can and will do a lot of damage. But it is over for him as a political operator. It's been going that way, but the speech marks the end.— Richard M. Nixon (@dicknixon.bsky.social) April 2, 2026 at 1:27 PM
This and That in the News
Weaker and Weaker Every Day
With that title, you might think I’m talking about the orange guy. Right?
Sadly, the lower his ratings get, the higher the chance that he will do something even more awful. So while I continue to believe that his terrible ratings are making Republicans weaker every day, T gets more dangerous.
But you know who is getting weaker and weaker every day? Pastor Johnson. Yet another floor vote discharge petition for for the bill to protect TPS status for Haitians passes with 218 votes. Four Republican votes and all the rest were Democrats. Republican votes: Reps. Maria Elvira Salazar, Brian Fitzpatrick, Mike Lawler and Don Bacon.
I am pretty sure the only reason Pastor Johnson still holds his position as Speaker is that there is no one else on the Republican side willing to debase themselves quite so publicly day after day after day.
I love this so much – no one deserves this virtual beatdown more than Lindsey Graham
“Lindsey Graham spent the weekend at the most magical place on Earth: Disney World. The South Carolina Republican was dining at the park and wandering around with a bubble wand, according to photos published Monday by TMZ. While Graham lived out his fairy-tale fantasies in the Magic Kingdom, thousands of travelers across the country were subjected to nightmarishly long lines at major airports, and the government still remains in partial shutdown.” (Rolling Stone)
Look who’s back from hiking in the Appalachians
“The one and only Mark Sanford said Monday that he would seek the Republican nomination to once again represent South Carolina’s 1st Congressional District, a surprise announcement he made just hours before candidate filing closed.
But while Sanford, whose 2009 sex scandal briefly made him the world’s most famous hiker, once again attracted intense attention on Monday, it was not for his positions on fiscal policy.
South Carolinians remember exactly who he is, said state Rep. Mark Smith, one of 10 other Republicans running in the June 9 primary. “A governor who went missing. A politician who turned his back on President Trump. A person who espouses term limits and runs again and again.” (The Downballot)
A perfect storm in Texas
“Three political winds are a-blowin’ in the Lone Star State. Any one of them alone might knock the election needle to the Democrats’ side. But all three together? It’s now quite a bit more likely that 2026 will be the year a Democrat finally wins state-wide in Texas.
So what is it about this year that gives me hope that this time around will be different? A series of self-owns by the GOP and Trump has created quite the potent brew and a unique opportunity for an economic populist like Talarico.
Today, let’s track these three political storms and how they might come together in November.” (The Status Kuo)
What are the three? 1) John Cornyn is trailing Ken Paxton, and the runoff isn’t until the end of May, giving plenty of time for them to attack one another while James Talarico the chance to make some headway. 2) TACO – fucking coward that he is – hasn’t endorsed either one. At some point, which we may have already reached, even if he does endorse it will likely be too little, too late. 3) Support for the GOP by Latinos is collapsing.
Trump has lost the men. Wait, what???
The orange guy is 7 points down with men and sinking like a stone.
“It’s finally happened: Trump has lost the men. And it’s by a lot.
An aggregate of Marist and Quinnipiac polling by CNN’s Harry Enten shows male voters abandoning Trump in droves. This is terrible news for Trump because he owes his election to those male voters. They picked him over Kamala Harris by 13 points in 2024.” (The Status Kuo)
Open thread.
wonkie’s comment (formatting mine)
To make this swing sustainable Dems need to do two things:
Details:
Dems need to fucking learn, or two elections from now the Rethugs will be back in power and we will be having another circular firing squad with public denunciations of…us. Not them.
[end of wonkie’s comment]