The issue with female leaders is not only that they’re constantly challenged and second-guessed, it’s that it goes way beyond that. Gretchen Whitmer is the governor of Michigan, and for doing the exact same things all her male counterparts did and *checks notes* wanting her constituents to not die of COVID-19, she almost got kidnapped and murdered on live TV, and the unsaid part is that those depraved men would have raped her first.
I think this is partly why conservative women are more likely to gain power than liberal ones like unfortunately, we collectively associate liberalism with weakness and see that as free reign to walk all over female leaders (just look at how Sanna Marin was censured for going to a party) or worse, threaten them with violence. After all, what can they really do to fight back? Anything they do will be held against them, and even in the case of Whitmer where her kidnappers were literal psychos, that case was dropped.
I sometimes worry that nothing will be done to protect female Democrats until something actually really horrible happens. I have many grievances with AOC but I don’t for a second blame her for beefing up her security like way too many creepy men are obsessed with her, and I’d fear for my safety if I was her as well.
Anyways, yes, Republicans are anti-woman, that’s very true.
Democratic-held Senate seats from least to most vulnerable: Washington, Colorado, New Hampshire, Arizona, Georgia, Nevada
Republican-held/open Senate seats from most to least likely Democratic pickups: Pennsylvania, Ohio, North Carolina, Wisconsin, Florida
Adam Laxalt seems evil in a banal way, as does Ted Budd while candidates like Herschel Walker or Blake Masters (who reminds me of my most recent ex-boyfriend) seem evil in a crazy way, which is why I think that Budd and Laxalt both win.
On the upside, if Democrats lose Nevada and win Pennsylvania (and possibly Ohio as well), Chuck Schumer is still majority leader and we can keep stacking the federal judiciary with liberal judges.
Even though both races are unlikely to be won by Democrats, I have North Carolina as a likelier pickup than Wisconsin is that while Ron Johnson is crazier than Ted Budd (although they both voted against certifying the 2020 election cough cough), Johnson has incumbency. Also, Beasley is never above 45% in any poll, and I’m almost certain the undecideds will break for Budd given how racially polarized North Carolina is.
Even though it’s absolutely an uphill slog for Tim Ryan, I have Ohio as the second likeliest Democratic pickup after Pennsylvania because J.D. Vance is truly that awful, and that’s what internal polling also indicates.
Florida Senate and Governor are both likely-R races in my mind, but I think Marco Rubio wins by less than Ron DeSantis.
These were the 10 closest states during the 2020 election.
Georgia (Biden by 0.2%)
Arizona (Biden by 0.3%)
Wisconsin (Biden by 0.6%)
Pennsylvania (Biden by 1.2%)
North Carolina (Trump by 1.4%)
Nevada (Biden by 2.4%)
Michigan (Biden by 2.8%)
Florida (Trump by 3.4%)
Texas (Trump by 5.6%)
Minnesota (Biden by 7.1%)
I’d say that of these, Texas, North Carolina, and Georgia are definitely trending towards Democrats although as you can tell, Georgia was way too close for comfort and Trump won North Carolina and Texas, the latter by about 600,000 votes. I’d include Arizona but I can’t help but think that AZ’s leftward shift is largely due to Trump, the ghost of John McCain, and the Arizona GOP being total lunatics but we’ll see. The thing is, the Sunbelt is shifting left because of college-educated suburbanites who aren’t reliable coalition partners because they pay for government programs without benefiting from them, and will gladly vote Republican if the GOP isn’t totally insane.
The states that are moving away from Democrats are Wisconsin and to a lesser degree Michigan and Pennsylvania because we’re getting annihilated with white people, especially those without a college-degree. Looking at how hard right the Midwest shifted from 2012 to 2020 is really alarming, and I sincerely hope Dems do better in those areas han we’ve been doing, or we’re fucked. If you remember, Obama won Iowa and Ohio twice but until Democrats fix our white voter problem, we aren’t going to be competitive in those states, like I really hope Tim Ryan can pull it off in Ohio, but it’s an uphill slog.
As for Florida, it’s a crapshoot because Florida Dems are really unorganized, probably the worst statewide Dem party out there, and don’t know how to get out the vote. However, Florida is a true swing state in terms of demographics but the Democrats there aren’t progressives, they openly hate socialism, and Dems don’t turn out while Republicans go to the polls, rain or shine, and vote for Marco Rubio and Rick Scott and Ron DeSantis, even while hating them the entire time.
So yeah. Democrats shouldn’t give up on any states on this list, but every day I’m extremely grateful that Schumer isn’t in charge of the DSCC anymore and plays no role in candidate selection or apportioning of funding because if he was, we’d be in a MUCH worse place for the midterms. But we’ll see how next month shakes out I guess.
Political(ish) Figures that Twitter Constantly Talks About that I Refuse to Google:
Dean Preston
Tiffany Caban
Mike Lindell
Nicola Sturgeon
Anybody British (derogatory)
I understand that liberals are worried that if Democrats chase white moderate/centrist voters too much, marginalized groups will be thrown under the bus but due to the country’s governmental structure with the Senate and electoral college, Democrats literally don’t have a choice except to win over swing voters in light-red districts/states in order to retain Congressional majorities and win the presidency. There is literally no other option available to winning federal elections and win a Senate majority that can add more states. And like, these people are simply not Democrats/liberals who agree with our platform on issues salient to them or they would like, consistently vote for Democrats and not defect to Republicans at the first chance.
The unfortunate reality is that Democrats can’t win R+3 seats or thereabouts because the party is simply out-of-touch with the median voter in those districts/states, and this problem isn’t helped by red states aggressively gerrymandering and creating a bunch of R+3 districts with huge Democratic vote sinks. Republicans hold 64/99 state legislature chambers, it’s not even close. This obviously doesn’t impact statewide races but nonetheless, really hard for Democrats to not look like hypocrites when complaining gerrymandering when they spent decades being super against gerrymandering reform because Dems held a lot of state legislatures that we’ve now totally lost, and then Republicans could aggressively gerrymander those state legislatures to benefit Republicans.
So yeah, the nature of electoral politics for Democrats is really figuring out how to maximize electoral success while minimizing how little we moderate. When our party platform is to the left of the median voter in the places we need to win, we really don’t have another option.
That makes sense right?
What I’ve Been Reading Lately:
“The Problem With Herschel Walker and His Republican Enablers Is Not Their Hypocrisy” by Meredith Shiner
“Risking Everything to Offer Abortions Across State Lines” by Emily Bazelon
“Republicans Have a Dad Problem” by Angelina Chapin
“Bring back the old bipartisan immigration consensus!” by Matthew Yglesias
“The Man Who Won the Republican Party Before Trump Did” by Nicole Hemmer
“The Curse of Miserable Older White Women” by Phoebe Maltz-Bovy
“They Legitimized the Myth of a Stolen Election — and Reaped the Rewards” by Steve Eder, David D. Kirkpatrick and Mike McIntire
>>> ... but due to the country’s governmental structure with the Senate and electoral college, Democrats literally don’t have a choice except to win over swing voters in light-red districts/states in order to retain Congressional majorities and win the presidency. <<<
Exactly this!!! This is the single most important fact about American politics (not to mention the single most under-appreciated). The structural disadvantages against which the Democratic coalition must compete explains an awful lot - frontline Democrats constantly pivoting to jobs and Medicaid and away from culture war issues ... the frustration college-educated liberals feel with Democratic messaging ... the ability of Republicans to take highly extreme positions while remaining nationally competitive ... EVERYTHING comes down to this.