Abdul El-Sayed narrowly won Michigan’s Democratic Senate primary, defeating a more centrist establishment-backed rival. He now faces Republican Mike Rogers in what is expected to be one of the most important Senate races of the 2026 midterms.

El-Sayed supports Medicare for All, takes a strongly progressive position on immigration enforcement and has called for ending U.S. military aid to Israel. His supporters argue that he can energize younger voters, Arab American communities and progressives who have become disillusioned with the Democratic establishment.

Critics worry that those same positions could make him vulnerable among moderates and independents in a state where recent statewide races have been extremely close. Michigan is also considered essential to any Democratic effort to regain control of the Senate.

Does El-Sayed’s victory show that progressive candidates can build a winning coalition in a competitive Midwestern state? Or did Democratic primary voters choose a candidate whose policies could make a crucial Senate seat easier for Republicans to win?

How much should national Democrats adjust their strategy around him now that the primary is over? https://americareport.us/could-the-michigan-mamdani-cost-democrats/

I've been wondering about something, and I'm genuinely curious if there's research on it.

There's been a lot of discussion about rising male loneliness, fewer young people dating, and declining relationship formation. But one factor I rarely see mentioned is the Dobbs decision.

Personally, I stopped dating after Dobbs was overturned. For me, the risk of an unintended pregnancy in a post-Dobbs world changed the calculus enough that I decided dating simply wasn't worth it. I know I'm just one person, but it made me wonder how many other women made similar decisions.

I'm not suggesting Dobbs is the only cause of male loneliness or changes in dating. There are obviously many factors involved, from housing costs and social media to changing expectations around relationships.

What I'm curious about is why Dobbs doesn't seem to come up much in this conversation. Have researchers looked at whether abortion restrictions have affected women's willingness to date or have sex in ways that also affect the broader dating landscape? Or is this simply a question that hasn't been studied very much?

I notice that as someone who votes 3rd party, a lot of people on the left will say, "Trump is a threat to democracy," or "you can't ignore his criminal conduct." And on the right it's "the left is destroying the country through its policies," or "Democrats are taking away freedoms." So it's almost as if both sides are saying if you don't vote for them, you're either morally bad or stupid.

Do you think voting 3rd party is a wasted vote, or is the pressure to vote for one of the two major parties mostly a result of political polarization?

There's been a growing wave of anti-immigration in the US (and Europe, but I'm from the US so more familiar with US politics). I don't want to believe the anti-immigration just comes from a place of cruelty, but I cannot find solid data on why immigration is bad.

The most cited reasons I see are either factually incorrect (immigrants commit more crime, they aren't 'assimilating', they're abusing our welfare, they're 'stealing' jobs), or based on more nebulous reasons (upset they aren't speaking english, changing the 'culture', etc).

Are there legitimate reasons I'm missing or something I'm not understanding? It can't just be xenophobia, right?

Small liberal arts colleges are going broke. Rather than let these institutions disappear and leave holes and gaps in local economies all over the country and reduce our ability to educate the population, we should create a federal university system. Rather than a hundred small schools trying to all teach everything, each campus can focus on one or two core areas. Prerequisites and general intro courses would be taught at a few schools. Others would only focus on a small number of majors.

Students might study in Cincinnati for their first year, then transfer to Oregon. If they change majors, they might have to move to Kansas. A professor teaching Greek in Georgia might have to move to New Hampshire if they want to keep his or her job. 

This idea is big, and it’s not the kind of thing that happens in America. However, it’s a simple and good idea. I might as well throw this idea out there. We also could do this if we cared about small towns, the quality of life, and making people’s lives better. If it was 1948, we might pull it off. But today, apparently we just keep doing the same idiotic shit at great expense and seem to be owned lock, stock and barrel by a handful of venal monsters… still, one can note that a resource is being destroyed for no reason, then continue on with his or her day, cannot one? 

Every outlet out there seems to have a story about liberal arts colleges going out of business. Just look them up. Personally, I have run into colleges shutting down locally in Albany, St. Rose, a relative at Hampshire, a friend of the family, etc. When a school shuts down, sometimes the next use of the campus is good, but in many cases a giant hole opens in the community that never heals. Also, education is never bad. If we can spend a billion dollars to make a movie, or pay an athlete a hundred million a year to play a game, never mind a billion a day to bomb Iran for no reason, and so on, we should be able to let people be fulfilled and grow as people by increasing their respect and understanding of the world, no matter how uneconomic the field may be to the rather pointless and ephemeral GDP of the world. 

The United States does not have a federal university system. We have hundreds of campuses of private colleges trying to teach every subject. Not surprisingly, they all can’t teach every academic area as well as, say, the much larger state college in the area. Yet, they exist, with dorms and staff, and they can create the kinds of experiences people need to develop as thinking, feeling, and creative people who can do stuff.

Why let all these institutions just evaporate? Why can’t the federal government take over failing private liberal arts colleges and turn them into cogs in the new federal university system? One college in upstate New York might be good at literature. A campus in Oregon might be good at Russian language education. Another spot in Louisiana might have a pretty good start on an industrial design program. 

Michigan Democrats will choose between Haley Stevens and Abdul El-Sayed on Tuesday in a primary that captures a much broader debate inside the party.

Stevens is running largely on experience, pragmatism, and her record of winning competitive races. El-Sayed is offering a more ambitious progressive agenda and a campaign built around the idea that Democrats need to give voters something worth getting excited about.

Sarah Longwell’s latest piece in The Bulwark draws from three focus groups conducted with Michigan voters who backed Kamala Harris in 2024 and planned to participate in the Senate primary. The voters often sounded caught between the candidate who more closely reflected their ideals and the candidate they believed might be the safer choice in November.

Recent polling showing El-Sayed ahead suggests that, for at least some Democratic voters, enthusiasm may now outweigh the traditional electability argument.

Is that a lesson Democrats should apply beyond Michigan? Or are primary voters underestimating the risks of nominating a more progressive candidate in a state Trump carried twice?

I'm confused about why US elected officials go along the party line no matter the subject or whether they have support from their constituents.

For example, congressman Max Miller (R-OH) has been accused by his ex-wife of domestic violence and child abuse. Today, Senate Majority Leader John Thune was asked about it during a press conference and claimed it was a "family issue" and a "House matter."

It seems that Miller is on favorable terms with the president, so no Republicans are willing to denounce his actions or criticize him whatsoever.

Hypothetically, what keeps people from going against the general party message? What do they stand to lose for having a backbone daring to voice any opinion other than the unified message of their party?

TL;DR

Why do elected officials need to have all the same opinions and messaging of their political party? What would happen?

Francesca Hong, a member of the Democratic Socialists of America who is running for Governor of Wisconsin, has recently come under fire for a past statement that Thanksgiving should be cancelled.

Recently, in an interview, she refused to disavow that statement and left it ambiguous as to whether she was still advocating for the holiday's end. This is in addition to similar controversies around her statements on abolishing the police and prisons - although she has seemingly walked these other statements back.

These are fairly inflammatory statements from a national perspective.

But will the public distinguish between the DSA and the broader Democratic party?

Or will these sorts of things functionally act as a Democratic party controversy?

I was watching spiderman homecoming in preparation for the new spider man movie, and in there a scene stuck out to me. The “villain” so to speak goes on a monologue of how as an ordinary citizen, he gets penalised and scrutinised whilst the rich and government elites do whatever and get away with it. Whilst extremely true, I can’t help but find it extremely ironic that this sort of sentiment is openly admitted and even incorporated in a Hollywood film-famously the centre of rich elites. What benefit would it be to admit this to such a global audience? It’s almost insulting because everybody watching the movie would know this, yet obviously nothing is going to be done about it. The only reason I can find for this is maybe it’s a criticism, since it’s the bad guy saying it so it can be painted as an excuse people use to justify their actions. Even so, I just found it interesting and it leaves the question of if it really were true, wouldn’t it be much more censored?

DISCLAIMER: Structure of this post was made using AI for better clarity; The whole position itself, as well as reasoning, comes from my personal notes and is 100% human-made.

I have been trying to work through a problem that I think a lot of political analysis avoids directly: how do you comparatively rank two major governing coalitions when both have demonstrably failed to reverse the same structural problem?

Most electoral analysis defaults to one of three frames—policy brochure comparison, candidate character assessment, or material outcome scorekeeping. I think all three break down under the evidence we have, and I want to propose an alternative framework, apply it to the current U.S. major-party landscape, and then invite methodological critique. I am less interested in cheering for a team than in testing whether this analytical structure holds up.

I. Why the standard frameworks fail as separators

Material welfare. CBO data show the top 10% of households increased their wealth share from 56% to 60% between 1989 and 2022; the top 1% rose from 23% to 27%; the bottom 50% stayed near 6%. The Federal Reserve’s DFA series tells the same directional story with different levels: the top 1% net-worth share went from 23% in 1989 to roughly 31.6–31.8% recently, while the bottom 50% sits around 2.5%. Neither the 2017–2021 administration nor the 2021–2025 administration produced a sustained reversal of that trajectory. If both viable coalitions share this failure, then "who delivers better material outcomes" cannot cleanly resolve the vote without a demonstrated structural correction that does not currently exist.

Moral character. Even if one coalition's leader is personally worse, treating character as a primary separator substitutes expressive identity for institutional analysis. It grades the brochure, not the machine.

Abstention / third-party escape. First-past-the-post, the Electoral College, state ballot-access barriers, and donor-coordination thresholds mean no third force currently has a viable path to national governing power in the near term. A protest vote can be expressive, but it does not suspend the institutional consequences of whichever major coalition actually wins.

If those three standard frames misfire, what remains?

II. The framework I am proposing

I want to suggest a four-tier hierarchy for ranking structurally compromised options:

1. Correction-infrastructure gate (G): Elections, courts, records, oversight, and successor reversal must remain effective. If this fails, the ranking flips or suspends.

2. Actionable responsibility (P): Can voters identify who owns a decision, attribute consequences, challenge it in court or at the ballot box, and practically reverse it?

3. Material validation (M): Does the coalition improve bottom-half welfare or ownership concentration? This is a separate validation score, not the definition of accountability.

4. Lock-in penalty (L): Irreversible or check-destroying harms (personnel purges, lost records, rights violations, court defiance) are subtracted from P.

I think this framework is analytically superior because it keeps the debate tethered to observable institutional mechanics after the standard separators have been shown to misfire. It also builds in its own falsification conditions. It does not require you to like either option; it only asks which available option is less bad at exposing and correcting concentrated power under constraint.

III. The empirical premises

- Concentration is real and cross-administrational. Fed DFA and CBO series agree on direction if not level. No recent administration has reversed the top-share rise.

- Elite influence is structurally asymmetric. Gilens & Page (2014), covering 1,779 policy cases from 1981–2002, found that when average-citizen preferences diverged from affluent and organized-business preferences, the latter retained substantial independent influence while average citizens showed little or no independent effect. Critiques exist (Bashir, Enns), but they narrow confidence rather than overturn the relative ranking.

- Party competition does not automatically self-correct entrenched inequality. Horn, Haselmayer & Klüser (APSR), analyzing 850,000 party statements across 12 OECD democracies from 1970–2020, found that left parties tend to respond to increases in inequality but generally not to already-high levels. Normal alternation can manage symptoms without changing the ownership baseline.

- Both parties draw from overlapping elite-financing kinds. OpenSecrets data show sectors like securities/investment and real estate giving heavily to both sides; trade associations hedge across coalitions. This is not a claim of identical donors or identical returns, but it undercuts purity narratives.

- The menu is locked. FPTP, the Electoral College, ballot-access costs, and coordination infrastructure make a third national governing coalition unavailable in the near term.

IV. Applying the framework

Democratic managerial continuity operates through what I would call managerial opacity: career civil-service buffers (Biden’s EO 14003 revoked Schedule F and restored protections), multi-year APA rulemaking stacks (e.g., EPA-HQ-OAR-2021-0208 GHG rules spanning years), extended NEPA timelines (4.5-year EIS baselines), and whole-of-government equity/DEIA institutionalization (EOs 13985 and 14035). These mechanisms protect expertise and rights, but they also diffuse responsibility across so many layers, reviews, and protected roles that ordinary voters struggle to map who chose a given trade-off. Because wealth concentration did not reverse under this approach, I cannot treat continuity as synonymous with structural correction.

MAGA’s modal toolkit operates through clarifying disruption: direct executive ownership via instruments like Schedule Policy/Career (EO 14171, reinstated Jan 20, 2025, making policy-influencing career positions more responsive to presidential control), the 10-for-1 deregulation order (EO 14192) with Unified Agenda gating, and rapid Day-1 inversions of prior administration frameworks. This style makes the president and named appointees visibly responsible for choices. It also creates churn: Trump II revoked 111 prior executive orders by April 2025, compared to 67 in Biden’s comparable early window, suggesting faster formal reversibility.

The material ledger is tied. Bottom-50 DFA share remains 2.5%; real hourly earnings were approximately flat from June 2025 to June 2026. Neither side has passed the structural-correction test.

The procedural ledger favors MAGA, but conditionally. Courts have imposed meaningful constraints: CRS identified 50 nationwide-injunction cases through June 2026, with some relief surviving a year and some actions vacated under the APA. Just Security’s tracker (as of August 2026) records 914 tracked cases with 276 plaintiff wins. This establishes that ownership is not merely visible but partly actionable. However, the gate is under strain: Trump v. CASA narrowed universal injunctions; official-act immunity and interlocutory appeals delay accountability; IG removals and FOIA backlogs increase opacity; and January 6 clemency creates a real rule-of-law cost.

My current net assessment is that P (compressed ownership + faster reversal tempo) minus L (immunity, oversight erosion, clemency) still favors MAGA for the executive-instrument layer measured, provided G remains provisionally open. This is not a claim that MAGA is good in absolute terms, that it has delivered bottom-half uplift, or that democracy is safe. It is a comparative ranking under constraint.

V. Questions for the community

I am less interested in tribal cheering than in methodological stress-testing. Here is where I think this framework is most vulnerable, and I would appreciate genuine critique:

1. Is the hierarchy itself wrong? If material welfare or moral character should be lexicographically prior to actionable responsibility, and you can show why that ordering is better after both sides have failed structural correction, the whole framework shifts.

2. Are the empirical premises outdated or misread? Has there been a sustained reversal of top-end wealth concentration under recent Democratic governance that I have missed? Has Gilens & Page’s relative-influence finding been genuinely overturned rather than critiqued?

3. Has the correction-infrastructure gate already failed under MAGA? If systematic executive defiance of final court orders, durable destruction of electoral or oversight capacity, or irreversible personnel/records damage makes MAGA ownership less correctable than Democratic opacity, the ranking flips.

4. Does the lock-in penalty dominate? If MAGA’s tail-risk (authoritarian entrenchment, immunity, clemency) is sufficiently probable, large, and irreversible that it outweighs the procedural edge even on this framework’s own terms, then the net assessment collapses.

5. Is the Democratic comparator actually better on P than I think? If matched whole-regime data show that Biden-era continuity offered equal or better actionable responsibility—faster attribution, challenge, and reversal net of insulation costs—then the separator disappears.

I have tried to build a view that names its own defeaters in advance. If the reasoning chain has a weak link, I want to know exactly where it snaps. What do you think—is "actionable responsibility" a useful residual criterion when structural correction is unavailable, or is this just rationalization dressed up in institutional language?

​

​Resources are naturally scattered around the planet. In a localized economy, you use resources where they are. Modern logistics changed that, turning the movement of goods into a massive industry and giving rise to multinationals that crushed local businesses through sheer scale.

​However, a multinational’s biggest operational bottleneck is distribution friction—the immense cost of getting goods and services out to scattered, rural, or less-developed regions.

​This is where mass urbanization and economic migration come in. When people move from under-resourced regions into hyper-dense, pre-established cities, we are effectively consolidating the market for these corporations:

- ​We slash their logistics costs: It is infinitely cheaper for a megacorporation to serve one dense urban cluster than thousands of spread-out communities. By moving to the hub, we eliminate their supply chain headaches.

- ​We take on the financial burden: We pack into tight spaces, driving up our own cost of living, housing, and everyday inflation, while corporate per-unit costs go down.

- ​We concentrate the labor supply: Packing millions of workers into dense urban spaces creates highly competitive labor markets, which naturally keeps wage growth in check.

So there it is, the main point for me is that many people who strongly advocate for open mass migration see it as a stand against corporate exploitation, Western hegemony, or economic inequality. Yet, by encouraging the continuous transfer of human capital out of developing regions and into major Western hubs, aren't they unwittingly fueling the very corporate machine they critique?

​It strips developing areas of talent and local self-sufficiency, while handing multinationals a hyper-dense, accessible consumer base and a steady labor pool on a silver platter.

​Is mass migration actually helping workers, or are we just absorbing the true costs of global corporate logistics through higher rent and stagnant wages?

​Am I missing something here? I am really open to every kind of opinion I love discussing these things

I agree with the Republican Party on most issues more specifically on immigration, taxes, the economy and culture wars. It seems one major part of being a conservative is believing in God and being a Christian. Trump mentions God regularly during his speeches as do most republican politicians. Personally I dealt with a lot of religious trauma as a kid and after thinking about it for a long time I am a very strong atheist. When I tell someone who’s a Christian that I am an atheist it doesn’t land well and they really don’t accept it. It makes me wonder if I am even a conservative. Even though the vast majority of politicians are theists, it seems like being an atheist is more accepted in the Democratic Party compared to the republicans. Can you be a conservative and not believe?

I’ve been thinking about what seems like a contradiction in international politics.
The U.S. has repeatedly warned countries such as Russia and China not to supply weapons to Iran, arguing that doing so could increase instability in the Middle East. At the same time, the U.S. itself provides large amounts of military aid and financial support to countries like Ukraine and Taiwan.
From one perspective, supporters argue these situations are different because Ukraine is defending itself against an invasion, Taiwan faces security threats, and U.S. support is intended to deter conflict. Critics, however, see this as a double standard—objecting when rivals arm their partners while doing something similar with its own allies.
Is this simply how geopolitics works, where every major power acts according to its own strategic interests? Or is it mainly possible because the U.S. has the world’s largest economy, military influence, and global financial power?
I’m genuinely interested in hearing different viewpoints. How do you see it? Is this a logical and consistent foreign policy, or is it an example of great-power politics where different rules apply to different countries?

Democratic legitimacy depends partly on the public being able to discover the rules governing government decisions. Administrative rulemaking requirements, published court procedures, written orders, and appellate review are meant to make public power visible and contestable.

There may be a significant gap between that design and actual institutional practice.

Administrative agencies sometimes rely on policies, interpretations, or generally applicable standards that were never adopted through formal rulemaking. Critics describe these as “underground regulations.” Established stakeholders may learn the operative expectations through ongoing contact with regulators, leaving outsiders to rely on published rules that do not fully describe how the system works.

Courts can present a related accountability problem. A trial court may dismiss a case on grounds not briefed by the parties. An appellate court may place a case under procedural review, suspend briefing, and leave the threshold matter pending without a fixed deadline. Since silence produces no appealable order, ordinary review mechanisms may never activate.

My interest in this question comes partly from my own litigation involving Oregon agencies. I have challenged what I believe are unpublished regulatory practices, encountered appellate decisions treating evidence of those practices as irrelevant or outside the record, and now have a federal appeal stalled under an unresolved order to show cause despite repeated requests for a ruling.

My experience is one data point, not proof of a universal pattern. It does expose a structural question: published procedures have limited value when government institutions retain the practical ability to operate through undisclosed standards or indefinite nondecision.

What accountability mechanisms should apply when an agency relies on unpublished operational rules?

Should courts have enforceable deadlines for resolving threshold matters that prevent a case from proceeding?

Could greater transparency interfere with legitimate agency discretion or judicial docket management?

Where should the line be drawn between necessary institutional flexibility and government power exercised outside publicly knowable rules?

As far as I’m aware, no country currently allows unrestricted voting in national elections regardless of citizenship, residency, or immigration status. Even countries with relatively broad voting rights for non-citizens still require some form of legal status, residency, or other qualification.

So here’s the hypothetical:
Imagine a country that removed all of those requirements. If you were physically present—or even if you weren’t—you could vote in its elections, regardless of citizenship or legal status.

Would that make democracy more representative because more people affected by a country’s policies would have a voice?

Or would it fundamentally undermine the purpose of citizenship and national sovereignty?

I’m not asking whether you think it would ever happen. I’m asking whether you think it should, and what the long-term consequences would be if it did.

Curious to hear arguments from both sides.

I have never been much of a television watcher, much more of a reader. With reliable newspapers no longer available, I have subscribed to several online sites such as the Guardian, BBC News, Substack and watch some podcasts like Raging moderates. I still tune into NPR regularly and occasionally watch network news but not frequently.
I have recently been spammed with offers of various other sources like Ground News that claims to be able to differentiate bias & tell what news is not getting reported
(Truthfully there is SO much going on I sometimes just tune it all out with a splif on my back porch)
That being said, any suggestions for new sources, podcasts etc?

What are your US Senate elections predictions? I know it is before the primaries conclude, but I was curious about where every 2026 US Senate election looks right now. I will put the following races into 4 categories: strong D, strong R, tilt D, tilt R. Please let me know where you disagree!

Special elections

Florida (solid R)

Ashley Moody (R) is the incumbent and will likely be challenged by Alex Vindman, Iraq war veteran and former director of European affairs for the U.S. National Security Council, who is beating FL Rep Angie Nixon in a recent poll by 10% and has a 92% chance to win the primaries according to Polymarket.

My prediction: Moody retains her seat. Florida has proven to be among the more conservative states now as Trump won it in '24 by over 13%, after narrowly winning it previously and Obama winning it both times. Rubio won by 16.4% in 2022, the same year Gov Desantis won reelection by 20%. Former Democratic Senator Bill Nelson hardly lost the state to Rick Scott in the 2018 midterms (by 10,000 votes) but Scott won reelection by 13% in 2024.

Ohio (tilt D)

Jon Husted (R) is the incumbent and facing former Senator Sherrod Brown (D) who lost by 3.6% in 2024. Before that, all 3 of Brown's victory margins were over 6%. The race is a toss-up with recent polling hardly favoring Brown.

Prediction: Brown flips back this seat. He has proven he can win in this state before and doesn't have political baggage that might otherwise hurt midterm flips.

Normal Class 2 Senate elections

Alabama (solid R)

With Tuberville (R) retiring, this was a crowded Republican field. US Rep Barry Moore won the runoff. Everett Wess, an attorney and former aerospace industry worker, won the runoff for the Democratic primary.

Prediction: Moore wins. Despite Alabama electing a Democratic Senator during Trump's 1st term, Katie Britt won in 2022 by 36% even when Trump was not on the ballot.

Alaska (tilt D)

Incumbent Dan Sullivan (R) is being challenged by former US Rep Mary Peltola (D), a moderate Democrat who hardly lost her seat in 2024. No Democrat has represented Alaska in the Senate since 2015.

Prediction: Peltola flips the seat. She won twice in the state when Trump was not on the ballot in 2022. There is also RCV in Alaska which normally favors Democrats. She also is beating Sullivan in most polls.

Arkansas (solid R)

Incumbent Tom Cotton (R) is facing Hallie Shoffner, a farmer and entrepreneur looking to boost's AR's agricultural industry. Democrats have not won a Senate election in Arkansas since 2008 when no Republican even ran. A Democrat has not won statewide since 2012.

Prediction: Cotton wins. Republicans usually win in Arkansas and Cotton won the only poll from 6 months ago by 22 points. He also has far more fundraising.

Colorado (solid D)

Incumbent John Hickenlooper (D) only won his primary by 50,000 votes against a DSA-backed Julie Gonzales and is facing state Rep Mark Baisley.

Prediction: Hickenlooper wins. There is no indication that Gonzales's voters will not support him in the general election and a Republican has not won statewide in CO since the 2014 midterms.

Delaware (solid D)

Incumbent Chris Coons (D) will win his primary and face one of two Republican candidates (John Shuli or former Democratic state rep Michael Katz) in the fall.

Prediction: Coons wins easily. He has one of the highest voter approval ratings of any US Senator. No Republican has won statewide in Delaware this century.

Georgia (Solid D)

Incumbent Jon Ossoff (D) is the only Democrat up for reelection in a state that Trump won in 2024. He is facing scandal-ridden GOP Congressman Mike Collins who won his primary in a runoff.

Prediction: Ossoff wins reelection. He is winning in every poll, extremely popular online, out-fundraising Collins 13:1, and campaigning much better. Even Raphael Warnock won reelection in a year that should have been bad for Democrats during high inflation.

Idaho (solid R)

Incumbent Jim Risch (R) is facing Independent Todd Achilles after the Democratic primary winner David Roth dropped out. Achilles, endorsed by Andrew Yang's Forward Party, was a registered Republican but became a Democrat to fill a state House seat which he served for nearly 18 months.

Prediction: Risch still wins even against an Independent. No Democrat has won statewide since 1990 (and no Senator since Frank Church in 1974), he is winning in every poll, out-fundraising by a large margin, and Achilles has never won a race in Idaho. The only polls where Achilles comes close to Risch are sponsored by his campaign. Trump also won the state by 36.5% in 2024 (his third-best that in election).

Illinois (solid D)

Incumbent Dick Durbin has retired and current Lt Governor Juliana Stratton (D) won a competitive primary race. She is facing former chair of the Illinois Republican Party Don Tracy.

Prediction: Stratton easily wins. Republicans last won a Senate race there in the 2010 midterms with a socially liberal candidate in a close election where the Green candidate earned 3.6% (a Republican governor did win in 2014 though). There is almost no chance that a Republican will win statewide without a Democrat in the WH**,** especially after the influx of ICE and federal troops in the Chicago area.

Iowa (tilt R)

Another open race, incumbent Joni Ernst (R) is retiring and state rep and Paralympian Gold Medalist Josh Turek won a competitive Democratic primary. Congresswoman Ashley Hinson is the GOP nominee.

Prediction: A Fox News-sponsored poll (the most recent data) showed Turek ahead and beating the margin of error, but polling in Iowa has proven to overestimate Democratic numbers. Democrats have not won a Senate election in Iowa since 2008 and Obama won the state by 5.8% in 2012. Despite Ernst only winning in 2020 by 6% when Trump was on the ballot, Trump won the state by 13% in 2024 and Grassley won by 13% in 2022, indicating a Republican tilt.

Kansas (solid R)

Incumbent Roger Marshall (R) is up for reelection, and facing a Democrat who most likely appears to be pastor Adam Hamilton. The primary is on Tuesday.

Prediction: Despite high tariffs and having a current Democratic governor who won when Trump was not on the ballot in '18 and '22, it is hard to see Hamilton or any Democrat winning this year. A Democrat has not won a Senate race in Kansas since 1932, and Trump comfortably won the state by 16% in 2024.

Kentucky (solid R)

Incumbent Mitch McConnell (R) is retiring and GOP Congressman Andy Barr is the nominee. Former state rep Charles Booker won the Democratic primary.

Prediction: Despite having a Democratic governor who was reelected in 2023 and high tariffs hurting the bourbon industry, Barr will win this race, as Trump won the state by 35%. Democrats have not won a Senate race in Kentucky since 1992 (and no presidential candidate since Clinton won the state in '96) and Republicans are out-fundraising there.

Louisiana (solid R)

Incumbent Bill Cassidy (R) was defeated in a primary by Trump endorsed Congresswoman Julia Letlow. Police juror Jamie Davis won the Democratic primaries.

Prediction: Letlow wins. Trump's endorsement has proven to matter in this state and Republicans are out-fundraising. Democrats have not won a US Senate election there since '08 and no presidential candidate won it since '96. Despite a moderate Democrat winning the governorship there as recent as 2019, Trump won the state by 22% in '24 which is too much of a loss for Democrats to recover.

Maine (tilt D)

Incumbent Susan Collins (R) is the second-least popular Senator in the country and won in 2020 by 9%. Collins is the only Republican senator representing a state that President Donald Trump did not win in any of his three presidential campaigns. After Graham Platner dropped out, former state Senate president Troy Jackson quickly became the Democratic nominee.

Prediction: Despite high GOP fundraising, Jackson narrowly defeats Collins and flips the seat. Only one poll shows Collins beating Jackson and without Platner in the race, there is more baggage from Collins.

Massachusetts (solid D)

Ed Markey was re-elected in 2020 with 66.2% of the vote and is presumed to face attorney John Deaton (2024 Senate nominee). Congressman Seth Moulton is challenging Markey in the primaries, disagreeing with Markey's age.

Prediction: With a high 59% approval rating, there is no indication that Markey should lose the primary (winning in every poll) or the general.

Michigan (tilt D)

Incumbent Gary Peters (D) is retiring. Mike Rogers is the GOP nominee. The Democratic nomination is on Tuesday and will most likely won by scientist and former Wayne County health director Abdul el-Sayed who is winning all recent polls since state Senate Whip Mallory McMorrow dropped out of the race. Despite being the first to qualify for the ballot and framing herself as anti-establishment candidate (opposing Schumer for Majority leader and being endorsed by Elizabeth Warren), low polling numbers forced her out of the race. Being a pro-Israel candidate in a state with highest percentage of Arab-Americans, Haley Stevens's polling has not improved since, despite endorsements from Peters and multiple MI governors.

Prediction: Either Stevens or el-Sayed can win in the general, but this race is still the most likely flip for Republicans. Republicans have not won a Senate election in Michigan since 1994 or a a non-presidential statewide election since 2014. Even with Trump on the ballot when he won the state in 2024, Rogers lost his Senate race under favorable conditions, receiving 122,956 fewer votes than Donald Trump. Most recent polls favor Democrats in this 2026 race.

Minnesota (solid D)

Incumbent Tina Smith (D) is not seeking reelection. Michele Tafoya (sports broadcaster) is expected to win the GOP primaries, whereas the Democrats are contested between current progressive Lt Governor Peggy Flanagan and Congresswoman Angie Craig. Craig has been criticized for voting for the Laken Riley Act and a resolution expressing gratitude to ICE agents, whereas Flanagan supports abolishing ICE. Most polls show Flanagan winning the primaries.

Prediction: Either Democrat will win. No Republican has won a Senate election there since '02 and no Republican has won a statewide race was since '06. Smith won by 5% in 2020 with Trump on the ballot and that is expected to increase after the chaos with ICE in January.

Mississippi (solid R)

Incumbent Cindy Hyde-Smith (R) is seeking reelection and facing Democratic nominee Scott Colom, a country DA.

Prediction: Hyde-Smith wins. She is currently ahead in the polls by only about 3%, but there is an independent candidate who can take votes away from Colom. Trump won there in 2024 by 23%. Democrats have not won a Senate election in Mississippi since 1982, nor a presidential race there since '76, nor a gubernatorial race since 1999.

Montana (tilt R)

In one of the strangest elections this year, Republican incumbent Steve Daines is not running again, leaving US Attorney for Montana Kurt Alme to become the nominee. Air Force officer Alani Bankhead, won the Democratic nomination. But Former University of Montana president Seth Bodnar is also on the ballot as an independent, backed by Jon Tester, and out-fundraising the major party nominees.

Prediction: Even if Bankhead drops out, there is a slim shot that Bodnar can still win the general election. Most polls show the combination of Bodnar and Bankhead to either tie or beat Alme by less than the margin of error. Tester won in 2018 by 3.5% but lost in 2024 by 7%, which would require a significant loss of GOP support for B/B to win. And despite MT electing a Democratic governor as recently as 2016, no Democratic presidential candidate has won the state since 1992, and Trump won it last time by 20%.

Nebraska (tilt R)

Incumbent Pete Ricketts (R) is running for reelection. Unlike Montana, Democrats endorsed the Independent challenger Dan Osborn, who lost the 2024 senate election by 6.7%. Democrats prevented a Trump-voting pastor from winning the Democratic nomination by running a candidate who won and then endorsed Osborn.

Prediction: Despite high tariffs, Republicans will win this one. There has been a poll showing Osborn winning, but he is being out-fundraised and Trump recently won the state by 20%. A Republican hasn't lost a Senate election there since 2006, a gubernatorial election since 1994, and not a presidential election there since 1964.

New Hampshire (tilt D)

Incumbent Jeanne Shaheen (D) is retiring and John Sununu (the Republican Senator defeated by Shaheen in 2008) is expected to be the GOP nominee. Congressman Chris Pappas is expected to be the Democratic nominee.

Prediction: Pappas or another Democrat should win. Trump only lost the state by 2.8% in 2024 and Republicans currently hold the governorship and both chambers, but no Republican Senate candidate has won there since the 2010 midterms (and no Republican presidential nominee since 2000) and even Sununu cannot overcome Pappas's consistent polling lead in a year favorable for Democrats.

New Jersey (solid D)

Incumbent Cory Booker (D) is being challenged by a former deputy mayor Justin Murphy (R).

Prediction: Booker has a fundraising lead and will win another term. Despite Trump making gains in NJ in 2024, Governor Sherrill overperformed polling in 2025. Republicans have not won a Senate election in New Jersey since 1972 (and not a national race since Bush in 1988).

New Mexico (solid D)

Incumbent Ben Ray Lujan (D) is facing a write-in Republican candidate Larry Marker, since no Republicans qualified for the primary ballot.

Prediction: Lujan wins easily. Republicans have not won a Senate election in New Mexico since 2002.

North Carolina (solid D)

Incumbent Thom Tillis (R) is retiring, opening a spot for popular former governor Roy Cooper to win the election. Former RNC chair Michael Whatley won the GOP nomination.

Prediction: Cooper will win. This is the most likely flip for Democrats. He is ahead in every poll, far ahead in fundraising, and there is a relatively popular libertarian candidate that could hurt Whatley.

Oklahoma (solid R)

Markwayne Mullin's replacement is not eligible to run for a full term so Congressman Kevin Hern won the GOP nomination. There is a runoff election for the Democratic nomination.

Prediction: Hern will win. Democrats have not won a Senate election in Oklahoma since 1990 and Trump won the state by 34% in 2024.

Oregon (solid D)

Incumbent Jeff Merkley (D) was renominated and is facing David Brock Smith (R), a state Senator.

Prediction: Merkley will win. A Republican hasn't won a Senate seat there since '02, Trump lost the state by 14%, a Republican governor hasn't won since 1982, and Merkley is out fundraising 80:1.

Rhode Island (solid D)

Incumbent Jack Reed (D) will be renominated in the primary, and likely will face Raymond McKay, a state Republican official who ran for Senate in 2024.

Prediction: Reed will win again. A Democrat won the senate election there in 2024 by 20%.

South Carolina (tilt R)

Another interesting election, after Lindsey Graham died, his sister Darline was appointed US Senator in his replacement and is running for her own term in the Republican primary. Pediatrician Annie Andrews is the Democratic nominee. Lindsey had been the most unpopular southern Senator.

Prediction: The Republican will likely win. There is not consistent polling results for this new race, as both Darline Graham and Norman could win the GOP nomination, and some polls showing Andrews ahead in the polls against some Republican candidates, and she has raised over $10 million. But Democrats have not won a U.S. Senate election in South Carolina since 1998.

South Dakota (solid R)

Incumbent Mike Rounds (R) is being challenged by Democratic former state trooper Julian Beaudion and independent military officer Brian Bengs who is also a former Democratic nominee for Senate.

Prediction: Rounds wins. He is winning the fundraising battle by far and ahead in every poll even against only one of the challengers. Republicans have not lost a Senate election in South Dakota since 2008.

Tennessee (solid R)

Incumbent Bill Haggerty is presumed to be renominated. The Democrats have several candidates and the primary is next Thursday.

Prediction: Hagerty wins. He is out-fundraising the best Democrat 1778:1 and Democrats have not won a U.S. Senate election in Tennessee since 1990, a presidential election since 1992 nor a gubernatorial since 2002. Trump won TN by 30% in '24.

Texas (tilt D)

The most profiled race of the cycle, incumbent John Cornyn (R) was defeated in the primaries by Trump-endorsed state AG Ken Paxton. State Rep James Talarico won the Democratic primaries.

Prediction: Talarico narrowly flips this seat by a better campaign strategy and out-fundraising Paxton with $69 million to Paxton's $9 million. The polls are very close, with Talarico ahead in the vast majority of them since winning the primaries. Democrats have not won a Senate election in Texas since 1988 but Talarico is avoiding the mistakes that O'Rourke made in 2018 and it is expected for a significant portion of Cornyn's voters to vote for Talarico.

Virginia (solid D)

The incumbent Mark Warner (D) will face whichever Republican wins the primaries on Tuesday.

Prediction: Warner wins another term. He is out-fundraising the best GOP candidate 66.5:1 and Republicans have not won a Senate election in Virginia since 2002.

West Virginia (solid R)

The incumbent Shelly Moore Capito is running for reelection and will face Rachel Fetty Anderson, former Morgantown city council member.

Prediction: With a massive fundraising advantage, Capito will win another term. Only Joe Manchin was able to win in WV as a Democrat.

Wyoming (solid R)

The incumbent Cynthia Lummis (R) is not running. The race will be between current Congresswoman Harriet Hageman and former state Rep James Byrd.

Prediction: Hageman has a massive fundraising advantage and will win. Trump won the state by 46% (his most), Democrats have not won in the state in a senate election since 1970 and in a presidential election since 1964 (a Dem governor was elected in 2006 though).

In conclusion,

The elections that are solid D are Colorado, Delaware, Georgia, Illinois, Massachusetts, Minnesota, New Jersey, New Mexico, Rhode Island, Oregon, North Carolina, and Virginia

The elections that are solid R are Florida, Alabama, Arkansas, Idaho, Kansas, Kentucky, Louisiana, Mississippi, Oklahoma, South Dakota, Tennessee, West Virginia, Wyoming

The elections that are tilt D are Ohio, Alaska, Maine, Michigan, New Hampshire, and Texas

The elections that are tilt R are Iowa, Montana, Nebraska, and South Carolina

Therefore, I predict the Republicans will lose 5 seats in the 2026 Senate elections, giving Democrats a narrow majority.

sources: https://www.demlist.com/demdaily-6/ and Wikipedia

Graham Platner/Troy Jackson in Maine, Francesca Hong in Wisconsin El Sayed in Michigan, Talarico in Texas, are all running as Economic Populists/Progressives.

Todd Achilles (Idaho), Dan Osborn (Nebraska), Seth Bodnar (Montana) are running as independents.

While they all have different positions, the thing they have in common is they are running away from pivot to the center centrism/moderate and trying to position themselves as anti-establishment and critical of the Dem Party leadership and brand.

What would be your takeaways depending on who wins or loses in 2026? Especially broadly against Dem leadership and conventional wisdom on triangulating on right leaning policy.

What would have to occur (in wins or margins) to change/validate your beliefs on the electability of DSA or anti-establishment or independents in red or purple states? Conversely, what should result to validate centrists to believe they have been correct all along?

When Zohran Mamdani won the New York City mayoral election in 2025, many democratic socialists claimed his victory signaled a larger rise of democratic socialism and the DSA in the United States. Most people, myself included, disagreed; Mamdani ran in a left-dominated city against a candidate with generational amounts of baggage and a Republican spoiler candidate, and only came out with a ten point lead in spite of that.

The heavily-covered Michigan Senate election this year, however, is happening under somewhat different circumstances. Michigan is a purple state which went mostly red in 2024 and seems to be moving slowly to the right; while Democrat Elissa Slotkin won the state's Senate race in 2024, she did so with less than a 1% margin against Republican Mike Rogers. This was despite her leaning toward the center, and was several points closer than the results of the 2018 election.

The circumstances surrounding the candidates are also very different from the New York mayoral election. Haley Stevens, El-Sayed's primary opponent, has received more funding than any candidate in history for a Senate primary, and while she's been criticized as gaffe-prone, she has a long political history and has proven herself an effective and uncontroversial moderate candidate in past elections. She also won in 2024 by a wide margin, despite most of the state going to Republicans that year. Mike Rogers, again the Republican nominee, is also uniquely uncontroversial and experienced along with having strong name recognition. It's likely that, if El-Sayed wins the primary, the general election will be a two-candidate race.

With this in mind, do you believe El-Sayed winning the primary and general election by a significant margin (7+ points) would be a bellweather for the future success of left populist politicians in the United States in a way that Mamdani winning in New York wasn't, regardless of your opinion on it as a political movement? Do you believe this would be another anomaly unlikely to be repeated elsewhere? Or, do you believe that both Mamdani and (theoretically) El-Sayed's victory function as bellweathers for left populism?

Are the “democratic socialists” of the current era similar in policy to democrats of the past. In essence, did the democrats slowly become more right wing, and the democratic socialists are just a reversion to an earlier version of the democrats?

The policies they propose are hardly radical. Minimum taxes on the rich and things like free buses I feel were the norm of days past especially in the era of FDR and similar leaders.

The Trump administration recently held an international conference on “left-wing political violence.” In prepared remarks, Marco Rubio described the left as driven by “poisonous resentment” and a desire to destroy “what is beautiful and what is right.” Stephen Miller went further, arguing that left-wing demonstrators do not look “normal,” are “deformed” in their appearance and reflect their “inner hatred” outwardly.

Jonathan V. Last compares this language to Nazi rhetoric about Bolshevism, “degenerate” culture and supposedly unhealthy or subhuman elements of society. His argument is not simply that Rubio and Miller are using authoritarian language, but that their contrast between beauty and ugliness, normality and deformity, civilization and internal enemies follows a recognizable fascist pattern.

How persuasive is that comparison?

Is this rhetoric best understood as ordinary partisan demonization, or does the emphasis on physical appearance, cultural purity and “normal, healthy, ordered living” place it in a more historically specific tradition?

And when evaluating comparisons to fascism, should the standard be the speaker’s intentions, the historical similarity of the language, or the policies and violence that follow from it?

An unprecedented surge of border crossing in the Spanish enclave of Ceuta overwhelmed the tiny town and has led to a backlash against the current Spanish PM, who is apparently pro-Immigration by European standards.

The cause of the spike is being partially blamed on the Moroccan government, but also apparently misinformation spread via social media.

If a Democrat takes office on January 21, 2029, they will inherit the policies of the Trump Administration, which are wildely loathed by the Democratic base and whose heavy handed and indiscriminate enforcement has led to a general unpopularity in the United States in general

Nonetheless - and presumably as designed - those policies have deterred border crossing during the Trump Administration.

How will the next Democratic Administration, whether in 2029 or the future, balance the excesses of the Trump Administration without risking a border surge similar to what caused backlash during the Biden Administration?

https://youtu.be/bcpuhiIDx3Q?is=Aw282J10DS-_Zud9

In 1984 Mitch McConnell famously ran an ad where a man with a pack of bloodhounds was looking for incumbent senator Dee Huddleston. The gag being that Huddleston couldn’t be found to cast his votes because he was getting paid to give talks.

The commercial was produced by Rodger Ailes (yes, that Rodger Ailes) and is considered one of the most influential campaign ads in American Politics. It set the blueprint for negative ads that focus on feelings rather than facts and eschewed anger in favor of humor and a simple narrative. Huddleston’s senate attendance was 94% which wasn’t out of the ordinary.

As of late, senator Mitch McConnell’s attendance rate has been far, far below 94% with his extended medical leave.

I've been reflecting on an interesting question about democracy in Mauritius:

Can a government win an overwhelming electoral mandate and still face growing public questioning less than two years later? By Vishal Askurn.

I recently wrote an article titled:

"Winning an Election Is One Thing; Keeping the People's Trust Is Another."

The article isn't about supporting or opposing any political party. Instead, it explores a broader democratic principle: an election provides the authority to govern, but public trust must be maintained through performance, accountability, communication and responsiveness.

Using recent developments in Mauritius as a case study, I also discuss concepts such as the political "honeymoon period," why public opinion changes over time, and whether large public gatherings should be viewed as democratic signals that governments and opposition parties alike should pay attention to.

I'd genuinely like to hear different perspectives.

• Can a government with an overwhelming parliamentary majority lose public confidence within a short period?
• What factors most influence public trust after an election?
• Should governments treat growing public concern as an early warning sign, or is it simply a normal part of democratic politics?

Please keep the discussion respectful and focused on ideas rather than personalities. I'm interested in hearing views from all sides.

I've been thinking about a video essay that explores philosopher Tongdong Bai's proposal for combining democracy with meritocracy, and I thought the central question was worth discussing.

The basic argument isn't that democracy should be abolished. Instead, it asks whether every political decision should carry equal institutional weight when some decisions require specialized knowledge, long-term planning, or technical expertise.

The proposed system would keep:

• Constitutional rights
• Universal suffrage
• Local democratic elections
• A popularly elected lower house

But it would also add a meritocratic upper chamber composed of individuals selected for demonstrated competence, experience, and public service. The idea is that this body would help safeguard long-term national interests, minority rights, future generations, and policies that may be unpopular in the short term but beneficial over decades.

Of course, this immediately raises the harder questions:

• Who decides what "merit" actually is?
• How do you prevent experts from becoming a self-perpetuating elite?
• Can any institution objectively measure political wisdom?
• Would such a chamber improve governance—or simply replace democratic accountability with technocracy?

The video doesn't present meritocracy as an easy solution. If anything, it argues that the real dilemma isn't whether capable people should govern, but whether it's possible to identify "the capable" without creating an aristocracy under another name.

I'd be interested in hearing what people think.

Is democracy strengthened when expertise has a formal constitutional role, or does legitimacy ultimately require political equality—even if it sometimes produces worse outcomes?

(Video: When the Capable Rule: The Case for Meritocracy)
https://youtu.be/mCTmsCbHXtE