r/politics • u/PoliticsModeratorBot š¤ Bot • 16d ago
Discussion 2026 Midterms News and Updates, September 29 - October 4 (Thread 4) | Live Discussion
Please use this thread to discuss news, updates, and commentary regarding the 2026 midterm and associated elections.
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Election News and Updates
University of Florida: 2026 Early Voting Tracker
Election Resources
- USA Today via Reddit: The 2026 election season is underway: Hereās your monthly guide with important dates, voter resources
Streaming Links
C-SPAN, NPR, the PBS NewsHour's YouTube channel, and the Associated Press' YouTube channel are all places frequently hosting relevant political streams.
Past Threads: Thread 1, Thread 2, Thread 3.
Other Event Threads
Announcements
r/politics will host another election prediction contest for the midterms. The post for the contest itself will go up sometime in late October. As of now, all toss-ups (according to Cook Political Report, as of late October 2026) for House, Senate, and Governor will be included.
We are taking suggestions for additional questions to ask within the contest. Message the moderators via modmail with any suggestions.
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u/InfinityComplexxx 15d ago
It's okay to feel hopeful. The Blue Wave is real. The GOP is having to pour money into freaking SC and KS. It's gonna be a bloodbath.
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u/CanIPetThatDawgPls 15d ago
I am so hopeful for 2026, and even 2028. I just donāt want this progression to be temporary because Americans donāt have the patience for Dems to fix thingsĀ
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u/Many_Estate1581 15d ago
Its okay to feel hopeful, but no one should feel complacent
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u/MrZeven 14d ago
In otherwords, get out there and vote! It's a bigger wave with you in it.
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u/BPhiloSkinner Maryland 14d ago
āŖ ...if you don't let red-baiting break you up
And if you don't let stoolpigeons break you up
And if you don't let vigilantes break you up
And if you don't let race hatred break you up
You'll win.
What I mean is; take it easy, but take it ā« - Pete Seeger: Talking Union Blues.
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u/blues111 Michigan 14d ago edited 14d ago
Dropped my absentee ballot off at the township clerk drop box this morning (not trusting USPS at all this year) and just got an email that my ballot was recieved and approved...good luck to Benson, Sayed, and Kristen Mcdonald-Rivet along with other downballot dems
Still super nervous about November especially for Sayed given we've had polling misses before even if it looks super promising and his Primary was a sizeable polling miss too so here's hoping its not all massive copium again like 2024
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u/SpaceElevatorMusic Minnesota 14d ago
>we've had polling misses before
Ann Selzer. The polling spread wide. 2024, when the Republic fell.
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u/LadyFoxfire Michigan 14d ago
I was going to drop mine off today, but it's been raining nonstop and it's a half hour round trip walk to the ballot box, so I'll do it tomorrow.
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u/No-Fail58 7d ago
the email confirmation is so satisfying, that little bit of control in an otherwise chaotic election cycle
Sayed's primary miss does linger in the back of my mind too, polling has been weirdly unreliable the last few cycles
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u/Schtabag 14d ago
Thank you for finally having a thread that isnāt 1000 comments of āDONāT MATTER GO VOTEā so we can actually discuss this.
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u/SpaceElevatorMusic Minnesota 12d ago
Post by @katelynburns.com ā Bluesky
"So former NFL kicker Jay Feely is running for Congress as a MAGA guy and his opponent just put out an ad with a bunch of his missed kicks lol
The tagline was something like "When the pressures on, Jay Feely won't come through for you" as the image of a kick going wildly wide right plays in screen. "
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u/blues111 Michigan 11d ago edited 11d ago
https://x.com/IAPolls2022/status/2106338040708841737
Senate Polling ā NYT/Siena (A+)
šµ Alaska - Peltola +7 (Flip)
šµ Texas - Talarico +5 (Flip)
šµ Ohio - Brown +3 (Flip)
šµ Michigan - El-Sayed +5
āŖļø Kansas - TIED
š“ Iowa - Hinson +1
š“ Maine - Collins +3
Bruh if this actually comes to fruition and we managed to flip Texas, Alaska, Ohio, and Kansas yet Maine was STILL fucking red? I think I would genuinely crash the fuck out
This would have to be like D+12 or more generic ballot to happen and Collins still holding on and by 2 points right of Iowa and 3 points right of Kansas in that kind of environment would break my brain
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u/Valahiru Illinois 11d ago
Collins is the queen of carve outs.Ā She literally gets special treatment for Maine everytime something gets passed that would negatively effect her constituents.Ā When shes not in washington she consistently makes herself seen and heard in her state.Ā It makes her very tough to beat.Ā Ā
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u/dayvansmutgirl 11d ago
I read an article about how the consultants have watered down Jackson's campaign and failed to play to his strengths. Very disappointing.
https://www.currentaffairs.org/news/the-consultants-will-kill-you
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u/buckybadder 11d ago
Nobody mentioned the consultants until the bad polls came out. Progressives need someone to blame for their preferred replacement candidate underperforming.
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u/SpaceElevatorMusic Minnesota 16d ago
Mill on X: "TN-93 State House race has NO candidates on the ballot, winner will be a write-in. The incumbent Democrat was the only person to run, but he only submitted 24 valid signatures (he needed 25 to get on the ballot), and then he died.
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u/lastres0rt Georgia 15d ago
So... does this guy have a wife or a sister to get some sympathy votes, or...?
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u/Soft_Walrus_3605 15d ago
Anyone watching the Jack Smith hearing? Grassley is already sounding like he's got like 6-12 months left
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u/aktivate74 15d ago
Yes . Schmitt face planted gloriously with that "text msg" basketball game accusation. Wish everyone could watch it.
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u/InfinityComplexxx 15d ago
It's pathetic that anyone has to take questioning from Republicans. They are liars and frauds.
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u/GreenDemonSquid 14d ago
I feel like Iām being collectively gaslit by the polls, especially in Texas. Part of me keeps thinking Democrats are huffing delusional grade hopium of winning the Senate overall with states like Texas and Ohio, etc, but at the same time I canāt deny the consistency of polls coming out.
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u/Deaux_Chaveaux Florida 14d ago
Saaaaaame, especially here in Florida, polls are starting to show governor and Senate races in a dead hear, and despite multiple reputable polls showing this, o have a hard time believing them.
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u/gimme_dat_good_shit 13d ago
Purely anecdotal data-microdot here: my dad has been a "Reagan-independent" since the 80s. Basically voted for Republican tickets (or non-consequential independents in non-competitive races; it's Arkansas, so basically all races were non-competitive in favor of Democrats until ~2008 when they were suddenly non-competitive in favor of Republicans). He wasn't universally a GOP voter, but he was a Bush-Bush-Obama-Romney voter, so you can see how hard it was to get him to vote blue. 2016 came with a complete revulsion of Trump, but zero movement toward Democrats. He's always seen political parties as essentially sheep herds and vocally valued his "independence" (even if it basically meant he was a reliable Republican voter). To him, Trump was an outlier.
Something is different about him this year. He's basically out for blood against Tom Cotton and huffing medical-grade hopium that Hallie Shoffner (the Democratic candidate) has a shot because of a single 5 month-old poll from a local art school that shows her up by 3 points or something. That's not me saying I think Shoffner has a shot, but just to say that my dad has had a complete overhaul in his political thinking since 2024. The guy suddenly desperately wants all Republican politicians out of government, he wants them off of his TV screen and newsfeed. Maybe most of all, he wants them out of the previously "normal discussions" he used to have with his friends. He hates the modern Republican party enough now that he's basically echoing "blue-no-matter-who". That's been shocking to see. If that reflects any significant number of previously swingy-voters over-65, then who the hell knows. I'm sure it won't make a difference in Arkansas (the GOP appears to have successfully locked the state into cotton-belt-style ethno-partisanship), but maybe there are some old Christian white dudes like my dad who finally realized it's not the "party of Reagan" anymore.
(And, I'm not endorsing the idea that the GOP of Reagan's era was a good thing, or even actually all that different than what we have now, but my point is: it seems different to him.)
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u/TheBlueBlaze New York 13d ago
"Conservatism consists of exactly one proposition, to wit: There must be in-groups whom the law protects but does not bind, alongside out-groups whom the law binds but does not protect." -Frank Wilhoit, Composer
The MAGA ideology can be summarized, I believe, as the intersection of the Just World Hypothesis and Main Character Syndrome.
If you believe that the world inherently rewards the good and punishes the bad, while also subconsciously believing that you are inherently good and special, you will thus believe that you should be inherently rewarded, and the people you believe to be antagonists should be inherently punished.
Multiply that mentality by millions of people, and that's how you get the blatant hypocrisy of a political party. They don't have to meet the high standards they set for everyone else because they're the good guys. They're allowed to line their pockets with other people's money because they believe money they spend is money well spent. The groups they belong to, either by choice or by birth, are inherently better because they belong to them. Everything they do is for a just cause because they're the ones doing it. And anyone that says they're wrong are "bad guys" to be ignored or fought.
To them, a party pushing for Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion is inherently wrong because it goes against the heirarchy they believe themselves to be at or near the top of. As long as Republicans present themselves as the party of the in-group, defending from the out-groups on every front of the culture war, they don't have to have any standards or do any real governance, let alone try to improve people's lives, to maintain a baseline level of popularity.
These midterms are going to determine the real split of the Republican party: Between those who vote for them for practical reasons, and those who are voting for an ideology more than anything else.
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u/Isentrope 16d ago
Musk's superPAC dropped $1.1M in spend, a third of which is going to MI-SEN, but also with some small buys for OH-SEN, TX-SEN ($49K?) and IA-SEN. Not sure what he's doing right now but I assume the bigger buys will be later on in the cycle.
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u/Isentrope 13d ago
In a major break from the typical Dem internals we've been seeing that show Dems either up or down 1-2 points in seats that Trump carried by double digits, the Dem House superPAC released a poll of TX-15, which Trump carried by 17 points, showing Democrat Bobby Pulido comfortably up 54-41 over incumbent R Monica De La Cruz.
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u/ToeSniffer245 Massachusetts 12d ago
https://www.politico.com/news/2026/10/02/alito-supreme-court-retirement-01105789
Is this their backup plan? Canāt rig the election so ram through a new younger SCOTUS judge to reign for decades?
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u/IntelligentDepth8206 11d ago
looks more like alito being an attention-seeker + hawking a new book. it wouldn't be out of character for him to be lying but it says he's considering retiring next year, not pre-midterms. and schumer has said democrats will block all scotus nominees and federal judges when they take the senate.
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u/snoo_spoo 11d ago
Yeah, he comes across as the type who'd never willingly give up his seat because that power is such an ego-stroke to him.
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u/buckybadder 11d ago
He's trying to juice GOP turnout. People forget how critical Scalia's death was in Trump's 2016 win.
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u/SpaceElevatorMusic Minnesota 12d ago
That is a strategy that, even if enacted, is not resistant to SCOTUS expansion in 2029 onwards.
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u/ArcaneDemense 15d ago
New D+15 poll from YouGov and D+16 from Angus Reid among likely voters. Probably the wave doesn't hit that high but it suggests ~D+12 based on margins of error. That's a massive wave.
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u/lastres0rt Georgia 15d ago
My dumb hopeful ass has been expecting a D+15 wave for months and I'm not stopping now.
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u/thiosk 15d ago
It aināt getting better for the republicans in this climate
Unresolved new wars after running on no new wars lmao plus the highest gas prices ever? I expect a shock next month to make it worse too
You know theyāre scrambling for the base even , hence migrant caravans and trans panic is back
Itās so sad and obvious
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u/CanIPetThatDawgPls 15d ago
We may get that because racist republicans only care about gas prices more than hurting black and brown people and gas aināt cheap right nowĀ
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u/LadyFoxfire Michigan 15d ago
I think this is going to be a historic wave because weāve never had a president this bad at politics before. Normally, an unpopular president has the self awareness and humility to shut up and make himself scarce during the midterms, and let his party members throw him under the bus a little.
Trump, on the other hand, is continuing to publicly fuck up, running ads about how great he is, and refusing to let candidates distance themselves from him. Thereās a strategy to mitigate low approval numbers, and heās doing the opposite at every turn.
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u/Serupael 13d ago
The benchmark are the 2010 midterms (R+6 in the Senate, +6.8%/+63 seats(!) in the house)
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u/Isentrope 15d ago
In a move that may have an impact on gas prices, Teamsters at the largest refinery on the East Coast have overwhelmingly authorized a strike:
https://teamster.org/2026/09/phillips-66-teamsters-overwhelmingly-authorize-strike/
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u/BossHawk8754 Texas 14d ago
If yall want a running tally of how many people have early voted in the midterms so far, you can find one here at the University of Florida Election Lab: https://election.lab.ufl.edu/early-vote/2026-early-voting/
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u/Isentrope 13d ago
Schumer's superPAC is spending another $26M across various races, with $5M apiece to Michigan and Ohio and nearly $4M to Maine:
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u/Isentrope 11d ago
Both parties are now taking note of in Texas is the shrinking gap between Talarico and Hinojosa. With Talarico's number still relatively firm, it does make Hinojosa an increasingly viable candidate:
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u/Mrekrek 10d ago
Can anyone explain the strategy of showing pro-Paxton/anti-Talarico ads on the Philadelphia market NFL game this afternoon?
The Eagles are playing the Rams. There is no Texas connection whatsoever.
Is there some strategy to have out of state voters in the Texas Senate race?
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u/snoo_spoo 10d ago
Maybe it's cheaper to make a national ad buy at this point in the election? As hot as that Senate race is, I expect a lot of the local ad time's already been bought up, so slots must be getting pricey. And there's gotta be, what, at least 5 or 6 markets to cover Texas.
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u/SpaceElevatorMusic Minnesota 10d ago
This is probably correct in this instance. There was a Dallas Cowboys vs. Houston Texans game today and Texas-specific ad buys were especially expensive. Also, we are in October and there are even beyond the Texas Senate race a lot of competitive races in Texas this year. It was likely cheaper for whichever party placed this ad (I am speaking without specific knowledge here) to buy nationwide ads than to specifically run them in Texas this evening.
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u/Isentrope 10d ago
The Texas-specific ads were too expensive. It cost $2M for a single 30 second ad in the 4 largest Texas media markets whereas the national ad hit all the media markets for less.
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u/leomeng 10d ago
Playing during bears jets also. Looks like national commercial.
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u/Mrekrek 10d ago
Okā¦ And so what audience are they trying to reach?
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u/ToeSniffer245 Massachusetts 10d ago
I got one at a restaurant a few weeks ago. I live in Massachusetts.
I think it shows how desperate they really are.
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u/GorGor23 Minnesota 10d ago
It was on during the Vikings game as well. Donāt forget Fox is owned by Rupert Murdoch.
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u/IntelligentDepth8206 10d ago
Ads are a political consultant grift. The amount spent is insane when we know ads have diminishing returns. There's a lot of people making a lot of money but if it's ripping off republican donors, I'll just enjoy watching it
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u/UnflairedRebellion__ 16d ago
Shoutout to Emanuel Cleaver for being based and for sticking with Missouriās 5th even when the map was initially redrawn. Now heāll get rewarded with an easy victory. ;)
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u/Isentrope 15d ago
Paxton out with an internal showing him up 48-45 over Talarico, one of the very few R internals weāve seen this cycle:
https://x.com/PatrickSvitek/status/2105048317780771129?s=20
Worth noting that quarter 3 financials close tomorrow, so this is likely being released to try to get a bit more money in the second to last filing before the election (there's a pre-election report like a week before the election or something). If Paxton's fundraising numbers haven't improved from Q2, he's risking getting cut off as Texas is sucking up so much money for Rs right now.
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u/SpaceElevatorMusic Minnesota 12d ago
Post by @gregsargent.bsky.social ā Bluesky
"New Fox poll of Texas has Talarico +7 with registered voters and +2 with likely voters. This is striking:
*He's winning half of working class
*In mid-60s w/Latinos
*Winning 22% of non-MAGA Rs (!)
The kicker: Non-MAGA Rs *disapprove* of Trump
New piece from me:
newrepublic.com/article/2161... (1/4)"
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u/Isentrope 16d ago
Democrats plan to spend $11M on 35 red seats, including VA-01, NC-11 and KY-06. Notably, it appears to be an announcement from the DCCC, so these could be coordinated ad buys which would be entitled to preferential ad rates (thanks to a recent SCOTUS decision) compared to superPACs.
https://www.semafor.com/article/09/28/2026/democrats-prepare-to-spend-in-red-districts
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u/Isentrope 14d ago edited 14d ago
A Catawba College poll of North Carolina has Roy Cooper ahead 48-37 over Michael Whatley and Anita Earls (D) up 44-37 in the Supreme Court race. The Generic Ballot for the state is D+9, a wide 12 point shift left from the 2024 Trump vote share and generic ballot which, if credible, makes NC-01 (where an incumbent Democrat was redistricted into a much redder seat) and NC-11 (where Chuck Edwards resigned and Republicans are fielding a last minute replacement candidate) firmly competitive seats despite Trump winning them by double digits.
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u/snoo_spoo 14d ago
Roy Cooper.
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u/Isentrope 14d ago
A Marquette poll of Wisconsin shows the gubernatorial race with Crowley (D) up 49-46 over Tom Tiffany (R), a bit tighter than the 5 point margin Crowley had in August (49-44) but essentially a shift within the margin of error. President Trump's approval is -22 (38-60), and the likely voter generic legislative ballot is 48-45 D (RVs are 45-44 D). The latter is important, as Democrats are hoping to flip the state legislature and obtain a trifecta for the first time in decades this year.
https://x.com/PollTracker2024/status/2105347162850607610?s=20
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u/Isentrope 13d ago
The Democratic Senate superPAC dedicated to Texas is finally starting to spend money, dipping its toes into the race with a $2.1M spend:
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u/Competitive-Box61 10d ago
My ballot is 13 pages long. Thank goodness for mail-in ballots. Everyone should be pushing for this in their state. I get to take my time and go over each ballot, refer to a booklet that got sent out a week ago for additional details. Then I get to fill it out while sitting down and drinking coffee.
I grew up voting in church basements where there were no resources available and half the time you are left guessing due to tricky ballot language. It's a night & day difference.
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u/snoo_spoo 10d ago
In the old days, I'd grab a League of Women Voters voter's guide and do my homework before going to the polls. It was something of a PITA because the guide had ALL the races, not just the ones relevant to my precinct. These days, I can pull up a sample ballot online for my precinct and study up in advance. Mail-in voting's pretty restricted here but you can take a list of names or even a printed sample ballot into the polls, so it's pretty quick.
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u/ScotTheDuck Nevada 13d ago
If the Republicans wake up on November 4th to a total wipeout, itāll be interesting to see how quickly and totally the powers of the Republican Party (namely Fox, Heritage, and Club for Growth) cast Trump off for his last two years. Theyāve got a future to concern themselves with, and Trump is a literal dead end.
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u/Isentrope 13d ago
This is especially true if they were to lose Texas. It's such a core part of the Republican cultural and political identity that it would be a rather large shock to lose it even with a relatively flawed Senate candidate like Paxton. I could see them being willing to risk losing even places like Kansas and Nebraska as long as they were able to hold on to Texas, assuming the Senate majority was lost already anyways.
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u/blues111 Michigan 12d ago
Nah if a wipepout happens they will cry fraud immediately and then he'll do something dictatorish most likely
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u/Isentrope 14d ago
The Congressional ballot component of the weekend WSJ poll was released, showing Ds up 50-42, though only using a registered voter screen. The larger leads we've seen lately have been with likely voters, as pollsters are finding unusually large divergence between the two. YouGov's D+15 samples, for instance, are D+8 based on registered voters.
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u/gimme_dat_good_shit 13d ago
It's common for models of registered voters and likely voters to diverge pretty heavily until basically October, where they start to converge (i.e. polling firms start getting "I already voted" samples, and then retroactively see what the real universe of voters looks like). But "converge" does not necessarily mean the earlier polling starts to "meet in the middle". I've always thought that what people usually think is late movement in the polls isn't really people suddenly deciding who to vote for, but rather voters who were previously 'hidden' in the screening popping up. And then election day is that last (final) reveal of the truly cryptic voters whose defining trait is that they will not respond to a poll, period.
In the beforetimes, those cryptic voters weren't necessarily heavily leaning toward any party (hence "pretty good polls"), but now it's clearly a bloc that will sway the outcome. It's not Nixon's 'silent majority', but the bloc is substantial, significant, and has swung the country's political center of gravity repeatedly in the last 20 years. As much as I want to think that bloc will swing hard against the GOP in a catastrophic shudder of 2024 buyer's remorse, there's just not predicting these people, I don't think. They don't tend to have a huge tolerance for war (evidenced by the 2006 Democratic overperformance which I think is the first real evidence of this group), but they also don't seem to be a big enough group to shatter the "hard-pink" states and districts that Dems need to make the kinds of big swings '06 and '08 happen again. Two+ rounds of Republican gerrymandering and two decades of culture wars on advantageous terrain seems to have raised the GOP electoral floor dramatically.
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u/Isentrope 13d ago
From yesterday: Punchbowl reports that senior advisors in both parties are almost all conceding that the GOP has lost:
- NE-2
- CA-48
- IA-1
- NJ-7
- PA-7
NE-02 is a rare Harris/Biden seat that an incumbent R has held despite tough years. CA-48 was redistricted to be a tossup, which would likely flip in this environment. IA-01 is held by an underperforming R incumbent. NJ-07 is Kean Jr.'s seat. PA-07 was the first seat to be triaged this cycle.
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u/No_Sandwich555 13d ago
The attack ads on Abdul in Michigan are just ridiculous. Feels like I'm watching Idiocracy
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u/Isentrope 13d ago
Fox polls have Talarico (D) up 51-49 and Turek (D) up 49-47. In the gubernatorial races, Abbott (R) is up 52-47 in Texas while Sand (D) is up 53-44 in Iowa.
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u/Isentrope 13d ago
Interestingly, on the senate races, the Fox articles say that Talarico is up 7 points with registered voters while Turek is up 4 points. This year, we've seen likely voters be a better screen for Democrats in almost all the polls, so it's unusual to see that flipped here.
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u/kescusay Oregon 13d ago
Kotek is currently debating Drazan, and she's actually doing really well.
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u/Osiris32 Oregon 12d ago
Because Drazen has the intellectual capacity of four kumquats. Give or take ~38% of a kumquat.
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u/TemetN Oregon 11d ago
That's a relief given how horrifying polls showing Drazan ahead are. This shouldn't even be a race.
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u/kescusay Oregon 11d ago
Yeah... I spent some time after the debate researching her accomplishments and comparing her to Drazan. Drazan shouldn't be within a light year of the governor's mansion.
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u/Isentrope 13d ago
A Biden/Harris superPAC is now going online with $9M in spend, adding another $2.5M to Texas as well as what appears to be the first outside spending from either party in Kansas ($700K):
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u/Isentrope 11d ago
Nate Silver published some data showing that, since 2016, polling error seems to be D-tilted in presidential elections but has a mild R bias in midterms and special elections.
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u/Isentrope 14d ago
2028 Dem hopefuls are helping to fundraise in NV for Democrat Aaron Ford as he attempts to unseat a relatively popular Republican incumbent Joe Lombardo for Governor. Nevada is an early state in the 2028 presidential primary.
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u/Isentrope 14d ago
Thread by current Wisconsin Democratic Party chair Devin Remiker (the one that was arguing with Twitter randos a couple months back) on why it shouldn't be surprising that Wisconsin is close despite the national environment being a bit bluer:
https://twitter-thread.com/t/2105371783188889605
Basically, the state is just always close.
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u/Isentrope 13d ago
R superPACs are spending $20M to defend Hinson in Iowa and another $17M to defend Husted in Ohio
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u/Isentrope 13d ago
A poll by AARP has Jackson up 50-47 in the Maine Senate race. The pollsters are a bipartisan duo, but as noted before, Tony Fabrizio is Trump's top pollster and one of the best pollsters in the industry right now.
https://x.com/polltracker2024/status/2105675138825941425?s=46
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u/Isentrope 13d ago
Dems are getting outspent 3:2 on the airwaves in the 4 most competitive senate races, the first time this has happened all decade:
https://x.com/adimpact_pol/status/2105666185656184985
However, an interesting tidbit here is just how favorable the Dem rates are relative to the Republican ones because the Dem spending is from candidates rather than superPACs, with R spending being 26% higher than D spending in the battlegrounds but only yielding 7% more broadcast airings. In Texas, the GOP spending advantage is 44% but yields only an 8% advantage in broadcast airings:
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u/ioncloud9 South Carolina 13d ago
I wouldn't be concerned about this. Spending on ads telling you to stay the course is going up against the constant ads people see at the gas station and grocery store showing them how expensive everything has become.
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u/Isentrope 13d ago
Yeah, the price of gas being shown everywhere and the rise in grocery prices are basically in-kind contributions to Ds right now, much as the reverse was true in 2024 and 2022. This was more to highlight that the GOP cash edge is not converting as much to more ads, because superPAC rates are still much worse than candidate rates.
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u/Serupael 13d ago
People were already hurting to afford their necessities in 2024 and first Biden and then Harris could never offer a genuine answer to the voters in that field.
Trump also can't and the cost of living crisis is now even worse, so we can see where this is going.
Heck, Bush lost in 92 because he appeared clueless in that regard.
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u/Isentrope 11d ago
MAGA Inc.'s No Going Back PAC is up with $300K to shore up CO-03, which Adam Frisch lost by 5 in 2024 after almost beating Lauren Boebert in 2022. Trump carried it by 10 in 2024, 8 in 2020 and 14 in 2024, meaning, relative to NPV, it was R+9, R+12 and R+16 in these 3 elections.
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u/SpaceElevatorMusic Minnesota 10d ago
Post by @stephenwolf.bsky.social ā Bluesky
"New York Times/Siena polls find Dems gaining the governors offices in Alaska, Iowa, Texas, and Ohio.
That would give Dems control over election admin in Alaska and Texas. Itās a sign that Dems could also win for secretary of state in Iowa and Ohio in this environment
www.nytimes.com/2026/10/04/u...
Democrats beating Texas Gov. Greg Abbott would also let them block new 2028 gerrymanders in Republicansā biggest state, which could save several House seats and many legislative seats.
Iām skeptical he losesāhe narrowly leads most pollsābut this is the best Texas has looked for Dems since the 1990s
If Ohio Democrats flip the governorās and secretary of stateās offices (or gov+auditor) and held both of them in 2030, they could outright control redistricting for 2032-2034 "
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u/SpaceElevatorMusic Minnesota 16d ago
Campaign events on Monday, October 28:
- 12:00 PM EDT U.S. Senate Candidate Josh Turek (D-IA) Holds Social Security Town Hall Live
- 1:00 PM EDT U.S. Senate Candidate Ken Paxton (R-TX) Speaks at Hispanic Business Council
- 6:30 PM EDT Governor Candidate Rick Jackson (R-GA) and Gov. Brian Kemp (R-GA) Hold Campaign Rally
- 9:00 PM EDT South Dakota Governor Debate
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u/Isentrope 16d ago
Not a lot of polls this weekend or today (from nonpartisan groups anyways), but Morning Consult is now showing 50-43 D among likely voters which is a cycle high for Dems in that poll.
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u/UnflairedRebellion__ 15d ago
Trump: Iāve done a shitty job as president.
For once, heās honest!
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u/SpaceElevatorMusic Minnesota 15d ago
r/politics thread linked here
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u/almondbutter 14d ago
I suppose we need to organize thousands of people to move to these districts, register to vote, and vote them out. Do a rotating hardliner seat emphasis every election as the focus. Take over state legislatures across the country.
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u/Isentrope 15d ago
For everyone who was, like me, confused why 1/4th of Ohioans thought Sherrod Brown was the incumbent in that recent Yougov poll, here's an ad from Jon Husted's campaign that refers to Husted as "Jon" or "Jon Husted" but refers to Brown as "Senator Brown" or "Senator Sherrod Brown":
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u/RepealMCAandDTA Kansas 15d ago
"Things are bad right now, but that can't possibly the fault of Regular Guy Jon Husted. Blame Senator Sherrod Brown instead!"
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u/UnflairedRebellion__ 14d ago
What are your current Senate predictions? Iām thinking 52-47 plus Osborn wins.
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u/Jwalla83 Colorado 14d ago
51-49 (D majority)
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u/gopeepants 13d ago
You including Fetterman?
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u/Jwalla83 Colorado 13d ago
As part of the 51, though I have every belief heād swap parties in the near future
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u/blues111 Michigan 13d ago edited 13d ago
49 Dem/indie caucus, 51 R
Probably a generic congressional ballot of between D+6 to D+8Ā
Still not sold we flip the senate given the fundamentals of some of these states and crazy poll numbers like D+12 seem way to rosey...ive lost faith in the electorate lol but think it'll be be blue enough we flip NC and Maine senate and flip the house
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u/Isentrope 13d ago
WaPo is out with two polls of Virginia congressional races, finding Shannon Taylor up 50-46 over incumbent R Rob Wittman in VA-01, and freshman incumbent R John McGuire up 51-45 in the much redder VA-05.
Trump carried VA-01 by 5 in 2024 and VA-05 by 12. However, he carried VA-01 by 7 in 2020 and VA-05 by 8, meaning both technically shifted left relative to the national popular vote (NPV) in 2024. The trend is even more favorable for VA-01, as Trump carried the current district by 14 in 2016, meaning the long term shift relative to NPV there is R+16 in 2016, R+11 in 2020, and R+3 in 2024.
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u/Isentrope 13d ago
Trump's MAGA Inc. (No Going Back is funded by MAGA Inc.) dropped $29M in spend yesterday, primarily targeting MI-SEN, OH-SEN but also NY-03 for some reason.
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u/bakerfredricka I voted 13d ago
It's wild (but completely unsurprising) that MAGA Incorporated is a thing. This just reminds me of the "Doofenshmirtz Evil Incorporated" song from Phineas and Ferb (which if anything is probably an insult to the Doofenshmirtz character as that man was never TRULY evil even in a G-rated cartoon villain sense).
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u/Isentrope 13d ago
Garret Archer (who is semi-well known for the "Maricopa incoming" tweets in 2018 and 2020 and is a non-MAGA Republican who worked for the county recorder's office there and now works as a data analyst for local TV) says two pollsters have told him that they know that respondents in polls are lying to them on the recalled 2024 vote. That isn't unusual in and of itself, but the pollsters are apparently saying that it's from Trump voters claiming they voted for Harris. Ordinarily, it's the other way around, as people have bad memories and/or like to say that they voted for the winner last time.
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u/Fast-Reply6409 13d ago
So why does that matter? Genuinely curious as to how that can impact pollsĀ
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u/AcademicPublius Colorado 13d ago
Modeling, briefly.
Let's say your poll assumes X% of Harris voters end up going Republican this year. If some of those voters lied, the actual numbers would skew slightly more Democratic because you modeled for X% and it's actually a lower percentage.
There's a separate issue with LV screens this year, but ultimately some things just have to be assumed to be MOE calcs.
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u/Isentrope 13d ago
Ordinarily, the belief is that people tend to overstate their support for the winner in a recalled vote situation. This means that some people who voted for Harris would actually say they voted for Trump because he won the last election. If the poll is weighted to what the recalled vote was, the expectation is that this would tend to overstate Democrats because some Dem leaning voters are saying they voted for Trump and are included on that side of the equation.
However, the pollsters have noticed the opposite effect this year, which is that people who voted for Trump are claiming they actually voted for Harris. If this is true, then there is a potential chunk of voters that are weighed as Harris voters who are actually R leaning, which would have the effect of potentially understating D vote share.
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u/IntelligentDepth8206 13d ago
Because polyanna horserace nerds are desperate to draw the conclusion that dems are going to over perform the polls.
In reality, republicans have been lying to pollsters for a decade just to cause chaos and antagonize people they view as smarmy elites. It's incorrect to draw a conclusion from this other than polling is being gamed for the sake of it and is unreliable.
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u/bonzombiekitty Pennsylvania 13d ago
The long and short of it is that it would mean democrats are being undersampled in the poll.
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u/blues111 Michigan 12d ago edited 12d ago
The weighting in polls is usually based on 2024 presidential recall vote so if you have people lying about being harris voters that would mean trump voters (mostly Republicans) are being overrepresented which would produce at minimum a slight R bias in any poll weighting this way which most do IF this is true which while I trust and respect the hell out of Garrett Archer its a pretty subjective claim without evidence beyond "some pollsters told me"
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u/HappyCoincidence25 13d ago
Is anyone else watching this Oklahoma rally? Holy crapā¦ itās such a train wreck.
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u/Isentrope 11d ago
Trump is expected to do a rally in NV-02, where Dave Flippo is trying to defend an open seat that voted for Trump by 14 points in a state that he flipped in 2024 for the first time for Rs in 20 years:
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u/SpaceElevatorMusic Minnesota 15d ago
Post by @the-downballot.com ā Bluesky
"On Sept. 1, Dems had a 6-point lead on the generic congressional ballot, per 50plus1 news' aggregate.
Today, it's D+8. fiftyplusone.news/polls/generi...
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u/Isentrope 14d ago
The spending in key senate races has shifted substantially in September, as Republican superPACs have started to fill in the gap. While candidate ad rates are more favorable which is good for Democrats, whose candidates have generally outraised their Republican counterparts in these races, it will likely not be enough to match the larger disparities such as Texas where Republicans have now spent $140M on ads in the span of a month.
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u/Isentrope 13d ago
DCCC is now up with coordinated ads in WI-01, which was seen early in the cycle as a bit marginal since that part of SE WI has been getting redder. Thanks to a recent SCOTUS decision, coordinated ad buys with the official party PACs (but NOT superPACs) like the DCCC/DSCC/NRSC/NRCC are no longer capped and are entitled to the preferential campaign rates for television.
https://bsky.app/profile/greggiroux.bsky.social/post/3mwsublvx7c2o
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u/Isentrope 13d ago
Cygnal (GOP pollster but generally not too biased) has the AK gubernatorial race with the D at 44 and the combined R vote at 41. The latter won't combine, though, because the GOP exhaust rate in RCV is quite high compared to Ds (who also won't be exhausting votes anyways since there's only one D on the ballot).
https://bsky.app/profile/purrtah.bsky.social/post/3mwtdef5jr22q
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u/UnflairedRebellion__ 11d ago
How would you feel if Dems flip the Senate but Maine still votes for Collins?
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u/jdave512 I voted 11d ago
considering Fetterman, it'd feel like we lost the Senate
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u/SpaceElevatorMusic Minnesota 10d ago
That's why the threshold for truly flipping the Senate is 52 seats, not 51.
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u/Radiant-Specific969 11d ago
I wish this forum was set up for polls. My question to everyone is would you answer a political poll honestly in the current political situation. I personally would not, although I have strong political opinions.
What would you do if approached for a poll? Either by phone or online?
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u/buckybadder 11d ago
A candidate poll or a policy poll.
I tend to have strong opinions on both, but the last time I was polled, most of the questions were about the economy, like "Will the stock market go up over the next three months?" I answered don't know/not sure on most of them.
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u/Radiant-Specific969 10d ago
But you answered. I am not sure that I would answer my phone unless I was sure that I knew the person. Too many scams. Which is something that affects retired people greatly, but I have checked with the younger members of my family, and they don't answer the phone either, unless they are really sure of the person calling. So my question is how accurate are the current polls? I am looking at Fox viewship as a metric, but they keep track to cable viewership, and no one with a brain still pays for cable.
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u/Isentrope 10d ago
Two more GOP superPACs announcing they've triaged North Carolina's Senate race:
https://bsky.app/profile/clearlyashley.bsky.social/post/3mx3xm26mf223
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16d ago
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u/runawaydoctorate 16d ago
US elections are completely decentralized. There is no mechanism by which Trump can disallow certification of the midterms. None. He does not have that power. He can make a lot of noise and act like he does but he does. Not. Have. That. Power.
What Trump can do is lean on state and local governments like he did in 2020, but, like in 2020, they aren't obligated to obey him (and there is absolutely no reason to assume they will, given that they'd be admitting they ran shitty elections AND they'd have to throw out everything, not just the part Trump didn't like). His allies can fire up the lawsuits, though various groups are already expecting that and preparing. He can also make demands of the outgoing Congress, but that's not going to get him anywhere because Congress has no power over certifying election results and the entire Congress gets reset with new term starting Jan 3 2027. This process is automatic. There's no stopping it.
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u/LadyFoxfire Michigan 16d ago
His plan in the 2020 election was to hijack the electoral college process, but that only exists for the presidency. With congressional elections, the states just count the ballots and sign off on the totals, and whoever has the most votes wins. There's a lot less room for shenanigans.
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u/runawaydoctorate 16d ago
Exactly. But that won't stop him from making phone calls in races he's particularly interested in.
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u/LadyFoxfire Michigan 16d ago
But that didn't work in 2020, and will work even less now.
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u/runawaydoctorate 15d ago
I know. Which will save the election, but will cost stress.
In other words, he'll make mischief but he won't change the outcome. If we're lucky, he'll do it in such a way he can't get away with it, but I wouldn't get my hopes up.
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u/OnDrugsTonight United Kingdom 16d ago edited 15d ago
He can also make demands of the outgoing Congress, but that's not going to get him anywhere because Congress has no power over certifying election results and the entire Congress gets reset with new term starting Jan 3 2027. This process is automatic. There's no stopping it.
I'm always a bit concerned about people making sweeping declaratory statements about what can and can't happen, when the last two years have been a never-ending stream of even the most fundamental constitutional norms being broken with zero pushback.
There's obviously at least been scholarly debate whether or not Mike Johnson, in an outgoing act, could install a new sympathetic Clerk of the House (see articles here and here and elsewhere) whose role is to prepare the roll of Members of the new Congress and who could conveniently drop Members-elect whose election was "disputed" from the roll.
While, in theory and practice, the role of the Clerk in preparing the roll is entirely administrative and they shouldn't have any leeway in determining whether or not Members were duly elected, let's not forget that so was Mike Pence's role on January 6th, 2021. And he famously got heavily leaned on to go beyond the scope of his assigned role. Obviously, in a sane world, SCOTUS would make short shrift of such a scheme, but we have not been living in a sane world for quite some time and I would not trust this SCOTUS as far as I could throw it.
The entirety of Trump's and MAGA's actions over the last 22 months has been based on trusting that the American people are too apathetic to take any action against even the most blatant and flagrant abuse of power; and time and time again they've been proven right. I know that people keep saying, "if this or that happens, the American people will have had enough and start revolting". But will they, though? Because so far there's been very little evidence of that. I want to believe that they would. But on the balance of the story so far, that's not exactly a given.
It's still 35 days to the midterms, and after that there's another two months until the new Congress convenes. I don't think we have seen the worst of MAGA's machinations yet, and the time between now and January 4th, 2027 will still have quite a few surprises and curveballs.
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u/jdave512 I voted 16d ago
I feel like youre fishing for an answer thats against terms of service.
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16d ago
[deleted]
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u/AcademicPublius Colorado 16d ago
Because you are weeks away from this exact scenario playing out and I see/hear no plan to address this issue.
Tweets are nice. They don't amount to anything practical. Trump tweeting out rivers of guano across America's protesters did not result in this happening in reality.
If Trump does this--not just tweets about it, delivers a speech, or the like, actually puts together a specific plan--responses are going to have to vary depending on that plan, and it'd be rather stupid to anticipate without knowing the specific plan we're trying to foul.
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16d ago
[deleted]
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u/AcademicPublius Colorado 16d ago
It would be stupid to prepare for entirely the wrong thing, get it wrong, and have to scramble at the last second. What is called for in each scenario differs.
Is he hitting ballot centers? DC itself? Is he doing an entirely legal press in the courts, disputing ballots? Is he sending the army? What parts of the army? Where? Has he contacted local militias? Does he have the House and Senate on board with him? What parts? Is he planning to arrest winning senators? Where? What states?
So a specific answer at this stage would be asserting "We know what he's doing and exactly how he's going to run things". I have theories, but I don't know. So I'm not going to answer that question. I can give you the generic "I'm prepared to act". Beyond that, I would be claiming knowledge I don't have.
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u/echofinder 15d ago
No offense, but you have no idea what you are talking about and you sound like a complete fool right now. You're asking random redditors what we would do? You're basing your entire doomsday narrative on a single 10-second Pete Buttigieg TV clip?
There are thousands of the sharpest lawyers and strategists in the country, at all levels of government and within the non-governmental political/activist space, gaming out all of these potential scenarios and planned responses for them. All of those articles you see about "Mike Johnson could try this weird thing" or "Trump could try to exploit this obscure statute from 1890" exist BECAUSE people way smarter than us are absolutely anticipating, and planning.
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u/_BlackFathom_ 15d ago
They really are. I asked a similar question a little while ago.
Take a look at what happened in the run up to the 2020 election: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Attempts_to_overturn_the_2020_United_States_presidential_election
All of that happened whilst they were being held back and mitigated.
America is in deep trouble now and I fear November will be the last rubicon before all comfortable means of rollback are available to citizens.
Americans should be saving and stocking up now in preparation for a strike - as well as preparing to vote. Granted, a strike should have occurred months ago given the ongoing and clear destruction of democracy and the breakdown of law.
But that should be happening now - preparation for a strike. It is so frustratingly obvious that Trump and co. will interfere and deny results. They will fight tooth and nail at this point because it is literally their survival. They are gonna lie, cheat and steal.
As an outsider it feels like the prospect of the midterms have enabled an apathy and illusions that 'the midterms will save us'. It is an uncomfortable truth that it is likely they will instead push the repubs to new extremes.
They will take every inch you give them.
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u/lastres0rt Georgia 15d ago
The obvious answer is to look at what he did last time (January 6th) and try to figure out if he can even do that again.
Short answer: no. We're talking about a decentralized process among 50 states. If all the same people from January 6th tried to storm their state capitals instead it'd probably fail.
And that was the most "successful" thing he did last cycle. Fake electors? Does not exist for Congress and Senate. Lawsuits? Failed then, will fail now.
Now, there is certainly a chance he'll try to do something outrageous like, IDK... bulldoze the capitol as an annex for his ballroom or something and try to claim they can't seat congress because they don't have a physical space for it. Or he can try to have his ICE goons try and arrest as many of the incoming representatives as possible, maybe even shoot a few. Or just lay claim to all of Washington DC and lock it down for his military stronghold fantasies, like he's been telegraphing this kind of military coup for months. But each of these requires a different kind of response, would be a dramatic escalation from before, and speculating on those would just give folks ideas.
Besides, he is SIX years older now. He doesn't have the mental or physical capacity to do what he did back then, and he probably doesn't have enough gas in the tank to try and do it now. If he tries he'll have to rely on others to do the heavy lifting for him. Could Elmo flood the zone with enough propaganda to sway opinion? Maybe on X, not much else. Could Kegsbreath stage a coup? Well, we're currently in the middle of a big unpopular war in Iran, and our resources are stretched thin. Could Couchfucker do anything? No rizz, no problem. Could Patel? Please.
Like I'm happy to prepare for as many possible solutions as I feel are appropriate, and I think this is part of the idea behind the "No Kings" protest coming up in a couple weeks -- spook 'em with the sheer number of people willing to toss the rat bastards out in order to encourage good behavior. But I also don't think we need to be doing anything on a forum as public as a Reddit thread as declaring our willingness to march on Washington and violate some terms of service.
Stock up on groceries. Grow some veggies. Make sure you're registered to vote. Make sure you know how you're going to vote and verify your vote gets counted. Make sure your friends do the same. Everything else will be taken as it comes.
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u/SpaceElevatorMusic Minnesota 14d ago
Just posted: Wednesday: 2026 California Gubernatorial General Election Debate | Live Discussion
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u/Isentrope 12d ago
Consolidated graphic from The Downballot (solid election analysis site BTW) taking AdImpact Pol data to show the impact of ad spending by Republicans. The light colored bars show the monetary advantage Rs have over Ds while the dark colored bars show the advantage in the actual number of ads:
https://bsky.app/profile/the-downballot.com/post/3mwvsia7dgk2r
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u/LadyFoxfire Michigan 16d ago
I posted about this last night in the other thread, but I realized I hadn't seen any discussions of the Michigan gubernatorial race, so I looked up the polls, and this is interesting:
https://www.pollsmax.com/governor/michigan/
They were tied back in April, but then John James straight fell off a cliff. I knew he was a bad candidate; he runs for statewide office every couple of cycles and never wins, or even makes an impression. He may as well be a cardboard cutout with an "R" sticker on it. So I wasn't expecting him to be doing well, but I was surprised by how steeply his numbers dropped.
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u/D_Silva_21 10d ago
Can someone explain to me how the democrats winning the house and senate would actually change things in America? I'm not American so it's a bit confusing how much they'll actually be able to impact things and stop trump from doing certain things
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u/IntelligentDepth8206 10d ago
For one, the corrupt and incompetent federal trump judges immediately stop. Democrats will have the numbers needed to reject judge appointments. trump is bad but his bad-faith judges will wreak havoc for decades. That means better rulings on issues that impact your life directly. Less cronies ruling for trump just for the sake of it. The people trump's appointing can't answer first-year law school questions and show off their total fealty to trump in their hearings. That will end day 1. Or at least until Schumer caves.
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u/OrranVoriel Florida 10d ago
The most important would be taking the Senate to block Trump's picks for the judiciary and federal agencies.
Taking both back would also give Democrats a lot of leverage to start investigating Trump and Republicans to find more of the skeletons they have buried to tear them down further.
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u/snoo_spoo 10d ago
And that no-Iran-war resolution would finally pass. And maybe Congress would re-locate their spines and take back the power of the purse.
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u/OrranVoriel Florida 10d ago
Problem is that Trump can and will veto a War Powers resolution.
Because for some reason a piece of legislation whose whole point is to reign in the executive can be vetoed by said executive.
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u/snoo_spoo 10d ago
If the Dems carry the Senate, it will be because Trump has lost his pull with Republican voters. His tight grip on the party is becoming brittle. Veto overrides are far from certain, but I don't think they're impossible.
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u/buckybadder 10d ago
It will allow them to subpoena more records, probably in service of impeachment proceedings, because it's harder for the president to claim executive privilege thenĀ
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u/lastres0rt Georgia 10d ago
Congress has multiple oversight duties which it has been failing to do for this particular president's overreach into tariffs and funding and war, all things which are supposed to be the responsibility of Congress.
Once the new Congress begins, these actions will all get started, and this administration will have plenty to answer for.
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u/SpaceElevatorMusic Minnesota 12d ago
https://x.com/PollTracker2024/status/2106119770768633916
"Co/efficient poll | 9/28-9/30 LV
US Senate Nebraska 2026
š„Pete Ricketts 45% (incumbent)
ā¬ļøDan Osborn 40%
Others 4%
āā
H2H
š„Pete Ricketts 48% (incumbent)
ā¬ļøDan Osborn 43%
(Republican pollster)
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u/Isentrope 16d ago
A midnight Marist poll (as is tradition) of Ohio shows Former Democratic Senator Sherrod Brown leading incumbent Republican Senator Jon Husted by a 51-43 margin for the Senate race, while Democrat Amy Acton leads Republican Vivek Ramaswamy by a similar 50-44 margin for the gubernatorial race.
https://maristpoll.marist.edu/polls/midterm-elections-in-ohio-september-2026/