2025-2026 election thread for Senate, House, State and cities

[weatheriscool]

[weatheriscool]

[weatheriscool]

Democrats raise millions for Florida special elections in Trump territory

Source: NBC News

March 21, 2025, 10:45 AM EDT

The Democrats running in a pair of April 1 special elections for deeply Republican House districts in Florida have raised a whopping $15.7 million combined in two months, but they still face steep uphill climbs in the upcoming campaigns.

Gay Valimont, a gun control activist who is running in Florida’s 1st Congressional District, raised nearly $6.4 million from Jan. 9 to March 12, five times more than Republican Jimmy Patronis, Florida's chief financial officer, according to new fundraising reports filed Thursday with the Federal Election Commission. And Josh Weil, a teacher running in the 6th District, raised $9.3 million, a haul more than 16 times larger than Republican state Sen. Randy Fine.

The massive sums suggest the energy among grassroots Democratic donors has not dissipated with President Donald Trump back in the Oval Office — 75% of both Valimont and Weil’s hauls were from donations of $200 or less. But while the candidates' fundraising is strong, the underlying political math of the districts is extremely GOP-friendly.

Trump carried the 1st District on the Florida Panhandle by 37 percentage points in November, winning 68% of the vote, according to election results data from NBC News’ Decision Desk. And he won the 6th District by 30 points, winning 65% of the vote.

Read more: https://www.nbcnews.com/politics/electi ... rcna197311

[firestar464]

Georgia Democratic Sen. Jon Ossoff vows defiance to Trump ahead of 2026 election

https://abcnews.go.com/US/wireStory/geo ... -120063485

“This is why things don’t work for ordinary people,” Ossoff said. “It’s not because of trans kids or woke college students or because our new archenemy, Canada. The corruption is why you pay a fortune for prescriptions. The corruption is why your insurance claim keeps getting denied. The corruption is why hedge funds get to buy up all the houses in your neighborhood.”

Spot on. Talk about the economy as well next time

Thomas McCormick, who drove 140 miles to Atlanta from the central Georgia town of Dublin, said he’s not seeing any effective opposition from Democrats, with the possible exception of Connecticut Sen. Chris Murphy. He expressed disgust with Saturday’s event and mused about supporting a third party, saying that Democrats can’t wait until 2026, likening the impact of Trump’s work so far to the explosion of the Hindenburg airship in 1937.

“That’s two years, that’s two years of damage,” McCormick said, as strains of “Macarena” echoed through the hall before the rally began. “I have been on the left side of politics my whole life. This is the best I’ve got?”

Dude, what DO you want? Some sort of millenarian socialist revolution?

[weatheriscool]

https://thehill.com/homenews/campaign/5 ... r-wins-pa/

Democrat wins Pennsylvania special election, handing party control of state House

Democrat Dan Goughnour has won the open Pennsylvania state House seat left vacated by the death of the most recent officeholder, restoring Democrats’ narrow majority in the body, Decision Desk HQ projects.

Goughnour, who is a member of the McKeesport school board and a police officer, will win over Republican Chuck Davis, the president of the White Oak Borough Council. The result is not a surprise in the Democratic-leaning House District 35, which voted for former Vice President Harris in November with about 58 percent of the vote.

The seat has been vacant since January, when the late Rep. Matt Gergely (D) died in office. He had first been elected to the state House in 2023 in a special election to succeed now-Lt. Gov. Austin Davis (D) and was reelected to a full term in November without opposition.

Gergely’s death reduced the Democrats’ 102-101 majority down to an even split with the Republicans, but Goughnour’s victory will return the body to the composition it had. Democrats won that majority in the state House for the first time in a decade in 2022 and kept it exactly intact in November.

[caltrek]

The Democrats Are Losing the Social Media Wars. This Young Socialist Is Changing That.
by Mark Chiusano
March 22, 2025

Introduction:

(Politico) One frigid night in February, a Brooklyn comedy club is packed and buzzing. The usual pleasure-seekers with beanies, scattered facemasks and tech-adjacent professions. The usual jokes about polycules and all genders being equivalently attractive — male, female and Italian. (Don’t think too hard about it.)

But here comes the headliner with a bit you don’t usually hear in a casual place like this: “This morning, the City of New York wired our campaign $2.8 million in matching funds.”

It’s Zohran Mamdani, the 33-year-old democratic socialist and upstart NYC mayoral candidate who is comfortable taking stages stuffier politicians wouldn’t.

Additional extract:

He beat the whole Democratic primary field in his first filing period and now boasts a race-leading 17,000-plus contributors, translating into those millions in matching funds. And some recent polling even has him in second place in the crowded field of 11-plus candidates — behind only former New York Gov. Andrew Cuomo, a dynastic politician who is the prohibitive favorite to win the Democratic primary in June.

Read more here: https://www.politico.com/news/magazine ... -00225213

[firestar464]

SC congressman likely to join governor’s race, sees this as only opportunity

https://scdailygazette.com/2025/03/26/s ... portunity/

[weatheriscool]

[weatheriscool]

5 reasons all eyes are on Tuesday's elections in Florida and Wisconsin - Politico

Voters will head to the polls Tuesday in Wisconsin and Florida to decide two House seats and a state Supreme Court seat, races that have attracted immense spending and will be bellwether’s for the country’s political pulse in 2025.

With that in mind, Score is looking at a few key themes to decipher what tomorrow’s elections mean — and what they don’t — heading into the rest of the year.

The Musk effect
Elon Musk has played a key role in the Wisconsin Supreme Court race between liberal candidate Susan Crawford and conservative candidate Brad Schimel — both as a target for Democrats in campaign ads and as a heavy financial backer for Republicans.

Which of those two will resonate more with voters? Tuesday may provide some answers.

Musk ramped up his efforts in Wisconsin in the final days — and also threw some cash behind Florida’s special election — as Republicans have faced a string of special election losses, including a shocker in Pennsylvania last week.

https://www.politico.com/news/2025/04/0 ... s-00260274

[weatheriscool]

[weatheriscool]

[caltrek]

Why Wisconsin’s Turnout Suggests Serious Trouble for the GOP
by Jessica Piper and Elena Schneider
April 2, 2025

Introduction:

(Politico) Liberal judge Susan Crawford’s win in Wisconsin’s Supreme Court election seemed to be the latest in a string of Democratic overperformances since Donald Trump took office. But one factor actually distinguished the Wisconsin race from the rest: relatively high turnout.

A POLITICO analysis of Tuesday’s preliminary results suggests Democrats maintained a turnout advantage even in the high-profile race, with Elon Musk’s millions not enough to compel Republicans to the polls in as great numbers in a spring election. But troublingly for the GOP, voting levels were actually relatively close to a midterm, suggesting a favorable electorate for Democrats heading into 2026.

Unlike the special elections where Democrats have already posted major upsets this year, the Wisconsin Supreme Court race was not a low-turnout affair. In two Florida special elections also held on Tuesday, where Democrats overperformed the presidential results by roughly 16 and 22 points but still lost deep-red seats, turnout was well under half of November 2024 levels.

But in Wisconsin — where Crawford ran roughly 10 points ahead of Vice President Kamala Harris’s performance in the state — nearly 70 percent as many ballots were cast in Tuesday’s election as in November. Turnout in Tuesday’s election was closer to the 2022 midterm than the 2023 Wisconsin Supreme Court election, which similarly took place in April and resulted in a 10-point win by the liberal candidate.

“Even though Republicans are losing on percentage terms, it does look like their mobilization did succeed, but it's just that it turned out more Democratic voters,” said Charles Franklin, who leads the Marquette University Law School poll of the state. “Republicans did boost lower-propensity Republicans and got a higher turnout than normal, but those higher-propensity Democrats are turning out at a higher rate.”

Read more here: https://www.msn.com/en-us/news/politic ... &ei=105

[caltrek]

GOP Suffers Blow as Democrats Flip Seat
by James Edwards
March, 2025

Entire article:

(Benzinga via MSN) Democrat James Malone has claimed victory in Pennsylvania’s 36th state Senate district, flipping a seat previously held by Republicans. The district, comfortably carried by President Donald Trump in 2024, has seen an unexpected shift in a major upset for the GOP. Governor Josh Shapiro (D-PA) praised Malone’s win, claiming it represents a rejection of divisive politics and a turn toward collaboration.

Source: https://www.msn.com/en-us/news/politic ... image=1

[caltrek]

^^^ I have to admit, Susan Collins has become more genuinely independent with some of her more recent votes. I also didn't realize that she had supported Obama care.

What I came here to post:

Dan Osborn, an Independent U.S. Senate Candidate in Nebraska, Considering Another Run
by Eloise Goldsmith
April 3, 2025

Introduction:

(Common Dreams) Dan Osborn, an Independent U.S. Senate candidate who struck a chord with working-class voters in Nebraska and came within striking distance of unseating his Republican opponent last year, announced Thursday that he's considering another run, this time challenging GOP Sen. Pete GOP Ricketts, who is up for election in 2026.

"We could replace a billionaire with a mechanic," Osborn wrote in a thread on X on Thursday. "I'll run against Pete Ricketts—if the support is there." Osborn said that he's launching an exploratory committee and would run as Independent, as he did in 2024.

Ricketts has served as a senator since 2023, and prior to that was the governor of Nebraska from 2015-2023. By one estimate, Ricketts has a net worth of over $165 million—though the wealth of his father, brokerage founder Joe Ricketts, and family is estimated to be worth $4.1 billion, according to Forbes.

A mechanic and unionist who helped lead a strike against Kellogg's cereal company, Osborn lost to Sen. Deb Fischer (R-Neb.) by less than 7 points in November 2024 in what became an unexpectedly close race.

Although he didn't win, he overperformed the national Democratic ticket by a higher percentage than other candidates running against Republicans in competitive Senate races, according to The Nation.

Read more here: https://www.commondreams.org/news/dan- ... -ricketts

[caltrek]

[weatheriscool]

NJ-GOV: Progressive coalition endorses Baraka (D) for governor

A coalition of a half-dozen major progressive groups in the state endorsed Newark Mayor Ras Baraka for governor on Thursday, according to a release.

Leaders from Rutgers AAUP-AFT, 32BJ SEIU, New Jersey Citizen Action, Make the Road Action New Jersey, New Jersey Working Families Party, and Workers United LDFS Joint Board said the progressive mayor is the best candidate to support working families and bring meaningful change to Trenton. The endorsements further solidify Baraka’s standing within the party’s progressive wing as six Democrats jostle for the nomination to succeed term-limited Gov. Phil Murphy.

“New Jerseyans face a grave affordability crisis, with health care, utility, and in particular housing costs continuing to spiral out of control,” said Dena Mottola Jaborska, the executive director for New Jersey Citizen Action. “Ras Baraka stands as the best choice from a field of talented candidates to address this crisis.”

The groups will hold a rally with Baraka on Monday, according to the release. Further details have not yet been released.

https://newjerseyglobe.com/campaigns/pr ... -governor/

[weatheriscool]

CO-GOV: Senator Michael Bennet of Colorado Will Run for Governor

Senator Michael Bennet, Democrat of Colorado, is planning to announce on Friday that he will run for governor next year, according to two people with knowledge of his plans.

The move by Mr. Bennet, who has served in the Senate since 2009 and ran for president in 2020, makes him the latest Democratic senator to plan to move on from Congress. He is not up for re-election in the Senate until 2028, meaning he can keep his seat as he pursues the governor’s mansion. Axios earlier reported Mr. Bennet’s planned move.

Gov. Jared Polis, a Democrat who has led the state since 2019, cannot run for re-election because of term limits. Colorado has not elected a Republican governor since 2002, making Mr. Bennet a strong contender to be the next chief executive of the state.

But first, he will face Phil Weiser, the state’s Democratic attorney general, who has already announced a bid. Mr. Weiser has emerged as a high-profile opponent of the Trump administration in recent months, joining with other state attorneys general to file lawsuits over a series of policies and executive orders.

https://www.nytimes.com/2025/04/10/us/p ... orado.html

[weatheriscool]

[weatheriscool]

[firestar464]

More on that by the AP:

https://apnews.com/article/oakland-cali ... fcba6aaad1

Really? Fox?