2017 congressional races

Last night, we tried explaining why we think Jon Ossoff is a good choice for progressives... in if he isn't a clone of Elizabeth Warren or Pramila Jayapal. After all, that's not how politics works. Ossoff is progressive enough and the effect on Trump's legislative agenda if he beats Karen Handel in GA-06 on June 20 is something every progressive should be focused on. (And, no, if Ossoff were a Blue Dog or New Dem, I would not have written that and Blue America would not have endorsed him.

Grayson had a clear vision about this. Watch the clip; it'll answer all your questions about makes someone a Democrat worth supporting. (And yes, he endorsed Jon Ossoff and has been raising money for him from his own supporters.)The vetting process for Jon Ossoff was shorter than normal for a Blue America candidate. I never met him in person and spent a couple of hours on the phone with him over 3 calls. He wrote a guest post for DWT. He checked out OK. And, no he wasn't going to be the next Pramila Jayapal, Alan Grayson, Ted Lieu, Elizabeth Warren or Raul Grijalva.

That was thenWhen 30 year old Jon Ossoff first jumped into the race, no one knew who he was and pundits were speculating that the GA-06 jungle primary would probably lead to two Republicans facing off in the June runoff. Instead, despite millions of dollars in negative campaign ads paid for by Paul Ryan's superPAC, Ossoff came in first-- by a mile, 92,390 (48.1%) to former Secretary of State Karen Handel's 37,993 (19.8%).

Trumpist candidate Bruce LeVell fails to get past 0.2%. Sad!GA-06 is the best educated district held by a Republican congressman in the whole country. They don't like Trump there. But instead of keeping a low profile, Trump was blithely tweeting away this morning and even did an attack ad robo-call, making it clear to everyone that the contest today was a referendum on Trump. Turnout was very high-- over a third of registered voters.

Trump stumbles into making the GA-06 special today all about himAccording to Alan Grayson today is "a great day for a Trump train wreck...

Last night James Thompson, a progressive Democrat ignored-- as progressive Democrats tend to be-- by the DCCC and the rest of the corrupted Democratic DC Establishment, came close to winning a congressional seat in a beet red Kansas district. Had the DCCC helped fund Thompson's race, he would likely have won-- as he did in Sedgwick County, the biggest county in the district. Many Democratic activists are excited because-- with no establishment help at all-- Thompson closed the gap since November from Trump's 27 point win over Hillary to just 7 points.

OK, fellas, YOUR election is over, so... what about ours now?-by Alice MarshallI knew there was popular mobilization like no other time in my life, but I did not realize how great it was until I saw this comment at Daily Kos: "Organization is also a bottom-up thing starting with organizing at the precinct and county level.

Debra Spector presents Jimmy Gomez with Planned Parenthood's Champion of Choice awardPlanned Parenthood was never an unhinged group of self-serving profiteers the way EMILY's List is, but many women candidates expect to be endorsed by an organization with Planned Parenthood's stated objectives, which are, after all, focused primarily towards making the lives of women better.

Governors are setting the dates for special congressional elections to replace congressmen who have been drafted for other jobs. Most of them are to replace Members who are joining Team Trump but the first contest-- April 4-- is in L.A., where one of the deepest blue districts in the whole country (Trump only got 10.7% of the vote there) will select a replacement for Xavier Becerra, who was tapped by Gov.

Jimmy Gomez is a young guy from my neighborhood. When Xavier Becerra was appointed by Jerry Brown to become California Attorney General-- filling the vacancy created by Kamala Harris' election to the Senate last month-- my first thought was to wonder if Jimmy could be persuaded to run for the congressional seat. It's a deep blue seat and there's no Republican who could ever compete there. Obama got 83% of the vote in 2012. So it is going to be a campaign about who who would be the best Democratic candidate, the one with the best proven vision for the job.