2018 congressional races

Emilio Huerta and his very special mother, Dolores HuertaI'm pretty sure David Valadao is, by the numbers, the most endangered incumbent running for reelection this year. His Central Valley district, CA-21, stretches from the suburbs south of Fresno, through Hanford and Corcoran, Coalinga and Delano down to the east side of Bakersfield. The district is over 72% Latino and Obama won it with 52% in 2008 and with 55% in 2012.

Last month we met Ellen Lipton a candidate for the open congressional seat in the Oakland and Macomb county suburbs north of Detroit.

Tuesday is primary day in Texas. The most closely followed races are in TX-07 (Houston), TX-32 (Dallas), TX-23 (Rio Grande Valley), and TX-21 (Austin-San Antonio), races that are considered flippable in November.

In 2014 the Center for Responsive Politics analyzed the personal financial disclosure data from 2012 of the 534 then-current members of Congress and found that, for the first time, more than half had an average net worth of $1 million or more: 268 to be exact, up from 257 the year earlier. All those rich people... do they understand what most Americans go through? Can they even begin to understand?

Last cycle, the two biggest self-funders looking to buy House seats were David Trone in Maryland, who spent a phenomenal $13,414,225 of his own and took 35,400 votes (27.1%) in his primary, and Randy Perkins in Florida who spent $10,127,029 of his own and then lost to a Republican, by over 10 points 53.6% to 43.1%. The only million dollar Democratic self-funder who won in 2016 was Vicente Gonzalez, a real sleaze from south Texas, who spent $1,850,000 of his own dough.

Let's replace Trump & Ryan-- but not by empowering garbage like Steny HoyerAs the leader of the House Dems, Pelosi didn't really have much of a choice-- unless she wanted to cause a rift in the Democratic House caucus-- but to publicly back Lipinski... and she did.

A photo that probably won't help Grimm much anymoreBy asking the question Where are Staten Island's congressional race donations coming from? Staten Island Live is making a civic contribution media outlets should follow everywhere.

Carl Hulse in the NY Times yesterday: "Here’s how significant things don’t get done in Washington even in a moment of crisis and opportunity. The president throws out a hodgepodge of ideas but refuses to put his full weight behind any of them.

Later Kirkpatrick changed almost all her answersWhen a candidate for office has no core values other than their own craven careerism, they'll flip-flop all over the griddle like a fish out of water. Ann Kirkpatrick is one of the worst candidates running for election anywhere in the country. At the urging of the DCCC, EMILY's List and the New Dems, she migrated down to Tucson from Flagstaff to run in the now-open second congressional district.