Senate 2020

Next year, conservative Democrat, Senator Doug Jones (AL) is up for reelection. He is considered the most vulnerable incumbent from either party-- especially if the Republican national and Alabama establishments are able to shoe-horn their favorite candidate, Congressman Bradley Byrne, into the nomination.

BETO by Nancy OhanianChris Cillizza delivers the most superficial and stupidest way to watch the 2020 nomination race on CNN every month. Yesterday, he moved Bernie, Klobuchar and Castro up in his "power ranking," while Sherrod Brown and Kirsten Gillibrand moved down.

BETO!

State Senator Shenna Bellows-- fingers crossedThe 2020 Senate map is better than the 2018 map was-- but not much better. The Democrats really only have one tough seat to defend that they are likely to lose, Alabama (Jones)-- but that's the only good news. The bad news is that most of the Republican seats up for grabs are pretty safe too.

Duluth, Minnesota is a blue city surrounded by 4 blue counties-- Saint Louis, of which it is the county seat, Carlton to the south, and Lake and Cook to the north and east. All 4 counties went for Hillary in 2016, Saint Louis 51.9% to 40.1%. (The 4 counties were Bernie country in primaries.

Congressional caucuses often invite special guest speakers Last week Ted Lieu organized for the House Democrats on the uses of social media, featuring Alexandria Ocasio and a rep from Twitter. It went over so well-- and standing room only-- that they're following up with sessions devoted to effective use of Facebook, Instagram, etc. Smart.

Trump still has a motley collection of apologists-- the Fox News crew, hate talk radio hosts, self-serving politicians, neo-Nazi crackpots and their partners in the white evangelical movement-- but there is no longer anyone with an ounce of intellectual integrity defending Trump or unwilling to admit that he is, far and away, the worst "president" in American history-- off the scale (or on an entirely different scale)

There's no question that even in defeat there is inspiration to be found. Lucy McBath's 50.5% to 49.5%, 3,264 vote win against Karen Handel in Georgia was a happy ending last month-- a tie in Fulton County and a bigger Democratic win in DeKalb than the GOP win in Cobb-- but people who watch politics closely were jumping out of their skin as Carolyn Bourdeaux closed in on Rob Woodall even if her massive win in Gwinnett County fell a tiny bit short of his even more massive win in Forsyth.

Colorado just elected a socially liberal, fiscally conservative Democrat as governor; nothing new there. But he’s also the the first openly-gay man elected governor in any state. Also the richest Democrat in the House— and a member of both the reformist Congressional Progressive Caucus and the Wall Street-owned and operated New Dems. Jared Polis can be almost all things to all people.

Ted Cruz never hesitated or thought twice about his vote for Brett Kavanaugh. He fund-raised off it. It's who he is, who he's always been and will always be. Yesterday, after the 50-48 vote roll call, Beto send a note to Texas voters saying, clearly: "Today, the Senate voted on the nomination of Brett Kavanaugh to the U.S. Supreme Court. If I were in the Senate, I would have voted no.