special elections

Today's the day. A quarter million people have already voted in Montana but whatever analysis of that available shows that neither side has any advantage so far in the early voting. [For comparison's sake-- even if it's an apples-to-oranges comparison-- the June 6 special election in CA-34 has had 14,820 early votes and the expected total for the entire race is between 40 and 45,000.] This is going to be close and it's totally about getting out the vote. So, if you're in Montana, or you know anyone in Montana...

A new poll of GA-06 voters is a dire warning to congressional Republicans. Paul Ryan's SuperPAC has put more money into the campaign on behalf of Karen Handel than any outside group has ever spent on any congressional race in history. And those millions and millions of dollars appear to have been wasted as Jon Ossoff has pulled ahead:

Rob Quist is way too independent-minded and too dedicated to values and principles for the hacks at the DCCC to get too worked up over his race in Montana. Besides, it goes against their forever backward-looking modus operandi to contest Monatana too strongly. They only want to fight in districts where Hillary beat or did very well against Trump.

House Republicans had a tough choice Thursday when Ryan and Trump forced a vote on the phenomenally unpopular and destructive TrumpCare legislation. If members voted NO, they could be in trouble with the hardcore Republicans back home who have been brainwashed by Hate Talk Radio and Fox News and who insisted on a repeal no matter the consequences. That kind of trouble could lead to a primary from the right.

Handel was smart enough to prevent any photos with the toxic Trump but... this happenedIn 2000 the Democratic grassroots was hot to get revenge on House Republicans for impeaching Bill Clinton. One obvious strategy was to target the 13 House Republicans from the Judiciary Committee who served as "managers" (prosecutors) during the process. But most of them were not really good targets.

Bad for American working familiesAs we mentioned recently, the runner-up in the special election primary for CA-34 is wealthy "ex"-Republican opportunist Robert Lee Ahn.

Paul Ryan's SuperPAC, the Congressional Leadership Fund, has continued spending immense sums of money to prop up weak Republican candidates. Ryan spent millions on ineffective, counterproductive attack ads in GA-06 even before the GOP had a candidate, spent several hundred thousand dollars in KS-04 and is rapidly approaching the million dollar mark in Montana.

There is a trend developing in this election cycle, and it has the potential to fundamentally redefine the nature of politics in the Trump era.In February, a Delaware special election that would determine which party controlled the state Senate was heavily targeted by both parties and expected to be very close, despite being a district that the Democrats only won 51-49 in 2014.

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.

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%).