state legislatures

This is how they get away with this kind of thingMichigan had a blue wave last month. The Republicans ran conservative businessman and combat veteran John James against mediocre Democratic Senate incumbent Debbie Stabenow. She beat him 2,214,478 (52.3%) to 1,938,818 (45.8%).

Wisconsin had an anti-red wave last month, but no one has told the Republican state legislature. Democrats ousted Republicans Scott Walker and Rebecca Kleefisch and elected Tony Evers and Mandela Barnes as governor and lieutenant governor, reelected Tammy Baldwin to the U.S.

All cycle long I've been marveling at how much more effective the DLCC-- the Democratic Legislative Campaign Committee-- is that the DCCC, the DSCC or the DNC. They seemed to be able to win races and without all the typical bullshit and lies from the other committees. Well... that just ended.

Johnson (R) and Glenn (D)Owensboro, the 4th largest city in Kentucky, is the county seat of Daviess County. Ownesboro and Bowling Green are the two main population centers of KY-02, Brett Guthrie’s congressional district, a safe red district that went 67.5% to 27.6% for Trump in 2016. Daviess County was slightly less red— Hillary actually going all the way to 31%. In the presidential primary, Daviess was Bernie Country.

Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez beat Joe Crowley again last nightThe NY Times defines what happened as a wave. It didn't feel like a wave to me last night-- not with Beto, @IronStache, Andrew Gillum and Stacey Abrams losing-- not to mention all those Senate races. But the Democrats did take back the House-- pretty substantially, and appear to have defeated Putin's favorite congressman, Dana Rohrabacher.

On Sunday, DWT went out on a limb-- not just making a random prediction about how many seats would flip red to blue but doing what so few pundits ever do-- predicting which seats would flip.

Florida's 23rd state Senate district includes all of Sarasota County and coastal Charlotte County. It's 91.6% white, very red. Trump beat Hillary here 55.26% to 40.86%. This year one part of the district went through a widely publicized GOP lunatic episode/political scandal that shook up the whole area. Florida Republicans expected their candidate, Joe Gruters, to waltz into the Senate.

This cycle, Democrats have grown used to winning special elections deep in red territory, as big anti-Trump Democratic turn-out surged to overwhelm demoralized and disgusted Republicans.

In May we profiled two candidates in California's 15th Assembly District, which includes parts of Berkeley, Richmond, Oakland, Albany, Emeryville, Piedmont, El Cerrito, Pinole, El Sobrante, Hercules and Kensington. The demographics: 39.40% White, 27.1% Latino, 19.9% Asian and 16.31% Black.

Trumpist Melissa Howard with her fake diploma and a woman she says is her motherFlorida House District 73 is very red-- and very white. The eastern Sarasota and eastern Manatee counties district is 90% white. It elects Republicans. In 2016, Republican Joe Gruters, co-chairman of Trumpanzee’s Florida campaign, beat Democrat Jim Golden 68,343 (65%) to 36,678 (35%).