WI-01

We started DWT a dozen years ago... the spring of 2005. Back then we used to do one post a day. But that only lasted a few months and since then we haven't had a day with just one post in over a decade-- not while I was in a jeep driving around the trackless wastes of Mali on the way to Timbuktu nor while I was laying in a hospital bed (blogging while I was drugged up and attached to industrial speed machinery), getting an experimental full stem cell transplant, and irrespective how big and crucial any one news story ever was. But rules are made to be broken.

Someone needs to explain to Señor Trumpanzee what "exonerated" and "vindicated" mean. No matter where you woke up Friday-- red state, blue state, purple state, there were no newspaper headlines talking about vindication. They were all talking about how we're saddled with a compulsive, manipulative liar in the White House.

Tuesday night Jimmy Gomez became the first Democrat to win a House seat since Trump was elected president. He won pretty overwhelmingly-- 60-40%-- in a deep blue Los Angeles district. Generally Republicans don't even try in districts like CA-34. The jungle primary, in fact, resulted in 2 candidates with "D" next to their names facing off this week in the general election.

NC-03-- the Outer Banks and most of the state's coastal plain from the Virginia border south of Norfolk down past New Bern and Jacksonville. It's a very red district, R+11, and Walter Jones has been congressman there since 1994 (a year after he switched from Democrat to Republican). Romney beat Obama there, 59% to 41% and Trump did even better-- 60.5% to 36.9%-- last year. Jones did even better-- beating Democrat Ernest Reeves 67.2% to 32.8%.Jones is a principled, libertarian-leaning social conservative. He votes for progressive legislation quite a lot.

How can Democrats not CRUSH someone who voters describe this way?The American Prospect published an excellent series of essays this week that should have been published by the DNC, DSCC and DCCC, three hopeless organizations refusing to pull their collective virtual heads out of their asses after a decade of letting down the American people while they concentrate of the mostly worthless careers of their o

I've never been a big fan of Nate Silver's or his brand of research. But sometimes-- like this time-- he hits the nail right on the head. His point last week is that conventional wisdom about the solidity of Trump's core support is incorrect and that Trump's base is already looking shaky and starting to shrink.

The GOP has worked to denigrate Pelosi for over a decade. Nationally her approval rating is an abysmal 30%-- with 50% disapproving of her. That's godawful! It has made her a liability for many Democratic candidates. But you know who's even more disliked-- and with no set-up by the Democrats? Flimflam Speaker Paul Ryan.

Far right Trump-worshipping crackpot Paul Nehlen wants a rematch. He's challenging Paul Ryan in Ryan's southeast Wisconsin congressional district to a primary battle again. In 2016 Nehlen put up $62,766 of his own and raised another $1,379,852 in a clash with Ryan. Nehlen was the Breitbart candidate and had very vocal support from Sarah Palin, Ann Coulter and Phyllis Schlafly.

There are 16 House Democrats with perfect scores from ProgressivePunch for the current session-- a score of 100. One, Pramila Jayapal (D-WA) is a freshman, which means her lifetime crucial vote score is also 100. The other freshmen with eye-popping great scores are Jamie Raskin (D-MD), Adriano Espaillat (D-NY) and Ro Khanna (D-CA).

The substantial generic 2018 congressional ballot lead Democrats had last month (6%) almost doubled in the latest PPP survey (to 11%). That, unfortunately, has little to do with voters embracing Democrats-- just with them rejecting Republicans-- which is a very different thing.