2014 gubernatorial races

New York State has 62 counties. A majority of voters in only 16 of them backed Andrew Cuomo's reelection as governor last week. He beat Republican Rob Astorino 1,919,225 (53.96%) to 1,443,713 (40.59%)-- with 173,606 votes (4.88%) for Green Party candidate Howie Hawkins.In September Cuomo spent $60.62 per voter to win a 62-35% victory over staunchly progressive icon, Zephyr Teachout, who managed to win 30 counties, several-- like Ulster, Sullivan, Columbia, Schoharie, Saratoga, Otsego, and Tompkins-- with over two thirds of the vote.

Mark Pocan was elected to Congress from Madison, Wisconsin when Tammy Baldwin went on to the U.S. Senate. He beat his Republican rival 265,422 (68%) to 124,683 (32%). Since being elected he's had the best lifetime ProgressivePunch crucial vote score of any Member of Congress, 98.68. With George Miller retiring, Pocan is generally viewed as organized labor's go-to guy in Congress.

Scott Walker family portraitTwo of the worst governors in America are extremist ideologues Scott Walker of Wisconsin and San Brownback of Kansas. Both will face the voters a week from tomorrow. Both are being opposed by moderate Democrats, rather than by the kinds of progressives Blue America endorses.

Now that the Republican primary is over, Scott Brown is trying to present himself to New Hampshire voters as more moderate and more mainstream than his record shows he is— particularly on issues important to women voters (and to men who like and respect women). Brown has been lying, claiming he has always supported women having the ability to get contraception easily.

Looks like Sykes won't endorse Rick Scott after all, but he did switch partiesSouthern Democrats are trying desperately to figure out how to balance the electoral need to keep up enthusiasm from African-American voters while distancing themselves from President Obama who is extremely unpopular among instinctively racist Southern whites.

Friday the Republicans' annual 3-day neo-fascist conclave begins at the Omni Shoreham Hotel in DC. Featured speakers include a grab bag of some of the craziest lunatics on the fringes of the far right, from extremist current and former elected officials like Michele Bachmann, Ted Cruz, Sarah Palin, David Brat, Rick Santorum and Mike Huckabee, to random freaks-with-a-following like Glenn Beck, Mat Staver, Ollie North, William Boykin, E.W.

Far right extremist and anti-health care fanatic Bill Cassidy (R-LA) is running for Mary Landrieu's Senate seat. Yesterday his bill to allow substandard health insurance policies to be sold on the open market-- even if they are just scams that cheat consumers-- passed the Republican-controlled House 247-167.

As corrupt as Chris Christie, Rick Perry, Scott Walker and Bob McDonnellOur friends at the Accountability Project are about to launch an investigative news site looking into criminals that run rampant inside of our political system. Any day now.

Kansas has been nearly a one party state for a very long time. Ravaged by the Republican Party's Great Depression, Kansans voted for Franklin Roosevelt in 1932 (against Hoover) and in 1936 (against Alf Landon, their former governor). After that they went back to their innate conservatism, backing Wendell Willkie against Roosevelt in 1940 and Thomas Dewey against Roosevelt in 1944.

Tomorrow is election day in New York. Reform-minded Democrats are threatening to do the impossible: upend the career of a very powerful conservative Governor, Andrew Cuomo but defeating him and his handpicked right-wing candidate for Lieutenant Gov., banking lobbyist Kathy Hochul. Cuomo-Hochul represent all the worst of an Establishment that has treated the public with disdain and contempt.