This is the first week of early voting in the city of Racine. Turn-out is not just higher than for the last midterm (2014), but higher than for the 2016 presidential election. District-wide, Democratic parts of Wisconsin's first district-- like Janesville and Kenosha as well as Racine-- are over 2016 levels, while Republican areas-- Waukesha, for example-- are lagging.
Ted Cruz fancies himself a world champion debater. But somehow the political equivalent of a kindergarten toddler kicked his ass during the 2016 Republican primary season. Now he's up against a young congressman from El Paso, Beto O'Rourke and Beto beat him in every debate they've had so far-- hands down.
We've been telling you about Vote Common Good ever since Ted Lieu and I sat down with the nascent group in a private room behind Ted's favorite restaurant. The tour started last week in Pennsylvania. Thursday it gets to Sioux City to rally with J.D. Scholten at the Grandview Park Bandshell. Saturday afternoon they'll be with Kara Eastman at Miller Park Pavilion in Omaha and a week from today... if you're in Wichita, it's James Thompson day at Farm and Art Market Plaza.
West Virginia's first congressional district, the northern third of the state, gave Obama a respectable 41.5% of its vote in 2008. In 2016, the voters there were fed up and smart enough to figure out the status quo wasn't working for them. In the primary they turned overwhelmingly to someone offering to break with the status quo: Bernie Sanders.
In 2010 Democrats had been in control of Congress for two terms and they were loaded with campaign cash. Democratic incumbents outspent Republican challengers-- sometimes by immense margins, double, triple, three times, four times... Let me show what I mean. In 2010 Jim Oberstar-- first elected in 1974-- was the longest-serving member ever of House from Minnesota.
The Oklahoma Republican Party knew that putting Question 788 on the general election ballot could be very bad for them. It was expected to turn out an inordinately large number of people who don't usually vote-- and those people would not be conservatives. So they put Question 788 on the primary ballot on June 26.
Mostly uninteresting run-of-the-mill candidates who will make no difference to anyone won their primaries, but not entirely. Let's start with some good news in North Carolina. Durham County has just over 310,000 people, one of North Carolina's most populous. Last night the county elected the first African-American in its history, Clarence Birkhead, who beat the racist incumbent , Mike Andrews. And he beat him in a landslide-- 69-31%.
Remember a couple weeks ago there was an amazing legislative seat flip in Kentucky? Democrat Linda Belcher beat Rebecca Johnson for the open state House seat (49th district). On February 20th, Belcher won 68.4% to 31.6% in a district Trump had won 72% to 23% (and which Romney had won 66-33%). That's a really red district and Belcher's 45-point improvement on Hillary’s performance was engineered by a legendary Kentucky political figure, Mike Ward. Ward was Belcher's campaign manager.
An inflammatory tweet yesterday from Anthony Bordain alerted me to a shocking story in the Charleston Gazette-Mail by Eric Eyre, Drug firms shipped 20.8M pain pills to WV town with 2,900 people. Think about that for a second.
