Mississippi

This morning, Aaron Blake noted at the Washington Post that "When President Trump was elected, he promised the GOP that they would win so much they would get tired of it. But for a third successive election year since then, the Republican Party has walked away the loser." Also this morning a top Democratic congressional staffer told me that she spoke to "two different Republican Hill staffers who have expressed serious concerns with how badly last night went for them.

Let's follow up on last night's pre-election special for Virginia, Kentucky, Mississippi and New Jersey. The results look excellent tonight... unless your name rhymes with DUMP. Trumpanzee did the trick in Kentucky, a scorching red R+15 state... where the GOP lost the governor's mansion.

I don't know much about Democratic strategist Kevin Walling other than he was one of the founders of-- and the first political director for-- the right-of-center Inside-the-beltway group No Labels-- and that he is often called upon by right-wing media to play the role of "the Democrat," particularly on Fox New, Fox Business News, Newsmax and the neo-Nazi One America News Network (OAN).

A high-level court case is currently underway in Mississippi to decide if privately-operated charter schools can keep siphoning local property taxes from public schools.
Presently, Mississippi’s charter school law unconstitutionally diverts millions of dollars in local property tax money (ad valorem taxes) away from local public school districts to privately-operated charter schools.

In short, are people in red states sick because of the Republican policies that are created by the politicians they vote for or is the fact they're sick make them vote for politicians who create those policies? A new report from the United Health Foundation ranked every state in the union, as it has been doing for almost 3 decades. Here's the ranking )along with what percentage of the vote Trump won in each state):

by NoahSurprise, surprise? Nope. What did you expect? It's Mississippi. The election of white nationalists like Cindy Hyde-Smith is what southerners like about the south; the white ones anyway. It's why the region is the strongest stronghold of today's Republican Party. Cindy Hyde-Smith could have campaigned in full KKK hood and sheet and her state would have still elected to send her to Washington.

It's shocking that 45.2% of the folks who voted in the midterms, voted for a Republican. That "OK, we suck, but we're not as bad as they are" Party may be celebrating that 8.6 million more voters cast ballots against Republicans than for them, but... how is it possible that any non-KKK members and Nazis voted for Republicans at all?

The 6 women in this focus group are all from swing states and all voted for Trump. Most would do it again... although half say they are disappointed. They all say they want to use the midterms to "send a message." Take a look. One thing for sure, this sure doesn't sound like part of any wave. But, keep in mind they were all Trump voters in 2016.This morning Axios launched an idea for how they plan to measure the upcoming wave.

Minnesota and Mississippi each has two Senate elections in November. In Mississippi, Senator Roger Wicker is up for reelection. In June he easily put away a Trumpist primary challenger Richard Boyanton 83-17%. The primary drew 157,170 voters, compared to just 87,931 in the Democratic primary, which resulted in a runoff between Howard Sherman (31.79%) and David Baria (30.98%)-- 713 votes separating them.

In service of the almighty dollar, the corporate class has hollowed out America and created a permanent underclass.