NE-02

  NE-02 can deliver more than just a member of Congress; it can also deliver one presidential electoral vote. That vote has only gone to a Democrat-- Obama in 2008-- one time. Polling indicates that electoral vote is going to go to Biden this cycle, as the district flips blue in both the presidential and congressional contests. Kara Eastman looks like she'll be replacing Trump shill Donald J Bacon in Congress and she's working hard to turn out voters who will support not just her own campaign but Biden's and other Democrats as well.

  Two of the members of Congress I respect most, Ted Lieu (D-CA) and Jamie Raskin (D-MD) are in safe blue districts and have been working their asses off to elect other Democrats to Congress. Sometimes, it drives me crazy, though, that they are working to elect all Democrats-- from complete garbage like Oklahoma Blue Dog Kendra Horn to the top progressive challengers across the country.

It's relatively easy to point out that you don't agree with the person in power and declare your candidacy and hope more voters turn out on election day who agree with you than with the incumbent. But that is rarely the way people get into Congress. It's especially difficult winning a primary against your own party's establishment, something a reformer almost never accomplishes in one cycle. Take Ro Khanna, Donna Edwards, Alan Grayson.

DCCC chair Cheri Bustos should resignLast night 3 important congressional races ended. Nancy Pelosi, Cheri Bustos and their DCCC need to think closely about what happened. One contest was a primary in Omaha and two were special elections to fill seats in Wisconsin and California where members had retired, respectively one Republican and one Democrat.

Hole-in-One by Nancy OhanianDuring the 2016 election, a putative Democrat from the South Bronx, Rubén Díaz, Sr., backed Ted Cruz for president and invited him to speak in his district. It didn't do Cruz much good. In the Republican primary, Cruz came in third-- with just 1,022 votes, in New York's bluest county.

"The fight happening now for the Democratic presidential nomination," wrote Norman Solomon, "largely amounts to class warfare. And the forces that have triumphed in the past are outraged that they currently have to deal with progressive opposition from not one but two candidates...

Mark Amodei (R-NV) desperately wants to change the backdropLately, Eli Stokols has been doing some excellent reporting for the virtually moribund L.A. Times. I hope it's enough to save the paper from oblivion. It looks like nothing will save the GOP from oblivion, though-- at least not in the short term.

Every Democrat running for Congress against an incumbent Republican is hoping to find a video like this one of white supremacist Steve King endorsing his pal Donald J. Bacon. I hope Kara, the progressive Democrat running for the Omaha-based congressional district currently occupied by Bacon can make good use of it. This particular tape was mae in 2016 and shows King, the ardent white supremacist and rape-and-incest booster proudly endorsing Bacon. The two have been fast allies ever since, almost always voting in tandem. They both vehemently oppose a woman's right to Choice.

For the past couple of years, my half-brother, an interpreter for the federal criminal court system in Las Cruces, New Mexico, has been telling me about devastating policy and procedural changes around immigration. Prior to the election of our current president, he had not seen children separated from their parents and guardians at the border. He had not seen so many people seeking asylum in the U.S. denied.

Earlier we looked at how the "bipartisan" For Country Caucus and their associated With Honor PAC has targeted Katie Hill for obliteration, Chairman Don Bacon acceding to a request from the NRCC, which is strictly against the caucus rules.