rural voters

There are a lot of farmers losing a lot because of Trump's pig-headed, badly-handled trade wars. Including, presumably, a lot of sleep. Family farms are particularly badly hit and farmers have been losing their land; many more are on the verge of bankruptcy. Soybean farmers have been hit worse than anyone else. There are 11 states that each produce over 100 million bushels of soybeans annually-- Illinois, Iowa, Minnesota, Indiana, Nebraska, Ohio, Missouri, South Dakota, Arkansas, North Dakota and Kansas.

The big Politico headline early yesterday morning, Trump disputes impact of tariffs on American consumers, but warns China not to retaliate, was instantly controversial on two levels. First...

Last year, over 40 red House seats were flipped. But, despite all the self-congratulations from the DCCC, that was not a result of anything the DCCC did nor the result of the imaginary blue wave they persuaded a lazy and largely foolish media to propagate for them.

We try to say it at least once a week-- and we've been doing that for over two years: Audrey Denney would make a kick-ass, effective member of Congress. It's not her fault she was born and raised and still lives in a sprawling rural district that voted for Trump by 20 points or that the PVI is a daunting R+11. That was certainly enough to make the DCCC look elsewhere. But it didn't discourage Denney. She campaigned like she could actually win.

Foolishly, the DCCC is trying to push freshman members from "Trump districts" rightward. These are mostly rural districts and the DCCC-- as usual-- is making a big mistake. Two such districts are in Iowa-- IA-01, whose population is 47.7% rural and IA-03, whose population is 21.1% rural.

The thriving economy Trump inherited from Obama was on autopilot. All he had ti do was not mess it up. The post-Bush recession Obama fixed and the economy he put in place kept chugging along for 2 years despite the trickledown ideology Team Trump started installing from day one. Too late to do anything to save it now. The trade war was meant to feel relatively painless 'til after the midterms. Mission accomplished.

Thursday, I listed 50 House seats that the Democrats should be working towards flipping in 2020. I listed them in order, based on how badly the Republican winner had done.

I see Trump like this (above). And I can't believe not everyone else does. But Republicans-- especially of the evangelical brand-- have a very distorted idea of him...

Jared Golden made history this cycle-- not just because he's a progressive Democrat who won Maine's second district and not just because prior to Poliquin's defeat no incumbent had lost an election for Maine's 2nd District seat since 1916, but because he is the first member of Congress who won election through ranked-choice voting.

Lindsey Graham, who fancies himself a bit of a stand up comic, got off a hilarious one yesterday. He said he doesn't believe Trump was colluding with the Russians because Trump isn't even able tp collude with his own staff.