Senate 2020

Potential game-changers Kris Kobach and Tom SteyerFor context, in case you already forgot what Justin Amash told Jake Tapper Sunday: the political system is completely broken and dysfunctional.

Tomlinson (left) and Amico (right)Georgia still has a PVI that shows it being a red state-- R+5-- but it has been behaving more and more like a swing state lately. I've spoken with operatives working for Bernie, Biden, Kamala and Warren who feel like Georgia is in play for their campaigns.

Cluelessly, Schumer is urging former Colorado Senator Frackenlooper to drop his presidential bid-- that's not the cluelsss part-- and run for the Colorado Senate seat instead-- that's the clueless part. That would set up a Democratic Party specialty: a lesser of two evils race that would make Democratic voters sick to their stomachs. Frackenlooper is detested in his own state.

Even if Trump loses the presidency and the Democrats hold the House, McConnell will still be able to block a progressive agenda if the GOP holds the Senate— or even a strong minority in the Senate. The Republicans are fighting to hold onto a majority and they will have all the money in the world to do just that. One screw up would be not being able to win back the Alabama Senate seat they narrowly lost to Doug Jones when Trump named Jeff Sessions Attorney General and then Republican voters nominated extremist and— worse for some GOP voters— child molester Roy Moore to replace Sessions.

After Republican child molester Roy Moore announced he would be running for the Alabama Senate seat again, appointed Senator Martha McSally of Arizona was quoted by Politico’s Burgess Everett saying “Give me a break! This place has enough creepy old men!” Was she wasn’t referring to Mitch McConnell (R-KY), Lindsey Graham (R-SC) and some of the other creepy old men in the Senate?

Before we get into the seat a Democrat can capture, we have to realize that there's a super-vulnerable red seat, held by a Democrat who is up for reelection. The state's PVI is R+14 and Trump won that state 62-34%. Their House has 77 Republicans and 28 Democrats and their state Senate has 27 Republicans and just 8 Democrats.

On Monday, Georgia progressive Michael Owens penned a post for Daily Kos on a topic that should be familiar to all DWT readers by now-- DCCC Incumbent Protection Policy Threatens a Progressive Congressional Race in Georgia. The DCCC policy of stifling primaries isn't new, but under Cheri Bustos they're pursuing it openly-- and with a vengeance.

Last Friday, former Obama speechwriter Jon Favreau interviewed Marianne Williamson on his podcast, Pod Save America. Among other things, Marianne told him that "there are two kinds of Democrats, aren’t there? And that’s being played out in this campaign. There are two categories here. The two categories is the incrementalist who say we can have it both ways. We can take [corporate] money. We can take tens of thousands from some security investment firms. We can take tens of thousand from Big Pharma.

Dan the crackpot Republican vs Dan the untrustworthy Blue DogNo one is forcing me to write this post but if there's one congressional race whose outcome I could care less about, it's the re-do for NC-09, a swingy district that borders South Carolina and shoots from Colonial Heights in Charlotte to Savoy Heights in Fayetteville.

Digby, John and I first met Jeff Merkley when he was Speaker of the Oregon House of Representatives. We worked hard to help him win his first Senate race and he's never disappointed us since.