suburban voters

  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.

Rev. John Pavlovitz was frustrated when he woke up yesterday-- very frustrated.

In 2008, Obama's message of "Hope and Change" resonated in Ohio and he took the state, 51.5% to 46.9%. Four years later it was a little closer-- 50.7% to 47.7%-- but Buckeyes were still looking for the change Obama was promising. In 2016, the candidate promising change was Trump, while Hillary represented the status quo of an establishment the Midwest was sick of. Ohio-- like other Midwestern states that had backed Obama-- peeled off and gave Trump the presidency. Hillary took just 43.24% of the vote, a shockingly low number for a swing state.

Some of the best members of Congress are freshmen who were elected in 2018-- AOC (NY), Ilhan Omar (MN), Rashida Tlaib (MI), Ayanna Pressley (MA), Andy Levin (MI), Joe Neguse (CO), Chuy Garcia (IL), Veronica Escobar (TX), Sylvia Garcia, Debra Haaland. Those 10 are the only freshmen whose voting records have earned them "A" grades from ProgressivePunch.Last cycle, Democrats netted 41 House seats but none of those 10 listed above are included in that count. Each of them won a blue seat that had already been occupied by a Democrat.

Gangsta President goes over badly in the suburbsOn Wednesday, reporting from Richmond for the Washington Post, Laura Vozzella wrote that since Señor Trumpanzee “took office, voter turnout has surged in Virginia, the state that holds elections every year, leading analysts to conclude that

I'm not saying the ad helped Beshear, but it didn't hurt himDavid Wasserman presents himself-- and it widely accepted as-- as an elections expert and he does know more about it than most high school students. But his report for NBC Thursday about Trump advancing his electoral college edge despite losses in the suburbs, is idiotic.

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.

We had townies where I went to school, working class white people who hated that the potato fields had been plowed under, replaced by a sprawling university the changed the complexion of their rural county inexorably. They were always pissed off and sometimes that would result in violence.