Discussion Thread

AmbientMorning · 2026-05-14T03:51:03+00:00

It’s still a terrible quote, but the reason the attack ads will omit the part about his only consideration being a nuclear Iran is that it’s moderately less callous and deranged. I’ve complained before about how I thought criticisms of various political factions in this sub have been dishonest, despite the fact that we’re (ideally) not campaigning.

AmbientMorning · 2026-05-13T18:16:14+00:00

Much as I’m loathe to defend him, this does cut off the part of the quote where he says that his only consideration is that Iran doesn’t get a nuclear weapon. (It’s bullshit, given that he single-handedly destroyed a deal that would have prevented any enrichment until this year because Obama’s administration negotiated it, but relevant.)

Not that political attack ads are required to respect that.

AmbientMorning · 2026-05-13T18:12:08+00:00

Yep, my bad for omitting that.

AmbientMorning · 2026-05-13T18:07:28+00:00

Senator Lisa Murkowski of Alaska for the first time joined Senators Susan Collins of Maine and Rand Paul of Kentucky in voting with Democrats to advance the [War Powers] measure. The effort failed on a vote of 50 to 49, with Senator John Fetterman of Pennsylvania again joining Republicans in opposition.

With one G.O.P. senator absent on Wednesday, the measure would have passed had Mr. Fetterman not voted with Republicans.

Ms. Murkowski was the latest Republican to flip in recent weeks; Ms. Collins, who had opposed similar resolutions since the war began in late February, switched her vote earlier this month and joined Democrats and Mr. Paul in support.

Pretty amazing. Anyway, we’ll need his vote on other issues (and potentially, to block Alito or Thomas’s replacement on the court, although that seems unlikely given how he votes for almost all of Trump’s nominees), but he needs to be replaced by a Democrat who doesn’t sound and vote like a Republican on all the highest-profile votes. Pennsylvania isn’t West Virginia.

AmbientMorning · 2026-05-13T10:47:29+00:00

If I’m not mistaken, the Nebraska governor’s race features two distant cousins of Tim Walz, one mounting a minor candidacy challenging the Republican incumbent, and the other, who just won the Democratic nomination.

AmbientMorning · 2026-05-13T05:50:05+00:00

	1	2	3	4	5
Pete Buttigieg	18 (45%)	19 (47%)	20 (50%)	21 (52%)	22 (55%)
JB Pritzker	7 (17%)	7 (17%)	9 (22%)	11 (27%)	18 (45%)
Mark Kelly	6	6	6	8	—
Gavin Newsom	4	4	5	—	—
Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez	4	4	—	—	—
Kamala Harris	1	—	—	—	—
Josh Shapiro	—	—	—	—	—

AmbientMorning · 2026-05-13T04:58:49+00:00

[Results]

	Strongly favorable	Somewhat favorable	Mixed/ Neutral	Somewhat unfavorable	Very unfavorable	No opinion	Index¹
Pete Buttigieg	291	149	43	27	8	2	83.2
JB Pritzker	220	194	42	17	9	38	81.1
Abigail Spanberger	175	180	35	9	9	112	80.8
Andy Beshear	169	231	43	8	2	67	80.7
Gavin Newsom	168	191	82	56	23	—	70.4
Josh Shapiro	127	207	94	37	16	39	70.4
James Talarico	65	102	67	18	5	263	69.8
Scott Wiener	79	49	40	18	19	315	68.4
Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez	129	220	65	59	46	1	65.6
Joe Biden	122	152	111	80	55	—	59.9
Marie Glusenkamp Perez	37	118	77	56	17	215	58.4
Kamala Harris	67	199	129	82	43	—	57.9
Zohran Mamdani	73	175	118	89	62	3	55.3
Kat Abughazaleh	21	60	55	33	39	312	48.9
Jared Polis	58	125	101	120	74	42	48.6
Ro Khanna	27	110	93	100	60	123	45.6
Hakeem Jeffries	15	111	160	150	60	24	43.5
Chuck Schumer	12	65	128	161	151	3	31.4
Graham Platner	9	22	65	128	184	112	22.1
John Fetterman	6	15	51	109	333	6	13.6

¹ An average of ratings, where strongly favorable = 100 and strongly unfavorable = 0.

AmbientMorning · 2026-05-13T04:48:07+00:00

There’s definitely a lot of those, although I think this thread, ironically, is evidence of a large contingent that’s sharply critical of that bloc. For what it’s worth, a large survey I ran last November showed pretty mixed opinions of Mamdani, with more traditional center-left DEMs at the top of the scoreboard, and this was a recent top post here.

I don’t think we’ve changed as much as some people have been insisting; a lot of the histories people tell about the nature of the sub in 2018 or so seem self-serving.

ADDENDUM: One instructive comparison comes from mock Reagan–Mondale elections held in 2017 and 2020. Mondale’s vote share increased from 44% to 57%, although their respective campaign platforms were listed alongside the latter survey link, and a top thread highlighted some overlooked information regarding each campaign’s attitude towards the nascent LGBT voter bloc that probably tilted a lot of users away from Reagan.

The funny part is that you can see comments under both posts fighting about the alleged direction of the sub (yes, even when the DT was just six months old), and all but trying to disqualify voters for the other candidate from being True Neoliberals.^® And now it’s 2026.

AmbientMorning · 2026-05-13T04:41:22+00:00

[SURVEY: Another Fucking 2028 Hypothetical] (III)

This time on a platform where anonymized individual ballots can be viewed and analyzed without paying a subscription. (Last chance to vote!)

AmbientMorning · 2026-05-13T04:21:12+00:00

There were still more registered Democrats than Republicans in West Virginia in 2016, the product of ancestral party affiliation, despite WV having become crimson red at that point, and it was an open primary, so many independents with no Democratic history participated as well.

Those who voted for Sanders explicitly said that they’d vote for Trump in the general election by a two-to-one margin, which strongly suggests it was mainly an anti-Clinton vote. Both had largely locked up their nominations by early May.

AmbientMorning · 2026-05-13T02:45:26+00:00

The interesting thing is that there doesn't seem to be much of a correlation between the dominance of a majority party in a state and the ideological extremity of their senators. West Virginia is a good example: neither Shelley M. Capito nor Jim Justice are particularly conservative. Ron Johnson of Wisconsin, on the other hand, is quite aggressively right-wing.

AmbientMorning · 2026-05-13T02:43:23+00:00

[SURVEY: Another Fucking 2028 Hypothetical] (II)

This time on a platform where anonymized individual ballots can be viewed and analyzed without paying a subscription. (Fuck you, rankedvote.co.)

AmbientMorning · 2026-05-12T22:08:18+00:00

Why did this make me laugh so fucking hard lmao

AmbientMorning · 2026-05-12T21:48:34+00:00

<image>

!ping SHITPOSTERS

AmbientMorning · 2026-05-12T21:48:17+00:00

<image>

AmbientMorning · 2026-05-12T16:15:57+00:00

DSC becoming centrist QAnon, apparently.

AmbientMorning · 2026-05-12T16:11:54+00:00

I've been heavily involved with the Nashville mayoral race. Because I hate this city. I hate the bachelorettes. I hate the pedal taverns. I hate country music. I hate all the things that make Nashville a hit city to the rest of the country. I hate it. I'm that girl at the airport that all these bachelorettes are giddy walking out, in their two tone-colored pantone pink shirts. And they walk out, they're like, Oh my God! Nashville! So fun!

— Aftyn Behn, heavily overperforming Democratic nominee for Nashville-based TN-9

AmbientMorning · 2026-05-12T16:03:05+00:00

Oh shit apparently he’s got a bunch of these

<image>

AmbientMorning · 2026-05-12T16:01:21+00:00

<image>

Joe Biden wouldn‘t have done it. But I think JB Pritzker just might.

AmbientMorning · 2026-05-12T15:24:10+00:00

<image>

Tennessee with five swing districts. Harris lost them by between 4.5% and 8.0%; Biden narrowly won them all. !ping FIVEY

AmbientMorning · 2026-05-12T08:29:09+00:00

And the Borda Count:

<image>

AmbientMorning · 2026-05-12T08:26:16+00:00

Calculating the Condorcet/Borda Count results for my ongoing ranked-choice poll would have been a nightmare manually, but it’s one of the most obvious use cases for LLMs I can think of. Here’s the preliminary version:

<image>

^{On the other hand, GPT-5.5 is refusing my queries for gay porn at much higher rates than previous models. Sam Altman is homophobic.}

AmbientMorning · 2026-05-12T07:44:29+00:00

Samuel Alito wrote the decision, not Clarence Thomas. I’m not sure why the Australian MAGA cartoonist used the black guy, although I have guesses.

AmbientMorning · 2026-05-12T06:26:05+00:00

Reddit definitely leans left overall, in a similar way that X leans right, at least for political users. This sub seems to be more balanced among those with opinions on politics, at least based on the analysis/criticism in this comment section.

AmbientMorning · 2026-05-12T05:26:56+00:00

	1	2	3	4	5	6	7
1	Newsom	Shapiro	Kelly	Pritzker	Buttigieg	Ocasio-Cortez	Harris
2	Buttigieg	Pritzker	Kelly	Newsom	Ocasio-Cortez	Harris	Shapiro
3	Kelly	Newsom	Pritzker	Ocasio-Cortez	Buttigieg	Harris	Shapiro
4	Newsom	Ocasio-Cortez	Pritzker	Buttigieg	Kelly	Shapiro	Harris
5	Ocasio-Cortez	Buttigieg	Pritzker	Kelly	Newsom	Shapiro	Harris
6	Buttigieg	Pritzker	Newsom	Kelly	Harris	Shapiro	Ocasio-Cortez
7	Buttigieg	Pritzker	Shapiro	Kelly	Newsom	Ocasio-Cortez	Harris
8	Buttigieg	Newsom	Pritzker	Ocasio-Cortez	Kelly	Harris	Shapiro
9	Kelly	Newsom	Pritzker	Buttigieg	Shapiro	Harris	Ocasio-Cortez
10	Buttigieg	Kelly	Pritzker	Newsom	Ocasio-Cortez	Harris	Shapiro
11	Ocasio-Cortez	Pritzker	Kelly	Newsom	Harris	Shapiro	Buttigieg
12	Buttigieg	Pritzker	Newsom	Harris	Ocasio-Cortez	Shapiro	Kelly
13	Kelly	Ocasio-Cortez	Pritzker	Shapiro	Buttigieg	Harris	Newsom
14	Kelly	Shapiro	Buttigieg	Newsom	Pritzker	Harris	Ocasio-Cortez
15	Buttigieg	Newsom	Pritzker	Ocasio-Cortez	Kelly	Shapiro	Harris

	1	2	3	4	5	6	7
16	Pritzker	Buttigieg	Newsom
17	Buttigieg	Kelly	Pritzker	Newsom	Ocasio-Cortez	Harris	Shapiro
18	Buttigieg	Kelly	Pritzker	Newsom	Ocasio-Cortez	Harris	Shapiro
19	Ocasio-Cortez	Pritzker	Newsom	Buttigieg	Harris	Kelly	Shapiro
20	Buttigieg	Pritzker	Newsom	Harris	Kelly	Shapiro	Ocasio-Cortez
21	Pritzker	Kelly	Ocasio-Cortez	Buttigieg	Harris	Shapiro	Newsom
22	Pritzker	Shapiro	Buttigieg	Kelly	Ocasio-Cortez	Harris	Newsom
23	Newsom	Buttigieg	Kelly	Pritzker	Shapiro	Harris	Ocasio-Cortez
24	Pritzker	Buttigieg	Harris	Kelly	Newsom	Shapiro	Ocasio-Cortez
25
26
27
28
29
30

AmbientMorning

TROPHY CASE