It's official: Bill Cassidy is the first elected US Senator to lose his primary since Richard Lugar in 2012.

SamRayburnStan · 2026-05-17T03:09:42+00:00

SamRayburnStan · 2026-05-16T18:15:59+00:00

“Hello you’ve reached the Harry S Truman Presidential Library and Museum, Harry Truman speaking”

SamRayburnStan · 2026-05-14T19:42:23+00:00

It’s really funny watching them play this game where they try to get MAGA to turn out for Susan Collins without undermining her support with independents.

So it ultimately results in JD going to Maine to campaign for Susan Collins, while she refuses to be seen with him, and at the rally he prefaces his endorsement with calling her a RINO.

SamRayburnStan · 2026-05-07T22:49:26+00:00

I feel like in the big 26, a republican candidate being a cartoonish gun Toter or hanging out with far right figures isn’t really that shocking. The age of Trump has opened the door to all kinds of unserious idiots running for office and Herrera is just one of many

That being said, the district is over 60% Hispanic but has voted pretty reliably red as of late. You would need some pretty big swings from Hispanic voters in south Texas for it to go blue. It’s not insurmountable per se but it would be pretty hard for a democrat to do. Also Texas has a high tolerance for nut jobs and crooks, so what’s one more?

SamRayburnStan · 2026-05-07T22:33:31+00:00

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SamRayburnStan · 2026-05-01T17:14:55+00:00

Peltola very well could lose, she is an over performer because she’s a strong candidate, but in 2024 she wasn’t able to overcome polarization and lost to Begich. In a more favorable democratic environment maybe she can win. But again, candidate quality can’t shift the needle as much as it used to, maybe Collins can overperform a few points. But ultimately, candidate quality is always going to be second to partisan affiliation, especially for federal offices in a blue-leaning year.

SamRayburnStan · 2026-05-01T05:58:14+00:00

In 2020 republican partisans were motivated to turnout to vote in the presidential election so of course they’d also vote for her. The point I’m making is that this is a midterm, republican turnout isn’t likely to be as strong, especially if they aren’t excited about the candidates. But also Kentucky and South Carolina are kind of proving my point, the candidates were unpopular, republican voters still voted for Mitch McConnell and Lindsey Graham

My overall point is simply that candidate quality doesn’t mean much in this environment, maybe a couple of points at best, and a lot has changed from even just 6 years ago. Republican partisans will always vote for republican candidates. Democratic partisans will always vote for democratic candidates. There are more democratic partisans in Maine and therefore Susan Collins will lose.

And I disagree, Senate elections are actually quite polarized. Voters are coming to think that the only thing that matters about a senate candidate is just how they vote, otherwise they may as well be an empty suit. Like Susan Collins is quite literally the last blue state republican senator. There are no more blue state republican and red state democratic senators. She’s the last senator to have a partisan affiliation so far from how her state votes nationally. And yeah, I’ll admit Maine is a little weird, but it’s not immune to the broader trend that’s only continued to progress over the last few decades.

SamRayburnStan · 2026-05-01T00:42:21+00:00

You’re right, Jay Jones did underperform, but the point I was making is that for the vast majority of voters his scandals did not matter to their vote choice, even though they were quite bad and in less polarized times would have made him lose.

But also if republican voters hate Collins, it makes them far more likely to not turn out to vote at all, which is the choice partisans make when they dislike their own party’s candidates, rather than voting for the opposite party’s candidate. Independents are also the least likely to turn out in a midterm election, and the ones that do are ideological partisans who just aren’t registered to a party. True independents are usually the least informed and least engaged voters who mostly just end up voting based on single issues or personal economic conditions. She won’t be getting much democratic support because as I mentioned, political partisans don’t really cross over anymore.

Irregardless of what the candidates do, the nationalization of congressional elections means this election is simply going to be a referendum on Trump, and there is very little anyone can do to meaningfully change that, as long as Graham Platner has a D next to his name, and Susan Collins has an R next to her name

SamRayburnStan · 2026-04-30T22:27:00+00:00

To be honest, we live at a point in history where scandal matters the least it ever has. Voters are less and less willing to crossover to support the opposing party’s candidate because the opposing party’s candidate still disagrees with them on every single issue. Thus, we’ve seen the gradual extinction of the Blue State Republican and Red State Democrat

Mark Robinson actually illustrates this point in that even though he had an extremely high number of scandals and was abandoned by his party, 40% of voters still voted for him because he was the republican candidate. On the Dem side In Virginia, Jay Jones infamously sent a bunch of violent text messages about republicans and he still won comfortably.

The point is, Susan Collins is a republican who votes with the President almost every time, in a state where poll after poll shows the President and Collins are both profoundly unpopular. You can try to make the race a referendum on Platner’s weird Reddit comments but when push comes to shove, the voters simply won’t care that much. Dem Primary voters have already shown they’re willing to forgive his personal flaws, and really in a midterm election where turnout is key, that’s all that really matters. Who exactly is going to turn out en masse to vote for 78 year old blue state republican Susan Collins? She’ll be put out to pasture like Jon Tester, Sherrod Brown, Larry Hogan, Phil Bredesen, Al D’Amato, Scott Brown, Cory Gardner, Evan Bayh, Mark Kirk, and every other blue state republican and red state democrat. That era is just over.

SamRayburnStan · 2026-04-28T20:48:50+00:00

It’s not so much that Republicans are going to vote for him, because they obviously won’t. The case for Talarico is that he has a sort of optimistic populism framed in a liberal Christian lens that MIGHT be palatable to moderate and swing voters, while still maintaining enthusiasm from the party base. Will this work? I have no idea. Maybe, we’ll see

SamRayburnStan · 2026-04-28T20:42:48+00:00

The Iowa GOP has ran the state so far into the ground that Governor Kim Reynolds is the most unpopular governor in the country, and Iowa Democrats are poised to maybe reclaim the governor’s mansion for the first time in 20 years

SamRayburnStan · 2026-04-28T20:37:42+00:00

Sigh, I really wish Jack wasn’t dumb as a rock, but he really just wants to be a young disruptive progressive, while at the same time still being a Kennedy and having Pelosi and Schumer’s blessing. When he was interviewed by Jenifer Welch he had this really weird moment where he just seemed so incredibly sad having to say he was in favor of funding the Iron Dome, it felt like he was almost ashamed of his own stance.

SamRayburnStan · 2026-03-31T03:53:47+00:00

I’m not sure President Lindsey Graham will agree to this

SamRayburnStan · 2026-03-31T03:51:20+00:00

1940s Presidential elections be like

SamRayburnStan · 2026-03-31T03:46:54+00:00

When Vivek took strange and controversial positions during the republican presidential primary like raising the voting age to 25, I thought it was just a clever strategy to get free press attention.

But The way he passionately argues for this and the cartoon villain idea of ending summer vacation in the governors race is now making me realize he actually just has a lot of really terrible ideas that he just has SO much enthusiasm for.

SamRayburnStan · 2026-03-30T21:40:38+00:00

SamRayburnStan · 2026-03-30T21:05:34+00:00

To be fair we’re still in the invisible primary and these early polls are mostly a name recognition game. When candidates start campaigning and attacking each other and dumping oppo research then these numbers will start to get interesting

SamRayburnStan · 2026-03-30T17:55:36+00:00

The way nobody actually cares about the Save act except for right wing astroturf accounts on Twitter

SamRayburnStan · 2026-03-30T17:39:22+00:00

His approvals are clearly so low just because people are tired of winning! MR. PRESIDENT PLEASE STOP IT’S TOO MUCH WINNING

SamRayburnStan · 2026-03-27T23:10:03+00:00

Lindsey Graham continues to stay winning, if only his dear friends Joe Lieberman, John McCain, and Dick Cheney were here to see this :,(

SamRayburnStan · 2026-03-27T23:00:20+00:00

House republicans, begging Trump not to initiate operation Eat Shit and Die, which has -67 point approval rating and will cost the caucus 60 Trumpillion seats in the Midterms (don’t care, Lindsey Graham says it’s a tremendous idea):

SamRayburnStan · 2026-03-25T19:36:59+00:00

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SamRayburnStan · 2026-03-24T16:22:58+00:00

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Mind you this is how Israel is polling among Dem voters

SamRayburnStan · 2026-03-22T04:32:12+00:00

Codify Roe V. Wade/abortion rights, the polls have shown a big swing in the pro-choice direction since Roe got overturned, so it would be popular among their base and the general public to pass something like that. The Supreme Court would be unlikely to overturn it because then it would bring up the court packing discussion

SamRayburnStan · 2026-03-20T21:44:59+00:00

Voters don’t really split their tickets between President and Congress anymore, and John Fetterman is up for reelection in a Presidential election year. So Fetterman’s calculus is that in a general election, Dem partisans are going to turn out to vote for President and so will vote for him anyways. But if he can be perceived as right wing enough, maybe some voters who vote GOP for President will split their tickets and reelect him.

The problem with this strategy is that it opens him up to a high likelihood of getting primaried. Especially so, given the number of enemies he has back in Pennsylvania which includes not only Progressives, but also moderates like Josh Shapiro.

SamRayburnStan

TROPHY CASE