Some general thoughts on politics and other stuff
Been a while since I last wrote something. I’ve been struggling to come up with something that I find compelling enough to write about. So here’s more of a catch-all post with my general thoughts on a variety of subjects.
State of the Senate
With the midterms heating up and an abortion decision at the Supreme Court looming, people want to know where the battle for the Senate is right now. Spoiler: It’s not great for Democrats. As you’d expect, the party in power is struggling with low approval ratings for the President. There are four Democratic Senators who are widely viewed as the most vulnerable but each of them have very different races. Of Maggie Hassan in New Hampshire, Catherine Cortez-Masto in Nevada, Raphael Warnock in Georgia, and Mark Kelly in Arizona, the one that clearly stands out as the most vulnerable is Cortez-Masto.
As legendary Nevada wizard Jon Ralston continues to note, Democrats have seen their party registration advantage drop significantly in the Silver State. I’ve been long been in the camp that CCM is much more vulnerable than other Democratic Senators up this cycle because of the nature of the state she represents. Nevada has low levels of college attainment and the core Democratic constituency in the state (non college educated Hispanics) are a group that does not turn out at high levels in midterm elections. Coupled with President Biden’s unpopularity, I feel comfortable personally rating the race at Leans Republican. Cortez-Masto hasn’t done anything wrong and Laxalt may not be the party’s strongest candidate against her but she’s just up for reelection at the wrong time.
Elsewhere in the Senate, my thinking continues to be that overturning Roe ends any hope of longshot GOP bids for Colorado and Washington. These are reliably Democratic states where a significant chunk of voters support abortion rights. There’s been some hype in Republican circles for Republican candidates in Connecticut and Washington but polls have both candidates at only 40%. The reality in these kinds of states is that undecideds are near monolithically Democratic.
A few thoughts on the Governor’s races
Whitmer is in surprisingly decent shape. Several major GOP candidates did not make the ballot due to fraudulent signatures. That leaves only weaker candidates against her. There’s an argument to be made that Likely D would be an appropriate rating for the race.
Sisolak is probably in slightly better shape than Cortez-Masto, though really the difference is negligible.
Sparse polling gives us little indication as to how other vulnerable Governors like Kelly and Lujan-Grisham are faring. Limited polling out of Arizona and Pennsylvania for open seat Gov races is also frustrating.
What I’ve been working on
Here’s a fun little map I put together showing where Doug Jones did better or worse than Obama 2012 in Alabama’s 4th District. This is the reddest district in the nation and also the most evangelical heavy congressional district.
I might turn this into a district of the week kind of thing. Each week I might challenge myself to look at a district in a part of the country that maybe isn’t talked about so much.
Some books I’ve been reading
I’ve been reading Punisher Max by Garth Ennis lately. Ennis is a British writer, who took over writing for the Punisher in the early 2000’s and guided the character through a post 9/11 world. Really brilliant stuff. Ennis is considered by many to be one of the definitive Punisher writers. His run is heavily inspired by the gritty British comics he grew up reading. Stuff like Judge Dredd are big influences. This version of Frank Castle is well into his career as The Punisher. This Frank Castle was still a veteran of Vietnam at this point.
I just purchased the biography of Ulysses S. Grant by Ron Chernow so I’ll give my thoughts on that when I read it.