The Midterms

Rhinox

too old for this
Citizen
So here we are, heading into the mid term elections. Traditionally not very well observed by the majority of Americans, this is seen as the biggest test of how the nation feels about a President and the direction of the country.

Feeling the heat, the GOP is desperately attempting every play in the book to gerrymander, disenfranchise, and otherwise spoil the election for their own ends. Mike Johnson said their actions are so the "adults" would remain in charge.
Meanwhile the Democrats in some states have used the GOPs own tactics to gerrymander their way into more seats. They're suing to stop the disenfranchising and basically still playing within the rules. All the while the GOP and a very corrupt Supreme Court majority allows the Republicans to basically do what they want.

More than anything, I think gas and the price of living is going to be the deciding factor here. Even the MAGA cultists are feeling the pinch and very few are listening to the talking heads trying to say this too shall pass.

Personally I truly believe these elections to be the last chance to reign in Project 2025 and take a clear step to reclaiming our country and keeping us from sliding into totalitarianism. And as we edge ever closer, I think we'll see Trump act out more and more. Especially if he truly gets scared that his country club will lose control.
 

CoffeeHorse

Hanging in there
Staff member
Council of Elders
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Who knows anymore. I would have predicted a typical midterm swing, but the Supreme Court just dropped a judicial nuke on the whole thing. It's not just the technical boost to the GOP's redistricting plan (though that's definitely a big deal, considering this plan otherwise seemed to be backfiring hard). It's the morale boost. A few days ago Republicans were looking at a completely stalled term. The economy sucks and nothing's being done about it. Trump has vowed not to sign any legislation until he gets his Save America Act, which is completely stalled in the Senate. Meanwhile he's turned all his attention to this Iran War that is also seemingly stalled out. We're now blockading Hormuz to stop Iran from Blockading Hormuz. We've lost the plot.

But now the GOP just got another one of their forever dreams handed to them. If they accomplish nothing else before the midterms, they have something they've wanted for decades. Does it change their chances? I don't know. If the economy doesn't improve, probably not. But they're probably going to try a little harder now instead of just accepting that they're probably doomed. Florida didn't wait one day to pass an aggressive new map.
 

Pocket

jumbled pile of person
Citizen
No amount of gerrymandering can stop them from losing the Senate. Which means they'll probably resort to something much more drastic.
 

CoffeeHorse

Hanging in there
Staff member
Council of Elders
Citizen
Maybe Senate Republicans won't let Rick Scott watch their reelection fund this time.
 

Rhinox

too old for this
Citizen
Don't hold your breath.
Don't expect people to sit in silence either.

It's not hard to see the frustration is building. It isn't going to take much more. hug, one more interview with that smarmy grinned fuckstick Bessent could just be the thing that . . . . .well lets just stop there. Wouldn't it just be a shame if someone were two inches further to the right?
 

The Predaking

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We had the Primaries yesterday. The Wife and I chose not to vote for a Democratic primary as we were happy with the front runners, and we chose to pick our poison of republicans. Sadly we didn't get a run off in the Governor race, so Doug Jones is going to have to battle a guy that isn't even qualified to run for Governor as he hasn't lived in the state for 7 years. He got 85% of the republican vote. However, we did get a run off for senate:

Barry Moore188,824
39.2%

Jared Hudson
123,531
25.6%

Steve Marshall
118,228
24.5%


We might get a non-trumpet senator here depending on the run off results.
 

Pocket

jumbled pile of person
Citizen
Doug Jones is going to have to battle a guy that isn't even qualified to run for Governor as he hasn't lived in the state for 7 years.
As in, the state constitution actually says he's not allowed to run, but the Republicans are so bulletproof there that they're going to run him anyway and if he wins he will be the governor?
 

The Predaking

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As in, the state constitution actually says he's not allowed to run, but the Republicans are so bulletproof there that they're going to run him anyway and if he wins he will be the governor?
Exactly.
 

The Predaking

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I should point out that this Midterm primary showed a huge showing for Democrats in Alabama. It didn't quite match the republicans, but it was a huge improvement over 2022's mid term primaries. 43% of Primary voters were Democrats last night compared to 21% in 2022. It reflects a 105% increase in democratic turnout with a 25% decrease of republicans.
 

The Predaking

Administrator
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Council of Elders
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We had the Primaries yesterday. The Wife and I chose not to vote for a Democratic primary as we were happy with the front runners, and we chose to pick our poison of republicans. Sadly we didn't get a run off in the Governor race, so Doug Jones is going to have to battle a guy that isn't even qualified to run for Governor as he hasn't lived in the state for 7 years. He got 85% of the republican vote. However, we did get a run off for senate:

Barry Moore188,824
39.2%

Jared Hudson
123,531
25.6%

Steve Marshall
118,228
24.5%


We might get a non-trumpet senator here depending on the run off results.

So Steve Marshall has been given his Party marching orders and has dropped out of the run off. Moore is Trump's golden boy, and has been pushing for him, and he couldn't get a clear win in Alabama. Moore is going to try to crush Hudson with Marshall gone, which normally I wouldn't mind, but Moore would have us make our police force into an army like ICE has been, where as from all I have seen Hudson seems to be a pretty decent person for a republican. Hudson is running on Term limits, Worker and Small Business Tax breaks, and to publish online the federal government’s spending for Americans to audit.
 

Pocket

jumbled pile of person
Citizen
God forbid they just find and run any other MAGA Republican, oh gee where the hell could you possibly find one of those in Alabama?

Hell, that should be the opposition's angle this time. "Wow, y'all are such a bunch of woke-ass libtards that you couldn't find a single real Republican in the whole state, so you had to grab one from somewhere else?" That oughta piss them off good, if nothing else.
 

Fullstrength Motleypuss

Well-known member
Citizen
Just an opinion piece from FB about the next piece of the Republicans plan to steal the midterms, in case anybody still thinks the Midterms will be legitimate elections:

When the results of Kentucky’s 4th Congressional District Republican Primary rolled in, we all made the same assumption: a seven-term incumbent had been defeated by record-breaking spending from Trump-aligned billionaires and the Israel lobby. That assumption was reasonable given the $32-35 million ad spending that utterly dwarfed the typical $1 million.

While buying the seat would be concerning enough, the reality seems far more troubling: that record spending may have served as cover — or at best, one prong in a multi-layered operation to remove a man who refused to fall in line.

Thomas Massie had become highly respected, winning fans across the political spectrum for his principled stances on foreign policy, corruption, and the Epstein files. He was not just a household name in his country, but admired across the globe as one of the few US politicians who could not be bought. We did not see evidence of a decline in his local popularity prior to the primary so his victory should have been straightforward.

In previous primaries, Massie typically secured two-thirds to three-quarters of the vote, including in 2024 when Trump targeted him for refusing to fall in line. We must therefore ask why a strategy that failed so badly in 2024, suddenly worked in 2026. Was it really the record spending or was there more than meets the eye?

Incumbents win US primaries about 98% of the time and it’s anomalous for one to lose against an unknown opponent. Just look at the figures: voter turnout almost doubled from around 52,000–67,000 to over 105,000. Massie took roughly the number of votes that had previously won him comfortable victories, but almost all new votes went to the challenger.

To emphasise how insane this is: Massie’s 2026 vote total would have secured him over 90% of the vote in 2024, but this time it only gave him 45%.

Social media users have asked AI models variations of: “What is the probability of a primary turnout doubling, with virtually all new votes going to the challenger against a popular incumbent?” The answers come back in the realm of one in undecillion (a 1 followed by 36 zeros). While that figure doesn’t take all factors into account, whatever the true figure, it’s clear we are talking about vanishingly small odds.

Ed Gallrein struggled to draw crowds to his rallies, received few donations from voters, largely avoided debates, and his victory party was sparsely attended. Kentuckians seemed to know little about him, other than he was endorsed by Trump and backed by super PACs. Contrast that with Massie’s established name recognition and massive grassroots support.

For months, polling showed Massie leading comfortably — often in the 65–80% range, with Gallrein trailing at 24–35%, but in the final stretch, the race flipped. Late polls showed a much tighter contest or Gallrein ahead. In the end, Gallrein won by a comfortable 10%.

If this was simply about organic voter enthusiasm, where was the energy? Why did an unknown challenger inspire a massive surge to overturn an incumbent who saw no drop in support? Why did the victor who inspired record numbers of voters have almost no one celebrating with him?

The whole thing stinks — and it stinks more when you look at who Thomas Massie is. The fact that Trump and the Israel lobby poured all their resources into stopping the guy behind the Epstein Files Transparency Act should tell you all you need to know. This guy was the leading voice trying to expose paedophiles and they decided to stop him at all costs.

It seems they could not risk leaving this down to voters so they used every dirty trick in the book to secure victory. Whether this is about stuffed mail boxes or asymmetric resources, presidential intervention, foreign influence, and targeted mobilisation, I don’t think anyone can look at Kentucky and argue this was a free and fair democratic process. It’s ludicrous that these people are now talking about “liberating” Cuba in the name of democracy.

President Trump has frequently claimed US elections are rigged when his side loses, yet in this case, he refuses to entertain the idea of irregularities when the evidence is clear as day.

Now the question you might ask is why am I, as a British writer, concerned about the primary of a political party in a foreign country? And the answer is simple: this is about so much more than just Republicans in Kentucky. It’s about the rise of fascism — and rigging primaries is just the beginning. If we are to take one lesson is that’s we cannot vote our way out of fascism.

We are witnessing the erosion of freedoms across the western world as the ruling class enters panic mode. They have lost every generation under the age of 65 due to their endless greed and sickening crimes. Their system is being rejected, but they are not going down quietly.

As they overplay their hand, the illusion of democracy becomes weaker, but soon they will not need that illusion. Data centres are sprouting like mushrooms in graveyards, feeding off our dying societies. Our water supplies are being poisoned and our environments are overwhelmed by megatons of thermal load for no other purpose than mass surveillance.

Late stage capitalism is a global panopticon that wants to survive by leeching every ounce of humanity from us like vats in the Matrix. And no, this is not hyperbole.

Ask yourself why you are increasingly asked to present your ID or scan your face or your fingerprint or even your ******* eyeball to do anything these days. They are building their digital prison so they can stay in power. You might think we can stop them from going too far, but they will not need police when they have drone swarms and killer robots. They will not need armies when they have synthetic plagues that they exclusively own the cure to.

Science fiction is transitioning to science fact. And the very worst people imaginable — the paedophiles in the Epstein files — are in charge of that transition. These demons are taking absolute power while the window of opportunity remains open.

We tried to warn you that Palestine was a testing ground, that these people don’t give a hug about democracy. Well, you’re waking up too late and you’re gonna need to figure out how you can fight back. I can’t give you the answers. I can only recommend that you do whatever you can. Soon we are all going to be the resistance, whether we like it or not.
 

CoffeeHorse

Hanging in there
Staff member
Council of Elders
Citizen
Eh. Sounds dangerously close to 2020 talk.

The problem with "Where did all these extra voters come from?" theories is that voter participation in this country kinda sucks, possibly to a degree this British writer doesn't realize. There is a huge body of potential voters out there that could show up and vote any time now, but just don't. These people don't know who their current Representative is. They don't know what their district is or where their voting location is. They can't name the Vice President. They don't know. They like not knowing. There are many millions of these people out there. Politicians have no idea how to make them show up, and some aren't sure they want these people to show up.

Because nobody knows what will make these people show up, but they totally can, our models and bellwethers are based on an unreliable sample.

2020 was a crazy outlier because for once everyone in the country knew who our President was. For three years it was possible to not care about politics, but it was impossible to not hear about politics. Then in 2020 it also became impossible to not care about politics. We finally found out what it takes to make those extra voters show up. They're the "Make it stop" vote. They didn't care about Biden. They didn't attend his tiny rallies. They had zero measurable voter enthusiasm. They had the opposite of enthusiasm. They just wanted to make it stop. "Shut up, man" was the iconic line of the election.

I don't know what kind pf press Massie has been getting in Kentucky, but I imagine he's been getting more press than in prior years. That may be all it was. People may have voted just to stop hearing his name, and they didn't care who the other name on the ballot was.
 


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