Happy (?) July 4th.

Scranton Joe Fights Back

The sharks are still circling. Now a second House Democrat, Raúl Grijalva (D-AZ), has called for Joe Biden to step aside. Democrats don't know what to do. Maybe in retrospect they should have paid a wee bit more attention to the voters, who have been telling them for years that Biden was too old.

Biden is not a quitter and is now starting to fight back. It took a while, but he is now going all out to save his candidacy. First, he is blaming his poor performance at the debate on being sleepy from the jetlag of international travel. He says it was so bad he almost fell asleep on stage. (V), who watched the debate in Boston and was back in Amsterdam about 36 hours later, can testify that you can eat a pint of melatonin if you want but it doesn't help a whit. If you are not sure which continent you are on, it is hard to string two coherent sentences together in a row. Maybe today's blog will demonstrate that. However, Biden's travel was on official business, so he is, per Supreme Court order, immune to all criticism.

Second, many people have said that if the debate performance was just a fluke, Biden can counter that by submitting to a live interview with a senior, respected journalist. Tomorrow he will do just that. He will be interviewed by ABC's George Stephanopoulos. Excerpts will air tomorrow, but the whole thing will be shown Sunday. If he can jump over that hurdle, maybe the storm will quiet and people will accept that he just had a bad night.

Third, the Biden campaign is trying to change the subject to the Supreme Court ruling and what King Donald I might do. Here's the ad. It is only 30 sec., so unless you are really, really busy, it is worth watching.

If you didn't watch the ad, it says that America was founded in defiance of a king but now the same Trump Supreme Court that overruled Roe v. Wade says that a president can commit a crime, because Donald Trump asked them to. It concludes that he led an insurrection and must never be allowed to be president again.

It is possible that the Court's ruling could help Biden more than Trump in the short run. The long run, too. It gives him something to talk about, like what damage an unaccountable president could do to women, Black people, minorities in general, and the country as a whole. Ad writers could go wild making up ads depicting troops forcing innocent people into "concentration camps" with a smiling Trump watching approvingly. Imagine a string of video clips showing Hitler, Stalin, Mao, Kim Jung-Un, and Trump each ranting about something. Unfortunately, no footage of King George III ranting about the upstart colonists has survived. Cue ads showing newspaper headlines reading: "Supreme Court Approves Trump's Ascension to Third Term after Melania Resigns the Presidency." The ruling could provide good material to scare people about Trump becoming a dictator for life.

Trump is definitely doing his part to help Biden. He has repeatedly called for a televised military tribunal in which Liz Cheney would be tried for treason. Her crime? Being a member of the congressional committee that investigated his attempted coup. His base will lap it up but we can easily imagine suburban voters thinking that a weakened, but kindly, old man is better than a powerful, but monstrous, old man. (V)

New Polls Are Not Favorable to Biden

A new YouGov poll of likely voters taken for CBS starting the day after the debate until Tuesday has Donald Trump at 50% and Joe Biden at 48% nationally. In the battleground states, Trump leads 51% to 48%. Last month, Biden led in the battleground states 50% to 49%.

Worse yet, half of Biden's 2020 voters think he should not be running this year. They are less likely to vote for him again now and more likely to vote for Trump or a third-party candidate. Also bad news for Biden is that 90% of registered Republicans will definitely vote, vs. 81% of registered Democrats and 71% of independents.

Even worse is a Wall Street Journal poll of registered voters taken entirely after the debate. In this one, Trump led Biden 48% to 42%. A month ago, Trump led by 2 points; now it is 6 points. A full 80% of respondents and 76% of Democrats said Biden is too old to be reelected. Two-thirds wanted him replaced by another Democrat.

Now on to a Siena College poll sponsored by The New York Times. It is similar to the WSJ poll, with Trump leading registered voters 49% to 41% and also leading among likely voters 49% to 43%. These numbers are outside the margin of error and much worse for Biden than earlier polls. The crosstabs show that every demographic says Biden is too old. The Siena poll can be compared to a Siena poll taken before the debate. Trump has picked up 3 points among both likely voters and registered voters. Before the debate, Democrats wanted to keep Biden 52% to 45%. Now that margin has dropped to 1 point, 48% to 47%. In contrast, 83% of Republicans want to keep Biden (vs. 80% pre-debate). That's not a good sign, as the Republicans see Biden as easily beatable.

A couple more polls like this and Biden will be in very deep doo-doo. But before leaping to any conclusions, read on. (V)

What Happened Last Time?

Our readers who were born before 1950 can skip this item. They surely remember it all too well. But for everyone else, there could be a lesson in what happened the last time an incumbent president (under pressure) decided not to run for reelection. The year was 1968 and Lyndon Johnson had many legislative victories under his belt, including the Civil Rights Act, the Voting Rights Act and many popular Great Society programs, including the War on Poverty. Unfortunately for him, there was also another war going on, in Vietnam, with demonstrations on college campuses all over the country. Students were chanting: "Hey, hey, LBJ, how many kids did you kill today?"

Johnson's approval rating dropped to under 40% and his not-yet-announced campaign was listless. He was drifting. Aides were doing the work as Johnson was focused on Vietnam. Nevertheless, no heavyweight Democrats jumped in to challenge him, not even the heaviest of them all, Bobby Kennedy. They felt that taking on a sitting president would be suicidal for the party. In the winter of 1968, an unknown antiwar senator from Minnesota, Gene McCarthy, who liked poetry more than he liked campaigning, entered the primaries to give the kids a way to work within the system rather than outside it. To McCarthy's and everyone else's surprise, he nearly beat Johnson in New Hampshire, getting 42% of the vote to Johnson's 49%. Kennedy got the message that Johnson was not inevitable and 4 days later announced his entry into the race. Polls in the next week showed McCarthy beating Johnson in the next primary, in Wisconsin. Two days before the Wisconsin primary, Johnson made a televised address discussing the war and ending with a bombshell bigger than anything he had used in Vietnam. He said: "I shall not seek, and will not accept, the nomination of my party for another term as your president." (V) remembers turning to a friend immediately and asking: "Is he becoming a Republican?"

That's when the trouble began. Yes, Democrats were rid of a weak president they thought couldn't win, but Generic Democrat took a pass and they had to convince Real Democrat to run. Three weeks later, then-Vice President Hubert Humphrey jumped in. Now there were three serious candidates: McCarthy, Kennedy, and Humphrey. Now what? Well, the three of them slugged it out, badly fracturing the Democrats. Meanwhile, Richard Nixon was back from the dead solidifying his hold on the Republican nomination. In June, Kennedy was assassinated in the kitchen of the Ambassador Hotel in Los Angeles, just after winning the California primary.

By the time of the August 26 convention in Chicago, the Democrats were fractured beyond repair. McCarthy had won six primaries and Kennedy had won four, but in most states, the party machine picked the delegates and Humphrey had a majority of all the delegates, even though he hadn't even entered any primaries. McCarthy supporters showed up at the convention in force to demonstrate since the two antiwar candidates were clearly more popular than Humphrey, who was saddled with Johnson's war. Oddly enough, Humphrey did not get any credit for Johnson's many legislative achievements, which were wildly popular. The police were ready for the demonstrators and beat them to a pulp, in what later investigations referred to as a "police riot." The country was treated to days of "Democrats in disarray" stories. Nixon won the Electoral College handily, 301 EVs to 191, even though he beat Humphrey by only 512,000 popular votes out of 73 million cast. George Wallace won five Southern states and 46 electoral votes, but even if he had not run and Humphrey had won them all, it wouldn't have been enough.

Are there parallels now to 1968? Could be. If Biden withdraws, the convention will have to pick the nominee. Kamala Harris will certainly be nominated, but we'd bet $1 (OK, maybe $5; we're not big-time gamblers) that one of the 4,000 delegates will nominate Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-VT). And maybe a few other folks. There could be a days' long battle with multiple ballots. If Harris doesn't get the nod in the end, the Democrats' most loyal bloc, Black women, will be truly miffed (well, unless Michelle Obama wins). But if it is a white man, they will be furious since Harris is kind of next in line. But party strategists know that the reason Biden beat Trump and Hillary Clinton didn't is that Biden did vastly better among white men than Clinton. Would Harris do better than Clinton among white men? We think not. Maybe she could make that deficit up somehow, but it is not a sure thing.

The only way out that we can see now is very unlikely: Justice Sonia Sotomayor retires this week, Biden nominates Kamala Harris to her seat, and then the various governors debate and the convention picks two of them for the ticket. Don't hold your breath though.

The year 2024 is not the year 1968. The contentious war now doesn't involve young Americans being drafted to die in the jungle far away. But issues of race and gender are far bigger than they were in 1968 and the other team is even more unified and fanatic than it was in 1968. The Politico article linked to above ends with the sentence: For those arguing that it's time for Biden to step aside, the question is obvious: What makes you think that wouldn't make matters worse? (V)

Biden Met with Democratic Governors Yesterday

Things are very chaotic now, a bad omen. Yesterday all 23 of the Democratic state governors met with Joe Biden, either in person or by video conferencing. They were not likely to be discussing Biden's plans for what he will do in his second term, but something a tad more pressing. Some of them are potential presidential candidates if Biden decides to drop out.

In public all them support Biden. In private, they were probably a bit more open. They all realize that unless Biden manages to recover very fast, he's toast and King Donald I is going to become a dictator. But they also realize that too many white men will not vote for a Black woman, so just handing Kamala Harris the torch is also not a simple solution. Also, if Biden just anoints her without the voters or delegates involved, even people who (sort of) like her will be annoyed. Finally, holding an open convention could result in a free-for-all and endless "Democrats are in disarray" stories. If the convention ends up with a ticket with both Gavin Newsom and Gretchen Whitmer on it, Black women will be very upset, although having the presidential candidate say that Harris will be the attorney general so she can fight for racial justice might help. There is no easy answer. Maybe if Biden aces his interview with George Stephanopoulos tomorrow, that will calm people down. A lot is riding on it.

After the meeting with the governors, three of them, Gov. Kathy Hochul (D-NY), Wes Moore (D-MD), and Tim Walz (DFL-MN) talked to the media. Hochul said: "I'm here to tell you today: President Joe Biden is in it to win it. And all of us said we pledged our support to him because the stakes could not be higher." Walz said Biden is "fit for office." Moore was a bit more candid. He said the meeting was "honest" and "candid." This means the governors told them that they were very worried after his debate performance, but are still with him. They know that openly saying he should drop out would only make things worse. Donald Trump would then start running ads saying that even Democratic governors think Biden has lost it.

One thing Biden has not done and probably should do is make a point that the U.S. is not the U.K. There is no Question Time. The president does not have to go to the House of Representatives every day or every week or even every month to think on his feet and answer questions. Virtually all of his job requires carefully thinking of policies and programs, discussing them with cabinet members and leaders of Congress, getting funding, and then executing them. He could argue he is good at that, as evidenced by his many legislative successes. In other words, being good at debating really isn't part of the job description of being president, but successfully getting laws through Congress is, and he is really good at that. (V)

Jill Biden Is on the Spot

According to many reports, Joe Biden's closest adviser is Jill Biden. If she tells him to leave the race, he will. If she tells him to stay the course, he will. The last time a first lady had so much influence over the country was when Edith Wilson was acting president. Jill might not be the best person to listen to, since she cares more about him than about the country, but at least she is a better source of advice than Hunter Biden, whom Joe is also listening to.

At a recent fundraiser, Jill said: "Joe isn't just the right person for the job, he's the only person for the job." She has been at his side most of the time since the debate, although she did do a fundraiser in Greenwich Village on Saturday.

She is also pepper-upper-in-chief telling him: "Look, Joe, we are not going to let 90 minutes define the 4 years that you've been president."

Republicans have noticed her role and are starting to go after her. When Jill took her husband's hand when leaving the debate stage, Rep. Chip Roy (R-TX) posted a video on eX-Twitter asking "Who is the Commander-in-chief?" Some Democrat ought to have responded with: "Which candidate's wife has so little faith in her husband that she didn't even bother to show up in Atlanta for the debate?"

Jill was recently the victim of some bad timing. She just appeared on the cover of Vogue in a $5,000 Ralph Lauren dress. That cover and the related article was planned months ago. The release now was just a bit of bad luck. If the debate had not been a fiasco, she would have been seen as an emissary to women.

She is in a tough spot and a lot is riding on her decision. (V)

Gavin Newsom Is Campaigning

Jill Biden is not the only one on the spot now. So is Gov. Gavin Newsom (D-CA). He would love to be president, only he was thinking about Jan. 20, 2029, not Jan. 20, 2025. But suddenly the latter date might become an option. So far, he has been extremely supportive of Joe Biden. He has to be. Anything else would make him seem like a traitor and he knows that. He has dismissed all calls for Biden to drop out. He also raised hundreds of thousands of dollars for Biden after the debate. A reputation as a loyal Democrat could pay off down the road.

Newsom traveled to the White House yesterday, along with other governors, to have a chat with the president, and also take his temperature. When reporters ask him about his presidential ambitions, he always says: "I am not running for president this year." He probably means it, although if there is a wide-open convention with multiple candidates, he would probably throw his hat in the ring.

Now here is the problem for Newsom: He would probably benefit from a Trump victory. Suppose Trump wins. Who will represent the Democrats? Not the candidate he defeated, be it Joe Biden or Kamala Harris. And probably not the fuddy-duddy Sen. Chuck Schumer (D-NY), especially if he is no longer majority leader. How about a charismatic governor of the most populous state? He would jump into the fray and be in the news all the time attacking Trump and the Republicans. As governor of a big state, he would fight Trump tooth and nail. He would direct the California AG to sue the federal government constantly.

Suppose Trump began enforcing the 19th century Comstock Act, which bans the interstate shipment of abortifacients. Newsom would go on television to announce a program to distribute the mifepristone pills that he has already stockpiled in state to any California woman who wanted an abortion. This would make Trump furious—and Newsom look like the leader of the Democrats.

But as long as Biden is running Newsom has to be 100% behind him and he knows this very well. (V)

Democrats Fear a MAGA Trifecta

This is one of those years in which the White House is 50-50, the Senate is 50-50, and the House is 50-50. Either party could end up with the trifecta, or there could be cohabitation, as might well happen in France on Sunday. If these things were independent, with a 0.5 chance of the Republicans winning any one of them, there would be only a 0.125 chance of them winning all of them. But they are not independent.

Ticket splitting has gone the way of the dodo. If more people show up to vote for Donald Trump than Joe Biden, there will probably be more votes for Republican Senate and House candidates than for Democratic ones, and vice versa. More votes nationally doesn't guarantee anything, because there are 51 separate races for the presidency, 34 races for the Senate, and 435 races for the House. Still, high turnout for either party is generally helpful up and down the line. Also, the same issues (abortion, immigration, etc.) often play out at all levels, which increases the correlation.

When Trump had the trifecta during the first two years of his presidency, he didn't get a lot of legislation through, largely due to infighting within the party and Trump's lack of knowledge about how things worked in the government. That won't happen again if he gets the trifecta. The Heritage Foundation's Project 2025 gives Trump a detailed plan of action and tells him what to do. The Heritage Foundation also has lists of potential candidates for many federal offices, so Trump will have loyal supporters in key positions at all levels.

Democrats know this and are scared to death of it. If, come October, the Democrats see that they are going to lose the White House, they might shift money from the presidential race to specific Senate or House races, in order to block the trifecta by winning one chamber of Congress. At this point, the House looks easier because with the certain loss of the West Virginia Senate seat, there is almost no path to get to 51 Senate seats. Realistically, the best case for the Democrats in the Senate is 50 seats and the vice presidency. In contrast, a clear majority of the House is realistic.

All in all, given a choice, it is better for a party to hold the Senate than the House. If a party holds the Senate, it can either confirm the president's nominees for executive and judicial positions, or block them. It is widely expected that if Trump wins, Justices Clarence Thomas (76) and Samuel Alito (74) will retire. If any Democrat wins, they will try to hold on for 4 more years. On the other hand, if an opposition party controls the House, they can have an impeach-a-thon, holding hearings on impeaching the president, cabinet officers, judges, and justices, before impeaching them. At the very least, such hearings can damage the president, even if none of them lead to convictions.

One sticky point that could come up if either party wins a narrow trifecta is what to do about the Senate filibuster. In no conceivable scenario will either party have 60 seats in the Senate. This means that the Senate minority party will be able to block pretty much everything except budget matters, which can be done by a simple majority using the reconciliation process. But getting the trifecta and then being able to do almost nothing except set tax levels will be very frustrating not only to party leaders but also to voters. They don't understand how Congress works and many will say: "We gave you complete control of the country, so how come you did nothing?" The temptation to limit or abolish the filibuster will be enormous if either side gets the trifecta. If neither party gets it, then the filibuster is safe for a while. (V)

Democratic AGs Are Already Preparing for Trump

When Donald Trump took office on Jan. 20, 2017, he did something that surprised a lot of Democrats: He tried to carry out his campaign promises. What kind of politician does that? Within a week, he tried to ban people from Muslim-majority countries from entering the U.S. He had warned he would do precisely that, but Democrats never took him seriously. Now they are.

In particular, at offices of Democratic attorneys general, the 900-page Project 2025 plan is required reading. The AGs actually expect Trump to try to carry out much of it and are busy preparing briefs already so they can sue him as soon as he tries to implement some part of the plan. The AGs are also coordinating with one another so for each possible lawsuit, one state takes the lead, to balance the load. The larger states, which have hundreds of lawyers on staff, are taking the lead on most of the big items, like reproductive rights and immigration.

In addition to preparing briefs for lawsuits they expect to file if Trump wins, AGs and governors are trying to Trump-proof their states as much as possible. This includes shoring up protections afforded by state constitutions, tightening environmental regulations, and preparing for deluges of disinformation and possibly violence. If Trump tries to govern by XO, having state constitutions and laws that say the opposite of some XO, will at least provide for a basis of a court case that could take years to resolve, at which time Trump might not be president. Using the courts to stall is one of Trump's favorite tactics, but the states can do it as well.

State AGs are often ambitious politicians. Few are content with remaining AG for decades, even if state law allows that. Most want to move up. AGs know that suing a president of the other party is generally popular with voters of their own party. Gov. Maura Healey (D-MA) and Gov. Greg Abbott (R-TX) were once AGs. Democratic AGs Rob Bonta (CA), Keith Ellison (MN), Letitia James (NY), Kris Mayes (AZ) and Phil Weiser (CO) are all interested in higher office some day. If you want a long list of AGs by state who later held higher office, here it is.

In other words, you can count on endless litigation and obstruction from state AGs if Trump wins. It is good for their careers in blue states. (V)

Pathways to the House Majority

Pundits often talk about "pathways to the House majority," but this year that can be interpreted fairly literally. There are two paths (well, interstate highways) that pass through (or close to) a number of the most competitive House districts. They are the I-5 out west and I-95 back east. Let's take a look at some of the key House races.

I-5

The I-5—and it's important to make sure to put the article before the name of the freeway, so people don't think you are a savage and a heathen—runs 1,400 miles from Canada to Mexico. It passes through a dozen competitive districts. Six currently have a Democratic representative and six have a Republican representative. Here is the lay of the land from north to south.

• Marie Gluesenkamp Perez (D) (WA-03, R+5): Washington has jungle primaries, like California. In 2022, Joe Kent (R) beat then-representative Jaime Herrera Beutler (R) for the second spot, but lost to Perez in this Republican-leaning district. It looks like a rematch, with Perez against Kent again. Perez is one of the most vulnerable Democrats in the House.
  
  
• Lori Chavez-DeRemer (R) (OR-05, D+2): This district covers the Portland suburbs east of the I-5, along the Willamette Valley. It is a swing district that Joe Biden won in 2020 but that elected a Republican to Congress. Christine Drazan (R) carried the district in the 2022 gubernatorial race. The Democrat in the House race, Janelle Bynum, beat Chavez-DeRemer twice in state House races, but this is a larger district. It is rated as a toss-up.
  
  
• Andrea Salinas (D) (OR-06, D+4): This district is mostly west of the I-5 and includes the state capital, Salem, and wine country. It leans Democratic and the incumbent is a Democrat. The Republican, Mike Erickson, is personally wealthy and can self fund the race, as he did in 2022.
  
  
• Val Hoyle (D) (OR-04, D+4): This district covers the southwest corner of the state and part of the coast. The GOP nominee, Monique DeSpain, lags in fundraising, which is not good in a D+4 district. However, there are allegations of misconduct by Hoyle when she was the state's labor commissioner.
  
  
• Josh Harder (D) (CA-09, D+5): The incumbent, Josh Harder, is running against Mayor Kevin Lincoln (R-Stockton). This Central Valley district leans Democratic and Biden carried it with 56% in 2020. If Biden stumbles here, it could hurt Harder, even though he has a $2.7 million to $300,000 cash advantage now.
  
  
• John Duarte (R) (CA-13, D+4): South of CA-09, Biden also beat Trump by about the same amount in 2020. If Biden does well here, he could carry Adam Gray (D), who lost to Duarte by 2 points in 2022, to victory.
  
  
• David Valadao (R) (CA-22, D+5): David Valadao is a Republican in a moderately blue district, but he beat his current Democratic challenger, Rudy Salas, by 3 points in 2022. Biden got 55% of the vote in 2020 here, and could have coattails if he wins big again. However, Valadao does surprisingly well in blue territory for a Republican. On the other hand, Valadao voted to impeach Trump the second time and Trump is not likely to send much love his way.
  
  
• Mike Garcia (R) (CA-27, D+4): This district is mostly north of L.A., including the cities of Palmdale and Lancaster, as well as some of the northern San Fernando Valley area of L.A. Mike Garcia has won races against flawed Democrats before, but this time he will face a tougher challenger in Virgin Galactic CEO George Whitesides. Biden won the district with 55% in 2020.
  
  
• Michelle Steel (R) (CA-45, D+2): CA-45 has a sizeable Vietnamese population, but that does not include Michelle Steel, who is Korean-American. The Democrat, Derek Tran, IS a Vietnamese-American. Biden barely carried the district in 2020 with 52%. Orange County used to be very Republican but it has become much less so in recent years.
  
  
• Young Kim (R) (CA-40, R+2): The incumbent is favored here over challenger Joe Kerr unless Biden improves his 2020 49.9% percentage. Democrats are not optimistic about Kerr's chances.
  
  
• Open (CA-47, D+3): In contrast to CA-40, Democrats are more optimistic, even though this is the open seat Katie Porter left behind when she ran for the Senate. The Republican, Scott Baugh, lost to Porter in 2022, but now he is up against state Sen. Dave Min, who won a tough primary. How Biden does in Orange County could determine all the Orange County seats.
  
  
• Mike Levin (D) (CA-49, D+3): The Republican, Matt Gunderson, was not the NRCC favorite but he came in second so he gets to oppose Levin. Gunderson is not going to get much help from the GOP, so he is on his own. Still, it is a swing district and the San Diego area is more Republican than most big cities. Lots of money and military there.
  

I-95

The East Coast's answer to the I-5 is the I-95. It runs 1,900 miles from the Canadian border in Maine to Miami. However, the I-95 has only six competitive districts, four of them currently represented by Democrats and two currently represented by Republicans. Again, let's travel south from Canada.

• Jared Golden (D) (ME-02, R+6): This is the largest district east of the Mississippi. Democrat Jared Golden, a former Marine, represents an R+6 district Trump won by 7 points. Marines are tough, though. He is one of the most blue doggish members of the House. He has to be in this district. Golden will face state Rep. Austin Theriault. Golden's fate could well be linked to Biden's here.
  
  
• Chris Pappas (D) (NH-01, EVEN): This district occupies the eastern third of the state and is partly in the Boston media market. Chris Pappas is an inoffensive congressman who stays out of the news and tends to his constituents. The primaries are Sept. 10, which will make it harder for the Republican to become known district wide. There are half a dozen Republicans running.
  
  
• Thomas Kean Jr. (R) (NJ-07, R+1): Tom Kean Jr.'s father was governor for many years in the 1980s. Junior is starting out in Congress. This is a suburban district north of Trenton. Kean has proven tough to defeat, so Working Families Alliance director Sue Altman has her work cut out for her, despite the nearly even balance of the district.
  
  
• Open (VA-07, D+1): The current incumbent, Rep. Abigail Spanberger (D-VA), is not running for reelection because she is planning to run for governor in 2025. The winner of the Democratic primary is Eugene Vindman. You might remember his twin brother, Lt. Col. Alexander Vindman (ret.), whose testimony before Congress led to Donald Trump's first impeachment. Vindman will face veteran and attorney Derek Anderson. Biden got 52% of the vote in 2020 but Gov. Glenn Youngkin (R-VA) got 52% in his 2021 gubernational run. It could be a real barnburner.
  
  
• Don Davis (D) (NC-01, D+2): When Republicans regerrymandered the map this year, they forced out two Democrats and made Davis' life much worse. The district is east of Raleigh. Davis is considered to be one of the most vulnerable Democrats. The Republican is retired Army colonel and defense contractor Laurie Buckhout.
  
  
• Maria Salazar (R) (FL-27, EVEN): The district is heavily Latino. Salazar, a former television anchor on Telemundo, is Cuban-American. She got 57% of the vote last time, even though the district is EVEN. Her opponent, Democrat Annette Taddeo, a former state senator, is also a Latina, from Colombia. As a well-known TV personality and incumbent, Salazar has the edge here, despite the PVI.
  

These aren't the only competitive House races, but these do cover quite a few of them. (V)

RFK Jr: If My Skeletons Could Vote, I Could Run for King of the World

On Tuesday, Robert F. Kennedy Jr. responded to a long and damning Vanity Fair article that claimed he sexually assaulted a 23-year-old woman he hired as a babysitter for his children and barbequed and ate a dog.

Here is the photo of what Kennedy called a goat but which veterinary experts said is a dog. Also noteworthy is that Kennedy sent the photo to a friend with a recommendation to visit the best dog restaurant in Seoul, so he was at least claiming it was a dog, even if it really was a goat:

The photo's digital metadata says it was taken in 2010, the year Kennedy said a tapeworm entered and ate part of his brain. Kennedy says it was taken in Patagonia but forensic experts said it was taken in South Korea.

Kennedy called the Vanity Fair article "garbage," but admitted that he had many skeletons in his past. When confronted with the allegation that he sexually assaulted his babysitter, Kennedy didn't even bother denying it. He merely said: "I'm not a church boy." When the victim was asked if the story was correct about the assault, she said it was. The article also said Kennedy had numerous extramarital affairs. Kennedy also noted that he had a "very rambunctious youth." He may be defining his youth up to age 65. He didn't say.

The response may have made the situation even worse than it already was, since the response got far more attention than the article. Will the article and the response hurt his presidential campaign? Maybe not, since 36% of both Democrats and Republicans own a dog and they are likely to be equally appalled by the photo and story. Still, if Kennedy is still a factor come October, the candidate he is hurting most is likely to start running ads showing that he is a nutjob and horrible person. (V)

Britons Are About to Rain on Sunak's Parade, Part II

Yesterday, we heard from G.S. in Basingstoke, England, UK about the British general election campaign that comes to a close today, and from S.T. in Worcestershire, England, UK about how events today will unfold. And now, the third musketeer (well, third redcoat), A.B. in Lichfield, England, UK, on the various parties' best-case and worst-case scenarios:

The British general election precedents worth keeping in mind this week are 1906, 1931, and 1997. 1906 marks the worst result in the history of the Conservative Party, when they won only 156 of the 670 seats in the House of Commons in a landslide victory for Campbell-Bannerman's Liberal Party—the last time that the party of Gladstone and Lloyd George won a majority before being replaced as the main center-left party by Labour after the First World War. 1931 was the most crushing victory for any party and any government in a modern election; Stanley Baldwin's Conservatives won 470 seats in their own right, and if Baldwin's partners in the National Government coalition are included, the government won 554 (just over 90%) of the seats. Labour provided the opposition after 1931 with just 52 seats—the smallest number of seats held by the official opposition in any modern parliament. 1997 was Labour's best-ever victory, with Tony Blair winning 418 seats and a 179-seat majority. If the polls are right, there's a strong chance that several of these records will be challenged this Thursday.

For Labour, the main goal is to win the election outright. An excellent result would be winning 450 seats, coming close to Baldwin's 470-seat single-party record of 1931, while a good result would be to least match Tony Blair's 1997 total of 418 seats. Realistically, everything you need to know about the polls in (and expectations over) this election is that merely meeting the best-ever result in the party's history would only be considered "good" rather than "excellent," and that coming close to 1931 is considered possible. A bad result would be for Labour to emerge the largest party, but fail to win the 326 seats necessary for a majority. The polls would, however, have to be disastrously wrong for this to happen.

For the Conservative Party, the main goal is to maintain some sense of dignity. An excellent result would be to beat the previous worst result in the party's history, and win somewhere between 150 and 200 seats. A good result would be to win more than 100 seats—still substantially below that 1906 total. And a bad result? The ultimate humiliation would be to finish third in number of seats to the Liberal Democrats, and third in vote share to Reform UK. Astonishingly, several polls are suggesting that this is within the bounds of possibility.

The main goal of the Liberal Democrats is to return to their traditional role as the third-largest party in the Commons, a status they lost to the Scottish National Party (SNP) in 2015, and which comes with some additional privileges in Parliament. That, however, would merely be a good result. A combination of tactical voting by those willing to vote for the candidate with the best chance of defeating the Conservatives, rather than the party they might usually support, (something which will likely also benefit Labour), and ruthless targeting of winnable seats, means the party might match their previous 2005 high-water mark of 62 seats; if they can combine that with overtaking the Conservative seat total, with party leader Ed Davey becoming Leader of His Majesty's Loyal Opposition, and they'll have had an excellent night. A bad result would be winning only a handful of new seats and finishing fourth in seat total behind the SNP.

The SNP will be aiming to remain the largest party in Scotland, and using this to continue to advocate for independence. A combination of scandals and poor political judgement, however, means the party is struggling to maintain its dominant position north of the border. An excellent result would be to win an outright majority of Scottish seats, which the SNP would likely use to argue they've won a de facto referendum in favour of holding a second independence referendum. A good result would be to win a plurality of Scottish seats. A bad result would be to come second to Labour in Scottish seats, and fourth in seat total nationally. Polling for Scottish seats has been a little hard to gauge, but an excellent result (as summarised here) currently appears unlikely, with most polls suggesting a bad result is on the cards.

Reform UK are the rebranded Brexit Party, hard-right pro-Trump populists who've never contested a UK general election under their current name, and their main goal is to elect some MPs in a general election for the first time. A good result would be to simply win 2-3 seats, including a seat for party leader Nigel Farage. An excellent result would be to overtake the Conservatives on share of the overall vote while winning at least 10 seats. A bad result would be failing to win any seats at all. At one point, an excellent result seemed within reach, but a recent combination of some worryingly anti-Ukraine positions and scandals involving supporters making racist and homophobic remarks while campaigning has caused a support wobble. But however many seats the party wins, they've arguably helped Labour and the LibDems at least as much as they've hurt the Conservatives simply by splitting the right-wing vote.

Elsewhere, the Green Party of England & Wales (the Scottish Greens are a distinct pro-independence party) have hopes of winning up to four seats, improving on their current single seat. Plaid Cymru (the Welsh nationalists) will hope to win their near-traditional four seats in the Principality's Welsh-speaking heartlands. Northern Ireland politics are unique and difficult to summarize quickly, but the main issue will be whether Sinn Féin overtake the Democratic Unionists as the party winning the most seats in NI—though their abstentionist policy means that SF won't take up seats they win at Westminster.

As to what the polls are suggesting: They all agree that Labour will win a huge majority, but there's some disagreement over seat totals. As of this writing, Electoral Calculus is currently predicting 465 for Labour, 71 for the LibDems, 65 for the Conservatives, 18 for the SNP, and 6 for Reform. ElectionmapsUK, meanwhile, has 453 for Labour, 81 for the Conservatives, 69 for the LibDems, 17 for the SNP, and 3 for Reform. Others have the Conservatives hanging on to as many as 150 seats. Regardless, it looks like being a very, very long night for Rishi Sunak after what will likely go down as the most disastrous British election campaign in recent memory; in my lifetime, only Labour's 1983 "Longest Suicide Note in History" even comes close.

Thanks, all! The trio will have a follow-up next week, once the dust has settled. (Z)

Today's Presidential Polls

Texas is not a swing state. Who knew?

State	Joe Biden	Donald Trump	Start	End	Pollster
Texas	36%	45%	Jun 25	Jun 27	Manhattan Institute

Click on a state name for a graph of its polling history.

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