
• Russell Vought Has a Mission: Burn It to the Ground...
• ...And Vought Is Not the Only One
• New York Democrats Are Starting to Play Hardball
• Senate Leapfrogs the House on the Budget
• Trump to Impose More Tariffs
• Another One of Musk's Merry Band of Hackers Is a White Supremacist
• Abigail Spanberger Should Send Elon Musk a Thank You Card
We have updated the Governors' races page. Since there are only four or five interesting Senate races, the 38 gubernatorial races this cycle will get more attention than usual. We will update this page whenever new information comes in.
Judges Start Making Rulings
During his first 3 weeks in office, Donald Trump has signed more than 50 XOs and other executive actions aimed at transforming the government and the country. Many of them are controversial, to put it mildly. Already more than two dozen lawsuits have been filed against them. Some of them have gotten to the point where judges have made temporary rulings to block (or not block) execution of the XOs until the judge has time to consider the merits of the case. Generally, judges won't temporarily block an XO unless they think there is a reasonable expectation that the plaintiffs could win the case later on the merits. Let us look at some of the lawsuits and outcomes so far.
- DOGE: Early on, Elon Musk's band of happy hackers descended upon the Treasury Dept. and
took over its computers, including the ones handling $6 trillion in annual federal payments. The databases on these
computers have a great deal of personal information about hundreds of millions of Americans. Government unions sued,
claiming giving access to kids working for a private businessman who is not even a government employee, and has not been
confirmed by the Senate for anything, violated federal privacy laws. Last Friday, a group of 19 state attorneys general,
led by NY AG Letitia James, also filed a lawsuit arguing that the Muskrats' access was unconstitutional.
On Saturday, U.S. District Judge Paul Engelmayer (a Barack Obama appointee) issued an emergency order in response to the lawsuit from James and the other AGs. He agreed that this administration policy risked disclosing sensitive data. He also said that he expected the states would be able to show that this new arrangement is illegal. His order was far reaching, stating that only persons who are civil servants, who have passed all the background checks, have the necessary security clearances, who have had the required security training, and who need access as part of their assigned duties may get access. He specifically banned all special government employees (meaning Musk and his merry band of kids) from accessing the system and further ordered them to delete all information they had downloaded from the system immediately. Good luck with enforcing that one. On Feb. 14, Judge Jeannette Vargas (a Joe Biden appointee) will hear the case on its merits. Sometimes the courts take forever to do things, but sometimes they can move quickly.
- USAID: On Thursday, two government unions filed a lawsuit over Musk's attempt to
dismember USAID, which provides humanitarian aid, health care, and much more in many poor countries around the world. On
Friday, U.S. District Court Judge Carl Nichols (a Donald Trump appointee) issued a temporary restraining order blocking
Musk's attempt to put 2,200 USAID employees on administrative leave, effectively shutting down the agency. The judge
wrote that without immediate legal intervention, the employees would suffer irreparable harm. He also blocked an order
to recall 1,400 foreign service officers, some of whom are undergoing medical treatment in the country where they
actually lived. Others were ordered stateside, where they had no home and no income. He also said that the government
claimed massive corruption in the agency, but didn't provide any evidence of that at all. When he hears the case, he
will make a decision on the merits. Note that he will not make a decision based on whether USAID does good work or not,
but on whether Musk has the authority to unilaterally kill a statutory agency created by Congress.
- Government Buyouts: In an attempt to make the federal government small enough to drown it
in a bathtub, the Office of Personnel Management, which was commandeered by Musk's team, made an offer to almost all
federal workers that if they agreed to resign in September, they probably wouldn't be fired before then. It is thought
that about 60,000 people accepted the offer, some of whom were probably planning to leave anyway. Unions sued on the
grounds that no one in the executive branch has the authority to make such an offer. Only Congress can do that, by law.
On Thursday in Boston, federal Judge George O'Toole (a Bill Clinton appointee) blocked the government from implementing
the buyouts until today, when he will hold a hearing. White House Press Secretary Karoline Leavitt saw this as a win,
since it de facto gave government employees a few more days to sign up.
- Birthright citizenship: One of the XOs Trump signed countermands the Fourteenth Amendment
by declaring that persons born in the U.S. of undocumented parents are not citizens. Two federal judges, John Coughenour
(a Ronald Reagan appointee) in Washington State and Deborah Boardman (a Joe Biden appointee) in Maryland, issued
nationwide preliminary injunctions blocking the XO until they can hear the relevant cases. This means that the parents of any
newborn can apply for Social Security numbers and passports and the agencies must issue them until further notice. The
DoJ has already appealed Coughenour's order. The case is certain to get to the Supreme Court and be granted cert since
it raises the issue of whether an XO can overrule the actual words in the Constitution.
- Funding Freeze: A memo from the Office of Management and Budget last week froze many
disbursements from the treasury. The memo said this would give the administration time to see which ones they liked.
This is called "impoundment" and there is a specific law banning it. The courts have ruled that when Congress directs
that a certain amount of money is to be spent for certain purpose, the Executive Branch is required to spend it as
Congress directed. In particular, the president has no authority to refuse to do what Congress has ordered him to do.
In fact, the president has taken an oath to see that the laws are faithfully executed.
It is not a la carte, the president cannot pick and choose which laws to enforce.
There was a huge uproar about this memo and it was quickly withdrawn, but Leavitt said that only the memo was withdrawn, not the freeze. On Friday, U.S. District Judge John McConnell (an Obama appointee) in Rhode Island issued a ruling banning the freeze for the moment. He wrote: "Federal law specifies how the Executive should act if it believes that appropriations are inconsistent with the President's priorities—it must ask Congress, not act unilaterally," Another judge, Loren AliKhan (a Biden appointee), made a similar ruling in D.C.
- Transgender inmates: Another XO declared that there are exactly two sexes, male and
female, determined at conception and unchangeable. This led four transgender women prisoners who were about to be
transferred to men's prisons to sue, claiming they would be at serious risk of sexual assault in a men's facility. In a
ruling, U.S. District Judge Royce Lamberth (a Reagan appointee) concluded that there is no need for immediate transfers
until he can hear the case on its merits. There are only 16 male-to-female trans women in the entire federal penal
system and he believes they can stay where they are for the time being.
- FBI agents Donald Trump wants to release the names of the FBI agents who worked on the
Jan. 6 case, likely in the hope that his vigilantes attack them. They sued to stop disclosure. U.S. District Judge Jia
Cobb (a Biden appointee) ruled that the names could only be disclosed with a 2-day warning in advance so the agents
could go to court to ask a judge to block the release.
- Labor Department: The DOGEys want access to the Department of Labor's computers. The AFL-CIO sued to block them, fearing that they would get access to sensitive data about ongoing investigations concerning Musk's companies and competitors. On Friday, U.S. District Judge John Bates in D.C. (a George W. Bush appointee) declined to block access because he ruled that the union organization did not show that it has been harmed. The AFL-CIO President Liz Shuler said that the ruling was a setback, but not a defeat.
We are only 3 weeks in and already there are over 40 lawsuits. After 3 months, there will be many more. (V)
Russell Vought Has a Mission: Burn It to the Ground...
Former Director of the OMB Russell Vought was confirmed on a straight party-line vote to a new term by the Senate on Friday and got to work immediately. His goal is to burn the government down to the ground and just leave rubble in its place. He is not at all shy about saying this. In fact, he even wrote it all down in detail—he was the main author of the Project 2025 book. He was also one of the architects of Schedule F, which de facto repeals the Pendleton Civil Service Act and magically turns protected civil servants into political appointees who serve at the pleasure of the president. Many of Donald Trump's XOs have Vought's fingerprints all over them.
The OMB has wide-ranging authority over federal agencies, which gives Vought considerable power to carry out Trump's agenda. Vought has said he wants to inflict "trauma" on the federal workforce because he believes "elitists" within it have long stifled conservatives. One person close to Vought described him as a "bull in a china shop."
He is a strong believer in impoundments and thinks the president has a line-item veto, despite a law and court decisions stating unambiguously that he does not. Vought understands the budget extremely well. He is known to spend his free time studying budget documents. People close to him say he is an in-the-weeds kind of guy. They expect him to carefully pick some opportunities to engage in impoundment that will have the greatest chance of success in the resulting Supreme Court case.
Vought wears another hat besides heading OMB. Donald Trump has also appointed him to run the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau. This agency's mission is to make sure banks don't use underhanded gimmicks (or illegal actions) to trick consumers into paying for services they didn't request and don't want. The poster child for this is Wells Fargo's practice from 2002 to 2016 of secretly opening customer accounts that the customers didn't request and then charging the customers for those accounts. This resulted in a fine of $3 billion to resolve the matter. The CFPB also tries to warn Americans about pig butchering scams.
Vought doesn't like the idea of holding companies responsible for what they do, so on Saturday, he ordered all CFPB staff members to halt all activities, including all supervision of the companies CFPB has authority over. In one e-mail, he effectively terminated the Bureau. He said it was to end the weaponization of the Bureau against "disfavored" industries (e.g., banks).
Dennis Kelleher, head of Better Markets, which advocates for consumer protection, accused Trump of throwing his own voters "to the financial wolves." He said: "This latest attempt to kill the consumer bureau is another slap in the face for all Americans who depend on basic financial products and services, but especially for those in the multi-racial working-class coalition of Americans that helped elect President Trump." It's true. Scamming working-class people with little financial knowledge is a whole lot easier than scamming affluent college-educated suburban voters who are much more financially sophisticated.
And then there is this. Two minutes before Trump announced the $TRUMP crypto coin, an unknown trader bought almost 6 million at 18¢ each. They were soon worth $75 each. Many of Trump's supporters bought them at prices ranging from $75 on Jan. 19 to $26 on Jan. 31. They are now worth $16.40 each:

In other words, many Trump supporters lost their shirts on this play within 2 weeks. The records show that over 800,000 people lost money on $TRUMP in the first 19 days and their total losses were over $2 billion. On the other hand, Trump and his partners made over $100 million in fees and Trump still has plenty of $TRUMP coins that he got for free. Maybe scamming your own supporters will become the new normal in politics. His supporters can't get enough of it. This is another kind of scam the CFPB could warn people about. But now it has gone dark.
Democrats know Vought from Trump v1.0 and despise him. Rep. Rosa DeLauro (D-CT), the ranking member of the House Appropriations Committee, said: "Russ Vought does not belong in public service. He really should be thrown out. He is a dangerous person to our government..."
Vought has been in D.C. for over two dozen years. He has earned a reputation as a fiscal conservative who believes in balanced budgets and one nation under God, with an emphasis on the "God" part. He is a proud Christian nationalist who sees his mission as crushing the "deep state." He would be happy importing the Iranian system to the U.S., just changing a word or two, say, replacing "Qur'an" with "Bible," but otherwise keeping the model of a religious theocracy. And like the good "till death do us part" Christian that he is, he got divorced last summer. (V)
...And Vought Is Not the Only One
In only 3 weeks as co-president, Elon Musk's long-term goals are becoming increasingly clear. He wants a smaller, weaker government, with many fewer workers, that he and his co-president can easily completely control. This is very different from old-style, 20th-century dictators, who wanted an all-powerful government to enforce their orders. Musk believes that controlling the computers, the data, and the flow of funds is enough in the 21st century. It is a radical theory.
To a large extent, what government does is allow a large number of ordinary (read: individually weak) people to band together to prevent rich (read: powerful) people from running roughshod over them with no constraints. Personally, Musk has a strong interest in having a weak bureaucracy so that when one of his companies is accused of violating the law, which happens rather often, the agency will be too weak and understaffed to do much about it. The New York Times has put together this diagram of the many conflicts Musk has had with government agencies overseeing the more than $15 billion in government contracts his companies have:

Musk understands that revolutions happen when the old order collapses. The U.S. government is not collapsing, so his first order of business is to make it collapse. His tools include decreasing morale by firing long-time employees and making the rest so nervous that they voluntarily seek employment elsewhere (and transferring the holdouts to the Office of Walrus Management in northern Alaska), making all employees show up in the office every day and making the buildings so crappy that no one wants to work there, and so on. For the work that must be done, he wants to replace the workers with AI, even though AI has an extremely spotty record and makes huge mistakes all the time. He doesn't doubt for a second that an AI program could find whole agencies to close because it doesn't know what they are for. Musk has already started having AI look at all the contracts the Department of Education has in order to simply cancel every one not specifically required by some law. Probably he will write a short letter to vendors whose contracts have been canceled reading something like: "ChatGPT has determined that your government contract is not required by law so it is hereby canceled." This will result in thousands of lawsuits and will overwhelm the courts and paralyze them.
But Musk is not leaving everything to automation. He and Russell Vought both believe that the president, and by implication, people working for the president, have the authority to simply refuse to make payments for programs Congress has mandated. However, in fairness, Vought is a stickler for rules and wants to make sure everything he does is technically legal, even if that means digging up some 200-year-old law to justify it. Musk thinks rules and laws are for suckers and fools. His general approach to business parallels Trump's: Just do what you want and then hire good lawyers to endlessly delay or fight all the resulting court cases. For example, at Musk's companies, he told his employees if they join a union, they will lose their stock options. This is illegal, but he knows it will be years before the resulting court cases are resolved and by then the employees will have moved on and given up due to the legal costs.
What Musk seems to be driving at is zero-based government. First destroy the entire thing, one way or another, legally or not. Then create new agencies for those parts of government that he likes. NASA would probably be the first new agency created, since Musk's company SpaceX has $15 billion worth of contracts with it. The Department of Defense might be next and finally a Department of Justice to prosecute Trump's enemies. Health care? Not the government's problem. HUD? Let the cities do that if they want to. Interior? Sell all the national parks and forests to the lumber companies at fire-sale prices.
Pollsters are starting to ask people whether they have a favorable or unfavorable view of Musk. He is already under water and dropping. Here are two recent YouGov polls (for different sponsors):
Pollster | Dates | Favorable | Unfavorable | Net |
YouGov | Feb. 2 - Feb. 4 | 43% | 49% | -6% |
YouGov | Jan. 29 - Feb. 1 | 40% | 47% | -7% |
The polls show that only about 12% of Americans want Musk to have a lot of influence in the administration. Among independents, that is 6-7% (down from 20% in December). In a Quinnipiac U. poll, independent voters disapprove of Musk playing a prominent role in the administration 53% to 39%. These numbers suggest that Democrats should constantly harp on the idea that unelected billionaires should not be running the country. Basically, Musk is a softer target than Trump. Many of Trump's supporters would willingly crawl naked over broken glass for Trump, but few would do it for Musk. If Musk's numbers drop low enough, Trump will see him as a liability and dump him. If that happens, Musk will probably not go gentle into that good night and there could be fireworks. (V)
New York Democrats Are Starting to Play Hardball
Democrats like to be known as the good-government party that plays by the book and is nice to everyone. But New York State Democrats, at least, have decided that bringing a water pistol to a gun fight might not be the best idea anymore. They have finally decided to make a stand where they can. Donald Trump nominated Rep. Elise Stefanik (R-NY) to be ambassador to the United Nations. She doesn't have any diplomatic experience, but her district, NY-21, does border on what is currently a foreign country and on a really clear day she might be able to see it 130 miles away from her front porch in Schuylerville. She is known to be tough with the presidents of Ivy League universities and if she can handle them, surely she can handle Russian and Chinese diplomats. Her confirmation by the Senate is virtually assured.
As soon as Stefanik is confirmed, she will have to resign her seat in the House. Then Gov. Kathy Hochul (D-NY) will call a special election to replace her. What exactly does "then" mean? Under current New York State law, the special election must be held within 90 days of the vacancy. However, Democratic state legislators suddenly feel that with such a short campaign period, well-known current politicians have too much of an advantage over ordinary citizens who might want to run. Consequently, they have formally introduced a bill to allow the governor to call special elections as late as November. The bill will be taken up today and could even pass and be signed today.
Turns out some of the legislators can count to at least 218. The Republicans won 220 House seats last November and Democrats won 215. Three are currently or soon will be vacant, but two of them are in Florida and will be filled by special elections in April. These are heavily Republican districts, which will bring the score to 215D, 219R. If Stefanik's seat remains vacant until November, the Republicans will hold a 4-seat edge for most of the year.
What that means is that if two Republicans vote "no" on some bill, it will be a tie, 217-217. The House does not have tiebreakers, and a bill that is tied fails. Could it happen that two Republicans have the spine to vote "no" on the upcoming budget bill and the bill to keep the government running when the debt ceiling arrives? Well, Reps. Chip Roy (R-TX) and Ralph Norman (R-SC), members of the Freedom Caucus, have made it clear that unlike Elon Musk, they think Congress is still relevant and want deep cuts in the budget, otherwise they are "no" votes. If the special election in New York is indeed scheduled for November, that will increase their power and determination because then all it will take is their two votes to torpedo anything.
Speaker Mike Johnson (R-LA) might try to make a deal with the Democrats on the budget and the debt ceiling. Then the Democrats will have to choose. If they play ball, they could probably get some minor concession on policy (e.g., an increased child tax credit). But if they refuse to play ball and there is no budget and the government shuts down (which would make Roy, Norman, and Musk very happy), it will be easy for the Democrats to run in 2026 on a platform of: "Republicans had complete control and they can't govern." Traditionally, Democrats don't like to play politics when actual people get hurt as a result, but now that the stakes are so high, they could decide to try it.
If the Democrats can hold all their own House seats in 2026 and flip only three Republican seats, they would have a majority. This would block Trump's final two budgets and make sure he couldn't get any laws passed. They could also impeach not only Trump, but other officials. Imagine a House debate about impeaching Musk. The Democrats could air all of the illegal things he did (assuming he is still a DOGEy). The Republicans would argue that since Musk is not a government official, he can't be impeached. That doesn't matter. The goal wouldn't be to actually impeach him. The goal would simply be to give what he is doing massive publicity to turn the country against him in preparation for an "Eat the billionaires" campaign in 2028. The end result of the "debate" could be a decision not to impeach him, although if the House did formally impeach him, it could get interesting. Also, the House could actually impeach cabinet officers and others who had committed high crimes and misdemeanors. Surely by Jan. 2027 there will be plenty of them. (V)
Senate Leapfrogs the House on the Budget
From the above, it should be clear that the House is nowhere near a budget bill that could get 218 votes. But bills other than revenue bills can originate in either chamber, so the Senate has sprung into action to start the reconciliation process. Sen. Lindsey Graham (R-SC), chairman of the Senate Budget Committee, has scheduled markup sessions for Wednesday and Thursday, during which the budget resolution will be drafted. Once there is a budget resolution, other committees could start to propose spending in their respective areas. The Judiciary and Homeland Security Committees will be asked to propose spending $175 billion each, Armed Services will be asked to propose spending $150 billion, Commerce, Transportation, and Science will be asked to propose $20 billion, and the Environment and Public Works Committee will be asked to come in no higher than $1 billion. That says something about Graham's (and Trump's) priorities. In all, nine committees will be given instructions on how much to ask for. Although Graham is setting the top-line amount, the committees can fill that in as they please, adding or cutting programs as they prefer. The resolution will instruct the various committees to come up with corresponding spending cuts to make the math work.
Easy-peasy, no? Not quite. The Senate bill is only about the budget. It leaves all of Trump's other priorities for a later bill. The idea is to get a quick win on the budget that Trump can brag about. The only problem is that Mike Johnson wants a single megabill that contains everything—budget, border, energy, and the kitchen sink—all in one bill. When the Senate bill shows up, what will Johnson do? He could abandon his single-bill plan and try to pass the Senate bill, but if Chip Roy and Ralph Norman torpedo it, what then? Also keep in mind that if Elise Stefanik has not been confirmed yet, a third "no" will be needed to kill the bill.
Also in the mix is the debt ceiling. Will that be in the bill? And how will Democrats react? Will they try to keep the lights on in return for small concessions or will they go to the mattresses and oppose everything in order to show the country that the Republicans can't govern and prepare themselves for 2026? We'll see. (V)
Trump to Impose More Tariffs
On Friday, Donald Trump announced more tariffs. In particular, many countries have tariffs on U.S. products and the U.S. does not have tariffs on their products. Trump wants to change that. As a starter, he wants to impose the same tariffs on every other country equal to what they impose on the U.S. He also has a group reviewing all tariffs; that group is due to report back to him on April 1. Depending on what is in that report, there could be more tariffs later. Yesterday Trump said that he will impose a 25% tariff on steel and aluminum imports today. The U.S. imports $82 billion worth of steel and iron annually and $26 billion worth of aluminum, mostly from Canada and Mexico, but also from China, in some cases via Canada or Mexico. The U.S. exports $43 billion worth of steel and iron and $13 billion worth of aluminum, which are likely to be hit by tariffs levied by the countries they go to. Trade war, here we come.
As long as we are on the subject of metals, Trump just ordered the U.S. Mint to stop producing pennies. They cost 3.7¢ each to make and everyone hates them. The eurozone technically has a €0.01 coin, but almost all cash purchases within the E.U. are rounded off to the nearest €0.05. Electronic purchases are exact. This means that if you buy something for €14.98 and pay with a credit or debit card, it costs €14.98, but if you pay cash, it is €15.00. But if you buy something for €14.97, you are better off paying cash. If you buy many items at a supermarket, the rounding applies only to the total amount, not the individual items.
Trump thinks that tariffs are some kind of magic pill that cures everything. What he forgets is that when he puts a tariff on some foreign-made product, that product will get more expensive for American consumers. In other words, tariffs cause inflation and his base doesn't like inflation.
Another problem is whether Trump really has the power to levy tariffs on his own. The Constitution explicitly grants the power to levy tariffs to Congress. If Trump goes ahead with his plan, there will be lawsuits from companies affected by them and the whole thing will end up in John Roberts' lap, as usual.
Congress did delegate some authority to the president on tariffs, but the Supreme Court has been trying to rein in executive branch agencies by ruling they can't do things unless Congress has expressly given them the authority to do them. In other words, the Court has not been friendly to the idea of Congress giving its power to the executive branch. That could play a role here, if the Court decides consistency is important. (V)
Another One of Musk's Merry Band of Hackers Is a White Supremacist
We noted last week that one of Elon's Muskrats, Marko Elez, posted racist remarks to eX-Twitter. One of those remarks was "normalize Indian hate." This got him some bad PR, so he resigned. Then Usha Vance, the vice president's wife, forgave him on behalf of all 1.4 billion Indians and all was well. This enabled Musk to rehire Elez, saying "To err is human, to forgive divine." Since Musk was the one forgiving, this sort of implies that he is some sort of deity, a thought he probably fully endorses. So there is one bad apple in the barrel. Happens.
Ooops, make that two bad apples. Next up is Gavin Kliger—like Elez, a software engineer, and also active on social media. In posts between Oct. 2024 and Jan. 2025, he reposted content from professional misogynist Andrew Tate and white supremacist Nick Fuentes. But he also generated original content as well. For example, after New York City Mayor Eric Adams talked about shutting down a migrant center, he wrote: "Just leave them be for a few more months. Will be much more convenient to deport them all if they are in one spot."
Clearly, Donald Trump and Elon Musk don't care about this kind of behavior, so there's no reason to think that Kliger or Elez will suffer any real consequences for being bigots. Meanwhile, there are still people arguing that Musk—a fellow who grew up in apartheid-era South Africa, who pals around with the far-right and extremist Alternative for Germany, who performs Nazi salutes, and who seems to enjoy hiring racist underlings—has not been proven to be a racist. We think these folks do not understand what "proven" means. (V)
Abigail Spanberger Should Send Elon Musk a Thank You Card
As noted above, the Trump administration in general, and Elon Musk in particular, are hell-bent on firing as many federal workers as they can as fast as they can. Almost 150,000 federal workers—and many more federal contractors—live in nearby Virginia. They will feel the brunt of these firings. So what?
Well, Virginia always holds its gubernatorial election the year after the presidential election, so there is one in 2025. Although the primary is in June, it is virtually certain that the candidates will be former CIA spy and later representative Abigail Spanberger (D) and current Lt. Gov. Winsome Earle-Sears (R-VA). This is probably the most significant election of 2025, so here are pictures of the candidates:

It is expected to be a tight race, but if large numbers of federal workers have been fired by November or fear for their jobs, they are going to blame the Republicans. That's just politics, but it puts Earle-Sears in a difficult position. As a loyal Republican, she has to support the president, even as he is doing something very unpopular in Virginia. People who were just fired or are afraid they soon will be are not likely to be receptive to a message like: "It is a good thing that the president is getting rid of waste in government and firing unproductive workers." A recent poll from Christopher Newport University has Spanberger at 44%, Earle-Sears at 39%, and 16% undecided. But the time remaining between now and the election is basically forever and many important events are sure to happen before the election.
Some people tend to see the Virginia gubernatorial election as a bellwether for the House elections the next year. It has a mixed record:
Year | Governor | House change next year | Prediction |
1985 | Gerald Baliles (D) | D+5 | Good |
1989 | Doug Wilder(D) | D+7 | Good |
1993 | George Allen (R) | R+54 | Good |
1997 | Jim Gilmore (R) | D+5 | Bad |
2001 | Mark Warner (D) | R+8 | Bad |
2005 | Tim Kaine (D) | D+31 | Good |
2009 | Bob McDonnell (R) | R+63 | Good |
2013 | Terry McAuliffe (D) | R+13 | Bad |
2017 | Ralph Northam (D) | D+41 | Good |
2021 | Glenn Youngkin (R) | R+9 | Good |
It is not a perfect predictor. 7 right, 3 wrong is a decent record, but it is not quite as impressive as hitting .700 in baseball. (V)
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Feb08 Saturday Q&A
Feb08 Reader Question of the Week: Rally 'round the Flag
Feb07 MuskWatch: Pushing All the Wrong Buttons?
Feb07 Pam Bondi: Bill Barr, the Sequel
Feb07 Donald Trump: He Was Nailed to the Cross for Me
Feb07 I Read the News Today, Oh Boy: Rock Fish
Feb07 This Week in Schadenfreude: Don't Mess with... Black Churches
Feb07 This Week in Freudenfreude: Tryin' to Get Up That Great Big Hill of Hope
Feb06 Are Democrats Falling Into Musk's Trap?
Feb06 Has Musk Violated (M)any Laws?
Feb06 Musk Might Save Ukraine
Feb06 Will Trump Be the New McKinley?
Feb06 All Eyes Are on the Federal Courts Now
Feb06 A Trip Through Trump Country
Feb06 Democratic AGs Warn Government Workers about the Buyout
Feb06 The Turtle in Winter
Feb06 Few Politicians Are Popular
Feb05 Genocide Joe? Meet Ethnic Cleansing Don
Feb05 Today's Crazypants Roundup
Feb05 Path Is Clear for Trump Cabinet Picks
Feb05 There's No Business Like Show Business... Apparently
Feb05 The Empire State Strikes Back?
Feb04 Musk Is King
Feb04 The Trade Wars Have... Been Paused
Feb04 Only the Best People, Part I: The Den of Thieves
Feb04 Only the Best People, Part II: This Is Your Government
Feb03 Musk Has a New Role: Impounder-in-Chief
Feb03 The Co-Presidents Are Shutting Down USAID
Feb03 The Trade Wars Have Begun, Part II
Feb03 Trump Has Near-Record Low Approval for New Term
Feb03 Ken Martin Wins the DNC Election
Feb03 Mayor Pete --> Secretary Pete --> Senator Pete (?)
Feb03 Republicans Are Still Fighting with Each Other over the Budget
Feb03 Maybe Congress Should Get the Blame for the Mid-Air Collision
Feb03 Rubio's First Task: Talking Panama out of the Canal
Feb03 New York Doctor Indicted for Prescribing Mifepristone for Louisiana Teen
Feb02 The Trade Wars Have Begun
Feb02 Sunday Mailbag
Feb01 Saturday Q&A
Feb01 Reader Question of the Week: Name That Dune
Jan31 Donald Trump Kills 67 People
Jan31 Confirmation Hearings: Trump May Not be Able to Ram Gabbard, Kennedy Through
Jan31 Trumponomics: A Heaping Pile of Bull... Well, You Know
Jan31 Today in Fawning Obeisance: Meta Appears to Have Abandoned All Pretense of Balance
Jan31 I Read the News Today, Oh Boy: Little Lion Man
Jan31 This Week in Schadenfreude: Boebert Tries to Be a Hawk, Ends Up as a Goat
Jan31 This Week in Freudenfreude: Fires, Meet Water Bearer
Jan30 Kennedy Is Heard
Jan30 How Hegseth Was Confirmed