Everything's Bigger in Texas... At Least This Year

Today's the day. Yep, primary season officially gets underway, with North Carolina, Texas, and Arkansas all picking the candidates who will advance to the general election (or, in some cases, who will advance to a runoff).

As we noted in passing yesterday, early voting is up substantially in North Carolina, about 24% over the 2022 primaries, and even a few points higher than the 2024 primaries, despite that being a presidential year. Western Carolina University political scientist Chris Cooper has crunched the numbers, and he reports that the turnout among Democratic voters is up 26% (despite there being no competitive statewide primaries on that side of the contest), among Republican voters is up 8%, and among unaffiliated voters is up a remarkable 40%.

The story is similar in Arkansas... maybe. There is no question that primary voting is way up in the Razorback State, and that it will break the record of 208,528 votes set in 2022. However, things are a little slower there than elsewhere, and so while Arkansas Secretary of State Cole Jester (R) has confirmed that there are going to be well more than 208,528 votes, he has not revealed how many more. He's a funny guy, that Jester.

Arkansas is also a de facto one-party state, where the governorship and all of the federal offices are held by Republicans. In two of those cases (U.S. Senate, and one U.S. House district), the incumbent is running for reelection. In the four other cases (governor, the other three U.S. House districts), the incumbent is running for reelection AND has no primary opponent. So, in this case, the increase in turnout might not be driven by Democrats and/or independents showing up to the polls in droves.

And then there is Texas, where the jump in turnout this year is massive, especially on the Democratic side. Again, as we mentioned in passing yesterday, Texas allows voters to pick either a Republican ballot or a Democratic ballot for the primaries (at that point, the voter is locked in through any runoff elections and cannot switch again). Compared to 2022, the number of people requesting a Republican primary ballot is up 125% this year. And the number of people requesting a Democratic ballot is up an unbelievable 240%.

The race that everyone cares about is the U.S. Senate race. And if only one of the two primaries was competitive, we'd suspect some sort of ratfu**ing was going on. But they are both competitive, and so it is probable that for every Republican who takes a Democratic ballot in hopes of sticking the blue team with the weaker candidate (presumably Rep. Jasmine Crockett), there would be a Democrat who takes a Republican ballot in hopes of sticking the red team with the weaker candidate (definitely AG Ken Paxton).

In fact, we would argue—albeit mostly based on speculation—that the circumstances of this year's election should be driving a lot of voters in the Republican direction. We'd say the "electability gap" between Sen. John Cornyn (R-TX) and Paxton, who is nutty, corrupt and immoral, is much larger than the "electability gap" between Crockett and state Rep. James Talarico. So, a ratfu**ing Democrat should have more motivation to cross the aisle than their Republican counterpart. Meanwhile, the Republican primary is almost certainly headed to a runoff, meaning that any Republican or independent who is a fan of either Cornyn or Paxton should be casting ballots on that side of the contest, because they will almost certainly have the opportunity to support their favored candidate twice.

But again, it's not the Republican ballots that are going like hotcakes, it's the Democratic ballots. Given the additional context provided by North Carolina, and the lack of viable alternative explanations, the most obvious conclusion is that Democratic/independent/throw the bums out enthusiasm is way up in Texas this year. We'll probably have a clearer picture tonight. And thereafter, we'll see if that enthusiasm is enough to flip the Senate seat, especially if the more controversial Crockett is the blue team's standard-bearer.

Naturally, we will have our rundown of the results tomorrow. (Z)

DCCC Announces 12 Red-to-Blue Targets...

Every election cycle, the two major House PACs (the Democratic DCCC and the Republican NRCC) put together lists of districts where they intend to spend extra money, and where they hope donors will also step to the plate. The lists do evolve over the course of campaign season, as it becomes clear that some candidates don't need extra help, while others are helpless.

The DCCC has just released its first red-to-blue list of the cycle, of a dozen districts it hopes to swing. Here's a brief rundown:

District: AZ-02 (R+7)

Current Incumbent: Eli Crane

DCCC's Favored Candidate: Jonathan Nez, a moderate, and a former president of the Navajo Nation. He ran in this district in 2024 and lost a close election.

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District: AZ-06 (EVEN)

Current Incumbent: Juan Ciscomani

DCCC's Favored Candidate: JoAnna Mendoza, a Marine Corps veteran and single mom.

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District: IA-01 (R+4)

Current Incumbent: Mariannette Miller-Meeks

DCCC's Favored Candidate: Christina Bohannan, who grew up very blue collar, but now has degrees in both engineering and law. She lost this seat by just 799 votes in 2024; the closest race of that cycle.

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District: IA-03 (R+2)

Current Incumbent: Zach Nunn

DCCC's Favored Candidate: Sarah Trone Garriott, who is a Lutheran minister and a hospital chaplain.

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District: MI-04 (R+3)

Current Incumbent: Bill Huizenga

DCCC's Favored Candidate: State Sen. Sean McCann, who has built his whole political career around kitchen table issues.

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District: NC-11 (R+5)

Current Incumbent: Chuck Edwards

DCCC's Favored Candidate: Jamie Ager, a fourth-generation farmer whose family farm is called Hickory Nut Gap.

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District: PA-08 (R+4)

Current Incumbent: Rob Bresnahan

DCCC's Favored Candidate: Mayor Paige Cognetti of Scranton, whose slogan is "Paige Against the Machine."

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District: PA-10 (R+3)

Current Incumbent: Scott Perry

DCCC's Favored Candidate: Janelle Stelson, a former TV journalist. Basically, the Democrats' answer to Kari Lake, except that Stelson is not—What's the word we're looking for here?—insane. Stelson ran for this seat in 2024, and overperformed relative to Democrats statewide.

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District: TN-05 (R+8)

Current Incumbent: Andy Ogles

DCCC's Favored Candidate: Mayor Chaz Molder of Columbia, who brags, not unreasonably, that he's twice been elected in a city that is very Trumpy.

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District: VA-01 (R+3)

Current Incumbent: Rob Wittman

DCCC's Favored Candidate: Shannon Taylor, the DA of Henrico County, who is running—not surprisingly—a "law and order" campaign.

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District: VA-02 (EVEN)

Current Incumbent: Jen Kiggans

DCCC's Favored Candidate: Elaine Luria, who is a 20-year Naval officer focused on—not surprisingly—veterans' rights. That's the sort of candidate you need when the district has several "military towns," like Hampton Roads.

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District: WI-03 (R+3)

Current Incumbent: Derrick Van Orden

DCCC's Favored Candidate: Rebecca Cooke, who is both a small business owner and a waitress. Perhaps most importantly, she appears to be sane, which will present a marked contrast to her opponent.

This is a pretty good list of different candidate "types" that are put forward by various factions within the Democratic Party as the sort of candidates that the Party should be running. It will be interesting to see which of them performs well.

Also note that while the DCCC has its preferred candidates, the party does NOT decide in modern politics, at least not as much as it once did. Quite a few of these races have numerous contenders on the Democratic side who could plausibly emerge. To take one example from today's elections, we got a heads-up about the campaign of Dr. Richard Hudspeth, who's up against Jamie Ager in North Carolina. Unlike Ager, Hudspeth has no Nut Gap of any sort, but he does have a platform that appears to comport to the needs of the district very well. If he advances, we won't be shocked. And if that does happen, the DCCC will climb right on board, because it's a very flippable seat, given how many Democrats figure to turn out for this year's U.S. Senate election.

Note that recent court decisions are likely to help the Democrats flip two other seats not on this list. The courts in New York have once again ruled in favor of redrawing the district of Rep. Nicole Malliotakis (R), because the current boundaries unacceptably dilute the power of minority voters. The district, NY-11, is R+10, but figures to get into "swing" range (R+5 or bluer) unless the U.S. Supreme Court steps in, and quickly.

Meanwhile, federal courts have once again upheld the new Utah map, which turns UT-01 from an R+10 district into something like a D+10 district (Cook Political Report has not finished crunching the numbers yet). This is why at least nine Democrats are already in and another nine are thinking about it, and why Rep. Blake Moore (R-UT) is a dead man walking. All of the entities that do race ratings, including Cook, have the district as "Safe D," even though it's held by a Republican. None of the raters have yet recalibrated on NY-11, because it's not known what the new boundaries will be. (Z)

...While Ryan Zinke (Maybe) Announces a 13th

After two terms in the House, which bookend a stint as Secretary of the Interior, Rep. Ryan Zinke (R-MT) has decided (once again) that he's had enough, and that he will retire at the end of this term.

In the letter that is addressed to Zinke's constituents, and that he posted to social media, the Representative says that his military career has left him with injuries that have already required several surgeries, and that will require several more, and that he no longer has it in him to devote 100% to the job. We think that's likely the truth, or at least part of it. However, we would be remiss if we did not point out that: (1) It's also not a fun time to be a member of Congress right now, especially since you pretty much have to do whatever your party tells you to do, and (2) In the past, Zinke has been a grifter par excellence, and there's a lot more money in lobbying and other "opportunities" than in collecting the $174,000 paid to a backbencher in the House.

Zinke's home state of Montana is red, of course, but it's not as red as you might think. Remember, first of all, that until last year, one of the two senators was Democrat Jon Tester. And then, recall that Montana picked up a House seat after the most recent census, and ended up with a district map that creates one safe Republican seat, the R+15 MT-02, and one not entirely safe Republican seat, the R+5 MT-01. It is the latter that Zinke is vacating.

What that means is that, in a wave-type year, the seat might just be flippable. The Democratic bench is thin, as all of the statewide and federal officeholders right now are Republicans. Still, maybe the blue team gets lucky and finds a diamond in the rough; four folks have filed for that primary, with the deadline for any other aspirants arriving tomorrow.

What would really help the Democrats is if the Republican nominee is crazypants. The donkeys might get their wish. The frontrunner, barring any unexpected developments, is right-wing radio talker Aaron Flint. He's a veteran, which is a plus in Montana. But he's also fringy; he loves to relitigate the 2020 election, and to declare climate change to be a hoax. Undoubtedly Flint will have Donald Trump's endorsement. Based on Flint's announcement video, it seems he's primarily going to run against... Mayor Zohran Mamdani (D-New York City). The other person in the primary is former state senator Dr. Al Olszewski, who is a perennial candidate.

It would have helped the Democrats here if Tester had decided to run this year to try to get his old job back, but he took a pass. Still, whatever candidate the blue team nominates has at least a puncher's chance. (Z)

Political Bytes: Whitewater, the Final Chapter?

Let's take a look at some stories that don't quite merit a whole item, but do merit a mention.

That'll Go Over Like a Lead Zeppelin: The Republican Party has been using hatred of the Clintons to whip the base into a lather for more than three decades. And Rep. James Comer (R-KY) tried it yet again, with last week's testimony on the Jeffrey Epstein matter. Yesterday, Comer and his committee released video and transcripts of the Clintons' appearances.

We intended to give this news its own item, but there's no "there" there. Certainly, there's no smoking gun out of which Fox will be able to create its next 3 weeks of programming. Basically, Hillary said she didn't know anything, and she got pissed off when Rep. Lauren Boebert (R-CO) broke the rules and posted a picture of the hearing to social media. Bill said he was once friends with Epstein, but they had a falling out long before Epstein became a known criminal, and that he himself had no knowledge of the criminal acts. In other words, this whole stunt came crashing down with a loud thud.

Our Take: The Clintons are approaching 80, and one of them has not held public office in 25 years, while the other hasn't held public office in 13 years. Maybe, just maybe, all the blood has been squeezed from this particular turnip. Meanwhile, one wonders how Comer feels about the fact that the Iran War stole all his thunder. On one hand, it took all the attention away from the mini-scandal he was trying to create. On the other hand, it took all the attention away from the fact that he went on a high-profile fishing expedition, and came up with nothing.

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Lucky It Never Rains in Southern California: U.S. Senate candidate Michele Tafoya (R), whose qualification for that job is that she used to stand on the sidelines of football games and interview jocks, was on Fox last week and revealed a startling "fact": On any given night, 28% of Californians are homeless. Even the Fox entertainer who was hosting the show, Greg Gutfeld, had trouble accepting that with a straight face.

Our Take: Using California to illustrate everything that is wrong with "the libs" is a Republican tradition that dates back at least 40 years. In fairness, Democrats do the same with Texas and "the cons." Tafoya is not likely to win that election, or even that primary, but given her grasp of math, she'll be a prime candidate to be appointed to some post in the Trump White House, we imagine. Incidentally, the correct figure is a shade less than 0.5%, not 28%. Oh well, what's an error of 5,600%, among friends?

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Unconventional: The Democrats had intended to revive a somewhat brief 1970s custom of holding a midterm convention. You know, get some publicity, try to get on the same page heading into the elections, etc. However, the Democratic Party has limited money right now, and so really doesn't need to be spending what it does have on extras. Consequently, plans for the 2026 Democratic National Convention have been scrapped.

Our Take: What if you gave a convention and nobody came? When we first heard about this idea, we thought it was potentially interesting. But it's hard enough to get people to tune into the presidential conventions. If this one went forward, and the ratings were anemic, there'd be a lot of egg on the faces of the Democrats.

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Big Surprise: Speaking of the Democrats, it turns out that the primary issue with the 2024 election autopsy, which the party leaders promised to release, and then decided not to release, was that it said that the Gaza issue dealt a fatal blow to the Kamala Harris campaign.

Our Take: "I'll take 'No Sh**, Sherlock' for $200, Alex." It is hardly a revelation that Gaza split the Democratic coalition in a way that was ultimately fatal to Harris' presidential hopes. So, releasing the report would reveal nothing meaningful, while at the same time risking the possibility of re-opening those wounds. Better to keep the focus on ICE, a source of aggravation on which nearly all Democrats are unified.

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Make Sure Not to Invite Barack Obama: There is a school of thought, one that is not at all outside the realm of reason, that the thing that really caused Donald Trump to go all-in on birtherism, and the 2016 presidential race, was when he got mocked by Barack Obama at the 2011 White House Press Correspondents Dinner (WPCD). Trump seethed that night, because he hates to be the butt of the joke. And since then, he has invariably taken a pass on the WPCD, because he doesn't want his fee-fees to be hurt. But this year, for the first time as president, he will attend.

Our Take: It cannot surprise anyone to learn that, instead of the (usual) stand-up comedian, the headliner at this year's event will be a mind-reader, Oz Pearlman. Trump might not give him much to work with, but at least Pearlman is not likely to mock the President.

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Speaking of Black Politicians: After Jesse Jackson died, his family asked that he be allowed to lie in honor in the U.S. Capitol. Though this honor was granted to Rosa Parks, among others, Speaker Mike Johnson (R-LA) said no, since Jackson is not white notable enough. This despite the fact that, by virtue of having served as a U.S. Senator for Washington, DC (a post that comes with no power, but IS elected), Jackson was an alumnus of Congress.

Our Take: At the moment, Jackson is instead lying in state in South Carolina. Congrats, Mr. Speaker, you are less respectful toward Black history and civil rights activism than... South Carolina.

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Speaking of Racism: Every decision that Mike Johnson makes is undertaken with an audience of one in mind. And it's not too hard to guess how that audience of one would have felt about Jesse Jackson lying in honor just a mile or so from the (very, very) White House. In case you're having trouble figuring it out, though, the new YouGov poll might help. According to their numbers, 47% of respondents think Trump is a racist, versus 24% who think he isn't.

Our Take: What, exactly, are those other 29% waiting for before they are going to be able to form an opinion?

And that's the rest of the story. (Z)

Goodbye CNN, It Was Nice Knowing You

One of the first things all wannabe authoritarians do is capture the mass media. If TV and radio stations and newspapers tell it like it is the way the regime wants people to believe it is, it is harder for the opposition to grow. The fight over Warner Bros. Discovery illustrates that very well.

WBD is a media conglomerate that owns many media properties. These include a large number of movies, as well as studios, production facilities, and dozens of cable channels, from Animal Planet to Turner Classic Movies. Since cable is not a growing business, to put it mildly, WBD is not doing well financially and put itself on the auction block. Netflix bid $83 billion for the movies, which makes some sense, since Netflix needs content to stream. Management of both companies agreed to the deal. All that was needed was for the stockholders to ratify it.

One teeny weeny itsy bitsy part of WBD that is totally irrelevant from a business perspective is CNN, which makes too little money to matter. Netflix was not interested in it but Donald Trump was really, really interested. It was the movies and studios he didn't care about. So he injected himself into the process. He talked to Netflix CEO Ted Sarandos. They haven't said what was on the agenda, but Trump might just have dropped a hint that the DoJ would never approve the deal. CNN has reported that Sarandos left the White House with a glum look on his face.

At the same time, Larry Ellison, a crony of Trump and usually the 6th richest person in the world (depending on Oracle's stock price on any given day), asked his son, David Ellison, who runs Paramount, to bring a bid for WBD. He bid $111 billion for the whole company (including CNN). Guess what? Netflix dropped out of the bidding, so Paramount will end up buying all of WBD, including CNN. Then the Ellisons can install a Trump-friendly CEO who knows nothing about media or news to run CNN, analogous to their installing Bari Weiss to run CBS News, which Paramount already owns. Trump will be pleased as punch and the DoJ will approve the deal in a heartbeat.

If CNN becomes Fox Lite, viewers will leave and eventually Paramount might just kill it off altogether. From Trump's point of view, he couldn't have hoped for a better outcome. CNN is small potatoes for Paramount and it could subsidize it forever if it wanted to. If it can successfully turn it into Fox Lite and draw enough viewers away from Fox News, it might survive in that form. But probably not. The three cable "news" channels are competing for slices of an ever-smaller pie, as some people cut cords, and other TV viewers (particularly the type who like Fox) go to the big living room in the sky. There may not be a market for three such channels much longer, particularly for the one that has lurched around from editorial viewpoint to editorial viewpoint for most of the last decade.

Let's take the 10,000 ft view here. The government doesn't want company A to take over company B because it wants company C to take over company B for political reasons. This is how things work in China, where President Xi Jinping makes all the big decisions about how businesses operate. We call that communism. How is that different from the U.S. now? And then there is government ownership of the means of production. Will history record Donald Trump as the first communist president? It should.

How will this work out for the various parties? Paramount is going to have to borrow $90 billion to pay for the deal. At (for example) a 5% interest rate, that is $4.5 billion a year just in interest payments for some movies and a bunch of dying cable channels. And Paramount was already deep in debt even without the deal. As a consequence, Paramount is going to have to go through a drastic round of cost cutting, which is going to cause the company to lose a lot of talent. Also, in addition to betting heavily on cable TV, the Ellisons are also betting heavily on people going to see movies in theaters. It plans at least 30 new movies a year. With WBD studios, it will have the capacity to make them, but are people really going to stop streaming and go to the movies enough to make the deal work? Count us as skeptical. (V & Z)

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