Trump's Candidates Win... Barely

There were a handful of runoffs yesterday, two of which we previewed in detail on Monday. Here are the results:

U.S. Senate, South Carolina: Sen. Darline Graham (R-SC) did everything possible to screw this up, including numerous gaffes reminding everyone that she's underqualified for the job (at best), or that she has absolutely no business in the Senate at all (at worst). After all, she's not a lawyer, she's not a military veteran, she's not an experienced politician, and she's never coached a single football game.

Despite this, Graham won her highly compressed primary election, defeating Rep. Ralph Norman (R-SC) 52.5% to 47.5%. Was this due to having a famous last name? Was it because of Donald Trump's support, including the President cracking open his PAC wallet for a last-minute ad spend? Was it because Norman is kind of unpopular? Probably all three of those things. We will note that when brother Lindsey ran in his primary, before he went the way of all men, he got 56.8% of the vote. That's not especially different, and it suggests to us there's a MAGA cadre among South Carolina Republicans, and a non-MAGA cadre, and it largely doesn't matter who the MAGA candidate is when it comes time to vote. If that is true, and if the MAGA vote is barely above 50% even in a very red state like South Carolina, then it does not bode well for MAGA primary candidates in 2028, when Trump might be even less popular/alive than he is right now.

Graham will likely go on to defeat Democrat Annie Andrews, who is equally inexperienced. That said, we will point out one thing: In the last Andrews vs. Lindsey poll before he died, she only trailed him by 3 points (48% to 45%). And in a PPP poll taken after Lindsey died, but before Darline was appointed as his successor, Andrews was down 1 point to Norman (43% to 42%) and up 1 point on Mark Sanford (41% to 40%). If Black voters in the state are angry and motivated enough, and if their white, Democratic counterparts also get to the polls, and if some number of non-MAGA Republicans take a pass on this one, it's not impossible this seat flips.

Governor, Oklahoma: This one came down to the wire. However, with 95%+ of the vote in, the Donald Trump-endorsed Mike Mazzei (R) has defeated Gentner Drummond (R) for the GOP nod in the race to replace the term-limited Gov. Kevin Stitt (R). As of 1:00 a.m. PT, it's 50.28% to 49.72%, and all the major outlets have called the race for Mazzei.

In case you are wondering, Oklahoma does not have automatic recounts, no matter how close the race. A candidate can ask for a recount, no matter how small/large the margin of defeat, and they can ask for either a statewide recount or a targeted recount focused on particular districts or precincts. The candidate requesting the recount has to pay all the costs, though they do get a refund if the election result changes. Drummond, at the moment, is down 2,047 votes out of 371,309 cast, which is both a pretty small number, and yet an enormous number when it comes to the number of ballots that might plausibly flip in a recount. If Drummond really wants to throw his money away on a long shot, better to take it to Vegas and bet the Cleveland Browns to win the Super Bowl.

What conclusion can we draw from this election? Well, Oklahoma is the reddest state in the nation, and has not given even so much as a county to a Democrat since Al Gore. And yet, a Republican who did not have Trump's endorsement, and who spent the last day of the campaign criticizing Trump's tariffs, very nearly triumphed. As Trump gets more and more lame ducky, or maybe just less and less popular, his power to move the needle appears to be fading. His two candidates yesterday—again, running in very red states, states that Trump won in 2024 by 18 (SC) and 24 (OK) points—won by a combined 5.56 points.

GA-13: We did not preview this one on Monday, but yesterday Georgia held an election for the right to finish off the term of Rep. David Scott (D), who died back in April. Gov. Brian Kemp (R-GA) delayed as long as he could, but yesterday former Gwinnett County School Board Chairman Everton Blair (D) defeated Marcye Scott (D, and daughter of David) for the seat, 54% to 46%. The younger Scott outpolled Blair in the original, jungle-style round of voting, 46% to 38%, but clearly did not grow her support in the interim.

Blair is very progressive, and so this is a win for that wing of the party, but it comes with a very big caveat. State Rep. Jasmine Clark (D) took a pass on the special election, but won the regular primary over both Blair and Scott. Since the district is D+21, she is expected to defeat Air Force veteran Jonathan Chavez (R) in what will be a regular, non-jungle-style election. So, Blair will get to spend a couple of months as a member of Congress, during which time the body will largely not be in session, and then will head back home to Georgia.

Once Blair is sworn in, the House will be 218R, 214D, and 1I with two vacancies that will likely not be filled before the end of the term. As Speaker Mike Johnson (R-LA) tries to deal with the budget, and possibly with some version of the SAVE Act, and a few other things, he will continue to have a tiny margin of error, and will likely only be able to afford two defections at most, assuming the "independent" Kevin Kiley votes like the Republican he really is.

Massachusetts will take its turn next week, and then all that will be left are New Hampshire, Rhode Island and Delaware, in that order. (Z)

Donald Trump, Anti-Populist

Yesterday, Aaron Blake—late of The Washington Post, and currently at CNN—had a column in which he argues that Donald Trump, who ran for the presidency as a populist, has now become an anti-populist.

Blake's evidence for this is substantial, and built around examples of Trump doing things that are unpopular. A partial list:

• The trade war with Canada
• The damage done to the Kennedy Center
• The Iran War
• Vaccine policy
• The $1.776 billion slush fund

Blake makes his case based almost entirely on polling, and shows that all of these things are indeed very unpopular. For example, 60% of Americans oppose the changes to the Kennedy center and 60% also don't like the vaccine policy, while two-thirds oppose the Iran War and more than 80% oppose the slush fund.

Usually, Blake is the best analyst CNN has (and he was the best WaPo had while he was there). However, he's not a historian, and so his understanding of populism is a fair bit off the mark. A populist politician is not defined by doing things that "the people like." All politicians, or nearly all politicians, try to do things "the people like." But not all politicians are populists. Far from it.

As with Potter Stewart and pornography, when it comes to populism, it's something of an "I know it when I see it" phenomenon. That said, the defining feature of populism, more or less, is the idea that "the people" are being oppressed by entrenched economic and political interests, and that aggressive steps must be taken to smash that entrenched power and correct the imbalance. With right-wing populists, there is an underlying mindset that "this is what God wants." With left-wing populists, there is an underlying mindset that "this is a matter of justice/social justice."

Here are some of the ways in which Donald Trump is a textbook right-wing populist:

• Jobs: Trump has made "Jobs! Jobs! Jobs!" a major theme of his presidency. Populists like jobs.
  
  
• Jesus: Again, not generally true of left-wing populists, but the right-wing variety likes a heaping helping of religion intermixed with their politics. The original populists were overwhelmingly evangelical. Don't forget that William Jennings Bryan, the most famous member of the original Populist movement, was—among other things—the prosecuting attorney in the Scopes Monkey Trial.
  
  
• Culture Wars: If the core sentiment is "us vs. them," then "we" like it when "they" get poked in the eye once in a while. In Bryan's most famous speech, he compared the Republicans to the Romans who killed Jesus. And he would certainly understand, and appreciate, modern tactics meant to "own the libs."
  
  
• Trade Wars: Populists do not tend to be sophisticated economic thinkers. And so, they are usually pro-tariff, because they think protectionism means more jobs for working-class Americans, and less competition for American-made goods.

Here are some of the ways in which Trump is not a populist at all:

• The Iran War (and Other Conflicts): Historically, populists tend to be isolationist. They don't think that poor people should be giving their money or their lives to solve the problems of other nations.
  
  
• The Arc de Trump and Other Monuments: Monuments like these are enduring symbols of power. See above about populists' dislike for entrenched power.
  
  
• Crypto: One almost cannot think of something that is more anti-populist than not only accumulating vast wealth, but doing so in a commodity that has no concrete value or purpose. Populists, particularly the original ones from the 1890s, understood the value of an ear of corn or a gallon of milk; they were considerably less persuaded of the value of, say, a stock certificate. If you tried to explain crypto to William Jennings Bryan or James Weaver (1892 Populist candidate for president), it just would not compute, beyond making them very angry.
  
  
• Qatar Force One: Taking bribes/gifts from foreign nations runs afoul of the populist skepticism about foreign entanglements AND their dislike for extreme wealth.

Notice that the things that appear in the first list above are, by and large, smoke and mirrors. Trump hasn't actually created jobs in any meaningful way. Yes, there are more jobs today than there were 10 years ago, but that's driven by population growth. Every president back to Herbert Hoover could say, at some point in their presidency, "There are more jobs in America today than at any time in American history." Meanwhile, Trump's religiosity is just hot air, and so is his culture wars stuff. The trade wars are the most substantive thing on the list, but even with those, Trump usually chickens out.

The things that appear on the second list are, by and large, the things Trump actually does (or tries to do). He really did accumulate vast wealth in his various crypto schemes, and he really did scam a free airplane out of Qatar. He really did start a war with Iran, one he has no idea how to end. He really is spending an enormous amount of energy, not to mention government resources, on things like renaming the Kennedy Center, building the Arc de Trump, redoing the Lincoln Reflecting Pool, etc.

These things being the case, it's not exactly wrong to call Trump an anti-populist (even if Blake's reasoning is not on point). However, we think it's probably more instructive to call Trump a faux populist. He pretends to be a populist, a man of the people fighting against the swamp, but in his actions he is as swampy as it gets, and is the epitome of what he pretends to disdain.

The really famous populists of generations past—Bryan, Weaver, Huey Long, George Wallace, even Andrew Jackson (though Old Hickory predates the existence of the word "populist")—were, more often than not, ignorant, reckless, impolitic, bigoted and lacking in sophistication. But they were all, by all indications, true believers in the populist causes they embraced. Trump is also ignorant, reckless, impolitic, bigoted and lacking in sophistication, but we don't believe for a minute that he's a true believer in populist causes.

As long as Trump can sell MAGA voters on the idea he's a true champion of their cause, then it doesn't matter if the rest of us think he's a big phony. But if they start to wake up and smell the coffee, the President and his movement are in trouble. And his sagging approval ratings, including among Republicans, not to mention the somewhat anemic results his endorsees got yesterday (and in the last month or two of primaries) suggest that the coffee just might be starting to percolate right now. (Z)

Let's Talk TV Advertising

There were a couple of interesting items about political ads this week, and we thought we'd mention them. First up is some news from yesterday, which comes out of the United States Court of Appeals for the Fourth Circuit (Virginia, the Carolinas and Maryland). A three-judge panel, by a vote of 2-1, ruled that even when political parties are coordinating closely with campaigns (which the Supreme Court now says is completely kosher), the parties are not themselves the campaigns, and so are not entitled to discounted advertising rates that campaigns get.

The suit was brought by several Democratic candidates for office in North Carolina, led by would-be U.S. Senator Roy Cooper, and by several groups representing print and TV media. The respondents were the FCC and the two main GOP Congressional PACs. By and large, Republicans' more centralized organs (the RNC, the NRCC, the NRSC) do better, fundraising-wise, than their Democratic counterparts. And the Democrats' individual campaigns (e.g., "Cooper for Senate") tend to do better, fundraising-wise, than their Republican counterparts. If political parties don't get a break on ad rates, then the GOP cannot use that centralized wealth nearly as efficiently as they would like, even if the party organs ARE closely coordinating with the campaigns. So, if yesterday's decision stands, it takes away a lot of the benefit the Republicans expected to derive from the Supreme Court's "it's ok to coordinate" ruling.

The second TV-ad-related item, meanwhile, is a piece from NOTUS headlined "Francesca Hong Didn't Run Broadcast Ads. Did It Cost Her Wisconsin?" That pretty much conveys the author's basic idea. The progressive Hong eschewed corporate and PAC money, and so was on a limited advertising budget. She decided to spend it all on online ads, since that is where her voters tend to be. But, that meant that she wasn't reaching a part of the electorate (mostly older/more moderate voters). In turn, that allowed Hong's opponents to define her for these voters. Had she given some attention to more traditional forms of advertising, she might have won over a few more older/more moderate voters, and so might have turned a close loss into a close win.

We are not 100% sure we buy this, if only because TV advertising is not something you can do halfway. Either you're in, or you're not. One TV ad, when it's matched by 10 from the other side, quickly disappears into the void. And if you cut the ratio down a bit—say, one ad for every two run by your opponents, that gets expensive fast. And expensive is a problem for a campaign running on a tight budget.

In any case, we mention the item primarily because of an offhand remark made about halfway through the piece. The conventional wisdom is that you want to reserve as much of your war chest as is possible for the general election, because that's the "real" election, and the one where you need to reach the largest number of voters. But Democratic strategist Jared Leopold makes two observations about the value of TV advertising during primary season: (1) that is when voters know the least about candidates, and (2) that is when voters are most persuadable, since (D) voters are more likely to jump between (D) candidates (i.e., the choices in a primary election) than they are from a (D) to an (R) (i.e., the choices in a general election). And the same for (R) voters, of course—just the mirror image.

We have been somewhat skeptical of the efficacy of TV ads, because so many voters do not watch advertising-based TV, or do not watch TV at all, and the ones who do tend to get bombarded to the point that they tune out. However, perhaps we should refine our position to "TV ads make pretty good sense in the primaries, but somewhat less sense in the general." Not sure yet, but it's worth thinking about. (Z)

Primary Colors

We had an interesting question from reader J.W. in Los Angeles, CA, and we decided that it was meaty enough that we'd turn it into a regular-week item, instead of a Q&A answer. Here's the question:

It is generally understood that it can be easier to flip an open seat that is up for election. So it may be easier for Democrats to flip North Carolina because Sen. Thom Tillis (R) didn't run and the seat is open. So how does this play out in Texas, where the incumbent was defeated in the primary election? Is that now considered an open seat and thus potentially easier to flip? Are there examples of this scenario in the past and what were the outcomes?

We'll start with the easy part: It is indeed an "open" seat now, since the incumbent is not up for reelection. It's not voluntary in this case, but an involuntary retirement is still a retirement.

"This scenario" would seem to be "an incumbent loses his or her primary." This is not a common outcome, but it's not utterly unheard of, either. Here is (we believe) a complete list of all the senators who were defeated in a primary in the last half-century:

• 1978: Maryon Allen (D-AL)
• 1978: Clifford Case (R-NJ)
• 1978: Paul Hatfield (D-MT)
• 1980: Mike Gravel (D-AK)
• 1980: Jacob Javits (R-NY)
• 1980: Donald Stewart (D-AL)
• 1980: Dick Stone (D-FL)
• 1992: Alan Dixon (D-IL)
• 1996: Sheila Frahm (R-KS)
• 2002: Bob Smith (R-NH)
• 2006: Joe Lieberman (D-CT)
• 2010: Bob Bennett (R-UT)
• 2010: Lisa Murkowski (R-AK)
• 2010: Arlen Specter (D-PA)
• 2012: Dick Lugar (R-IN)
• 2017: Luther Strange (R-AL)

Clearly, it's become much rarer for incumbent senators to be primaried. That is likely because it's much easier today to be aware that the writing is on the wall, and to jump ship before being thrown overboard.

From the list, we will cut the senators who were appointed. We are also going to remove the two senators who were primaried, ran as independents, and won a three-way race (Murkowski and Lieberman). Finally, we will remove Arlen Specter, who changed parties shortly before the election in which he was primaried. After all those cuts, the list is:

• 1978: Clifford Case (R-NJ)
• 1980: Mike Gravel (D-AK)
• 1980: Jacob Javits (R-NY)
• 1980: Donald Stewart (D-AL)
• 1980: Dick Stone (D-FL)
• 1992: Alan Dixon (D-IL)
• 2002: Bob Smith (R-NH)
• 2010: Bob Bennett (R-UT)
• 2012: Dick Lugar (R-IN)

That leaves us with nine cases, from the past half-century, that pretty closely parallel what is happening this year with Sens. John Cornyn (R-TX) and Bill Cassidy (R-LA). That is to say, a senator was elected in their own right, and then was unseated by a challenger who went on to contest a (de facto) two-way race.

Now, let us compare the results for the primaried senator with how the candidate who replaced them did. Of course, senators run alternately in presidential years and off years, so we'll give data for two elections where it's appropriate (E-1 = "one election before being primaried" and E-2 = "two elections before being primaried"):

Year	Senator	E-2 Margin	E-1 Margin	Replacement	Replacement Margin
1978	Clifford Case (NJ)	+23% (60% to 37%)	+28% (62.5% to 34.5%)	Jeff Bell	-10.2% (43.1% to 53.3%)
1980	Mike Gravel (AK)	7.7% (45.1% to 37.4%)	16.6% (58.3% to 41.7%)	Clark Gruening	-7.8% (45.9% to 53.7%)
1980	Jacob Javits (NY)	17% (49.7% to 32.7%)	7% (45.3% to 38.3%)	Al D'Amato	1.4% (44.9% to 43.5%)
1980	Donald Stewart (AL)	N/A	12% (55% to 43%)	Jim Folsom Jr.	-3.2% (47.1% to 50.3%)
1980	Dick Stone (FL)	N/A	2.5% (43.4% to 40.9%)	Bill Gunter	-3.4% (48.3% to 51.7%)
1992	Alan Dixon (IL)	13.8% (56.3% to 42.5%)	31.4% (65.1% to 33.7%)	Carol Moseley Braun	10.2% (53.3% to 43.1%)
2002	Bob Smith (NH)	33.8% (65.1% to 31.3%)	3.1% (49.2% to 46.1%)	John Sununu	4.4% (51.1% to 46.7%)
2010	Bob Bennett (UT)	31% (64% to 33%)	40.3% (68.7% to 28.4%)	Mike Lee	28.8% (61.6% to 32.8%)
2012	Dick Lugar (IN)	34.7% (66.6% to 31.9%)	74.8% (87.4% to 12.6%)	Richard Mourdock	-5.6% (44.4% to 50%)

For the seven senators who were twice-elected before being primaried, the average margin of victory was 23 points in the election 12 years prior to their primary defeat. In all seven cases, the primary victor underperformed the result from 12 years earlier once they advanced to the general.

For all nine senators, the average margin of victory was 24 points in the election immediately before they were primaried. However, that is skewed by the fact that the Democrats did not field a candidate in Indiana in 2012. If we toss out Dick Lugar's easy win over an unknown Libertarian, the average margin is 17.6 points. In every case save one (John Sununu in 2002), the primary victor underperformed the result from the previous election once they advanced to the general.

For all nine seats, the average margin in the victory where the sitting senator was primaried was 1.6 points. That's 16 points fewer than the non-Lugar average from the previous elections, 22.4 points fewer than the with-Lugar average from the previous elections and 21.4 points fewer than the average from the elections 12 years prior to the primary defeat. In five of nine cases, the challenger who was successful in the primary went on to lose the general election.

It's only nine cases scattered over half a century, so you don't want to draw conclusions too firm. And undoubtedly there are many possible reasons that an incumbent would lose to a primary challenger, who then might lose in the general: a party in disarray, an insurgent fringe that's big enough to swing a primary but not enough to swing a general, some sort of scandal, partisan realignment, etc. Still, the data here gives no reason to question the conventional wisdom that a non-incumbent is noticeably weaker than an incumbent. And it may be that an insurgent primary winner may be weaker than a garden-variety candidate, by virtue of (generally) having gone scorched earth so as to take down the king of the hill. Whatever the extent of these phenomena, it may not be enough to flip Louisiana this year. But it's another reason to think that James Talarico (D) has an excellent chance of beating Ken Paxton (R) in Texas. (Z)

America Loses a National Treasure

Surely everyone has heard, by now, that Dolly Parton has left this plane of existence. She succumbed to cancer yesterday at the age of 80.

Is her passing a political story? Our gut feel is that, yes, it probably is. First, we have no idea exactly what her politics were, and we don't think too many other people do, either. She very clearly remained above the fray, because that was the right choice for her, personally, and for her careers in entertainment, in business, and in charitable work. Consequently, she is one of the few A-list celebrities who is beloved by Americans of all political stripes. She came of age before our current, hyper-polarized times. Someone like her may not be possible anymore.

Second, Donald Trump tried mightily to appropriate Parton, and to bring her into the MAGA tent, at least tacitly. Most obviously, he tried to bestow the Presidential Medal of Freedom upon her—twice. And she turned it down—twice. The first time, she said it was because her husband was ill. The second time, she said it was because of the pandemic. Maybe these excuses were the truth. Maybe they were an attempt to avoid taking sides. Maybe they were because she didn't care for Trump. The only person who knows for sure is no longer with us, so the question will remain unanswered.

Yesterday, when the news of Parton's passing became public, Trump got on his social media platform for shameless opportunists to share how saddened he is by her death, and to declare that U.S. flags would remain at half-staff (or half-mast) for the next week. With any other president, Republican or Democratic, we would believe that this was an instance of them doing a fundamentally decent and respectful thing. With Trump, we don't believe that for a second; he's just trying to squeeze a little juju out of her death. It would seem we've grown cynical over the last decade or so.

Since we've decided it is a political story, we're going to give Parton our "obituary" treatment. We cannot possibly outdo the traditional obits you can read in The Washington Post, The New York Times, the Associated Press, or Rolling Stone, so we won't try. Instead, we'll pass along 10 instructive bits of information about Parton you may, or may not, know:

1. Humble Beginnings: Parton grew up dirt-poor. Her parents had 25 siblings between them, and had 12 children of their own, of which Dolly was the fourth. There is documented evidence that the doctor who delivered her was paid for his services with a bag of cornmeal. And the home she grew up in had just 2 rooms—one was the bedroom, and one wasn't.
   
   
2. I Do: Given the crowded conditions at home, not to mention the fact that her music career began flourishing while she was a teenager, Parton moved to Nashville the day after she graduated high school. Not too long after arriving there, she met a fellow named Carl Dean at a laundromat. They started dating, got engaged, and then got married in 1966. Dean assiduously avoided the spotlight, and only ever saw his wife perform one time. Still, it is one of the great love stories of our time; the very happy marriage lasted 59 years. They did not have children, due to Parton's health issues (including a partial hysterectomy in her 30s), but the pair said that was OK, because it meant that all kids could therefore be "Dolly's kids." And if you want evidence that kids just loved, loved, loved Parton, watch the video for "What's Up," particularly the final segment.
   
   
3. Charity Drive: We can hardly do an item like this without mentioning Parton's extensive philanthropy and charity work. There is an embarrassment of riches here, enough so that we've actually written about it before. To keep things manageable, we'll limit ourselves to two illustrative examples. First, Parton and her foundation were asked to help the Sevier County School District, which had a serious dropout problem. This led to a program in which students chose a partner to pair up with, and each member of the duo got a check for $500, but only if they both graduated high school. Dropout rates went from 30% down to 6%. Second, Parton was a big believer in literacy and in reading, and backed that with a generous book-donation program, giving to both schools and individual students. How generous? In 2018, her foundation has given away more than 300 million books.
   
   
4. Money Moves: Parton was wildly successful in business, of course, and her personal wealth has been pegged at between $350 million and $700 million. One of her great successes was Dollywood, which was a failing concern called Silver Dollar City before Parton acquired it in 1986 and put her name and personal spin on it. It is now the largest employer in her home county, and her overall economic impact on her home state was pegged at $1.8 billion/year, along with supporting more than 25,000 jobs.
   
   
5. Jill-of-All-Trades: Parton had her fingers in many pies, given her philanthropy, her entrepreneurship, her music and her performances in films like 9 to 5. Sometimes, as a result, her name turns up in very unexpected places. For example, through her production company, she was an executive producer of... Buffy the Vampire Slayer (the TV series, not the movie). That said, even Parton had her limits. She turned down a $7 million offer to play the role of Selena in the 1984 movie Supergirl because she did not think she could play a sorceress convincingly.
   
   
6. She's a Rainbow: It is easy to find reference to the fact that Parton once lost a Dolly Parton lookalike contest (a story that has also been told, accurately, about Charlie Chaplin, Gabby Hayes, Marlon Brando and others). What is often left out is that the contest Parton lost was a drag show at a gay bar. Parton was staunchly pro-LGBTQ, embraced her LGBTQ fans, and worked many times with LGBTQ artists including, very recently, Lil Nas X and Linda Perry. To the extent there's a clue out there about Parton's politics, this is probably it.
   
   
7. Whatta Night: Parton's two biggest hits were surely "Jolene" and "I Will Always Love You." Remarkably, she wrote both of them on the same night in 1973.
   
   
8. You're (Not) So Vain: In contrast to Carly Simon, who won't reveal the inspiration(s) for "You're So Vain," Parton was happy to reveal the subject of "I Will Always Love You." It is not her husband; it's country music star Porter Wagoner, who gave Parton her first big break, namely a regular booking on his show. She remained with the show long after her original contract had run its course, and long after she had outgrown it. When she finally did depart, she wrote the song as a way of thanking Wagoner.
   
   
9. Funeral Plans: Parton recognized that there was no way to avoid "I Will Always Love You" being played at her funeral. However, before she passed, she made clear several times that there was another song that she wanted played. It's an old gospel tune called "If We Never Meet Again This Side of Heaven," which is about the possibility of reuniting with loved ones in the great beyond. It was sung at the funeral of Parton's father, and the funeral of her husband, and she wants to hear it (in a manner of speaking) one last time.
   
   
10. The Final Chapter: Many artists release an album or two after their passing. Or, in the case of Tupac Shakur, seven albums. It's not yet clear if Parton had any more albums in the can. However, it can be said that the last act of her musical career will not arrive for nearly 2 decades. She recorded a new song, title currently unknown, and locked it in a time capsule at Dollywood, with instructions that the time capsule was not to be opened until 2045.

Good-bye, Dolly. (Z)

Today's Senate Polls

So, 19% are undecided. What, exactly, do they need to know before they get down off the fence? Whatever it is, James Talarico leads in roughly three polls for every one that has Paxton ahead. (Z)

State	Democrat	D %	Republican	R %	Start	End	Pollster
Texas	James Talarico	42%	Ken Paxton	39%	Aug 05	Aug 13	YouGov

* Denotes incumbent

---

Previous report         Next report

---

If you wish to contact us, please use one of these addresses. For the first two, please include your initials and city.

• questions@electoral-vote.com    For questions about politics, civics, history, etc. to be answered on a Saturday
• comments@electoral-vote.com   For "letters to the editor" for possible publication on a Sunday
• corrections@electoral-vote.com To tell us about typos or factual errors we should fix
• items@electoral-vote.com            For general suggestions, ideas, etc.
• Guidelines for questions (Saturdays) and letters (Sundays)

To download a poster about the site to hang up, please click here.

---

Email a link to a friend.

---The Votemaster and Zenger