Main page    Jan. 28

Senate map
Previous | Next | Senate races | Menu

New polls:  
Dem pickups: (None)
GOP pickups: (None)

Minneapolis Is Apparently the Hill that The White House Wants to Die On, Part VIII

There was quite a bit of news on the Minnesota front yesterday. Let's run down the biggest developments, at least briefly:

We still have plenty more Minneapolis material to cover, but we're going to stop there for today. Another entry Friday. (Z)

Surprise! Corporate Interests Are in Bed with Trump

Fighting the good fight, when it comes to stopping politicians from taking bribes, is certainly worth it. But this story, which we thank reader L.K. in Los Angeles, CA, for bringing to our attention, shows why it's impossible to ever actually solve the problem. Grifters gonna grift, and if one pathway is shut down, they'll just find another.

The grift in question here is a documentary, specifically Melania, which chronicles the story of First Lady Melania Trump. It was produced and directed by Brett Ratner. Ratner was canceled in 2017 because he sexually harassed a bunch of actresses, and his work since has been exclusively Trump propaganda—he also produced the pro-Donald Trump documentary The Man You Don't Know a couple of years ago. Despite the fact that the first Trump film flopped, and that Melania Trump is barely a first lady, Amazon snatched up the distribution and streaming rights to Melania for a mere $40 million, with $28 million of that going directly to Melania Trump. This is the highest figure ever paid for a documentary.

So, why would Amazon pay so much? Hmmm... it's probably not to promote the artistry of Brett Ratner. And it's not likely because there is so much money to be made selling the film to viewers—it's already been released in the U.K., and it largely played to empty houses. And there are no reviews from U.S critics yet, because Amazon has embargoed the film prior to its general release (it will stream, and will be in over 2,000 theaters, on Friday). If you know anything about the movie business, "We don't want critics to see the film in advance" is never a good sign.

Since Amazon's interest in the film appears to have nothing to do with, you know, the movie business, there might be some other motivation at play here. For example, Amazon might be thinking about the fact that the Trump administration has the power to make life tough for Amazon in general, if it so chooses—say, by making it harder to build industrial-sized AI centers. Further, Jeff Bezos might be thinking about the fact that the administration also gets to decide how to dole out about $20 billion annually for space ventures. Bezos' other company, Blue Origin, would very much like some of that $20 billion. And if just, say, 10% of that $20 billion flows Bezos' way, then $40 million for a documentary is a bargain, even if it's a mega-flop.

The "premiere" for the film was held at the White House, and a whole bunch of corporate honchos were there to bow before the throne. Amazon was represented by CEO Andy Jassy. Apple's Tim Cook was there, too, since he knows that Trump will punish any perceived insult (specifically, by hitting the company with tariffs). And in case this government-business incest isn't bad enough, the premiere was held just hours after the killing of Alex Pretti. Basic decency would seem to demand that the event be canceled, or that the business bigwigs excuse themselves from attending. But everyone there is apparently pretty indecent. Or maybe they just really wanted to meet boxer (and convicted rapist) Mike Tyson, who was also in attendance.

And speaking of the mess in Minnesota, don't expect major corporate interests to push back against ICE anytime soon. Again, they all want to avoid ending up in the administration's crosshairs. And nearly all of them want to be in a position to lay claim to a chunk of government outlays. Further, some of them are actively profiting from ICE's efforts. For example, the database that ICE uses to find immigrants to target is hosted on... Amazon Web Services. Amazon also hosts DHS' Homeland Advanced Recognition Technology System, which collects biometric and facial recognition data on Americans—270 million of them.

Amazon is just one, very egregious, non-Elon Musk example. There are plenty of other big corporate interests that are 100% in bed with the Trump administration, like CBS, AT&T, Citizens Bank, Oracle, U-Line and others. The cozy relationship between Big Business and the federal government has been a basic fact of American history for generations. But when you end up with a president who is a world-class grifter? That's when things really begin to get out of control. (Z)

The Sports Report

There are many people out there, even today, who insist that politics has no place in the world of sports. These people are delusional. Politics and sports have intersected as long as there have been sports. Do these people not know, for example, who was responsible for staging Roman gladiatorial games? And why?

These days, the worlds of politics and sports collide even more frequently than in eras past, for at least two reasons. The first is that everything is more political these days. The second is that Donald Trump has a dream of making undocumented immigrants fight exotic animals to the death, so as to satisfy the bloodlust of the MAGA hordes. No, wait, that's not true. Or, at least, we don't have any evidence that it's true. Actually, the second reason is that Trump thinks sports in general are his key to connecting with the masses, and so he's been particularly aggressive about appropriating the world of sports for his own purposes.

There have been a couple of sports-related stories in the past few days worth addressing. To start, next weekend, the Seattle Seahawks and the New England Patriots will travel to Levi's Stadium in Santa Clara, to face off in the Super Bowl. In general, an opportunity to get some free face time as part of a broadcast that will reach hundreds of millions of people is something that Trump would not pass up. And yet, he says that he will take a pass this time: "It's just too far away... I would go if, you know, it was a little bit shorter."

This is a pretty flimsy excuse, even by Trump's standards. It's a 5.5-hour flight from D.C. to San Jose. Is that really all that different than the 4-hour flight to Denver, or the 3½ hour flight to Dallas? Especially when you have a bed, a TV, a telephone, and a desk at your disposal? In the interview where Trump said he would not be attending, he made clear what he's REALLY concerned with, declaring that he does not like to miss the game because "I've gotten great hands for the Super Bowl, they like me."

Of course, what would actually happen, given the recent disasters in Minnesota, not to mention the Greenland fiasco, the Venezuela mess, and the state of the economy, is that Trump would be booed lustily. Hundreds of millions of people would see and hear it, and it would also be replayed endlessly on local news, podcasts, post-Super Bowl editions of sports-centered shows, etc. Trump's presence would also give halftime performer Bad Bunny an opportunity (if he wants it) to embarrass the President. This suggests strongly that Trump has an awareness of how unpopular he is at the moment, even if he pretends otherwise. It is also possible, as a secondary explanation, that Trump is avoiding airplane flights because his health is shaky.

The other sports story is the World Cup, and the potential threat that European nations might boycott in response to Trump's economic and military imperialism. We already wrote about this, but we thought we should share some comments from one of our British correspondents, A.B. in Lichfield, England, UK:

Take it from this World Cup fan... the possibility of European nations boycotting the 2026 World Cup as retaliation for tariffs, as suggested on Monday, is almost certainly a non-starter. There's been some idle speculation on this side of the Atlantic, and a bit of political posturing, but it's not a serious proposition.

The history of the World Cup is littered with tournaments taking place in unsavory regimes, and the event taking place regardless. The second tournament in 1934 was in fascist Italy, and Mussolini overtly used the event to promote the 'success' of fascism; that Italy then won was seen to help the fascist cause. The 1942 Cup didn't take place due to the war, but the canceled tournament had previously been awarded to Germany back in 1936, which was perhaps a bit tone deaf under the circumstances. The 1978 tournament was in Argentina, and went ahead with full European participation, despite the 1976 military coup installing a murderous right-wing military government in Buenos Aires (though Dutch superstar Johann Cruyff did take a personal stand and refused to make the trip to represent the Netherlands). While 1982 took place in a newly democratic Spain, the tournament had been awarded to the country in 1966, when it was still under the control of Francisco Franco; no one at the time could have imagined a democratic transformation taking place in the country in time for the 1982 tournament. In 2018, it was in Russia, 4 years after the conflict in Ukraine erupted (with the latter largely limited to the Donbas from 2014 to 2022), and well after it had become clear that Putin's government had taken an increasingly authoritarian turn. The 2022 Cup was in Qatar, which I doubt many would hold up as a beacon of human rights and democracy. And 2034 will be in Saudi Arabia, after some overt manipulation of the host voting process by FIFA head and Friend of Trump Gianni Infantino to ensure the Saudis would end up as hosts.

Through all of that, European teams have continued to show up, prioritizing participation in one of the two (alongside the Summer Olympics) great international sporting calendar set pieces. Individual players have occasionally taken a stand, but not nations or continental confederations. At least not on the basis of politics; what boycotts have taken place have tended to be over logistics. Uruguay and Argentina boycotted 1938 in protest at the tournament taking place in Europe for the second time in a row. Africa boycotted the 1966 World Cup to protest that Africa, Asia and Oceania would all have to compete for a single qualifying spot between them for the 16-team tournament. Israel was routinely boycotted by Arab nations (and North Korea) in tournament qualifying through the early 1970s, which was ultimately solved by moving Israel to the European confederation after they were expelled by the Asian counterpart. With the exception of the refusal to play Israel in qualification, none of these were political boycotts, and the boycott of Israel impacted qualification, not a willingness to play in the host country, no matter how unsavory the latter. It's also perhaps worth remembering that the only European nations to follow the U.S.-led boycott of the 1980 Moscow Summer Olympics were West Germany, Norway, mighty Monaco, and, erm, Albania; and somehow I suspect the Albanian boycott was more inspired by doctrinaire disagreements over Marxism by Enver Hoxha's regime rather than staunch support for the United States. So we have form in ignoring politics when it comes to both the Olympics and the World Cup.

The calculus here would likely change if the United States were to take Greenland by force—and I still can't quite believe that I have to consider the latter as credible scenario—thereby collapsing NATO. Then I can see a boycott. But if it's just a matter of such relatively minor (sarcasm) issues as tariffs, federal law enforcement officers murdering U.S. citizens in cold blood in public in Midwest cities, attempts to manipulate elections to the national legislature, the insanely expensive tickets to see the matches, and other assorted trivialities, then we'll turn up. We've always turned up in the past, after all, no matter how awful the hosts. And you try convincing Scots not to turn up when Scotland has qualified for its first tournament since 1998; good luck with that one.

A British soccer fan surely knows the dynamics here better than we do, so we're glad to have A.B.'s insight. With that said, we will point out something we've pointed out before: The tournament is scheduled to take place in three nations, with Mexico and Canada joining the U.S. It is certainly possible that FIFA could just move the American matches to the other two nations, which would allow them to boycott the U.S. without actually canceling the event. That strikes us as more plausible than a wide boycott, or a complete cancellation. (Z)

Bad News for Democrats in Virginia...

The gods of redistricting giveth, and the gods of redistricting taketh away. Just days after the Democrats got pretty good news out of New York on that front (the district of Republican Nicole Malliotakis is about to get much swingier), they got bad news out of Virginia, as a judge put a stop to plans to redraw the state's maps.

Virginia state law makes it pretty hard to re-draw district maps, beyond the one time per decade required by the Constitution. This is because redrawing maps mid-decade is invariably very partisan, and perhaps a little sleazy (or, perhaps a LOT sleazy). Specifically, if it is going to happen in the Old Dominion State, two consecutive legislative sessions have to sign off. The Democrats wangled approval #1 during a special session last October, and then passed approval #2 earlier this month. At that point, Democrats across the land started daydreaming about the roughly three seats they expected to acquire via more aggressive gerrymandering.

The daydreams are over, at least for now. Yesterday, Tazewell County circuit court Judge Jack Hurley Jr. ruled that the Democrats did not follow the correct procedures for adopting a new district map. He raised several problems in his ruling, but the biggest one was that by the time Democrats voted for the change last October, early voting in Virginia had already begun. What the statute actually says is that map changes have to be approved both before and after any one election. And since the legislature did not vote until October, the "before" part of that was not fulfilled.

Virginia Democrats say they will appeal the decision, and we have no doubt they will, because why not give it a try? But Hurley is a seasoned jurist, and his ruling is both clear and thorough. We are not exactly experts on the finer points of Virginia election law, but it looks very much like the blue team blew it here. They can change the maps for 2028, if they want to, but they're probably out of luck for 2026. (Z)

...But Good News in Florida?

At this point, anyone who reads this site can probably name the list of seats that will determine control of the next Senate. To flip the upper chamber, the Democrats have to hold on to the seats in Georgia (Jon Ossoff), Michigan, Minnesota and New Hampshire (all of them open). Then, they will pretty much have to claim the GOP-held seats in North Carolina (open) and Maine (Susan Collins). And finally, they will need upsets in at least two of Texas (John Cornyn, but could end up open), Ohio (Jon Husted), Louisiana (Bill Cassidy, but could end up open), Alaska (Dan Sullivan), Nebraska (Pete Ricketts) and Iowa (open). (As a sidebar, Dan Osborn in Nebraska says he will join no caucus, but a win for him would still work as one of the two, because that would leave the Senate caucuses at 50 D/I, 49 R, 1 I, thus depriving J.D. Vance of his tiebreaker vote.)

The state of Florida could theoretically appear in the previous paragraph, for a couple of reasons. The first is that the incumbent, Sen. Ashley Moody (R), is appointed, and appointed senators have a mixed record when it comes to getting reelected. The second is that there is still some reason to think of Florida as purple; in the last four U.S. Senate elections where Donald Trump was not also on the ballot, the Republican candidate got 58% of the vote (2022), 50% of the vote (2018), 42% of the vote (2012) and 49% of the vote (2010). That works out to one big win, one big loss, one razor-thin win (0.12% in 2018) and one where it's hard to say (2010) because the non-GOP vote was split almost evenly between two other candidates. The third reason for some small measure of Democratic hope is that Moody is not Cuban, and the success of Marco Rubio (who is responsible for the one big non-Trump-year win in 2018) was powered substantially by Cuban voters engaging in identity politics. And the fourth reason is that some parts of Trumpism, particularly the ICE stuff, are not playing well in the Sunshine State.

The problem, as we have written a million times, is you can't beat someone with no one. And thus far, the Democrats basically had no one. Yes, there were a few folks who had jumped in, and a few more who had filed some paperwork, but nobody likely to get voters excited, and nobody with wide name recognition. In fact, there is only one candidate who has raised more than $200,000. That would be teacher and former House candidate Josh Weil, whose $14 million take dwarfed all comers. But he withdrew from the race, citing health issues.

As of yesterday, however, the Democrats may have someone, as Alexander Vindman has jumped into the race. He is, of course, a retired lieutenant colonel and a veteran of the Iraq War, as well as the brother of Rep. Eugene Vindman (D-VA). Most importantly, he was a whistleblower in the Trump-Ukraine scandal (when Trump tried to extort Volodymyr Zelenskyy) and a key witness during the first Trump impeachment.

The Democrats have tried various approaches to Senate races in the past 20 years. A Black Democrat, who will get minority voters to the polls! A centrist Democrat who used to be governor! A woman who has won elections in a swing district! Needless to say, none of these candidates was able to crack the code. We are skeptical that "military veteran" matters all that much these days, though it may help a little. However, if Florida voters are looking to poke Trump in the eye, what better way than voting for one of his nemeses?

If you would like to see Vindman's launch video, here it is:



It's not bad, though he's not a particularly dynamic speaker. At the moment, we'd probably rate Florida as something like the 8th most likely state to see its Senate seat flip in 2026. That's not that high on the list, but 48 hours ago, we would have had it more like 15th. (Z)


Previous | Next

Main page for smartphones