What a colossal piece of ****.

Today's the day that Republicans faded having McCain's seat on the November ballot, right? Sick hold

Yeah, McCain's seat is now guaranteed R through 2020.

Unless...if AZ elects a D governor this year (no clue how likely that is, probably not very), would he appoint McCain's replacement?

Replacement would have to be a Republican.

https://www.azcentral.com/story/news...rks/494621001/

What is party but a box you check on a form? (not that Ds would ever have the balls to perform a blatant end-run around that law like Rs would have no problem doing)

I'm guessing McCain retires now, or at least does so between November and January in the unlikely event the governor's race is won by a Democrat.

god that would be epic but yeah, no way they have the chutzpah for that

Corker finally found his nuts

"will democrats join us?" makes me think he's being disingeneous

Re: linked articles in first Corker tweet - remember when 13th/RowCoach would go bananas about the Obama administration "picking winners and losers" because, like, Solyndra got money from a government loan program?

Good times

Yeah have to assume Corker will be rolling out the usual bad faith GOP bull**** given that BS "will Democrats join" nonsense

"Will Democrats join us?"

**** that.

"Will YOU join Democrats?" should be the question asked of him.

Looking for some "picking winners and losers" gems I actually found the most from...adios!

Fast forward to 2018: adios is a full-throated Trumper

See also:

McConnell canceling the senate's traditional August recess

A blatantly obvious play to prevent Democratic incumbents from campaigning. Senate majority leader has WAY too much ****ing power.

https://twitter.com/BetoORourke/stat...18214252744704

http://thehill.com/homenews/campaign...n-three-months

O’Rourke’s campaign already boasted massive fundraising, but the latest haul brings his cash-on-hand to $14 million, the Texas Tribune reported.

Cruz will reportedly announce raising $4 million over the same period of time, bringing him to $10 million in cash-on-hand, according to the Washington Examiner.

Cruz has shown a persistent 5% lead, but I suspect maybe 25% of the off-year electorate is not really tuned in, and Beto has to turn non-voters into voters. He will at least have the money to make the case.

Just anecdotal evidence but my dad who never votes in midterms is going to vote for O’Rourke. He’s not super plugged in to politics and is pretty swingy. Went HW, Clinton, W, W, Obama, Obama, Clinton. Says he doesn’t really now anything about Beto but has always hated Cruz and in combination with his hatred of Trump is enough to cast an unprecedented midterm vote. Prob just means Beto will lose by 15 and not 25.

beto within 2

https://www.texaslyceum.org/resource...ines%20(2).pdf

If the 2018 election for Senate were held today, would you vote for [RANDOMIZE] the Republican Ted Cruz, the Democrat Beto O’Rourke, the Libertarian Neal Dikeman, or haven’t you thought enough about it?

Ted Cruz
Registered Voters: 36%
Likely Voters: 41%

Beto O’Rourke
Registered Voters: 34%
Likely Voters: 39%

Neal Dikeman
Registered Voters: 3%
Likely Voters: 1%

Haven’t thought enough about it
Registered Voters: 23%
Likely Voters: 16%

DON’T KNOW / REFUSED / NA
Registered Voters: 1%
Likely Voters: 3%

Quinnipiac has it Cruz 49 Beto 43, also released today. Same outfit had it 50-39 in May.

I figured now would be a good time to update based on recent polling and news stories. Many of the sweatworthy seats that leaned Democrat have been trending more solidly Democrat (MI, WI, OH, WV, MT). The AZ seat seems to be leaning that way as well (as of the OP there weren't any solid polls out). Somewhat more worried about Bob Menendez in NJ cause who's going to be excited to get out and vote for him? The corruption charges are real and everyone in NJ knows it. Still probably safe though. The seats to watch closely are IN, TN, FL, TX, MO, NV, and ND.

NV is still leaning towards Jacky Rosen (D) but not nearly as strongly as you would've hoped considering the partisan makeup of the state.

TN just turned massively in favor of Republicans if you believe the Axios poll from a few weeks ago. I can't believe it's as bad as R+14 but that's still a bad sign. I still have confidence that the hatred specifically directed towards Blackburn + Bredesen's popularity in central-eastern TN will give him the win.

MO hasn't changed much. Their scandal plagued governor resigned which should make things easier for their AG turned Senate hopeful to focus on more popular campaign issues. McCaskill knows how to win in her state though.

IN is still a toss-up. The other rust belt states have been trending more sharply towards Democrats but that hasn't been the case in Indiana. It's also a bad sign that the Republican primary was a race to see who was more Trumpish. The state is uniquely deplorable. Joe Donnelly is narrowly trailing in the polls.

FL is showing Rick Scott consistently a few points ahead of Nelson. He has a ton of $$$ and Nelson is absolutely terrible at convincing all those new PR residents to vote for him. This should be an easier race but seriously, Nelson is so bad at this.

TX is trending more towards Beto as time goes on. If he keeps it up he might actually be a favorite by election day. Still behind as of now though.

ND is still leaning towards flipping to Republicans by a few points. The demographics are more favorable to Republicans than they were 6 years ago and there aren't any heavily populated cities to activate to ride the blue wave.

To summarize how that all affects the numbers, Republicans start off with a 42-23 advantage in seats not up for reelection. Add 23 seats for Democrats that are either locks or safe enough to feel good about vs 5 for Republicans to bring the basis to 47R-46D. You can decide for yourself how the remaining 7 seats will end up. FL and IN are probably the critical races if Democrats expect to pick up 5+ of those seats.

NV is still leaning towards Jacky Rosen (D) but not nearly as strongly as you would've hoped considering the partisan makeup of the state.

I've written about this before, but her advertising people need to be shot. I've seen four spots for her - in three of them she comes across as a slightly dim well meaning type, who will encourage you to eat your vegetables and go to bed on time. She did have one good spot, albeit negative, which portrayed Heller (accurately) as a flip flopping opportunist in the pockets of his donors. Heller's spots attempt to make him look "senatorial" for lack of a better term, without anything much of substance - and there's absolutely no mention of Trump, which is probably a good play.

So I dunno - honestly, if Heller wins I think it bodes poorly for the dems overall - he's not very popular, he's kind of in no mans land between the Trumpkins and the old GOP - no one is actually in favor of him. I wish the dems had run someone else - I think Rosen would be a decent senator, but her jumping from one incomplete term in the house into this race may have been to big a jump - she's pretty much running on "vote for me because I'm not Heller" - and to be honest, he's not done much of anything to give that traction - he's just a garden variety senator. We'll see. For now, I think Heller has a pretty good chance of hanging on - depending on dem voters to actually show up tends to lead to heartbreak election evening.

Or maybe she'll get better ads, or something.

MM MD

I really don't see Donnelly winning. It wasn't just the GOP primary field that embraced Trump; Donnelly himself seems to go out of his way to seem as Trump-friendly as he can while still being a Democrat. He tacks right in every high-profile possibility and is utterly gutless in terms of attacking the GOP from the left. He has turned himself into a candidate that essentially nobody is actually excited to vote for.

He has the advantages of incumbency and low negatives, so it won't floor me or anything if he can find a way to cling to the seat, but I certainly regard him as an underdog.

If Beto is within 2, or maybe even 4-5 today, then he's a lock. People who want to vote for Cruz already know Cruz. There's a lot of lower info voters who will like what they see with Beto.