[insert title here] 2025-26 Election Cycle Thread

[Raptorpat]

12 minutes ago, 1pooh4u said:

This country is going to be so fucked soon 

"The only people with the power to redistrict are sitting legislative majorities, who yes, can use that power to insulate themselves and their party. But don't worry, you have recourse! Your recourse is to use the electoral system to vote out those legislators who have already used this very power to insulate themselves from your criticism."

[katt_goddess]

21 hours ago, 1pooh4u said:

But it is for NY, I thought? This shit is just crazy and confusing. 
 

Them crying about voter fraud while simultaneously trying to cook the books is also mind blowing 

Don't forget firing all the watchdog groups that independently watch over the polling places, stopping the upkeep of election electronics, getting rid of all the cybersecurity experts and gutting the funds used to actually do elections in the first place. 

[tsar4]

 

[tsar4]

[tsar4]

 

[Raptorpat]

Sherrod Brown running against the guy appointed to the JD Vance Senate seat. Brown lost his reelection in 2024 but ran like eight points ahead of Harris in the state.

https://www.cleveland.com/news/2025/08/sherrod-brown-to-run-for-us-senate-in-2026-challenging-jon-husted.html

[Raptorpat]

 

[Top Gun]

Fucking cowards. 

[Raptorpat]

Quote

Texas House Democrats who left the state to prevent a vote on new congressional maps will return to Texas, feeling they have accomplished their mission of killing the first special session, raising awareness and sparking national backlash about the mid-decade redistricting, multiple sources confirmed to ABC station KTRK and ABC News on Tuesday.

A source told ABC News the House Democrats loosely plan on returning this weekend. Those plans could change, the source noted, if Republicans go back on their word to begin a second special session on Friday.

In a news release on Tuesday that did not share specific plans, House Democrats proclaimed victory, saying that they "have killed this corrupt special session on behalf of Texas families -- exactly what we said we'd do when we left the state."

“Members are still assessing their strategies going forward and are in a private meeting to make decisions about future plans currently,” he wrote. “If and when Texas House Democrats breaking quorum decide to go home is squarely dependent on the actions the Governor, Speaker, and Texas Republicans in charge make with regard to prioritizing flood victims over redistricting that hurts Texans.”

Gov. Greg Abbott and House Speaker Dustin Burrows said Tuesday morning that the first special session will adjourn on Friday if Democrats do not return by then.

Abbott would then call a second special session "immediately," he said in a statement. He indicated the second special session would include every item from the first and potentially additional items -- though his office could not say what those additional items might be

Abbott has said he is committed to calling special sessions, which can last a maximum of 30 days, as long as needed to pass the maps.

https://abcnews.go.com/amp/Politics/texas-democrats-return-after-governor-ends-special-session/story?id=124592449

[tsar4]

"Trolling, trolling, over the bounding main..."

[tsar4]

21 hours ago, tsar4 said:

"Trolling, trolling, over the bounding main..."

[tsar4]

Not letting up...

[tsar4]

 

[Raptorpat]

Quote

On Thursday, State Representative Gene Wu of Houston, who leads Democrats in the Texas House, said in a statement that they had reached a decision as a group: They would return only after the original special legislative session called by Gov. Greg Abbott, a Republican, officially ends on Friday.

Mr. Wu added that they were also waiting until Democratic leaders in California introduced their own congressional map, redrawn to favor Democrats in five additional districts and counteract the Texas proposal. That introduction is expected to happen on Monday.

 

[tsar4]

 

[Raptorpat]

That is going right to SCOTUS to give them the change to throw out the VRA.

[Raptorpat]

I know Gavin Newsom is like a Patrick Bateman psycho, but the give-no-shits press office account mocking trump etc. as this redistricting stuff plays out is just something

 

[scoobdog]

On 8/15/2025 at 12:45 PM, Raptorpat said:

I know Gavin Newsom is like a Patrick Bateman psycho, but the give-no-shits press office account mocking trump etc. as this redistricting stuff plays out is just something

 

I’m sure I mentioned it before, but I went to school with that dude.  Motherfucker was always a dumb shit.

[Raptorpat]

Gavin Newsom or Carl DeMaio?

[Raptorpat]

On 8/15/2025 at 3:45 PM, Raptorpat said:

but the give-no-shits press office account mocking trump etc. as this redistricting stuff plays out is just something

[scoobdog]

4 hours ago, Raptorpat said:

Gavin Newsom or Carl DeMaio?

DeMaio.  Almost debated him on abortion rights once.

[Raptorpat]

A real long tweet that never uses the word "Texas"

 

[1pooh4u]

Texas is fuckin crazy. wtf are they doing down there?  
 

https://open.substack.com/pub/statuskuo/p/taking-on-texas-tyranny?r=kmtvs&utm_campaign=post&utm_medium=email

[discolé monade]

good on her. 

[1pooh4u]

26 minutes ago, discolé monade said:

good on her. 

But it’s fuckin nuts she even has to do all that 

[tsar4]

 

[Raptorpat]

 

[Raptorpat]

 

[Raptorpat]

Quote

For nearly a month, Trump has been pressuring Gov. Mike Kehoe and legislative leaders, with calls to at least one Republican lawmaker who expressed reluctance to go along.

“The Great State of Missouri is now IN,” Trump wrote. “I’m not surprised. It is a great State with fabulous people. I won it, all 3 times, in a landslide. We’re going to win the Midterms in Missouri again, bigger and better than ever before!”

And Kehoe, in a statement responding to Trump, inched closer to saying he intended to call a special session. At a news conference in his office Tuesday, Kehoe said no decision had been made.

“Governor Kehoe continues to have conversations with House and Senate leadership to assess options for a special session that would allow the General Assembly to provide congressional districts that best represent Missourians,” a statement sent by spokeswoman Gabby Picard read. “Governor Kehoe appreciates President Trump’s attention to this issue on behalf of Missourians.”

...

When he spoke to reporters on Tuesday, Kehoe said the biggest consideration for him is maintaining the Republican majority in Congress.

“Our goal, if we move forward — and there’s no decision to move forward — is to make sure Missouri’s values are reflected in Washington, D.C.,” Kehoe said. “And I’ve said many times that I think our current speaker does a very good job of matching the values of Missourians.”

Republican members of the Missouri House have been told there will be two caucus meetings scheduled to coincide with the annual veto session, which starts Sept. 10, state Rep. Barry Hovis, a Republican from Cape Girardeau said Wednesday in an interview with The Independent.

One meeting, he said, is presumably to discuss whether there are any vetoes the House wants to override. In the other, Hovis expects an in-depth discussion of redistricting.

For Hovis, one consideration on whether to redraw Missouri’s map will be if Democratic states  California, Illinois or New York revise their maps in response to the action in Texas. Gerrymandered districts that give one party far more representation than their share of the overall vote can be seen in every state dominated by a single party, he said. Illinois has a district that looks like a snake, he said, while Massachusetts — where Republicans get about the same share of the vote as Democrats in Missouri — has no GOP congressional seats.

...

Democrats will complain they are being denied representation, Hovis said.

“If they’re going to bring (Texas) up, I’m going to say, ‘Well, we’re just doing what you guys taught us to do,’” Hovis said.

Until Kehoe makes the call, Hovis said, the whole discussion is speculation.

“For me to tell you that I know exactly what we’re going to do here, I truly don’t,” he said.

The biggest challenge for Republicans, Hovis said, will be to draw a map that doesn’t put districts the party currently holds at risk with large numbers of new Democratic votes. 

https://missouriindependent.com/2025/08/21/missouri-gop-leader-says-lawmakers-will-start-with-a-congressional-map-drawn-in-d-c/

[katt_goddess]

' “If they’re going to bring (Texas) up, I’m going to say, ‘Well, we’re just doing what you guys taught us to do,’” Hovis said. '

Nice try. While there is plenty of gerrymandering to point at, Texas is very specifically doing this crap now at the illegal whining of a giant man-child that needs a buffer zone to keep from being told no. California declaring it's going to do the same thing is not the same thing since it's only being proposed to keep things even. It would be different if they were going all out and trying for more than 5 counters to the Texas 5. 

I'd also argue you can't teach a MAGAt anything. 

[Raptorpat]

the problem is that it isn't illegal whining - it's totally legal whining

[Raptorpat]

Quote

The National Redistricting Foundation, an arm of the Democratic Party’s main redistricting organization, immediately challenged the new map in federal court.

The complaint — a supplement to a long-running lawsuit over the state’s now-outdated, post-2020 census map — lodges a bevy of challenges against the new lines, including that it is an unconstitutional racial gerrymander and that it violated the Voting Rights Act.

“The Texas Legislature subordinated other redistricting criteria — including partisan advantage — to race” in drawing the new maps, the challengers allege.

The case, in particular, homes in on the new map dismantling so-called coalition districts, which are districts where no single racial group makes up a majority, but Black and Latino voters collectively do. Democrats argue that the “intentional targeting” of those districts would be impossible to do without taking race into account.

Republicans, however, contend that they redrew the districts explicitly for partisan purposes and did not account for race or ethnicity.

“I did not take race into consideration when drawing this map,” said state Sen. Phil King, the Texas Republican who wrote the redistricting legislation, at a committee hearing. “I drew it based on what would better perform for Republican candidates.”

https://www.politico.com/news/2025/08/23/texas-passes-congressional-map-gerrymander-00519116

[Raptorpat]

 

[Jman]

Well, it is the economy, stupid.  The problem is the DOW doesn’t reflect grocery prices and the prices of goods thanks to Dear Leader’s idiotic tariff plan.

[Raptorpat]

literally the only existing national check against gerrymandering

Quote

WASHINGTON (AP) — Louisiana on Wednesday abandoned its defense of a political map that elected two Black members of Congress and instead called on the Supreme Court to reject any consideration of race in redistricting in a case that could bring major changes to the Voting Rights Act.

Appealing to a conservative-dominated court that has been skeptical of the use of race, Louisiana is advancing a position that could allow it and other Republican-led states in the South to draw new maps that eliminate virtually all majority Black districts, which have been Democratic strongholds, voting rights experts said.

...

Just two years ago, the court, by a 5-4 vote, affirmed a ruling that found a likely violation of the Voting Rights Act in a similar case over Alabama’s congressional map. Chief Justice John Roberts and Justice Brett Kavanaugh joined their three more liberal colleagues in the outcome.

That decision led to new districts in both states that sent two more Black Democrats to Congress.

Now, though, the court has asked the parties to answer a potentially big question: “Whether the state’s intentional creation of a second majority-minority congressional district violates the Fourteenth or Fifteenth Amendments to the U. S. Constitution.”

https://apnews.com/article/supreme-court-louisiana-redistricting-majority-black-districts-ea09df430fa850d4eb7497ae1be9667d

[Raptorpat]

 

[tsar4]

Ed O'Neill supporting a candidate for Ohio Governor

[Raptorpat]

Joni Ernst won't seek reelection to Senate in 2026, sources say

Republican Sen. Joni Ernst of Iowa has told confidantes she plans to reveal next week that she won't seek reelection in 2026, multiple sources familiar with the matter told CBS News.

Ernst's announcement is scheduled for Thursday, the sources said. Ernst, 55, has served in the U.S. Senate since 2015.

Spokespeople for Ernst did not reply to requests for comment. 

Some Iowa Democrats have already jumped into the race, including state Sen. Zach Wahls, state Rep. Josh Turek, and Des Moines School Board chairwoman Jackie Norris. 

https://www.cbsnews.com/news/joni-ernst-wont-seek-reelection-to-senate-in-2026-sources-say/

[Raptorpat]

 

[tsar4]

[tsar4]

[tsar4]

[Jman]

Like I noted in the other thread, I kind of expected Trump and friends to stump for friendly candidates to make their liberal enemies have a harder time.  Instead he’s been out of sight for weeks like people are looking for the Loch Ness Monster.  If anything, I expected two months out from elections for him to stump harder.

[discolé monade]

5 hours ago, tsar4 said:

"Well, folks, I was going to acknowledge that my opponent finally scheduled an in-person forum event in CD-5 after four long years, but it turns out the venue isn’t even in CD-5," Nelson wrote. "Apparently, she can’t remember what she gerrymandered out of her own district."

[Raptorpat]

 

[_lost_username_]

Quote

Republican senator Joni Ernst won't run for re-election

Two-term Iowa Republican senator Joni Ernst has decided to officially bow out of a re-election bid.

“After a tremendous amount of prayer and reflection, I will not be seeking re-election in 2026”, Ernst said in a video announcement.

Ernst is the first woman combat veteran to serve in the Senate, where Republicans hold a narrow 53-47 majority.

 

https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/live/2025/sep/02/congress-returns-government-shutdown-funding-trump-announcement-us-politics-live-latest-updates?CMP=share_btn_url&page=with%3Ablock-68b724888f087bf4418b4130#block-68b724888f087bf4418b4130

[_lost_username_]

20 hours ago, Raptorpat said:

 

... and the DNC will still convince itself that he's just an anomaly and continue to support candidates 75+ years old who've been in office since even Gen X was too young to vote.

[tsar4]

 

[Raptorpat]

Quote

Utah’s congressional map must be redrawn now, judge rules

A judge has ruled that Utah lawmakers must proceed with redrawing the state’s congressional district map right away, pointing to Texas and California in rejecting their argument that the job can’t be done in time for the 2026 midterm elections.

The ruling keeps Utah firmly among states where partisan redistricting battles stand to tilt the outcome of the next congressional election.

Utah lawmakers were wrong to disregard an independent commission’s map in drawing one that has been used for the 2022 and 2024 elections, Salt Lake County District Judge Dianna Gibson ruled Aug. 25.

The map did away with a district in the Salt Lake City area that has swung between Republicans and Democrats in favor of a map where four districts, each with a piece of the urban corridor, have been won by Republicans with wide margins.

On Tuesday, Gibson denied state lawmakers’ request to keep her ruling from taking effect, rejecting their argument that her one-month deadline to adopt a map that complies with voter-approved standards is too short.

“While the timelines here are short, redistricting has been accomplished under tighter timelines in other cases,” Gibson wrote in her ruling.

In Texas, she pointed out, Republican Gov. Greg Abbott recently approved a redistricting plan at President Donald Trump’s urging that will likely add five Republicans to the U.S. House. California Gov. Gavin Newsom, a Democrat, has responded with an effort to add five Democratic districts to that state.

Missouri has meanwhile launched an effort to add Republican seats to Congress through gerrymandering, the longstanding practice of both parties to draw states’ congressional districts for partisan advantage.

Traditionally states redraw congressional districts once a decade based on the most recent census. Trump, however, has been encouraging Republican-led states to redraw maps at mid-decade to help Republicans’ chances in the 2026 congressional election.

Utah has an opportunity to be different, Gibson wrote in her ruling.

“While other states are currently redrawing their congressional plans to intentionally render some citizen votes meaningless, Utah could redesign its congressional plan with an intention to protect its citizens’ right to vote and to ensure that each citizen’s vote is meaningful,” the judge wrote.

In 2018, Utah voters narrowly approved a ballot initiative that created a commission to draw boundaries for Utah’s legislative and congressional districts.

Two years later, the state Legislature repealed the initiative and turned the commission into an advisory board they proceeded to ignore. The state Supreme Court rejected the law, ruling lawmakers have limited power to change laws passed by voters.

The state high court sent the case back to Gibson to rule on the Legislature’s map, which she rejected.

Republicans in the state criticized last week’s ruling as “judicial activism in action.”

“Using earlier flawed rulings to justify their opinions over the principles of our founding is a special kind of hubris,” Utah Republican Party Chairman Robert Axson posted on X.

The Utah Supreme Court is unlikely to reconsider an issue on which it just ruled last year, however. Lawmakers might now choose to cut their losses by creating a single left-leaning block, or gamble on creating competitive districts that Republicans would have to fight to keep.

The U.S. Supreme Court, meanwhile, is likely to keep out of the fray. The high court ruled in 2019 that gerrymandering is outside the purview of federal courts and should be decided by states.

https://apnews.com/article/utah-redistricting-congressional-districts-gerrymandering-map-election-b1ef284c4ecfbee93d12050fb9d9d7dc

[Jman]

https://nypost.com/2025/09/04/us-news/trump-sets-deadline-to-thin-field-in-crowed-nyc-mayoral-race-hes-going-to-do-whatever-he-has-to-do/

Trump is threatening more direct intervention if Silwa and Adams don't withdraw.  The problem is that both hate Cuomo and feel disrespected by the calls.