Thread.

Rachel Navarre@rnavarre.bsky.social · 3h ago

The thing with polling is people keep trying to use it for things it isn’t good at nor useful for. Not surprisingly, the people that do them for research have noticed many of the problems pointed out by amateurs- many of the complaints about polls in this thread are things actively being discussed…

PSA: Primary polling is prone to huge errors and always has been. Voters often tune in late, see several candidates as acceptable, and many change their minds up to the last minute. Turnout varies enormously, meaning weighting is prone to a lot of imprecision.

And for the sake of clarity: "establishment" is/was one of the most contentless terms in our overused lexicon. Just once, try defining it when you use it. An 84 yr old, 20-yr Senate veteran w leadership positions not establishment?

Are you teaching a class on State and Local Politics next year? We wrote a BRAND NEW textbook for you that will be out for spring 2027! Happy to chat with anyone about how it might work for their classes.

Better than 40+ years ago? In addition to food, food, food, and food? Ballparks. Amusement park rides TVs Air quality. Most appliances, overall. TV shows, overall Plenty more. Did we mention food?

Constantine@ajaxsinger.bsky.social · 14h ago

Food, man. Food is so much better than it was in 1986. All of it. Poor-people food, restaurant food, fresh food, frozen food. Food is just a hell of a lot better.

One of these years the Tigers should dump in March just so we can see if they would win 120 games and the World Series.

I have little to add to the chat, but I will say this: Those of us who spend a lot of time talking about politics overestimate how much other people care about, or are even familiar with, the labels we use to describe, denigrate, or celebrate candidates. Sometimes we’re high on our own supply.

I was! goodpoliticsbadpolitics.substack.com/p/republican...

Republicans are stuck in 2020. Maybe we all are.

The pandemic year was a crucial one for MAGA and the implications are even more disturbing than they seem

goodpoliticsbadpolitics.substack.com

The Editorial Board@editorialboard.bsky.social · 21h ago

@juliaazari.bsky.social was just talking about this.

Official congressional e-newsletters mentioning "authoritarianism" over time, by party

Some of us have been saying for some times now that the quality of GOP Members of Congress has gone steadily downhill and, well, it's not hard to find confirming evidence.

Jeff Lazarus@jlazarus.bsky.social · 18h ago

I’m not a criminal mastermind or anything but if I was going to blackmail someone I maybe wouldn’t do it live on national television.

People will call this weak and cringe but it’s what Dems need after today. Time to buck up if they want to win in the fall.

Haven't seen the movie yet but I do know that the French made a lot of extremely funny "what the????" faces while Arthur and his k-nights were constructing their giant wooden rabbit hope that helps.

Seth Masket@smotus.bsky.social · 21h ago

1. How long did it take to construct a detailed wooden statue of that size? 2. Didn't the Trojans have, like, scouts?

This is impressionistic, but there's both a lot more antisemitism and a lot more anti-Muslim bias since the last time I did this

Kevin Collins@kwcollins.bsky.social · 21h ago

Survey research is a good way to keep in touch with how much the public actually knows on a given topic, but reading open ends is always particularly sobering

Really annoyed that a terribly out-of-context quote is making me want to defend Cornyn. (By all means bash Cornyn for what he actually said and did. I think he got this one wrong. But he didn't say what y'all think he said.)

Also: Deleted my RT on this one. Cornyn is saying that there's nothing the Senate can do *about Trump wanting it* but that they have killed the slush fund. He's not claiming weakness at all here. (He may be wrong about killing it! We'll see! But he's saying they did kill it, not that they can't.)

Aaron Rupar@atrupar.com · yesterday

Cornyn: "There's nothing we could do to rein in the president"

So...I have a somewhat different take on this. Cornyn treated this as a normal opportunity to use confirmations to influence policy - which is good, and might even be effective vs. the alternative. But it probably should have been treated as a case of an inappropriate nominee. That said...

Aaron Rupar@atrupar.com · yesterday

Cornyn: "As to the idea it could be revived in the future, I think it's highly unlikely that could happen without the cooperation of the DOJ. And I think Mr Blanche gave us the assurances that it was dead and would not be revived and in this case we have no alternative but to take his word" 🙃

A failure to understand basics of law and governance! Republicans were SO mad that the Congressional GOP could not stop Obama on the ACA & stimulus. This fueled the Tea Party. Same mentality. Doesn't help that when Dems DO succeed in blocking Trump, as on the SAVE Act, it's invisible to most. 1)

Bill Scher@billscher.bsky.social · yesterday

Democratic voters are mad at their party leaders because why? washingtonmonthly.com/2026/08/04/d...

Last weekend drove across Memorial Bridge for first time in months. Numbers suggest what a gargantuan waste this is. But until you see it in person, hard to grasp how completely amateurish, cheesy, lower-tier-casino it looks. Sort of like that notorious redo of 'Ecce Homo' in Spain in 2012.

BrooklynDad_Defiant!@mmpadellan.bsky.social · yesterday

If this obscenely gaudy gold shit doesn't piss you off, you're not even paying attention.

Trump's about used up his power to shift markets with his lies, so now Bessant's relatively fresh reputation is on tap for strip mining

CNBC@cnbc.com · yesterday

Bessent says there may be deal Tuesday or Wednesday to open Strait of Hormuz with ‘freedom of movement’

Among other things: Obama is really popular! Most people like him! Of course I suppose it's always possible that it's all a horrible mistake and if only people realize he's Black they'll turn against him and the Dems. Anyway sure is great for the GOP that the RNC has so much more $ than the DNC.

David S. Bernstein @dbernstein.bsky.social · yesterday

What is wrong with these people

What is wrong with these people

Hey: Yes Trump is stupid and ignorant, but: Old folks lose words sometimes, and it doesn't mean anything. At all. It was bigot crap when people obsessed about it with Biden. It's the same now. (Yes if anyone deserves bigot crap thrown at them it's Trump, but it's bad for everyone, not just him).

I wrote today about donating campaign money effectively. Plus all the links! So many links. goodpoliticsbadpolitics.substack.com/p/giving-cam...

Giving Campaign Money

Plus all the links

goodpoliticsbadpolitics.substack.com

How much do formal party organizations matter? We gave one party a favorable political environment but also made their national organization a clown show.

Author of Democrats’ 2024 Autopsy Says Party Left Out Key Chapter

A dispute over the chapter between the author and the Democratic National Committee has added to the party’s turmoil as it tries to look forward, not backward.

nytimes.com

Really important to understand that Truman and Ike set up & institutionalized a whole process so that presidents would be briefed on (among other things) what was true and what wasn't and it served all the presidents since then well and Trump deliberately garbaged it and has no idea what's going on.

Don Moynihan@donmoyn.bsky.social · 2d ago

Very cool we have an 80 year old president who proudly displays his ability to discern reality from the Oval Office, a condition worsened by a bubble of sycophants and his struggles with AI

Latest at @fiftyplusone.news: We built a dataset tracking every primary endorsement from Trump, progressive groups, party committees, women’s groups, and pro-Israel groups. Halfway through the season, here's who's winning. 🧵 blog.fiftyplusone.news/p/primary-pr...

I can't find the new york times making this claim but I can find some other people making it

Joe Stieb@joestieb.bsky.social · 3d ago

This guy has anti-Semitic brain worms (among many other species of brain worm) and he needs to be treated as radioactive by every Democrat.

Yowsa! Not to always focus on electoral implications, but...this is a Cook Lean-R district, so yeah, electoral implications.

Jen Bendery@jbendery.bsky.social · 2d ago

! The House Ethics Committee says it's finished an investigation into Rep. Chuck Edwards (R-N.C.) and has "concluded there was substantial reason to believe Representative Edwards violated House Rules related to sexual harassment and hostile workplaces."

And yes it's certainly legitimate grounds for impeachment and removal. (Along with a long list of other things, of course. Just saying. This one too.)

Marty Lederman@martylederman.bsky.social · 2d ago

The May 19 immunity order is *NOT* a "settlement" or (in Blanche's words) a "mutual release of claims." It is, instead, a *unilateral* grant of immunity to the President and his family from all investigations and liability. It's lawless, and the next AG should rescind it on 01/20/29.

I predict there will be a flood of forecast models this year, both because the @fiftyplusone.news team are doing the hard data collection work necessary, then making it available via API, and because Claude and Codex make it easy to make (a lousy) one. But this is the forecast I'm following.

G Elliott Morris@gelliottmorris.com · 2d ago

Dems strongly favored to take the House in our new election forecast. Senate just better than a tossup: Iowa: 41% Dem Texas: 48 Alaska: 51 Ohio: 53 Maine: 68 Michigan: 69 North Carolina: 84 Georgia: 94 www.gelliottmorris.com/p/democrats-...