Jeff Singer
Managing Editor at The Downballot. Email jeffsinger -at- the-downballot -dot- com
- A nice and effective alternative to the ignore it and hope it goes away approach too many other Democrats have tried.
- It was too good to pass up.
- This is such a classic @jeffsinger.bsky.social line. I did lol: Stothert's defeat on Tuesday likely ends any chance she'll receive any such call from the White House.
- One of the very first mayoral elections I wrote about was Omaha's 2013 race where Republican Jean Stothert unseated a Democratic incumbent. Stothert's loss tonight to Democrat John Ewing is quite cathartic!
- Quite the lead from Politico about Andrew Cuomo's truly sloppy campaign for mayor. www.politico.com/news/2025/05...
- Remember the congressman who introduced legislation to rename Greenland "Red, White and Blueland"? He's now running for the Senate against Jon Ossoff.
- There are a lot of reasons this is good, but also a counter to the democracy is over talk. This was not pretty and there are real worries for the future with how it went, but the winner of the election gets her seat. And that wouldn't be happening if people just resigned themselves to The End.
- This took a ton of work, but as Robert Caro says, "It’s not about how long it takes to make. It’s about whether it will endure."
- It's here! The Downballot is so stoked to share our calculations of the results of the 2024 presidential election for all 435 congressional districts! Bookmark this must-have data set, generously sponsored by Grassroots Analytics, right here: the-db.co/presbycd And much more in this 🧵 below!
- Durbin became co-owner of a prominent Springfield pub (no, not Moe's Tavern) as he was struggling to win office in the 1970s. He sold it in 1981, the year before he won his first U.S. House race.
- Rhode Island Senate President Dominick Ruggerio, who was one of the most powerful moderates in state government, dies at 76. Ruggerio held off a primary challenge from the left in 2020 before the state's new map made him safer.
- Some Illinois Democrat could really stand out from the rest by announcing they'll run no matter what Durbin does instead of anxiously waiting and letting him decide if he's done "taking nourishment."
- No Illinois Democrats decided to be Andy Kim and launch a month ago when base anger at Durbin was white hot. Instead they’ll be anxious and wait for him to retire.
- Postmortems: They're not just for Democrats
- This will be the first time since 2006 an incumbent governor doesn't seek reelection in Iowa. That year was also the last time a Democrat was elected to this post, though Reynolds came close to losing in 2018.
- Find someone you love the way Chris Sununu loves disappointing his party.
- [Not loaded yet]
- No Vacancy is The Man.
- Fenway Park and the USS Constitution are great, but the ducks are really Boston’s best landmark.
- Adorable. The Boston ducks have protest signs #handsoff
- Imagine showing someone this tweet a decade ago when getting *Democrats* to vote in non-presidential elections was like pulling teeth.
- Royal we here. Kneepad Brad ain't rising again anytime soon x.com/jrrosswrites...
- The chair of the Wisconsin GOP should have spent more than one second worrying about what Democrats say about Elon Musk.
- Link. And what a headline.
- The South Carolina state capitol should replace Strom Thurmond's statue with one for the new filibuster king, Cory Booker.
- Is there a way to donate to Lilith Fund on the radio, @amirtalai.bsky.social? It is, after all, the PROPER medium to express oneself.
- Gov. Ron DeSantis: "[I]t's going to be a way underperformance from what I won that district by in 2022 and what the president won it by in November ... It's a reflection of a specific candidate running in that race."
- History gets made tonight!
- When we say Lancaster County is ultra-ancestrally GOP, we're not kidding. It's voted GOP for president since it narrowly voted for LBJ in 1964; the last Democrat to win it before that was Lancaster County resident James Buchanan in *1856.*
- Well there it is! With all precincts reporting, Dem James Malone beats Republican Josh Parsons 50-49 to flip Pennsylvania's ultra-ancestrally GOP #SD26! That shrinks the GOP margin in the Senate to 27-23 and is a 16-point overperformance compared to 2024. Our Big Board -->
- When Democrats needed a hero, a good bulking bald bearded Pennsylvanian was there.
- A truly weird story from Joshua Spivak's Recall Elections Blog: Freedom Select Board member Heather Donahue, the star of the Blair Witch project, is the target of an April 23 recall vote in Maine over public access to a road recallelections.blogspot.com/2025/03/main...
- Need to get out my Scar for President shirt. That may sound like a joke. It’s not.
- [Not loaded yet]
- The movie establishes that Mufasa can control the shy to speak to Simba after his death. I think Mufasa caused the rain to stop under Scar and only brought it back for Simba’s reign.
- This is also an especially easy argument to make if you’re a House Democrat who wants to be in the Senate soon.
- I know candidates want to wait until the start of a new fundraising quarter before announcing, but really feels like some could make a big splash by launching a campaign NOW that pledges to turn the page on the Senate Democratic leadership.
- As Andy Kim proved, there’s a massive advantage to being the ONE person to pick a fight with an embattled incumbent rather than waiting for things to line up. Durbin probably won’t run, but this is no time to be polite and wait for him to announce his retirement.
- Durbin’s likely retiring, and that doesn’t matter. When base anger at the Senate Democratic leadership is white hot, a candidate can stand out by being the person opposing a senior member of that leadership NOW vs. being one of the many who is politely waiting for him to retire before running.
- If I were an aspiring Illinois Democrat, I’d announce a primary challenge to Dick Durbin tomorrow. Could raise a lot of money quickly off progressive fury, and set one’s self off from the other likely candidates fast.
- In the leadup to Shaheen's landslide 1996 election as governor, one amazed Granite State Democrat declared, "For the first time in history, this is a two-party state."
- The new chancellor of the Texas A&M University System will be a *different* Texas Republican, state Comptroller Glenn Hegar.
- Longtime GOP Rep. Michael McCaul is on the shortlist for chancellor of the Texas A&M University System Board of Regents, the Texas Tribune reports. www.texastribune.org/2025/02/23/t...
- I never felt like a real Bostonian until I saw my first ever live Storrowing last year.
- Longtime GOP Rep. Michael McCaul is on the shortlist for chancellor of the Texas A&M University System Board of Regents, the Texas Tribune reports. www.texastribune.org/2025/02/23/t...
- McConnell's 1977 bid in Jefferson County showed a farmer cleaning out horse stall and blasting incumbent Todd Hollenbach's claim to have cut taxes. "Maybe Hollenbach ought to have my job, because in my job, I deal with that sort of stuff every day," he said before shoveling manure at the camera.
- Right after former Las Cruces Mayor Ken Miyagishima said he was considering an #NMGov bid, a Wikipedia editor nominated his page for deletion. 🤔 en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikiped...
- Democratic Lt. Gov. Peggy Flanagan is already in, and her win would make her the first Native American woman to ever serve in the Senate.
- The Downballot podcast turns three!
- DuPage County, Illinois was a conservative suburban stronghold well into the 21st century. The Democratic-led County Board taking the father of the anti-abortion Hyde Amendment's name off the courthouse shows how much things have changed.
- JD Vance's half-brother has announced a campaign for mayor of Cincinnati. Mayor Aftab Pureval is seeking a second term in a blue city where every member of the city council is a fellow Democrat.
- Wondering what we mean by the carpet? Well ...
- A big story that has gotten surprisingly little attention!
- I am shocked, shocked, that Thom Tillis, the senator who bemoaned making restaurants require employees wash their hands, is leaning toward voting for RFK Jr.
- I wrote them all and even I’m stunned by this number.
- Retiring Michigan Sen. Gary Peters never had an easy race. He flipped a purple House seat in 2008, survived 2010 red wave, beat a fellow Dem incumbent in 2012 primary, won promotion to Senate in 2014 red wave, and narrowly held on in 2020.
- This also would mean Michigan has open seat races for governor AND Senate!
