Look, I enjoyed Fetterman’s social media persona and mavericky style just as much as the next person. I became a Kenyatta backer the second I heard about this shit.

Honestly I think if you primaried a lot of these people, they’d just retire. They don’t actually like the job of being a US Senator in the modern era enough to run a serious re-election.

sure but if you want to defeat the party that doesn’t want to live in a society or republic, you’re gonna need your own institutions and organizations to recruit, train, and funnel the right people into the right positions. primarying dems is a necessary part of that project!

When you've lost *checks notes* Matthew Yglesias

Truly a pathetic end to Durbin’s Senate career. Dude did some really good things back in the day. This is why these people should not stay as long as they do.

Idk y’all maybe upper chambers are inherently undemocratic. Especially ones that cost literally $100 million to get elected to.

One reason so many Democratic *voters* are mad at their party leadership right now: Unlike Republicans, Democrats prioritize electability over ideology. And well, Democrats lost to Trump 2/3 times with the “safe” choice and the “safe” choice in 2020 cost them in 2024

Unpopular opinion, but people procrastinate partly because we have too much shit on the ballot. I think it’s just unreasonable to ask normies to know what the hell a port commissioner is or have informed opinions on school board races. Thank god we got rid of Eyman’s stupid advisory votes, at least.

Want election analysis from practitioners, not pundits? Join @stephenpaolini.bsky.social, @lexikoren.bsky.social and me for the Hacks & Wonks Post-Election Roundtable! Livestream Tuesday 11/11 from 7:30-9pm: www.youtube.com/watch?v=kb_e...

I'll have more to say on @hacksandwonks.bsky.social, but two initial thoughts. One, game recognizes game, and Girmay had possibly the best political operation I've ever gone up against. Two, he made elevating the profile of county government a big part of his campaign, and that's sorely needed. /1

We’re on the right track! Make sure you track your ballot to confirm it is accepted, NOT challenged. Check our links in bio to do so! More votes will be counted on Monday!

Claudia Balducci has conceded the King County Executive race to Girmay Zahilay after today's results. However, Balducci will remain on the King County Council and Sound Transit Board of Directors.

With most ballots in, it is clear my colleague Girmay Zahilay has been elected as the next Exec. I called to congratulate and wish him all the best as he begins to transition into this important role. The success of KC depends on his success as Exec, and as a continuing CM I am committed to both.

Fact-Checking Claims About Zohran Mamdani https://theonion.com/fact-checking-claims-about-zohran-mamdani/

It’s wild to read AI trained on TERF arguments because there are only like 5 of them to choose from. Here we have, “Biological sex on your passport is necessary because you might have all of your flesh burned off in a fire and your skeleton won’t match your ID when they find it.” Amazing stuff…

Wild how the judge cites Tinker, when Kuhlmeier, a subsequent (and bad) ruling that @fivefourpod.bsky.social recently covered, sets a much lower theshhold for restricting student speech. I’m sure SCOTUS will find a way to rule that Kuhlmeier doesn’t apply if you’re misgendering trans kids, though.

After 5-ish years in Seattle I’ve learned that “Seattle freeze” is just people not knowing how to make small talk.

Osborn is eventually going to get saddled with the issue of which party is he going to caucus with, and his answer should be that he hopes the margin is close enough that he can broker a bipartisan organization of the Senate (possibly with Murkowski joining him to force the issue). /1

It goes against the entire logic of Bostock, even if they are more deferential in this case because “president’s power to conduct foreign affairs” or whatever. There are people for whom it’s literally impossible to pass as their sex assigned at birth.

The ideal plaintiff is someone who has 5ARD, was assigned female at birth, now lives as male, and has fathered biological children. It wouldn't solve the problem in the long run, but SCOTUS would have to tell them find a better solution than simply relying on an original birth certificate.

I'm not sure there's anyone on the planet who deserved to celebrate the defeat of Andrew Cuomo more than Lindsey, who had unimaginable amounts of courage in coming forward and continuing to push until he suffered actual consequences for sexual harassment thrilled for her

We have got to figure out way to make transphobia hurt John Roberts’ stock portfolio.

It’s great that SCOTUS appears to be on track to curb tariffs, but realistically the only meaning we can reasonably derive from such a decision would be that when tariffs tanked the market in April, those justices lost a lot of money. Amazing how having a material stake can change one’s perspective.

Turning Point USA continues to carry on the sainted work of Charlie Kirk by singling out innocent high school teachers for death threats.

My god, they literally did the thing.

Right now I’d give Katie a slightly better than even chance of pulling this off. The only reason I’m not willing to be more bullish on the magnitude of the Seattle leftward shift with subsequent ballot drops is that too many rules of politics have already been broken in this race.

Had to wake up my best friend.

If it were me, I’d thank Curtis Silwa for a spirited contest of ideas and his impeccable jabs at Cuomo.

Another Republican whose closing argument was about trans kids playing sports. Looks like LD5 is also for they/them.

“Trans issues didn’t cost Abigail Spanberger the election. But here’s why they could have.” - Ezra Klein tomorrow, I’m sure.

Earle-Sears ran what felt like 12 billion ads about how much she hated trans kids and I didn’t hear a single pundit say she should stick to real issues that affect real people.

Welp, looks like Virginia is for they/them.

One of my favorite tweet threads from a few years back was, "You should be able to check a box on the ballot where you vote for Democrats but also tell them you think they're doing a bad job," and people were like, "We have that in New York it's called the with the Working Families ballot line."

Indirectly on the ballot today: Sound Transit. As many as seven board seats could change hands as the result of local races today, with a bare minimum of two new members joining the board ahead of the most impactful set of board decisions in twenty years.

One underrated thing about is that WWII we did full employment and rationing to address a national emergency and then went back to capitalism as usual and saw a huge economic boom. Sometimes I wonder what would’ve happened if we did that for other emergencies, like a once-in-a-century pandemic.

I was laid off from Teen Vogue today along with multiple other staffers, and today is my last day. certainly more to come from me when the dust has settled more, but to my knowledge, after today, there will be no politics staffers at Teen Vogue.

She beat an avowed white supremacist and votes with Republicans occasionally when it won’t change the outcome. But 22-year-old nepo baby here acts like he invented, “run candidates that fit the district.” Btw the real MGP story is @fusewashington.org invested in her race when the DCCC wouldn’t.

In light of a race for County Executive that looks to be going down to the wire, I'm compelled to circulate THE Claudia Balducci video. The Bellevue City Council meeting in 2010 where CB made it clear she doesn't ever shirk away from a fight. www.youtube.com/watch?v=IuB5...

I think Obama is overrated in a lot of ways, but his ability to deliver sick burns on the campaign trail is highly underrated.

Anti-establishment vibes are real. So is the affordability crisis. Yes the crisis existed 4 years ago. Hazard pay, eviction moratoriums, and other pandemic-era measures kept many people afloat. One story the media never picked up on is what happened when that all stopped amidst high inflation.

These White Male Gen X/Elder Millennial Pundits from the coast would not even recognize the median voter if she ran over them with a shopping cart at the Brookfield Pick ‘n Save & told them her position on climate change & all the other things directly to their faces. The Narrative™️ cannot fail.

The Jay Jones race is one where I hope they have a good field team. What voters need to hear is other human beings simply saying, “Yes I have problems with the texts, but I’m still voting for him because we need an AG who will stand up to Trump.”

“I should be paying for health care,” another all time banger from the Club for Greed.

Mutually assured destruction is an important albeit flawed concept. But literally nobody doubts the US has unbelievable second strike capability. And if I die in a blaze of hellfire, the last thing I care about is that only 1.3 billion rather than all 1.4 billion people in China die with me.

I'm shaking almost too hard to type. I entered SLC airport and heard screams and cries for help. I could see people gathered around, watching. I sped over to discover this woman face down on the floor, four grown men pushing her down, while she cried "HELP ME" and pled for her child.

🚨 Breaking: We’re TIED! 🚨 A new NPI poll out today shows this race for King County Executive is tied. That means it’s all hands on deck in this final week — and your action right now could make the difference. Every single effort matters in a race this close 💪

New public polling from @nwprogressive.org is finding a dead heat between Claudia Balducci and Girmay Zahilay in the race for the open King County Executive seat. www.nwprogressive.org/weblog/2025/...

"Balducci received the support of 37% of likely voters compared with 35% for Zahilay, according to the poll. The results — the first public polling released in the race since the August primary — portray a race that could go either way as Election Day approaches."

I do think that being distant from your extended family and thus not having “aunties” is a disproportionately white upper-middle class phenomenon in the US. The irony is that the attack came from JD Vance who made his career off of bullshit stories about his “mawmaw”.

KUOW added two editor’s notes. The fact that they got this wrong is bad and has consequences, but reporters and fact checkers are human like all of us and make mistakes. However, the fact that the network had to be publicly called out before doing anything about it shows really poor judgment.