TUESDAY, JUNE 30, 2026
The attempt to win seats in the South: No one knows what's going to happen in this year's mid-term elections. That said, a fascinating possibility is lurking in a new report from the Washington Post.
According to the Post's report, Blue America seems inclined to push back hard against the Supreme Court's recent redistricting decisions. In particular, Black citizens within the Blue American realm are said to be extremely unhappy with what the Court did.
According to the Post report, Black voters have decided to fight back the old-fashioned way against President Trump's redistricting demands and against the Supreme Court's redistricting rulings. Anger has led to the decision to fight back at the polls:
Why resisting Trump has galvanized Black Democrats as the midterms approach
Black voters in South Carolina and other southern states are turning out in defiance of what many see as President Donald Trump’s efforts to suppress their political power, fueling Democratic hopes of clinching upset wins in the region in this fall’s midterm elections.
A surge in Black voter engagement is energizing close Senate races in North Carolina and Georgia, where Democrats go into the summer with leads in many polls. Some Democrats see a chance of long-shot victories in South Carolina, such as ousting longtime incumbent Sen. Lindsey Graham (R) and flipping the congressional seat vacated by Rep. Nancy Mace (R).
“No matter what obstacles are in our way, we’re gonna just walk over those obstacles, and we’re voting,” said Beatrice Brown, 78, a retired public school teacher who drove other Black voters to the polls this month in primaries in the Lowcountry town of St. Stephen. “A voteless people is a hopeless people. And we’re not hopeless.”
Early voting in that round of South Carolina balloting surged to almost presidential-election levels. In the district represented by the state’s lone Black congressman, Rep. James E. Clyburn (D), turnout jumped by more than 50 percent.
Could Democrats score upset wins, especially in House races, as a result of increased turnout fueled by anger against President Trump and against the Court?
In theory, almost everything is possible. Also, many such things don't work out.
That said, the notions being pushed in this news report remind us of the complex history of (deliberate) "majority minority" districting in many Southern states in the wake of additions to the Voting Rights Act in 1982.
Some of those majority Black districts have now been disassembled, moving Black voters into a wider array of districts. If anger at the Court decisions (and at Trump's demands for redistricting) leads to a larger Black turnout, is it possible that Democrats could win more House seats, in the wake of the Court decisions, than they would have won if the safe majority Black / majority Democrat districts were never threatened or actually cracked apart?
Earlier this year, Rep. Clyburn (D-SC) said Republicans could end up losing three House seats in South Carolina if his own majority Black district was broken up. He said Democrats could win three House races in the state, not just the one race he had always won.
It could be that he didn't mean it, but that's what he said.
As the Post article notes, a Republican honcho in South Carolina said the GOP could lose two House seats, not just one, if Clyburn's district got broken up and Black voters were spread around more widely.
He too may not have really believed it. But that's what the Republican said.
In the end, Rep. Clyburn's majority Black district was left intact. But according to the Post report, South Carolina Dems are eyeing Nancy Mace's abandoned House seat as a possible pick-up, in part due to the anger among Black voters about the mid-census redistricting hubbub.
Dare to struggle, dare to win? Is it possible that the president's mid-census redistricting jihad, along with those recent Supreme Court decisions, could produce additional wins by Southern Dems, Black and white together?
We don't expect any miracle wins, but once they've been disassembled, those safe "majority minority" seats won't be coming back. Can Blue America, Black and white, find ways to win some other seats?
Dare to struggle, dare to win? Given the districting decisions in question, how do Blacks and how do Blues and how do Dems proceed?
"No one knows what's going to happen in this year's mid-term elections."
ReplyDeleteThis is like saying that no one can predict the weather. We can certainly predict the broad strokes while being less accurate in the details. Pollsters are much better than in the past and some have been very accurate.
Given that the past is the best predictor of the future, the overperformance of Democratic candidates in special elections and primaries predicts a blue wave that no one is foolish enough to say isn't coming. The main question is how big it will be and who will be most affected.
Predictions are that the Democrats are going to win the House and MAY win the Senate. If it is a blowout, then the Senate will become Blue in a bigger way.
Somerby is laser-focused on redistricting, ignoring all of the other factors contributing to the upcoming midterm results. Perhaps it is easiest for Somerby to claim doom and gloom if he generates confusion over districting in order to set aside the expert predictions that don't suit his argument. What is his argument? That all is lost. Woe to the Blues.
Win lose or draw, Chump is gonna cry like the little bitch he is.
DeleteChump really wants to rig the elections.
DeleteSomerby says: "In theory, almost everything is possible. Also, many such things don't work out. "
ReplyDeleteThis is idiotic. Theories are generated from facts (inductively) and then hypotheses based on theory are tested using facts. So, in theory, everything is not possible. Only the events consistent with reality (facts) are possible.
Somerby may be using the word "theory" in a colloquial sense to refer to any fanciful idea explaining the world, but that is not the scientific meaning of the world. Pollsters use scientific approaches, not inuition and guesswork (which may have been all that was available in the past, before computers, math, modeling and polling).
What things don't work out? Well, people win and lose elections. They may have expected to win or to lose, and been surprised or confirmed in their judgment. That doesn't change the way the world works, or elections work.
When an expert makes a prediction about the outcome of the race, he or she has taken into account the things that are good predictors of such outcomes. That doesn't mean other factors cannot influence the results, ones they did not measure or take into consideration.
Pollsters expected Hillary to defeat Trump, then Comey dropped his letter and that changed everything. That doesn't mean anything can happen. It means they needed to revise their predictions based on an unforseen influence on the outcome.
Somerby odd use of language permits miracles. His kind of miracle would mean the Red states overperformed on behalf of Republicans, perhaps due to redistricting as hoped. The experts are looking at the indicators at hand and predicting that Democrats will sweep the midterms, will flip previously red states, will win the House and perhaps the Senate. They have a margin of error and there are unpredictables, such as the supreme court decision about counting mail-in ballots, or the weather in swing states. But failing some major change, it is not right to say that anything is possible.
Possible things, such as corruption of the election system and cheating in vote counting because of DOGE or AI manipulation of data is possible because we now have the technology and Trump has the will to cheat. Will it happen? We don't know, but it wouldn't be within the realm of normality and it is not what the predictions are about.
If Somerby wants to fantasize, fine, do it, but do not include those fantasies into the realm of scientific prediction of election outcomes, as Somerby does today, trying to pretend that no one knows what is going to happen on election day in Nov.
Somerby is trying to rescue his idea that there should not be any majority minority districts, because maybe minorities can produce their own majorities as minority voters, by simply coming out to the polls in larger numbers. That changes nothing about the idea that preventing majority minority districts is fair to minority voters, who otherwise have no representation based on the needs of their communities and their shared experience as minorities.
If Democratic Socialist live in a specific neighborhood in NYC, is it fair to prevent the election of a Democratic Socialist by using demographics to break up their district to prevent such a candidate from election? How is that different than doing the same for partisan reasons? I don't see how Somerby has improved his argument today.
If all the children of the world hold hands, close their eyes and wish really really hard, then maybe minorities can find enough votes to win a district of their own. Somerby is such an asshole.
We know what is going to happen. Democrats are going to sweep the election, retake the House and most likely the Senate. Then Trump will be impeached and convicted and removed from office and JD Vance will be a lame duck. In 2028, voters will remember what Trump did to them (because the effects will linger after Trump is removed) and they will elect a Democratic president who will set about reversing the damage done by Trump. Based on the example of Obama's election after Bush's disastrous presidency, the Democrat will get two terms and the economy will recover, just in time for the challenges of global warming. If those are bad enough, another Democrat will be elected (based on the example of what happened after FDR died). If the country returns to prosperity, those interested in preserving their wealth may elected another Republican, assuming they can rehabilitate themselves. Or maybe voters will learn from this experience, repair our democracy and prevent the destructive cycle of alternation between Democrats and Republicans depending on whether change or conservation is favored.
ReplyDeleteNo man. Just no. Where the heck you get 67 votes in the Senate for impeachment silly?
DeleteDepends on what Trump does, not just the number of blue Senators elected. Already there are Republicans joining the Democrats on key issues, such as Epstein, the War Powers bill, and the recent Housing bill. You can't just count Republican noses when Trump is so out-of-control that he is jeopardizing our nation's safety. Will Republicans stand by and let Trump nuke Iran?
DeleteSomerby has not yet explained why a state that is 30%+ black should have no black representatives.
ReplyDeleteClearly Somerby does not support the 14th amendment.
DeleteRepublican Vickie Palladino has called for the neutralization of Democratic Socialists, using the CIA and FBI, as occurred in the past via COINTELPRO. This kind of eliminationism is part of the right wing approach to political situations, including recently in Venezuela and Iran. But using this to remove democratically elected representatives, simply for political opposition, should be illegal. This politician should be removed from office for suggesting it, as the targets of her threats are requesting.
ReplyDeleteSomerby should be aware of the attempt to vilify political opponents using hate speech and threats of elimination. That is not how a democracy works. It is how an authoritarian politice state works. How Hitler worked.
https://www.rawstory.com/republican-s-thinly-veiled-call-to-progressives-triggers-calls-for-ouster/
"When he isn’t busy complaining about rich people, liberal California Rep. Ro Khanna (D) is busy living like one. Which makes sense, considering he’s filthy rich himself, as a new report from the Washington Free Beacon showed on Tuesday."
ReplyDeleteThis is what a Republican hit job on a Democratic politician looks like. Why doesn't Somerby ever discuss the way the press is used to target effective Democrats like this?
That's why Bernie as well as the other Dems have suddenly dropped their demands that we tax the "millionaires" because it would apply to them. lol
Delete"Studies of the U.S. Congress indicate that the median net worth for both Democrats and Republicans hovers around the $1 million mark, with most members being millionaires."
Delete"You can explore detailed financial disclosure records for specific politicians and track ongoing spending trends using the OpenSecrets Personal Finances platform."
https://www.opensecrets.org/personal-finances
Republicans have higher income donors and Republican voters tend to have slightly higher incomes. There are billionaire members of congress in both parties.