2024 - A Blank Canvas

[2016]

@SaintStan86,
I could see Ivanka Trump endorsing Nikki Haley. They were very close when Haley was UN Ambassador!

[SaintStan86]

November 7, 2023
SEN. CAMERON WINS SPECIAL ELECTION, GOV. BESHEAR WINS SECOND TERM
On Tuesday night, appointed U.S. Senator Daniel Cameron was reelected to fill the remainder of former Senator Mitch McConnell's unexpired term, defeating Democratic Louisville Mayor Greg Fischer in a close race, 53 percent to 45 percent, where the Democrats forced the GOP to spend a sizable chunk of its 2024 election funds to defend the seat. In his victory speech at Freedom Hall in Louisville, the Elizabethtown native and former state Attorney General proclaimed, "In 2004, I went from Elizabethtown to the University of Louisville, where I went to play football and study on a scholarship endowed in the name of Mitch McConnell, who later entrusted me to work for him in sending qualified, constitutional judges including Neil Gorsuch to our federal courts. I am more than honored to fill his seat, and am eternally grateful by the grace of our Almighty God to continue serving as your Senator!" Across town at the Kentucky International Convention Center, where Democrats across the state gathered for the evening, Fischer thanked his supporters, "We may not have won tonight, but one thing is clear: if Democrats can run a campaign this competitive in the offseason, then let it be known that tonight is not the end in the fight for democracy!".

But not all was lost for the Democrats. While voters narrowly backed Cameron in the special Senate election, Democratic Gov. Andy Beshear prevailed in a close race to win a second term, 51-46, over former U.S. Ambassador to the United Nations Kelly Craft, who hoped to become the state's first female Governor since Martha Layne Collins won in 1983. Beshear's victory was attributed to his high popularity ratings, despite Republicans and Donald Trump spending millions to target the Governor over his handling of the COVID-19 pandemic as well as issues relating to schools and transportation. Speaking to the same crowd in Louisville, Beshear declared "Tonight, the people of Kentucky voted to continue delivering common good for the Commonwealth, and sent a clear message to Republicans: You may have supposedly moved on from Donald Trump, but the corrosive, confusing and corrupt legacy of Trump will never escape you...not even in Kentucky. And if Democrats can send that message and win here, then anything is possible!" Despite Beshear's close victory and that of Cameron's, polls continue to show Republicans in strong shape to carry the Bluegrass State in 2024.

Elsewhere in the country, Mississippi Gov. Tate Reeves was easily reelected to a second term with over 56 percent of the vote, defeating Democratic state Public Service Commissioner Brandon Presley who polled over 42 percent of the vote. Despite gaining attention for being a distant cousin of Elvis Presley and Mississippi having the largest percentage of Black residents in the nation, Brandon Presley struggled to compete against Reeves in one of the most Republican states in the nation. Republicans also scored two other victories along the Gulf Coast. In Houston, Texas, the race to elect the next Mayor of the nation's fourth-largest city will be headed to a runoff with Republican at-large Houston City Councilmember Mike Knox and Democratic State Sen. John Whitmire set to face off in a December 9th runoff to succeed term-limited Mayor Sylvester Turner; though Houston's Mayor and City Council are officially nonpartisan posts, no Republican has served as Houston Mayor since 1981 when incumbent Jim McConn failed to make a runoff that was ultimately won by Whitmire's former sister-in-law Kathy Whitmire (who would go on to serve five two-year terms during a notable tenure as Mayor). And in northwest Florida, Republican State Rep. Michelle Salzman defeated Democrat and infamous COVID whistleblower Rebekah Jones to win the remainder of the unexpired term of former Rep. Matt Gaetz, who has since moved to California with his wife but not without controversy as Gaetz had been the target of scandal and a surprisingly close race against Jones in 2022, who ran as an independent in that election, despite the Pensacola-centric district being the most Republican district in all of Florida. Unsurprisingly, Salzman is now a heavy favorite for reelection in 2024.

The 2023 election cycle is certainly far from over. On November 18th, voters in Louisiana will go to the polls for a runoff to determine term-limited Democrat John Bel Edwards' successor as Governor. Though Democratic attorney Caroline Fayard has attracted support far and wide from local and national Democrats, with many viewing her as a rising star in the party and Edwards campaigning extensively for Fayard across Louisiana, the state remains fertile territory for Republicans who have coalesced around state Attorney General Jeff Landry, who finished second in the nonpartisan jungle primary last October over Lieutenant Governor Billy Nungesser. Polls show Landry with a double-digit lead over Fayard, who has responded by running ads highlighting her work as an attorney as well as attack ads portraying Landry as a "rubber stamp" for Trump and the GOP.

[SaintStan86]

November 8, 2023
PBS ANNOUNCES FIELD, FORMAT FOR FIFTH GOP DEBATE
During Wednesday night's broadcast of the PBS NewsHour, anchor Judy Woodruff announced the participants for Saturday's Republican presidential debate, scheduled to take place Saturday night at 6pm at the Lila Cockrell Theatre inside the Henry B. González Convention Center in downtown San Antonio, Texas. This is the first time that PBS has done a presidential debate for Republican candidates since 2008, after doing ones solely for the Democrats in 2016 and 2020. Given that Saturday's debate falls on Veterans Day, and also given San Antonio's large Hispanic population, its location near the Mexican border, and especially its large military presence (along with 89,000 defense industry employees) - which gives the city the moniker "Military City, USA", issues relating to foreign policy, immigration, defense and veterans affairs are expected to be the key topics of the debate. The NewsHour's foreign affairs and defense correspondent, Nick Schifrin, will join Woodruff and New York Times columnist David Brooks, who also serves as an analyst for NPR and half of the Friday duo of "Brooks & Capehart" on the NewsHour.

PARTICIPANTS FOR THE NOVEMBER 11TH PRESIDENTIAL DEBATE (PBS @ San Antonio, TX)
Candidate	Avg. (11/8)	Poll A (11/6)	Poll B (11/2)	Poll C (10/30)	Poll D (10/27)
PARTICIPATING
Gov. Ron DeSantis (R-FL)	19.0	20	22	16	18
Fmr. Vice President Mike Pence (R-IN)	13.7	15	12	16	12
Fmr. Amb. Nikki Haley (R-SC)	13.5	12	15	12	15
Sen. Ted Cruz (R-TX)	11.7	10	12	14	11
Sen. Ben Sasse (R-NE)	6.7	7	5	9	6
Fmr. Sec. of State Mike Pompeo (R-KS)	6.2	8	6	4	7
Fmr. Gov. Larry Hogan (R-MD)	4.7	5	4	4	6
Commentator Candace Owens (R-TN)	4.2	4	4	6	3
Sen. Marco Rubio (R-FL)	4.0	5	3	4	4
Fmr. Gov. Chris Christie (R-NJ)	3.7	4	5	3	3
Sen. Tom Cotton (R-AR)	2.75	2	3	3	3
NOT PARTICIPATING
Businessman Mike Lindell (R-MN) - failed to poll above 3% in at least three polls	1.25	0	1	3	1

To qualify for the debate, candidates had to poll at least three percent of the vote in at least three polls. Sen. Tom Cotton, who was shut out of the previous debate in Omaha, will participate in this debate as he has polled at least three percent in all but one poll. Mike Lindell, who continues to struggle in the aftermath of continued bad PR from his infamous Larry King flub and withdrawal from Fox News's platforms, will not be participating in this debate due to his continued poor debate performance. However, Lindell insists he doesn't need debates to introduce himself to voters, citing "When was the last time anyone made a credible decision to endorse a candidate based on a debate?", and instead has announced he will host a rally featuring veterans, and broadcast on Rumble. There is also speculation that Lindell will instead choose to run for President as a candidate for the Constitution Party, but this rumor is struck down swiftly by Lindell.

November 11, 2023
REPUBLICANS DISCUSS RUSSIA, BORDER CRISIS, VA HOSPITAL SCANDAL IN VETERANS DAY DEBATE
As Americans observed Veterans Day with multiple tributes on Saturday, Republicans debated for nearly four hours on issues facing America's soldiers and veterans, as well as foreign policy and immigration, before a crowded audience in San Antonio that included several active duty military and veterans. Broadcast on PBS, the debate's opening statements included - mostly as a courtesy - references to various PBS affiliates and legacy programs from Sen. Marco Rubio's memories of "growing up going to bed watching Star Hustler" (which originated from Miami's WPBT) and Candace Owens' recollections of "watching the Huskies on CPTV growing up in Stamford" to former Vice President Mike Pence's references to Indianapolis "having three PBS stations", singling out Muncie's WIPB in reference to the late painter Bob Ross's The Joy of Painting (and drawing amusement from Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis who noted that Ross was based in Florida, "so it's really our happy little trees, not yours Mike!").

Other than the lighthearted, Prussian blue- and titanium white-colored memories of PBS lore, the debate was as serious as it could be, with candidates repeatedly defending aspects of Donald Trump's foreign policy and military agenda while assailing Biden for his "mismanagement of the already bad situation in Ukraine made worse by his intervention" (DeSantis), "the wiping out of all the progress that Trump made reinvigorating the VA" (Mike Pompeo), and "encouraging immigrants to come to the border when other countries said no" (Sen. Tom Cotton). Sen. Ted Cruz declared the Biden administration's handling of the Afghanistan withdrawal "the worst failure of military leadership in American history" and also blasted Biden for "rewarding (Joint Chiefs of Staff Chairman) Gen. Mark Milley, who gave away our most sensitive intelligence secrets to China, with a 'get out of jail free card' instead of a court martial", calling Gen. Milley "a traitor who made our country vulnerable to cyber attacks at home". Owens also called out Milley, "When you have a general who's more interested in pushing woke ideology and sensitivity training instead of preparing your soldiers to fight back against China, what did you expect?".

There were fights aplenty in this debate, with Gov. DeSantis and former Ambassador Nikki Haley sparring over Ukraine. DeSantis called Biden's actions in Ukraine "the equivalent of what Neville Chamberlain would have done with Britain", insisting that the U.S. had no incentive to go to Ukraine and interfere in a civil war, "If Donald Trump were still President, we wouldn't be going to war with Russia, instead he would have put Putin in his place and talked it over through diplomacy instead of destruction". Haley, by contrast, argued that "If Gov. DeSantis has his way with Ukraine, Vladimir Putin would have totally annihilated it, and the people of Poland and Bulgaria, among other nations, would be the ones suffering, wondering if anyone is there to stand up for democracy in Europe". DeSantis retorted, "If we did things Nikki Haley's way, Mikhail Gorbachev would have chosen to keep the wall that Ronald Reagan convinced him to tear down". When asked by New York Times columnist and PBS NewsHour analyst David Brooks if he is a pacifist, DeSantis denied that he was, despite his fellow Floridian Rubio calling him out, "We need a President that will stand up for the average Jane, not Hanoi Jane," referring to actress Jane Fonda (whose anti-war crusade in Vietnam drew condemnation from some military and veterans).

Former Secretary of State Mike Pompeo also spoke on the recent nightclub bombing on Ukraine's coastline, "I've been to Ukraine. I know what the situation is like over there. The failure of President Biden to defuse the situation in the east explains why families are burying their loved ones after a needless terrorist attack that could have been avoided, and no amount of military largesse on our part will bring them back". Pompeo did face continued criticism over supposed connections to Koch Industries and GOP mega donor Charles Koch, not unlike he did in past debates, but Pompeo simply shrugged off these criticisms, "Charles Koch does not control the defense industry, and as President he will not be making decisions for me when it comes to our military and those who serve". Gov. Larry Hogan responded to Pompeo by announcing that "as President, I will require all potential defense contractors seeking contracts at the Pentagon to disclose their political donations before applying for a government contract. I cannot guarantee that Pompeo will do the same thing."

On border security, DeSantis defended his decision to send Florida law enforcement officers to the Mexican border - none of which touches his state, drawing criticism from former Gov. Chris Christie who quipped, "The only thing Ron DeSantis has to do with Mexico are the numerous chain Mexican restaurants that serve bland and uninspired Mexican food and the fact that telenovelas are being filmed in his backyard, and I am probably more Texan than DeSantis ever will be". DeSantis defended his decision, arguing that "I had a right to defend my state from the sort of deplorable conditions, drug trafficking and sexcapades going on at the border before it got to us", and even took a shot at Christie's fandom of the Dallas Cowboys: "Better hope your VCR is still working, because otherwise you don't have a Super Bowl highlight reel to boast about!" Christie's response? "No problem, Mount Laurel is just a quick drive for me, even on a weekday". (Editor's note: Mount Laurel is a suburb of Philadelphia that is home to NFL Films.)

Haley would also draw attention for comments on the sexual harassment and murder of Vanessa Guillén, a U.S. Army soldier who was murdered by a fellow soldier at Fort Hood - located more than 140 miles north of San Antonio near Killeen. "What happened to Vanessa Guillén should never happen again," calling for any active duty military who sexually violates a fellow soldier to be court-martialed (and if convicted of murder, dishonorably discharged). Pence called the proposal "well-meaning but unreasonable", pointing out that almost all of the sponsors of a recent "I am Vanessa Guillén Act" are Democrats. "We already have enough problems with President Biden when it comes to our military, the last thing we need is to copy and paste the Democrats' unreasonable good intentions and appropriate them as our own", Pence retorted. Sexual assault victims, including actress Alyssa Milano, responded on social media by slamming Pence for "putting the interests of religious bigots ahead of women who serve our country", while praising Haley for "telling the unspoken truths about the concerns of thousands of women who are violated in the hands of the powerful".

Sen. Tom Cotton drew on his own experience serving in the U.S. Army, ending his service with the rank of Captain, by pointing to "the crass failure of our federal government to adequately care for our injured soldiers and veterans" in reference to the latest VA hospital system scandal. In particular, Cotton singled out VA Secretary Denis McDonough as "grossly unfit to serve as VA Secretary, especially given that he has never worn our uniform and is nothing more than a puppet for Obama and Biden's failed national security apparatus". Cotton, who was one of only seven Senators to oppose McDonough's nomination as VA Secretary, also called out fellow Sens. Rubio and Ben Sasse for voting to confirm McDonough.

Sasse responded to Cotton's criticism, "When I did vote for McDonough, I thought we'd be getting an outsider as VA Secretary after so many failures from internal hires within our military. But after what I've seen here in San Antonio with families who lost loved ones due to poor conditions at these hospitals, I would force McDonough to either resign or be fired". Rubio also echoed Sasse's remorse, "While I had promise that Denis McDonough would not be a radical pick, he certainly has been a major disappointment for the veterans and families who rely on the VA for their health care. He is the epitome of underperformance when it comes to Biden's 'Cabinet of incontinence', excuse me I meant to say 'incompetence'", with Pence replying "Sen. Rubio, with all due respect you just recorded a commercial for Depends!" to chuckles from the audience. Hogan, whose state of Maryland is home to the Walter Reed National Military Medical Center, stated "As a Governor who represented Walter Reed and numerous other military and VA hospitals, I am profoundly disappointed in the continuous neglect our soldiers and veterans face" and announced plans to create a bipartisan "reform commission" to evaluate and reform the VA Hospital system.

Overall, the debate went smoothly, policy fights notwithstanding, with Pence taking hits from viewer surveys over his response to Haley's thoughts on the Vanessa Guillén murder and Rubio and Christie drawing punchlines from Stephen Colbert and the cast of Saturday Night Live, the latter of which was not taping that week (but which would the following week, even mocking Christie's Dallas Cowboys fandom with a Christie impersonator opening his suit with Cowboys logos inside the jacket and shouting, "How 'bout 'em Cowboys?!?"). Sen. Cotton's debate performance was widely praised, with Cotton's vote against confirming embattled VA Secretary Denis McDonough even drawing attention from Tucker Carlson and Sen. Josh Hawley of Missouri, who also voted against confirming McDonough along with Sen. Cruz, whose denouncement of Gen. Milley over China instantly led to a rush in donations to his campaign.

[SaintStan86]

November 12, 2023
CBS ANNOUNCES FIELD FOR 4TH DEMOCRATIC DEBATE IN SOUTH CAROLINA
On Sunday morning's broadcast of Face the Nation, host Margaret Brennan announces the field for the fourth Democratic presidential debate, to be held on Tuesday night in Columbia, South Carolina at Colonial Life Arena on the campus of the University of South Carolina, and primarily broadcast on CBS's sister cable network BET with a simulcast on CBS (and also streamed on Paramount+). Brennan will co-moderate the debate alongside CBS Mornings anchor Gayle King, CBS News correspondent Elaine Quijano (who hosts Red & Blue on CBS News's streaming channel), and Temple University professor Marc Lamont Hill (a registered Green Party member who is also a correspondent and has done specials for BET). Operating under the editorial control of another sister cable network in MTV, as part of that network's Choose or Lose branding, the debate will serve as one of two cable-based debates to be moderated by CBS News, and will primarily focus on topics of importance to African-Americans (an important constituency within the Democratic Party) including civil rights and race relations, criminal justice, election reforms, the economy, education and healthcare (the latter three all general issues, but with a direct focus on racial equity in regards to Black voters).

PARTICIPANTS FOR THE NOVEMBER 14TH DEMOCRATIC PRESIDENTIAL DEBATE (BET/CBS @ Columbia, SC)
Candidate	Avg. (11/12)	Poll A (11/11)	Poll B (11/3)	Poll C (10/29)	Poll D (10/25)
Vice President Kamala Harris (D-CA)	28.5	31	27	29	27
Sen. Elizabeth Warren (D-MA)	25.3	23	25	27	26
Former Sec. Pete Buttigieg (D-IN)	16.5	16	19	16	15
Sen. Amy Klobuchar (D-MN)	5.0	5	4	5	6
Gov. Roy Cooper (D-NC)	4.3	6	3	3	5
Gov. Jared Polis (D-CO)	3.8	3	2	5	5
Former Sec. Gina Raimondo (D-RI)	3.3	3	3	3	4

While the recent polling tabs have remained virtually unchanged, the only notable shift is an increase in undecided voters at the expense of Vice President Kamala Harris, who after a series of mediocre debate performances has seen her standing tumble to where she is now virtually tied with Sen. Elizabeth Warren. Many observers note that given the upcoming debate's focus on issues of importance to Black voters, this debate could decide whether or not Harris regains her lead or stumbles against Warren, who is already making strides to appeal to more progressive Black voters who align more with the likes of Black Lives Matter and progressive stars such as U.S. Reps. Cori Bush and Ayanna Pressley as opposed to the sort of more traditional Black Democrats along the mold of Barack Obama and earlier icons such as Jesse Jackson.

In addition to the debate focusing on matters important to the Black community, with advertising on BET portraying this debate as "the most important debate for Black America in history", the debate will also serve, as with the Nevada debate last month, as a preview for the upcoming South Carolina primary - which is slated to be held the week after Nevada's "NEW first-in-the-nation" primary on January 27th as part of the DNC's push to highlight more diverse states as opposed to the traditional Iowa and New Hampshire contests. It will also give an opportunity for Gov. Roy Cooper of neighboring North Carolina to introduce himself to voters in the neighboring Palmetto State, and given a number of the issues to be addressed are also important to many Democratic voters in the South, expectations are high for Cooper.

November 14, 2023
HARRIS DEFENDS RECORD AS VP IN PIVOTAL SOUTH CAROLINA DEBATE
In a critical Tuesday night debate in South Carolina's capital city, Vice President Kamala Harris defended her record against mounting criticism from liberals in her own party who have accused her of being "insufficiently progressive". The debate, which was broadcast on BET and produced by CBS (which simulcast the debate) and sister cable network MTV, touched on issues of importance to African-Americans as Harris sought to put distance between herself and U.S. Sen. Elizabeth Warren of Massachusetts.

In the debate, when addressed by moderator Gayle King about if she would pursue another "For the People Act" similar to the voting and election reform legislation that stalled in the first year of her tenure as Vice President, Harris responded, "Of course I would. Even if I have to resort to breaking up the bill, which is probably the last thing I want to do, or executive orders just to preserve democracy for millions of Americans, I will not back down until progress is made and our right to vote is protected." The crowd at Colonial Life Arena in Columbia, located on the campus of the University of South Carolina, cheered wildly as Harris appeared poised in her fourth debate after three underwhelming performances where her record was often put through the wringer.

On criminal justice matters, when asked by moderator Marc Lamont Hill as to how she intended to close the racial equity gap with regards to sentencing, Warren vowed to make it illegal for federal prosecutors to determine sentences based on race, "A Black man who is convicted of possessing illegal drugs should not have to serve the same kind of harsh sentence murderers get while their White contemporaries get a chance for parole within 10 to 20 years", and also vowed to ban the privatization of all federal prisons that Warren called "a convenient way for Wall Street to throw away the key without waiting for corrupt police departments like the one that killed George Floyd to hijack the wheels of justice". Colorado Gov. Jared Polis, who himself has led efforts to reduce recidivism and harsh sentences for drug offenders, also highlighted "our prison system is overloaded with offenders who are serving life sentences for harmless crimes, and a large portion of them are people of color who are disproportionately the target of this corrupt system".

North Carolina Gov. Roy Cooper also used the platform of the debate being in his neighboring South Carolina as an opportunity to highlight his record as a "successful southern Democrat from a state Donald Trump won, not once, but twice". Cooper elaborated on his initiatives in promoting equity within his state's public schools and social services, "Diversity and inclusion work to the greater benefit of all Americans, and as President I will take the successes I earned through the trust of all North Carolinians and apply them at the federal level". Former Secretary Pete Buttigieg also touted his equity initiatives as Transportation Secretary, "The projects we prioritized as part of the Biden infrastructure deal worked to improve transit for diverse communities that previously were underserved, and it will all be lost if Donald Trump returns in the form of his loyal servant masquerading as a President". Buttigieg continued, "You don't have to like Joe Biden, but at least give him credit for actually doing what a reality TV star could only dream of".

Another former Biden secretary, Gina Raimondo, also took note of the format to highlight the importance of outreach to Black-owned businesses and farms, "Minority-owned businesses have gotten the attention they needed under President Biden, and I will make sure they continue to get that attention". Sen. Amy Klobuchar, who represents a major farming state and serves on the Senate Agriculture Committee, also highlighted an often overlooked aspect of the USDA when asked by moderator Margaret Brennan about the importance of rural Black farmers (which make up a sizable part of South Carolina's rural economy). "It is important for us to highlight the needs of Black farmers who often are among the most overlooked in their field, but I shall also mention that the USDA is more than just farming. The largest part of USDA also oversees the SNAP program that provides food stamps to millions of low-income families, a disproportionate number of them people of color and indigenous communities. These benefits must be protected from the threat that Trump's successor-in-waiting poses". Raimondo responded to Klobuchar by vowing to "wipe out food deserts to the fullest extent in our underserved communities".

Not every moment in the otherwise noncontroversial debate was sanguine. When asked by Elaine Quijano about how she would be a stronger advocate for Black voters and other minorities than Vice President Harris, Warren pointed, "People of color and indigenous peoples depend on progressive policies to thrive in a country that continues to be systemically racist. As President, these communities will be at the forefront of not only our domestic agenda, but also our foreign policy where too often the ones going to war and dying are disproportionately nonwhite Americans. That is something Vice President Harris will never understand through the haze of corporate slush money disguised as campaign donations". Harris retorted to Warren's rehash of an earlier debate's squabble by bringing up an old debate controversy from 2020, in particular when now-President Biden was asked about his opposition to forced busing during the 1970s, "While Elizabeth Warren was moonlighting as a Republican in Houston and then New Jersey, often singing the praises of corporate America, I was being bused from a predominantly Black neighborhood in Berkeley as part of a plan to promote racial equity in schools, which makes Warren's claims that I am not uniquely qualified to understand the struggles of minority and ethnic communities absolutely false".

Controversies also stirred up throughout the debate with regards to police brutality, for which many of the candidates pointed to several such incidents under their watch. Then-South Bend Mayor Buttigieg, for instance, came under fire when Cooper brought up the case of Eric Logan, who was shot dead by a white South Bend police officer in 2019. Buttigieg defended his handling of police relations in the matter, despite allegations of racism with regards to his policies and African-Americans, while Cooper called Buttigieg's response "highly insufficient, and more a sop to corrupt police unions that funded Donald Trump's reelection campaign while Black men and women suffered at greater levels than other groups". Cooper also pointed to the controversy surrounding another police brutality victim, Keith Lamont Scott, whose 2016 shooting by Charlotte police resulted in rioting that plagued the city just weeks before Trump's election as President (and then-Attorney General Cooper's election as Governor). "If this shooting happened if I were Governor, I would have sought full justice for the victim and tamped down the threat of reactive violence that occurred on those nights in Charlotte", said Cooper. Gov. Polis remarked, "You're aware the officer who shot Keith Lamont Scott was Black, right?", while also defending his response to another Black police brutality victim, Elijah McClain (who died in the custody of first responders in Aurora during a 2019 arrest), "Since the death of Elijah McClain, I have instituted effective police reforms throughout Colorado to ensure that his memory is not left in vain".

Overall, the debate received positive remarks from pundits and many Democratic supporters, with many believing that Vice President Harris won the debate. "This was clearly a make-or-break moment for Kamala Harris, and if anything we now know that if she's going to lose the frontrunner status, she's not going to lose it gracefully," pointed MSNBC host Chris Hayes on his primetime program, All In. The following morning on ABC's The View, panelist Sunny Hostin declared "the Kamala we all know is back, and it's clear that this remains her race to lose". Cooper also received positive remarks for his handling of the questions and his defense of his record as Governor of North Carolina, while Klobuchar's explanation of the USDA has resulted in all of the Democratic candidates vowing to "protect the integrity of the SNAP programs that many families rely on to feed their families and provide quality nutrition to children who need it the most", as stated on Klobuchar's campaign website. Buttigieg's handling of the Eric Logan was met negatively by Black Democratic primary voters, and accordingly his numbers have somewhat dropped in post-debate polling.

[SaintStan86]

Before I continue, I shall mention that John James is now running for the open south Macomb-based 10th District in Michigan and if I haven't mentioned that Kathleen Rice is retiring in New York's 4th in southwest Nassau County, she has already done so, and there is even a possibility that Republicans could sweep Long Island in a big red wave as the map otherwise contains three (supposedly) Dem-leaning districts plus a packed Republican seat held by Andrew Garbarino in NY-02. James has already declared for the U.S. Senate in this TL, but he is now going to be identified going forward as an incumbent U.S. Representative, though I will reiterate that the mapmakers in Michigan would have been better off swapping fairly red Rochester Hills for the deeply blue extreme SE corner of Oakland County (Ferndale, Royal Oak, etc.) and created two competitive battlegrounds instead of one where James is favored and another where Andy Levin will likely prevail over Haley Stevens IRL due to Levin's name being more established among local Democrats and Metro Detroit's Jewish community being anchored in the Oakland County communities the new MI-11 is situated in.

Also, it appears that Matt Salmon is beginning to catch up to Kari Lake in the race for Governor of Arizona. Term-limited incumbent Doug Ducey is going to continue to keep a low profile and not endorse, but I now think that Salmon's forward motion will be enough for him to not only defeat Lake in the Republican primary, but also defeat Katie Hobbs in the general, so in this TL Matt Salmon will now be the Governor. I will also add that it's safe to say the Trump-endorsed candidates that are going to thrive the most in these midterms are those who a) happen to have strong conservative bonafides, b) give enough of the benefit of the doubt to Trump without provoking him, and c) don't wade endlessly into the conspiracy dreck beyond what the GOP leadership on Capitol Hill can tolerate (as evidenced by Mike Lindell's so far disastrous campaign in this TL and Ted Cruz's underperformance compared to other top-tier candidates). Finally, there is also now a competitive open seat in southern Minnesota because the incumbent in Minnesota's 1st District, Republican Jim Hagedorn, died of cancer this week. There is no telling what will transpire in this race, but I do think the GOP will win this seat with relative ease in this current environment.

Now, back to the TL...[/I]

With the next debate not coming up until after Thanksgiving, the candidates have for the most part begun to retreat to their families in anticipation of the holiday. Their is plenty of turkey and dressing to go around, sides from cranberry to green beans to scarf, and desserts from pumpkin pie to cheesecake to devour. Before proceeding on, here are some other stories within the campaigns that have occurred, as well as some of the advertising and barnstorming gimmicks that have taken place and a few other updates as well.

As candidates prepare to break for Thanksgiving with the next debate not until November 28th for the GOP and December 1st for the Democrats, the candidates have retreated themselves to their families. Throughout the last few months since the first debate, barnstorming throughout the states has become routine as their frequent flyer miles (and their campaign debt) have started to rack up. All of the candidates have visited Iowa, with Sen. Ben Sasse's commutes being the most convenient and his small gatherings in individual parts of Iowa having become legendary in some circles, along with his occasional stops at various Chick-fil-A restaurants (as well as those of his home state's beloved Runza and even a few locations of Maid-Rite (a small Iowa chain known for their loose ground beef sandwiches) inside and out of Iowa which have become a PR bonanza for the candidate. Mike Pence has also made frequent stops in Iowa, often speaking to packed churches where he has often touted his social conservative credentials and has received the endorsement of noted social conservative activist Bob Vander Plaats, "Ron DeSantis is a fighter and Nikki Haley loves Israel, but no one has been more steadfast in defending family values out of the field than Mike Pence". Two Minnesota-based candidates, Democratic Sen. Amy Klobuchar and GOP Businessman Mike Lindell, have cited Iowans as a source of strength for their otherwise small campaigns and have made frequent stops in Iowa to gatherings large and small. Overall, Pence has maintained a lead for the Republicans in Iowa most of the time, with the other "big four" GOP candidates as well as Sasse nipping at Pence's lead in that state. Pete Buttigieg, meanwhile, enjoys strong support in Iowa and is battling Warren for second among Democrats in the state, with Kamala Harris generally leading the Democrats within the margin of error.

New Hampshire has also become a routine destination for each of the candidates. Former East Coast Governors Chris Christie and Larry Hogan have frequently sought the state's socially moderate voters (which can differ between populists in Coös County and suburbanites just across the state line from Massachusetts), and also the endorsement of Gov. Chris Sununu (who has vowed to withhold his endorsement until after the Iowa caucuses). Sen. Elizabeth Warren, who has been polling strongly in New Hampshire, has often used the state as a "second home" for her campaign, and has recently taken the lead there over VP Kamala Harris as well as in Iowa (where Pete Buttigieg has also been competitive). As foreign policy hawks and moderates hold greater sway over New Hampshire Republicans than social conservatives, Nikki Haley and Gov. Ron DeSantis have led the GOP pack, with Pence and Sen. Ted Cruz tied among social conservative voters, while Sasse has also gained some niche votes in college towns where his fiscal conservative focus has gained support from young libertarian-leaning voters, not unlike former Delaware Governor Pete du Pont whose low-polling 1988 campaign had outsized support in small circles. Many experts argue the Republican race for New Hampshire's votes is wide open, with leads varying both in size and in which candidate tops the field.

In South Carolina, Nikki Haley has taken a sizable lead in her home state's GOP primary, with Cruz and DeSantis battling for second place and Mike Pence keeping enough distance in fourth between himself and Sasse, Sen. Marco Rubio and Mike Pompeo. Kamala Harris dominates among Democrats, who in South Carolina are largely led by the state's large Black population including several churches who have warmly embraced the Vice President. Only Warren comes even close to challenging Harris's perch in the Palmetto State, with North Carolina Gov. Roy Cooper beginning to gain more than 10 percent of the vote in recent South Carolina polls (and airing ads targeting Harris and Warren as "unfit to unite the country", which led to unfounded charges of sexism from some feminist circles). Nevada, expected to be a major primary test for Hispanic votes, appears to be favoring Sen. Cruz and Gov. DeSantis on the GOP side with Nikki Haley gaining outspoken support from Jewish Republicans in and out of the Las Vegas Valley, while the Democratic field remains somewhat of a mystery given that the influential Culinary Workers Union has not yet endorsed a candidate.

The campaigns are also in full swing with their ad blitzes in Iowa and other early states, as well as a few Super Tuesday states and even some national coverage on YouTube, streaming platforms and even occasional cable news appearances. Kamala Harris draws attention for her "biopic" campaign ad which starts with actresses portraying a little girl in Berkeley getting onto a school bus, an 80s-era Alpha Kappa Alpha sorority sister Harris at Howard University, a 2000s-era lawyer (and San Francisco DA) Harris and eventually the real Harris herself as the Vice President, while David Letterman (at this point the de facto "official spokesperson" for Pete Buttigieg) narrates a lighthearted and humorous campaign ad for Buttigieg. Ben Sasse, meanwhile, employs the services of noted advertising guru Fred Davis who portrays the Nebraska Senator in a Modern Family-style ad as someone who "doesn't change with the wind, even if others think he's crazy", while Ted Cruz's "Fearless" ad, which also highlighted Cruz's controversial vote against certifying Biden's election victory, featured a testimony from his former Harvard Law professor Alan Dershowitz. Candace Owens also draws attention for an ad, in which a supposedly nude Owens (albeit shown only with face and shoulders) called on Americans (in particular Black Americans) to "break free from the chains of the Democratic plantation and move toward a brighter future".

There have also been a number of high profile appearances by the candidates during college football season, with Nikki Haley and her family being a frequent sight at home games of her beloved Clemson Tigers that are in the Top 10 of all college football teams and (along with Florida State) is bound for the soon-to-be 18-team SEC in 2025, while Elizabeth Warren performed the coin toss at an Iowa State game against the Texas Longhorns. Pete Buttigieg also drew attention by crashing Notre Dame's appearance at Clemson with Haley and her family in attendance on November 4th, while on the same day Gov. Ron DeSantis and his wife Casey, who fought a battle against breast cancer the year before, appeared at Iowa's highly-anticipated home game against Minnesota (where the two compete annually for the Floyd of Rosedale trophy) and performed the traditional "Iowa Wave" at the end of the first quarter, where DeSantis, his wife and others waved at patients inside nearby Stead Family Children's Hospital on the University of Iowa campus in a heartwarming sight.

Not every presidential college football appearance is "good, clean fun" though. During the end of Nebraska's "Black Friday" home game against Iowa the day after Thanksgiving, where Sen. Ben Sasse performed the coin toss before the game started, the Senator later returns to award the Heroes Trophy to the victorious Cornhuskers dressed as Herbie Husker (Nebraska's beloved mascot, minus the trademark cowboy hat). Sasse's appearance, though, is not well-received by the actual Herbie Husker (who unlike Sasse is actually donning a red cowboy hat) who proceeds to chase down and tackle Sasse near the Iowa end zone. Sasse is left wringing in pain on the field and is carted off by Nebraska athletic trainers, but thankfully walks away with only a minor scratch and a bum knee, all without needing to seek medical treatment other than a quick trip to the drugstore. (The mascot is "penalized" for unnecessary roughness by the officials for the entirely unplanned stunt, but otherwise faces no sanctions from the university.)

Overall, the candidates are simply warming up their campaigns (if not their Thanksgiving leftovers) as the Christmas and Hanukkah shopping seasons commence, endorsements begin to rack up in Iowa and other states, and news organizations begin to gear up for the upcoming primaries. There are also a few other campaign developments outside of the presidential race, starting with one very big surprise that sends aftershocks inside and out of the DC beltway...

November 16, 2023
SPEAKER KEVIN McCARTHY TO RUN FOR US SENATE IN SURPRISE DECISION
In a decision made on Thursday morning that surprised observers across the political spectrum, House Speaker Kevin McCarthy sent shockwaves by announcing his candidacy for the open U.S. Senate seat of retiring California Democrat Dianne Feinstein. In a campaign announcement on his website, the California Republican declared, "Some people think I'm being far-fetched in making this decision, but nothing could not be further from the truth. What matters more is the need for a Senator who will deliver for all Californians from the fertile soils of the Central Valley to the sandy beaches along the Pacific Coast. I intend to be that Senator, and together we are going to return California to the promised land!" McCarthy plans to kickoff his campaign shortly after the Thanksgiving break, which will make him the second high-profile Republican in the race alongside former U.S. Ambassador to Germany Ric Grenell.

The move is met with considerable skepticism from even Republicans, given Democrats' nearly two-to-one advantage in party registration in the Golden State (46 percent, with those listing "No Party Preference" making up nearly as much of the state's voters as registered Republicans at a respective 22 percent and 25 percent) and the fact that two of the three most recent U.S. Senate races ended up pitting two Democrats against one another, including Kamala Harris's 2016 Senate race. However, Republicans have started to mount an aggressive registration campaign to convince NPP voters to align with the GOP, with prominent LGBT Republican and Trump superfan Scott Ryan Presler leading aggressive efforts to register voters in California, and a large number of the registered Democrats in the state include a number of minority voters who align more with Republicans on social issues, with some even indicating a preference for McCarthy or Grenell versus the increasingly fractious field of Democrats looking to succeed Feinstein.

However, at the same time Republicans have begun to successfully coalesce their field behind Grenell and McCarthy, with other lower-profile candidates strongly encouraged to drop out and run in lesser-tier races such as open congressional seats. While the Senate campaign fields more than cleared themselves in states like Michigan (where Republican U.S. Rep. John James and Democratic former Gov. Gretchen Whitmer have essentially cleared their fields save for some very minor candidates) and Montana (where U.S. Rep. Ryan Zinke has endorsed his fellow GOP U.S. Rep. Matt Rosendale against three-term Democratic incumbent Jon Tester), the California Republican Party quickly manages to steer other GOP Senate candidates towards other races, with author and commentator Erin Cruz steered into the open Palm Springs-based 25th District (where Raul Ruiz is part of the large Democratic gaggle to succeed Feinstein) and 2022 Lieutenant Governor hopeful Melissa Melendez now running in the open Riverside County-based 41st District (where longtime Republican incumbent Ken Calvert is retiring).

November 17, 2023
FORMER NFL SIDELINE REPORTER JOINS MINNESOTA SENATE RACE
Nearly two years after leaving behind a lucrative career as the NFL's most prominent sideline reporter to serve as the co-chair of Republican Kendall Qualls' 2022 gubernatorial bid, Michele Tafoya declared her candidacy for the open U.S. Senate seat of retiring Democrat and current presidential candidate Amy Klobuchar. In her opening video, Tafoya proclaimed "The people of Minnesota deserve a Senator who fights hard for the people of this great state. Whether you're in the Twin Cities or right by the Dakotas, live along Interstate 90 or come from Duluth and the Iron Range, you deserve a Senator who truly speaks for you!" Qualls, who is not running for any office this year, enthusiastically endorsed Tafoya, "Michele Tafoya was honored to serve as co-chair of my campaign for Governor, and she will be even stronger as our next U.S. Senator".

While some speculated that Tafoya would potentially be a solid candidate for the west suburban Twin Cities-based 3rd District, which favored Biden by more than 14 points but traditionally had a Republican character in the pre-Trump years, others argued that given her national profile as a former NFL reporter, a run for statewide office was more her speed. "I can understand George Clooney's father running for Congress in Kentucky many moons ago, but the difference is the world knows who Michele Tafoya is already, as opposed to just one small part of a state", noted Inside Elections editor Nathan Gonzales. However, Tafoya is not the only candidate from the 3rd District, as DFL incumbent and wealthy businessman Dean Phillips decided to join the race for Senate earlier in November, slotting his neoliberal, pro-business candidacy between the more progressive Lieutenant Governor Peggy Flanagan and the more establishmentarian former Attorney General Lori Swanson.

The race is overall seen as a tossup, with many believing that a potential Phillips-Tafoya race could amount to a "super sized" version of a 3rd District race that "focuses on all of the Land of 10,000 Lakes and not just Lake Minnetonka", referring to the defining geographic feature of the predominantly suburban 3rd District. The 3rd itself, meanwhile, becomes a top target of the NRCC with State Senator Julia Coleman, whose father-in-law is former U.S. Senator Norm Coleman, serving as the leading candidate for the GOP against what is expected to be a large DFL candidate field. Though Coleman lives outside the district in Carver County (which previously sat in the 3rd but in 2022 was drawn into the 6th District of neighboring Republican Tom Emmer), Coleman proceeds to move north into Shorewood (which sits south of Lake Minnetonka) to run in the 3rd, which voted for President Biden by more than 19 points despite barely being won by Barack Obama in 2008 and 2012.

November 20, 2023
DONALD TRUMP, JR. WILL NOT RUN FOR US SENATE IN PENNSYLVANIA
After months of speculation, Donald Trump, Jr. announced on Tucker Carlson Tonight that he will not run for the U.S. Senate against incumbent Democrat Bob Casey, Jr. who is seeking reelection in 2024. The executive Vice President of The Trump Organization made his decision final the night before on Sunday night, "While I have thought long and hard about it, my attention is focused more on keeping our business in good shape and my five children in good graces. Therefore, this is not the right time for me to think of a U.S. Senate run let alone a presidential one". Polling had suggested a close race against Casey, which led many other high-profile Republicans to pass on the race in anticipation of Trump entering. With Don Jr. no longer a candidate for office in 2024, the Republican race against Casey is expected to unfold in the coming weeks before the new year dawns.

Pennsylvania is far from the only state where the picture of Senate races have started to crystallize. In Maine, independent Sen. Angus King announced he would not seek reelection, with U.S. Rep. Chellie Pingree now running for the Democratic nomination to become Maine's first Democratic U.S. Senator since George Mitchell retired in 1994 (even though King has caucused with the Democrats during his entire tenure in the Senate); Republican former state GOP Chairman Rick Bennett has already been running along with former U.S. Rep Jared Golden (who lost to Republican Bruce Poliquin in 2022). Meanwhile, Wisconsin U.S. Reps. Mike Gallagher and Scott Fitzgerald have declared their candidacies against incumbent Sen. Tammy Baldwin in a Republican primary now set to pit a more traditional Republican (one married to Broadway actress Anne Horak) from a portion of the state whose Republican DNA rose in the age of Trump against a conservative firebrand from the state GOP's traditional heartland in the Milwaukee suburbs.

In Arizona, while former Gov. Doug Ducey has decided to also pass on, Republicans finally get a consensus conservative candidate to challenge embattled Sen. Kyrsten Sinema as conservative U.S. Rep. Andy Biggs recently became the third Republican U.S. Rep. (and fourth overall when including Democrat Ruben Gallego who is challenging Sinema), seeking to join previous Reps. Jeff Flake and current Gov. Matt Salmon in a long line of Republicans from his Mesa-area district that rose to higher office. Finally, in Hawaii an open seat has emerged following the announcement of Sen. Mazie Hirono's retirement, with both of the state's U.S. Reps., Ed Case and Kai Kahele, now challenging each other in the Democratic primary to succeed Hirono. Three other incumbent U.S. Senators, including Vermont independent and two-time Democratic candidate Bernie Sanders, remain undecided on their futures.

[SaintStan86]

Oh, and before Don Jr.'s announcement, did I forgot to mention we had a gubernatorial race to talk about? Didn't think so...

November 18, 2023
LANDRY DEFEATS FAYARD TO BECOME LOUISIANA'S NEXT GOVERNOR
Republicans declared victory in Louisiana on Saturday night with Attorney General Jeff Landry defeating Democratic attorney Caroline Fayard by a 54 to 46 percent margin to become the state's next Governor, marking a key pickup for the GOP ahead of the 2024 presidential election. Before a crowded watch party in Baton Rouge, Landry declares, "Tonight, the good people of Louisiana have elected a Governor who will fight for them and their families, and I could not be more grateful by the grace of God to be that Governor!" Meanwhile, at her watch party in New Orleans, Fayard thanked her supporters, "While we did not win this election tonight, one thing is definitely clear: Louisiana is truly a two-party state, and one Republicans cannot take for granted!"

The Republican Governors Association spent a significant portion of its resources, already spent defending Tate Reeves in Mississippi and attempting to elect Kelly Craft in Kentucky, to fend off a late-breaking challenge from Fayard, who was endorsed by term-limited Gov. John Bel Edwards despite their obvious differences on key social issues such as abortion. Landry focused attention on tax relief for working families, diversifying Louisiana's economy, and "standing up to the woke mob destroying our shared Louisiana values", while Fayard emphasized healthcare reform, strengthening public schools and mitigating the effects of climate change on the hurricane- and flood-prone state. Though it was a given that Louisiana's gubernatorial reins were set to flip to the GOP, the closer-than-expected race leads some to indicate the state could be remotely competitive in 2024 depending on who the nominees are.

November 26, 2023
CBS ANNOUNCES FIELD FOR JOINT REPUBLICAN DEBATE WITH MTV
On Sunday's edition of Face the Nation, host Margaret Brennan revealed the field for Tuesday night's debate at the University of Michigan, which is to be hosted by MTV as part of their Choose or Lose presidential campaign coverage and simulcast on CBS. Slated to start at 7pm ET/6pm CT, the debate is hosted by the Young Republican National Federation and the College Republican National Committee, and will be held at Crisler Center, the much celebrated on-campus arena for the Michigan Wolverines' basketball teams.

Moderated by Face the Nation host Margaret Brennan and CBS News Streaming anchor Elaine Quijano (who hosts the aforementioned Red & Blue program on the streaming network), both from the Democratic debate of two weeks prior, as well as contributor and former RNC Chairman-turned-early Trump Administration alum Reince Priebus and political commentator Meghan McCain (the daughter of late former Sen. John McCain), the debate is expected to touch on issues of importance to young voters, including economic opportunity, education reform (including the student debt crisis and career pathways), the national debt and healthcare, as well as infrastructure, entitlements, and the role values play when it comes to younger Republicans.

PARTICIPANTS FOR THE NOVEMBER 28TH PRESIDENTIAL DEBATE (MTV/CBS @ Ann Arbor, MI)
Candidate	Avg. (11/26)	Poll A (11/21)	Poll B (11/19)	Poll C (11/15)
PARTICIPATING
Gov. Ron DeSantis (R-FL)	17.0	17	17	19
Fmr. Amb. Nikki Haley (R-SC)	14.3	16	13	14
Sen. Ted Cruz (R-TX)	13.3	15	13	12
Fmr. Vice President Mike Pence (R-IN)	12.7	13	13	12
Sen. Ben Sasse (R-NE)	5.7	6	6	5
Fmr. Gov. Larry Hogan (R-MD)	5.0	5	6	4
Fmr. Sec. of State Mike Pompeo (R-KS)	5.0	5	4	6
Sen. Tom Cotton (R-AR)	4.3	4	6	3
Sen. Marco Rubio (R-FL)	3.7	3	3	5
Fmr. Gov. Chris Christie (R-NJ)	3.3	5	2	3
Commentator Candace Owens (R-TN)	2.7	4	2	2
Businessman Mike Lindell (R-MN)	1.7	2	1	2

To participate in this debate, CBS News and MTV require participants to have either at least an average of 3 percent in three select polls and/or at least 2 percent in two of the three polls. 12 candidates thus far have qualified to participate in the debate, with 10 of the 12 candidates having qualified based on both criterion and 2 others doing so based solely on the latter. With all 12 of the major candidates having qualified, MTV has set the debate to start at 7pm ET/6pm CT, meaning that the debate will begin promptly after Tuesday's broadcast of the CBS Evening News. However, the debate qualification rules are far from the only relaxed rules for the MTV debate. The dress code has also been relaxed significantly for this youth-focused debate, albeit more of a "business casual" type code not only for the debate participants and moderators, but also for those attending as well. While political campaign attire is allowed, offensive or profane clothing (as well as clothing associated with supremacist and skinhead paraphernalia) is strictly prohibited. Various Young Republican and College Republican groups will be attending, along with scores of students from Hillsdale College (noted for its conservative student body and curriculum) and members of such associated groups as Young America's Foundation, Young Americans for Liberty, Turning Point USA and other like-minded groups such as the environmentally conscious RepublicEn and the pro-life advocacy group Students for Life of America.

For the debate, perhaps in regards to the debate being on MTV, not only are Lovesac bean bag chairs substituting podiums (with Camelbak canteens in lieu of glasses of water), but the clothing of the candidates and moderators appears to be more relaxed than expected for a presidential debate. Both Candace Owens and Nikki Haley, as well as moderators Brennan, Quijano and McCain, appear in dresses that look more appropriate for sorority formals and young professional galas than network news, while longtime Wisconsinite Reince Priebus appears to be wearing a chambray shirt with a Wisconsin Badgers tie (a subtle dig at the Wolverines). Many of the other candidates have also dressed down to various degrees, with Ron DeSantis choosing to forego a tie, Mike Pence donning a donegal wool sweater and Larry Hogan and Ben Sasse choosing to wear half-zip sweaters along with several of the candidates wearing khakis and jeans (as well as Ted Cruz donning cowboy boots). Mike Lindell even chooses to forego even wearing any outerwear or a suit, instead wearing just his trademark French blue button-down shirt and donning a pair of his company's MySlippers.

At the 7pm ET start time for the debate, Brennan proclaims, in as hip as possible a tone, "OK kids, it's time to start the debate with 12 Republican candidates all looking to snatch the White House out of the Democrats' hands and become the 47th President of the United States, the Leader of the Free World. Get ready to have the lecture of a lifetime, the most fun one you've ever had, because chances are the future of this country will be in the hands of one of these 12 on stage. It's just like the Hunger Games, but for the real world!"

November 28, 2023
"NOT YOUR FATHER'S DEBATE": REPUBLICANS COURT YOUTH VOTE IN UNCONVENTIONAL MTV DEBATE
On the campus of the University of Michigan in Ann Arbor Tuesday night, Republican presidential hopefuls gathered before a crowd of over 13,000 - mostly college youth as well as Republican activists from across Metro Detroit and southeast Michigan - at the Crisler Center in their latest presidential debate that was broadcast on MTV and CBS, drawing attention to issues of importance to young voters that have been a traditionally Democratic constituency. While the debate itself, with its bean bag chairs and casually dressed candidates, was unprecedented in style for an affair as serious as a presidential debate, the substance was as grown up as expected of such an event, and came with its own squabbles included.

Many of the candidates expressed support for reforming the American education system, particularly advocating for aligning education priorities with those of employers. Former Vice President Mike Pence called the skills gap "one of the worst crises facing American education, with the victims being college students who spent thousands of dollars while being steered into careers where job prospects were lacking". Sen. Ben Sasse of Nebraska, himself the president of a small university in Nebraska prior to his election to the Senate, explained "When you see folks with college degrees who are either working two jobs or resorting to being baristas at your neighborhood Starbucks, don't necessarily blame the kid, blame the education bureaucracy that has proven to be unaccountable to taxpayers and to employers who struggle to find qualified workers to fill positions". And businessman Mike Lindell, appearing in his first televised debate since last October, stated "When you spend billions of dollars on useless college degrees that end up producing paper pushers, what do you expect?" Reforms suggested by the candidates included capping degree programs based on regional employer needs, requiring universities that take federal student aid to consult with local chambers of commerce and business groups in developing curriculum, and providing tax incentives to states who make financial literacy a prerequisite for high school graduation.

The national debt also became a point of contention when Sasse called out several of his fellow Republicans for failing to address the matter head on, "One reason why a lot of people are skeptical to back Republicans is because, ever since 9/11, our party has failed us on controlling the deficit and has been trigger-happy to pass on the buck to future generations, and now many in this arena are suffering the consequences of just letting George W. Bush and Donald Trump get away with bankrupting the country without offering any concrete solutions to tackle the deficit, and this is why we need a Balanced Budget Amendment", drawing strong applause from the mostly young audience. Other Republicans, while agreeing with Sasse on such a call to action, called his criticism short-sighted. Former Gov. Chris Christie, for instance, cited "If we were to penny pinch our way through the George W. Bush years, Osama bin Laden would have run us over," only to be greeted with boos and shouts of "Neocon!", while Nikki Haley also stated, "If Ben Sasse has his way, our allies will be left alone in the cold," instead offering to take away tax-free exemptions from billionaires like Jeff Bezos, "People on both sides agree that Jeff Bezos has boosted his fortune at the expense of regular Americans, all while trashing our values and our military".

Gov. Ron DeSantis also chimed in, this time more on Sasse's side, "Say what you will about Sen. Sasse, but if you're criticizing him while taking positions Democrats advocate for, you're really not helping anyone. I showed no fear in keeping my state open when others closed down, slashed outdated regulations and phased out antiquated processing systems for government services, and that is why Florida is the shining state on a hill!", and taking shots at Haley for pandering to "big-government Republicans who routinely betray our principles and our values like Lindsey Graham and Susan Collins". Haley responded with references to Burger King (which is based in Miami), "If you had it your way, and I don't mean your state's beloved Whoppers, the Democrats would be celebrating like they did when John McCain stabbed Trump in the back by voting to keep Obamacare in place".

This response did not sit well with the late Senator's daughter, Meghan McCain (who served as a moderator in the debate), "Ambassador Haley, I respect your service to our country as Ambassador to the UN, but do us a favor and please don't dump on my dad's grave". But Candace Owens, known for savaging Trump-skeptical Republicans like Sasse in her commentaries, half-heartedly defended the Nebraska Senator by paraphrasing an old quote from an election-themed episode of The Simpsons, "I don't agree with Ben Sasse's Trump-hating policy, but I do like his 'starve the beast' policy. The difference is I will say the quiet part out loud and strip the corporate welfare that works against us out of the budget", drawing a standing ovation from the crowd. (Shortly after Haley's controversial response, Burger King responded to Haley on Twitter, "C'mon @NikkiHaley, let @GovRonDeSantis have it his way!")

Haley also drew attention when asked about trans athletes in women's sports by moderator Elaine Quijano, "As President, I am going to make it clear that if you haven't fully transitioned and you haven't undergone the appropriate surgery, you should be staying in your lane, no excuses". Sen. Ted Cruz agreed with Haley, "There should be no excuse for a trans athlete to suddenly switch genders for a competitive advantage, and any school that allows this flagrant violation of Title IX should have their federal research dollars hollowed out to zero dollars and zero cents". While the comments drew applause, there were also heckles from the crowd; "Ted Cruz is a Nazi," shouted one person who was later escorted by police out of the Crisler Center. "I appreciate those words, maybe your professor can stroke your fragile ego," responded Cruz in a matter reminiscent of some of former President Donald Trump's controversial 2016 rallies. Gov. DeSantis called both Haley and Cruz (as well as Pence) "amateurs", citing "As Governor of Florida, I actually protected women's sports by banning trans athletes who haven't transitioned from competing in women's sports, under the threat of Florida potentially losing NCAA championships. And guess what happened? I never backed down, and the NCAA still awarded more championships to Florida anyway".

Both Sen. Marco Rubio and former Secretary of State Mike Pompeo also drew attention for their calls to enforce "reverse BDS sanctions" on American corporations doing business with the Palestinian government (which also drew heckles from some in the crowd, including members of Metro Detroit's large Arab-American population), while Sen. Tom Cotton vowed to go even further, "Corporations who pander to terrorist regimes should not be getting a single penny from the taxpayers, and this includes companies who knowingly do business with the PLO". When asked by moderator Margaret Brennan if he supports a military draft in the case of a potential war with China, Pompeo responded, "I will do all I can to orient our military resources in the best way possible, but we have more than enough currently serving and willing to serve our country, which means no need for a wasteful military draft". Cotton expressed skepticism of "mass armies" but stopped short of endorsing a military draft, while also proclaiming "As President, I will issue an executive order banning woke curriculum and diversity training from being used in military training regiments".

One unique issue brought up in this debate focused on the environment, traditionally a top-tier Democratic issue but also one gaining salience from younger Republicans. Earlier, Gov. Larry Hogan also emphasized the budget, with a vow to redirect surplus monies not returned to the taxpayers towards "rebuilding our infrastructure - meaning actual roads, bridges and drainage as part of a modern Eisenhower 2.0 plan - and reorienting our priorities at the NIH towards health initiatives that will benefit everyone like cancer research," said the cancer survivor whose diagnosis and journey battling an aggressive form of non-Hodgkin's lymphoma gained national attention during his time as Governor of Maryland. But when asked by moderator Reince Priebus about a "conservative case for protecting the environment", he also drew attention to his efforts to protect the Chesapeake Bay, "I fought to protect the Chesapeake as Governor of Maryland, and as your President I will champion the environmental conservation legacy that Teddy Roosevelt left behind from sea to shining sea!" DeSantis countered with his own response that drew attention, "As Governor of Florida, not only has my state become home to the best economy in America, but it's also the most beautiful as well". DeSantis elaborated by vowing to oppose a blanket ban on fracking (with exceptions for wildlife sanctuaries), create initiatives to protect oceans, and promote free-market solutions to climate and energy challenges (though stopping short of endorsing a carbon dividends plan viewed as more amenable than a carbon tax proposed by Hogan earlier in the debate).

Overall, the debate was true to form with its own share of interesting responses and squabbles. Some media critics argued that the unconventional nature of the debate, with its business casual participants, its bean bag chairs and its overall campy nature, was unbecoming of what one expected out of presidential debates, with one critic calling the debate "an abomination to the body politic", while others viewed the younger-skewing format as "refreshing" and "tailored to the concerns of America's rising majority". Some even expressed criticism over the debate's carefree style compared to CBS's earlier debate with BET (which did not feature the sort of dressed down appearance that the MTV GOP debate had), alleging a racial double standard, "The fact that Black audiences were presented with a buttoned-up Democratic debate while the GOP debate MTV aired looked more like a college football tailgate party shows that even in a more tolerant age, there still exists an aura of the 1950s everyone would rather forget".

[Kahane's Grave Is A Gender-Neutral Bathroom]

Curious how the GOP candidates will tackle healthcare, particularly if they are trying to appeal to a younger audience.

[2016]

Surprised Haley is doing as well as she is doing!

[SaintStan86]

November 29, 2023
CNN SETS STAGE FOR 5TH DEMOCRATIC DEBATE IN PHILADELPHIA
Less than 24 hours after the GOP's most recent debate on Tuesday night, CNN revealed the field for the fifth Democratic debate to be held on Friday night at the Forrest Theatre in Philadelphia (which has been widely regarded as a proving ground for several future Broadway theatre productions over the years), and held in conjunction with Twitter and the Jewish Democratic Council of America. Slated to be held on the weekend before the start of Hanukkah, the debate will be moderated by longtime CNN anchor Wolf Blitzer, fellow CNN anchor Erin Burnett and Kathleen Hall Jamieson, Director of the Annenberg Public Policy Center (located on the campus of the University of Pennsylvania). The Chairman of the JDCA, former U.S. Rep. Ron Klein of Florida, announced that the debate will be "the most important debate in this cycle for Jewish Democrats looking to advance a progressive agenda that reflects the views of Jewish America's progressive majority". Issues relating to social concerns such as healthcare and climate change, as well as issues of concern to Jewish voters including Israel and anti-Semitism, are expected to be addressed in this debate.

The selection of the Friday night time slot is controversial in large part due to the debate coinciding with the traditional Jewish shabbat in many parts of the country. Despite's CNN assurances to push the debate to a later starting time of 9pm ET/8pm CT (as well as the selection of Blitzer, who was born in Germany to survivors of the Holocaust, as a moderator for the debate), some Jewish synagogues across the country who hold their weekly services on Friday nights expressed skepticism about whether or not the date is appropriate, especially given that sunset will have already occurred in many parts of the country and begun on the West Coast by the time the debate begins. However, many others who hold their shabbat services on Saturday morning viewed the debate as a "positive teaching moment" that congregations can use to jump start conversations on the upcoming election the morning after the debate. Indeed, many, mostly liberal and Reform, Jewish synagogues have decided to hold watch parties for the debate (though universally not in coincidence with traditional services to avoid potential backlash from more politically conservative adherents).

PARTICIPANTS FOR THE DECEMBER 1ST DEMOCRATIC PRESIDENTIAL DEBATE (CNN @ Philadelphia, PA)
Candidate	Avg. (11/29)	Poll A (11/27)	Poll B (11/27)	Poll C (11/19)	Poll D (11/17)
Vice President Kamala Harris (D-CA)	32.8	33	33	34	31
Sen. Elizabeth Warren (D-MA)	24.0	25	24	24	23
Former Sec. Pete Buttigieg (D-IN)	12.8	14	13	12	12
Gov. Roy Cooper (D-NC)	6.8	5	6	8	8
Sen. Amy Klobuchar (D-MN)	6.5	7	7	7	5
Gov. Jared Polis (D-CO)	5.3	5	6	5	5
Former Sec. Gina Raimondo (D-RI)	3.3	3	3	3	4

Notably, Vice President Kamala Harris's numbers have improved from the South Carolina debate, which was targeted towards African-Americans who remain the core of her support base, while Sen. Elizabeth Warren has experienced a slight dip while maintaining her lead among progressives. Former Sec. Buttigieg has experienced a drop in polls after his comments relating to his handling of a Black man's death by police in South Bend, Indiana were not well received, with Govs. Roy Cooper and Jared Polis and Sen. Amy Klobuchar receiving notable boosts from the last debate, mostly from moderates at the expense of Buttigieg. The former South Bend mayor has responded to criticism by boosting outreach efforts to Black voters, even though Buttigieg's numbers continue to pale in comparison to Harris's commanding lead (averaging over 45 percent) amongst Black Democrats in the single digits. The Rev. Al Sharpton, founder of the National Action Network, has stated on his MSNBC show PoliticsNation that "this upcoming debate in Philadelphia - a city with a 43 percent Black population - is going to decide whether or not Buttigieg is even a viable contender for President".

The debate is expected to serve as a major test for all the candidates with regards to the important Jewish vote, but most especially so for Warren, who has taken more progressive stances in regards to Israel that clash with overwhelming support by Jews for the Jewish state. Warren's apparent support for the Palestinian-led BDS movement against Israel, a position for which she has vacillated over the years, as well as support for sanctions against Zionist interests and placing conditions on foreign aid to Israel, has been a source of contention for many Jewish voters. Warren has attempted to blunt such criticism, citing her Senate contemporary Bernie Sanders (who himself is Jewish and holds views on Israel similar to Warren's), as well as insisting that any attempt to cancel such movements would amount to a "constitutional crisis".

Forrest Theatre, Philadelphia - site of the December 1st, 2023 Democratic Debate
Source: Wikimedia Commons Author: Beyond My Ken

December 1, 2023
DEMOCRATS TAKE UP ISRAEL, ELECTION REFORM, RUSSIA IN PHILADELPHIA
On Friday night, Democrats debated before a packed audience at the Forrest Theatre in Center City Philadelphia, in a televised debate sponsored by the Jewish Democratic Council of America where issues of importance to the Jewish state and American Jews took center stage. Issues relating to criminal justice reform, a key issue both in Philadelphia and among the city's large African-American population, as well as the alleged involvement of the Russian government in American elections, also became key points of contention among the seven candidates.

When asked by moderator and Annenberg Public Policy Center Director Kathleen Hall Jamieson about her strategy to counter Russian interference in American elections and military operations, Vice President Kamala Harris stated, "There is no greater threat to the sanctity of American counterintelligence and election security than the involvement of foreign actors who seek to undermine our democracy". Harris also called out Republicans as "soft on Russia" and vowed that her experience as second-in-command to President Biden makes her the only candidate qualified to stand against Vladimir Putin. The other candidates took similar stances, though also arguing that Harris's actions have been "more symbolic than sanguine," as said by Sen. Amy Klobuchar. Former Sec. Gina Raimondo singled out Republicans as "puppets of Putin", and vowed to impose sanctions on Russian business elites attempting to circumvent American laws to interfere with sanctions against the Russian Federation, "Those who do the bidding of Tucker Carlson and his audience will have no business with the federal government under my watch as your President".

Turning to criminal justice reform, Klobuchar, herself the former District Attorney for Hennepin County, Minnesota (which is home to Minneapolis), voiced support for continuing reforms to reduce recidivism amongst low-level offenders while acknowledging that "some of my past cases as District Attorney in Hennepin County deserve to be reflected in the rear-view mirror as regrettable decisions, and admitting I have been wrong there is not a bad thing to point out". For instance, Klobuchar regretted not acting on the actions of disgraced former Minneapolis police officer Derek Chauvin in the years leading up to Chauvin's fatal chokehold on George Floyd, "I always go to sleep every night knowing I passed up the opportunity to stand up to the police unions who defended Derek Chauvin and his actions, and for that my remorse is resolute in saying that as your President, I will make sure that costly oversights like these never happen again". While calling for policing reforms, she emphatically opposed a call to "defund the police", citing "Let us not use the death of George Floyd as an excuse to dismantle our law enforcement agencies because of the actions of a few rogue officers".

The candidates also spent considerable time debating issues relating to urban crime and the aforementioned issues surrounding low-level offenders, particularly in regards to Philadelphia's controversial District Attorney, Larry Krasner. When asked by moderator Erin Burnett about whether or not electing reform-minded progressive DAs like Krasner was worth the short-term challenges of increased crime, Sen. Elizabeth Warren responded, "There is no doubt that the justice system has certainly failed to keep up with the recent uptick in crime, but given that the bail systems and sentencing guidelines that existed in the past have been detrimental to the overall well-being of many otherwise nonviolent offenders, I don't see how returning to the old system will actually make the situation better". Warren attempted to soften the sudden criticism from some in the crowd by pointing out that under Krasner, "nonviolent offenders are less inclined to recommit crimes, and in turn further drain taxpayer dollars that otherwise would have been wasted on overcrowded prisons".

Another critical issue brought up was an issue important to many Jewish voters: Israel. All of the candidates expressed support for the Jewish state, but in response to a question by moderator Wolf Blitzer on whether or not her supporting statements for both the Israeli and Palestinian sides is contradictory, Warren herself came under intense scrutiny over her stances on the Palestinian-led BDS movement targeting companies doing business with the Jewish state. "I do not support the actions of Palestinian activists who seek to boycott Israeli businesses for continuing to do business with Israel, but to oppose them would be an affront to our Constitution and the free exchange of goods, all while creating an unnecessary humanitarian crisis in the region that ultimately motivates the Palestinians to commit suicide bombings against Israel in the first place." While there was applause from more progressive Jews in the audience, traditional Jewish Democrats were not as amused. Vice President Harris, for instance, called out Warren, "Singling out one of our most loyal allies and their right to exist out of concern over the actions of rogue extremists will solve nothing and only put their national security - and ours - at risk".

Former Sec. Pete Buttigieg chimed in, "I do not support the actions of the Zionists who currently control Israel and have been successful in undermining religious freedom in that country, but we must understand why Israel has a right to exist: without it, there is no sanctuary for a group of religious adherents who suffered greatly in the wake of the Holocaust". But Colorado Gov. Jared Polis, who is himself Jewish, had the most pointed response. "I am a proud Jew and have great admiration for the people of Israel who one day seek to have a special relationship with their Palestinian neighbors free of violence and division", said Polis. "But let it be know that Israel's right to exist should not come at the expense of human rights and peace in the world - something that is sorely lacking in the region because of radical Zionists who take that right to exist too far", pointing to recent moves by Zionists to expand into disputed Palestinian territory.

Election reform was another important issue that came up in the debate, with Gov. Roy Cooper pointing to his successes in defending voting rights for minorities and fair redistricting maps in North Carolina, only to see them diluted after Republicans defeated one Democratic incumbent and gained an open Democratic seat in the 2022 midterms. "As Governor of a state Donald Trump won both times, I fought for and succeeded in electing a Supreme Court that worked for every North Carolinian, defending voting rights and enacting fair maps that represented our state with pride, only to see that progress upended by a partisan legislature and a newly skewed Supreme Court that just unwinded our progress". Cooper responded by expressing support for election and voting reforms, albeit by replacing the failed For the People Act of 2021 with a piecemeal approach, citing "I believe that if every plank of the For the People Act were to be voted on individually, reforms like drive-thru voting and putting congressional redistricting in the hands of independent commissions would pass with flying colors". Harris retorted, "If we were to simply take the approach that Cooper supports, it would give Republicans more time to further dismantle voting rights one plank at a time", defending her failed approach by vowing to go as far as issuing an executive order on election reforms.

Many of the candidates also reiterated their stances on healthcare, ranging from Gov. Polis proposing a blockchain-based approach to "providing universal healthcare for every American regardless of swings in our currency" to Sen. Warren's unabashed stance on supporting a "single-payer healthcare system", with an intent to name the plan in honor of late Michigan U.S. Rep. John Dingell, who was known famously for introducing such a bill at the start of every Congress during his over half-century tenure. Candidates also expressed support for gun control to various degrees, with Gov. Cooper's approach being the most nuanced, "My goal is not to take your guns away, but rather to take the guns away from people who don't need them nor should have them in the first place". While expressing support for the Second Amendment, Cooper vowed to keep guns out of schools and universities that take federal grants for student financial aid and research, a stance also shared by Polis and Buttigieg, while Raimondo said she would explore a federal assault weapons ban via executive order. Overall, the debate was mostly well-received from viewers at home and the audience in Philadelphia, with Warren managing to hold her own among progressives despite getting poor marks from more traditional liberals as well as moderates - both of whom respectively continued to lean towards pluralities for Harris and Buttigieg.

[SaintStan86]

Before I continue with this TL, I shall make note of a few major developments with regards to the Congress and beyond:

• In Oklahoma, longtime Republican Sen. Jim Inhofe announced that he will retire at the end of this Congress. What this means is that there is going to be a special Senate election to be held concurrent with the midterms on November the 8th (including the other Senate seat that James Lankford holds). Already, the two members of Congress that dominate eastern Oklahoma and the Tulsa area in general, Reps. Kevin Hern and Markwayne Mullin, have announced plans to run, with Rep. Stephanie Bice from Oklahoma City, Hern's predecessor and former NASA Administrator Jim Bridenstine, former state house Speaker and 2014 candidate T.W. Shannon and Trump's first EPA administrator Scott Pruitt among the potential candidates on the Republican side, along with the possibility that two of Lankford's primary opponents, Jackson Lahmeyer and Nathan Dahm, as well as Lt. Gov. Matt Pinnell, may also run for this seat as well. Inhofe, however, is taking the Richard Shelby approach to retirement by endorsing his former Chief of Staff Luke Holland, but whether or not he prevails against a brand name Republican remains a mystery; as witnessed with the race to succeed Sen. Shelby in Alabama, there is no guarantee he will be the GOP nominee. One thing that is guaranteed, given the current state of the congressional races overall and Oklahoma being one of Trump's best states in 2020 (and for many past Republican presidential nominees over the years as well), is that Inhofe's successor will be a Republican.
• North Carolina has re-done its congressional maps, and the approved map appears to be one that Democratic Gov. Roy Cooper likes, as it creates 7 districts that clearly favored the GOP, 6 that favored Democrats, and one swing seat centered in the suburbs south of Raleigh. And of the six Democrat-favored seats, two of them (Rep. Kathy Manning's 6th District and the new 14th that connects historically Republican south Charlotte and most of Gaston County - and may have in fact gone for Mitt Romney in 2012) might even have a chance of going Republican IRL if the congressional poll trend continues to favor the GOP at current levels. This map will only be around for the 2022 cycle though, and it's very likely a completely different map will come up for 2024 given that Republicans will continue to control the legislature there, as well as the fact that two of the four seats held by Democrats on the state Supreme Court (which ruled in the Democrats' favor) are up for reelection with one retiring. In this TL (and widely expected to be true IRL), the GOP will have undertaken aggressive efforts to win the two seats not only because of the redistricting battle, but also because of many other issues in general including abortion and election laws. This U.S. News & World Report article is just an example of what can be expected IRL with the NC Supreme Court. As for the seats themselves both of Charlotte's existing Republicans are moving eastward: Dan Bishop is now moving out of Charlotte to run for reelection in the new 8th (which future U.S. Sen. Ted Budd is vacating), while Richard Hudson will aim to continue representing Fort Bragg in the new 9th that now straddles exurban areas between Fayetteville, Raleigh and Greensboro. Strangely enough, retiring Democrat David Price's 4th District now includes competitive Alamance County (which is in the Piedmont Triad TV market and whose Republican votes will likely be lost in a liberal district dominated by Durham and Chapel Hill). Retiring Democrat G.K. Butterfield's 1st District also remains competitive as does Madison Cawthorn's western-based 11th; both remain fairly competitive even though there's no guarantee the former's district will stay Democratic nor the latter remain Republican, and Cawthorn is still tied up in litigation over whether or not he should be allowed to run over (IMHO questionable) claims that his role in the events of January 6th disqualify him from running.
• Pennsylvania also has a new congressional map installed, and this new map eliminates one of the GOP's seats in the "T". The eliminated district's incumbent, Fred Keller, is now running in the 9th District of Rep. Dan Meuser, who strangely is still running in the 9th because many expect(ed) him to run against Democratic Rep. Matt Cartwright in the 8th District, and I'm sure there are still going to be folks high up in the Pennsylvania GOP convincing him to run against Cartwright since Meuser lives around the corner from the 8th (which is where Meuser defeats Cartwright in this TL). Not much else has changed other than the extension of 4th and 6th districts further out into Berks County (which will make both suburban Philadelphia districts vulnerable if current congressional trends prevail), but while I still have Rep. Chrissy Houlahan losing in this TL, IRL former U.S. Attorney Bill McSwain (who is from the 6th) is still running for Governor even though it appears he likely won't be the GOP nominee; like Meuser further north in Wilkes-Barre he too is also stubborn about his intentions when there is a more viable and rewarding opportunity available. IMHO the Pennsylvania GOP, as I have said already, need to put some push to shove to make the dominoes fall in the right place since it appears that Democrats are having somewhat of an advantage in redistricting due to recent litigation as well as some extreme gerrymanders of their own in Illinois and New York. While the Harrisburg-based 10th of Rep. Scott Perry remaining fairly competitive but still favorably Republican does not surprise me, what does surprise me is that the new 12th in what used to be the old Pittsburgh-based 18th is not entirely self-contained within Allegheny County. There is no chance a Republican is going to sweep all of the Pittsburgh area, so I do feel for a lot of the suburban Westmoreland County voters in areas like Murrysville and Irwin (as well as parts of Allegheny County like Bethel Park) that are going to be lost in a safe blue seat that otherwise would have been more beneficial to Republicans in Rep. Conor Lamb's open 17th (which has clearly Democratic Penn Hills and Mount Lebanon) as well as Republican Rep. Guy Reschenthaler's 14th. Especially considering the new 12th will likely be represented (and in this TL is already represented) by Summer Lee who is likely to become an active member of "The Squad" alongside the likes of AOC and Cori Bush.

It should go without saying that I voted in the Texas primaries just yesterday on the last day of Early Voting, and there are going to be some changes to this TL depending on how the results turn out Tuesday night. It's very likely that a runoff between Christian Collins and Morgan Luttrell is expected in the redesigned 8th (with the GOP establishment pouring in money hand over fist for Luttrell even though Collins would clearly be the better choice long-term for conservatives), but between Dan Crenshaw's infamous spat with a young girl who happens to be one of those Allie Beth Stuckey types, which has led to Jameson Ellis inching up some support in the 2nd (even though I will be shocked if Crenshaw does in fact prevail with less than 60 percent of the GOP vote, let alone forced into a runoff) and Henry Cuellar being raided by the FBI, which likely will doom him in the 28th against his progressive challenger Jessica Cisneros, and potentially set that Tejano-heavy seat up for a potential GOP pickup, there are really no guarantees as to what will transpire. And that's not even counting whether or not Gov. Greg Abbott avoids a runoff (former State Sen. Don Huffines has for the most part been going for broke primaring Abbott) or especially embattled Attorney General Ken Paxton.

I also express my sympathies to the people of Ukraine and those in Russia who are fighting against the tide of Vladimir Putin after what Putin just did all this week. I have already mentioned Putin and Ukraine (including the nightclub disaster on the coast in Odessa) in this TL, and it's fair to say that Republicans are going to be heavily scrutinized over how to deal with anything Vladimir Putin not only given the alleged arguments from Democrats that Trump is "Putin's *****" (as Adam Sandler played out beautifully in his recent Saturday Night Live appearance), with Nikki Haley already angling to attack Gov. Ron DeSantis as "soft" on Putin along with two of her contemporaries on the "hawkish" side of the GOP primary ledger, Sens. Tom Cotton and Marco Rubio (the latter of course already very familiar to DeSantis for one obvious reason). Former Sec. of State Mike Pompeo is also to going be at the center of many questions regarding Putin, given that he is likely to play from the Trump playbook on that matter. I'm not even going to entertain y'all at this point with the Democrats' strategy for Putin, since it will likely be to tie the GOP as completely full of "Putin puppets" regardless of which Republican is the subject, especially with Liz Cheney no longer in Congress + Marjorie Taylor Greene serving on committees in this TL (both possibilities are very likely to be true IRL as well).

Lastly, as mentioned earlier I crossed out the TL references to the SCOTUS vacancy since Breyer will have already retired and I projected in this TL that Ketanji Brown Jackson is Biden's nominee and confirmed. Dates notwithstanding, I have nailed it!...Ketanji Brown Jackson IS Biden's nominee and will likely be confirmed IRL with Kamala Harris's tiebreaker or a few Republican dissenters sending her to the high court. I do predict that two of the three Senators who earlier voted to confirm KBJ to the DC Circuit - Sens. Susan Collins and Lisa Murkowski - will do so, but if the expected 11-11 tie is turned into a 12-10 clearing to the full Senate by Sen. Lindsey Graham (who has said "the radical Left has won" but did not indicate how he will vote), expect him to face plenty of blowback from conservatives (and since he has already endorsed Nikki Haley in this TL, expect her to be on the hot seat in the debates). So far, Sens. Ted Cruz, Marco Rubio and Ben Sasse have promised thorough vetting from a Constitutional perspective, with Rubio saying he will not confirm a SCOTUS nominee who contradicts his POV of the Constitution. I have yet to see a statement from Sen. Tom Cotton though I do expect he will likely break along the same lines as the other three Senators running in this TL.

[SaintStan86]

Speaking of Tom Cotton, here is some campaign news in the days before the next GOP debate that will have the MAGA crowd scratching their heads...

December 2, 2023
SEN. COTTON PICKS UP KEY ENDORSEMENTS IN PRESIDENTIAL BID
Sen. Tom Cotton received a pair of major endorsements in his dark horse presidential bid on Saturday morning, earning the support of Arkansas Gov. Sarah Huckabee Sanders and U.S. Sen. Josh Hawley of Missouri. In a statement, Huckabee Sanders called Cotton "a born fighter who has done the people of Arkansas proud throughout his entire life". Huckabee Sanders, who was the most prominent of former President Donald Trump's four press secretaries throughout his presidency. Sen. Hawley, a Trump loyalist and prominent face of the GOP's populist wing that rose in the Trump years, cited Cotton's "unapologetic support for the unborn", "firm commitment to reining in Washington's unchecked bureaucracy and corporate America's woke regimes", and "overwhelming support for our military and police officers and against the corrupt regimes of radical Islamic extremists, as well as dictators in Russia and China who undermine our sovereignty".

Some observers find the endorsements of Cotton, who regularly ranks in the lower tier of presidential candidates, to be precarious, with the endorsements of Cotton by Hawley and Huckabee Sanders, as well as earlier endorsements by Cotton's in-state colleague, Sen. John Boozman, and former Arkansas Gov. Asa Hutchinson, viewed as nothing more than "favorite son endorsements". Indeed, one notable exception to Arkansas's entire congressional delegation and its leading statewide GOP figures endorsing Cotton is Huckabee Sanders' father, former Arkansas Gov. and two-time presidential candidate Mike Huckabee, who won the 2008 Iowa caucuses. The elder Huckabee, while praising Cotton as "a powerful conservative voice for the great state of Arkansas", indicated he has not endorsed anyone yet and will make a decision before the Iowa caucuses, "As someone who actually won the Iowa caucuses, it is my obligation to hold off on that decision until it gets close to where it's time to decide". Sen. Ted Cruz, who fended off Donald Trump to win the 2016 Iowa caucuses, remarked "Josh Hawley may be a rather influential voice for conservatives, but he's not the only one that matters. At the end of the day, the people of Iowa decide who's the best choice for Republicans, not one Senator from one of 50 states".

December 2, 2023
IVANKA TRUMP ENDORSES NIKKI HALEY FOR PRESIDENT
In a major development that broke before sunset on the day of the last weekly Jewish shabbat before Hanukkah, Ivanka Trump became the first member of Trump's immediate family to make a presidential endorsement, and one likely to make waves across Trumpworld. In a video announcement posted to her Facebook page from an unknown beachfront location later revealed to be near Miami, the eldest daughter of former President Donald Trump endorsed former Amb. Nikki Haley for President, "It is important that we continue the great legacy that my father has left on America - restoring our economy to greatness, getting effective vaccines and treatments from COVID and other plagues in record time, and restoring leadership in the world where it was needed the most - with a dynamic candidate who will build on the promises that he delivered both here at home and abroad. That candidate is my dear friend, Nikki Haley".

Ivanka's endorsement of the former U.S. Ambassador, who has gained far more support from Ivanka and her husband Jared Kushner than from other members of the Trump family, was already seen as unsurprising in many political circles and among Trump loyalists themselves, given Ivanka's conversion to Judaism in the run up to her marriage to Kushner as well as both hers and Haley's outspoken support for Israel. But the move has also left a bitter taste among more hardcore Trump supporters as well as conservative hardliners, including those less predisposed to the neoconservative wing of the Republican Party which has often used Israel as a rallying cry to maintain influence with Republican elites, even as their influence faded during the rise of Trump. Still, former Press Secretary and current Newsmax host Sean Spicer opined, "Ivanka is just one endorsement out of many from Donald Trump's orbit, and at the end of the day it will be the endorsement of the Donald himself that matters more than anyone else's".

December 3, 2023
UNIVISION, ABC SET FIELD FOR SEVENTH PRESIDENTIAL DEBATE
On Sunday morning's edition of This Week, host George Stephanopoulos revealed the field for Wednesday's upcoming debate at the Knight Concert Hall, located inside the Adrienne Arsht Center in Miami. The debate, which will not feature former Clinton administration advisor Stephanopoulos as a moderator, will be moderated by the respective lead anchors of Univision's Noticiero Univision and ABC's World News Tonight, Jorge Ramos and David Muir, along with Calvin Hughes (the lead anchor at ABC affiliate WPLG) and former U.S. Rep. Ileana Ros-Lehtinen, who has not made an endorsement in the race. The presence of Ros-Lehtinen, a former House Foreign Relations Committee Chairwoman and the first Cuban American elected to Congress in a 1989 special election, is likely to draw attention to the role of Hispanics - and particularly Miami's Cuban-heavy Hispanic vote - in the presidential election as well as the future of the Republican Party, as well as emerging issues facing U.S. relations with other sovereign nations and (given Ros-Lehtinen's reputation as a moderate) what role more moderate Republicans may play in the future of the GOP. The spotlight will also be on the two Floridians already running in the Republican primary, Gov. Ron DeSantis and Sen. Marco Rubio, the latter of whom has obtained more institutional support within South Florida than the other.

PARTICIPANTS FOR THE DECEMBER 6TH PRESIDENTIAL DEBATE (Univision/ABC @ Miami, FL)
Candidate	Weighted Avg. (12/3)	Poll A (12/2)	Poll B (12/2)	Poll C (11/30)	IA Poll A (12/1)	IA Poll B (11/30)	NH Poll A (12/1)	NH Poll B (11/29)
PARTICIPATING
Gov. Ron DeSantis (R-FL)	19.9	21	22	21	11	10	17	18
Fmr. Vice President Mike Pence (R-IN)	15.3	15	16	14	17	22	15	12
Fmr. Amb. Nikki Haley (R-SC)	13.0	13	13	12	12	11	17	17
Sen. Ted Cruz (R-TX)	11.8	11	13	11	15	13	12	10
Sen. Ben Sasse (R-NE)	7.2	7	6	7	13	11	6	8
Fmr. Sec. of State Mike Pompeo (R-KS)	4.6	4	5	4	7	9	3	3
Fmr. Gov. Larry Hogan (R-MD)	4.3	4	4	5	3	3	5	6
Sen. Marco Rubio (R-FL)	3.5	4	3	3	3	5	4	5
Sen. Tom Cotton (R-AR)	3.0	3	2	4	4	3	3	2
Fmr. Gov. Chris Christie (R-NJ)	3.0	2	3	3	3	2	7	5
Commentator Candace Owens (R-TN)	2.9	3	4	3	2	1	1	1
Businessman Mike Lindell (R-MN)	1.6	2	1	1	4	4	1	1

In addition to the traditional set of national polls between the last debate and the setting of the debate field of candidates, the weighted average (80% based on the national polls) also now includes top-line numbers from two select polls in Iowa and New Hampshire (which each contribute to 10 percent of the weighted average). As a result, the order appears a little different depending on how well certain candidates perform in the early states. For example, Nikki Haley and Ron DeSantis appear to perform more strongly in New Hampshire than in Iowa, while Ben Sasse and Mike Pence are overperforming in Iowa. The RNC has set the debate participation criteria as meeting at least 3 percent in national polling, 4 percent in Iowa, or 4 percent in New Hampshire, along with certain unique donor requirements that all of the 12 above candidates meet. Based on this criteria, 10 of the 12 candidates except for Chris Christie and Mike Lindell qualify. However, Christie qualifies anyway due to his strong performance in New Hampshire and Lindell due to exactly meeting 4 percent on average in Iowa; as a result, all of the 12 major candidates once again qualify, pushing ABC to start the debate at 8pm ET without much controversy as ABC planned to air an encore block of its sitcoms in the hour before the original 9pm start time.

[SaintStan86]

Source: Wikimedia Commons Author: Knight Foundation

Source: Wikimedia Commons Author: Josh Hallett

Knight Concert Hall at the Adrienne Arsht Center in Miami, site of the December 6, 2023 Republican presidential debate

December 6, 2023
REPUBLICANS TAKE MIAMI IN HEATED PRESIDENTIAL DEBATE
On Wednesday night, Republicans squared off in their latest presidential debate at the Adrienne Arsht Center in Miami with the Iowa caucus now less than two months away. The debate, televised on Univision and ABC as a joint production between the two networks, was billed as "the most important Republican presidential debate for Latin America" with a direct focus on issues of concern to Hispanics, a fast-growing constituency that has long favored Democrats, but has shown momentum towards the GOP after former President Donald Trump made surprising gains among Hispanic constituencies in his 2020 defeat.

The debate served as an appropriate backdrop for the two Floridians in the race, one of them much more prominent than the other, to discuss the issues as they pertained to their home state, and in particular South Florida. Sen. Marco Rubio acknowledged his hometown crowd in his opening, "It feels great to be back home with the people I know and love...who have stood with me from the very beginning!" Rubio would also use the debate as a backdrop, of course, to highlight how to handle the issue of Cuba, "As a child of Cuban refugees, my story serves as an inspiration to millions of Americans who came here - from the potato famine in Ireland to the rise of Hitler in Eastern Europe, and from the horrors of Vietnam in the 1970s to the tragedy of Ukraine today. It also explains why democracy works, and why we must redefeat Communism once again." Alluding to the culture wars, Rubio also called it "a sad day when refugees coming here are more reflective of America than our own natural-born citizens being taught a different story by ivory tower professors protected by bureaucrats in the form of 'tenure'." Foreign policy was expected to serve as a major topic of the debate, with former U.S. Rep. Ileana Ros-Lehtinen serving as a moderator and offering various questions on foreign policy.

Sen. Ted Cruz, the other Cuban-American candidate in the GOP presidential field, also alluded to his Cuban bonafides by bringing back an old line from his 2016 presidential run, "My father came here with nothing more than $100 sewn into his underwear. That $100 went a long way into forging his own path to prosperity, raising myself and others to become leaders in the world, and that lesson forged in the waters leaving Cuba - which led him to the University of Texas at Austin and a rewarding career as a preacher of the Gospel." Cruz also declared himself "the only consistent conservative on this stage who is ready to go to work from Day One for America" and also took a direct shot at those who believed former President Trump's accusation about his father being involved in the assassination of John F. Kennedy, "As someone who always questions whether or not Jack Kennedy would belong in today's Democratic Party, if you believe that my father played a role in his assassination, I encourage you strongly to leave this building and never come back. You are not Republicans, you are not even real Americans. You are cowards. Just like the mainstream media that spreads these lies to sow division and turn Republicans on each other as Democrats are coming together to bring marxism to America." Both Cruz and Rubio defended maintaining an embargo on Cuba, with the latter pointing out that "while their iron grip is falling apart, as long as the Castros are running the show, we shouldn't be ready just yet to roll out the welcome mat without conditions".

Gov. Ron DeSantis also used the debate setting in Miami to highlight his successes as Governor, "Since taking over as Governor of this great state, Florida has become the vanguard of freedom for America and the world", and also highlighted Miami's central role as "the capital of Latin America". When asked by moderator David Muir about his potential successor, Lieutenant Governor Jeanette Nuñez, DeSantis replied, "Lt. Gov. Nuñez is a Miami original. As Governor, she will be a fantastic advocate for the values that we hold dear here in Florida, and you could not ask for a more phenomenal leader who's ready to serve." Going further, "You see her, her husband Adrian and their three children as the embodiment of the American Dream. Hell, I cannot think of how many times their daughter took care of our own kids, treating them as if they were like those baby dolls every parent's daughter dreams of. You know, the ones they feed and change diapers with?", to a lighthearted mixture of applause and laughs.

On Ukraine, DeSantis was asked by moderator Jorge Ramos about his reluctance to acknowledge the struggles of the Ukrainians during their invasion by Russia, "When Ukraine was under attack by Vladimir Putin, you were spending more time bashing our allies over COVID-19 than calling out a brutal dictator whose values are antithetical to the Constitution. Doesn't this make you contradictory to traditional Republican consensus on democracy and freedom?" DeSantis responded: "Of course I am not being contradictory. As Governor of Florida, I have been more focused on protecting the freedoms of Floridians to seek out COVID treatments, run their businesses without interruption, and send their kids to school instead of being forced to use Zoom as a babysitter. It's not that I don't care about what's going on - Putin of course is a bully whose values are entirely undemocratic, and more specifically he's President Xi's BFF. It's just there's so much I can do as Governor of Florida where the affairs of other countries are practically of lesser concern when that was supposed to be President Biden's job - for which his handling of Ukraine and Putin is downright terrible. He essentially outsourced that duty to Hunter Biden."

Former Amb. Nikki Haley responded to DeSantis, "When dealing with foreign adversaries like Russia who seek to undermine the values of the West, what matters is having strong and courageous leadership like what the Ukrainian people showed in their darkest hours. The last thing we need is a President who's asleep at the wheel when democracy is under attack from foreign enemies like Putin and Xi." Sen. Tom Cotton also responded, "America should be in a position to lead when dealing with enemies foreign and domestic. When we are seeing a situation like what happened nearly two years ago in Ukraine, there is no room for playing around. We should not hesitate to intervene when necessary." When Cotton was also asked about his recent endorsement by Sen. Josh Hawley (who opposed allowing Ukraine to join NATO), "Sen. Hawley is a tremendous advocate for freedom in the world, and his calls to block Russia from our energy resources, if Biden took his advice at face value, would have ended the conflict earlier. But he does have a point about NATO - it would just be too dangerous to allow Ukraine to join when NATO itself can't get things straight about Afghanistan and cybersecurity."

Meanwhile, as DeSantis faced criticism from Haley over Ukraine, former Maryland Gov. Larry Hogan took aim at DeSantis's handling of COVID, "Gov. DeSantis complained about not being able to offer monoclonal antibodies during the Omicron wave. Never mind that there was substantial scientific evidence that those antibodies were useless against Omicron, but Gov. DeSantis chose instead to vilify Dr. Anthony Fauci to gain favor with Fox News hosts whose exposure to science is limited to high school science classes they were required to take." DeSantis blasted Hogan for "taking up MSNBC talking points" and pointed to the comparatively weak economy of Maryland in the post-COVID aftermath, with Hogan retorting "Maybe you should ask yourself why some people call you Gov. 'DeathSantis'. More like the 'Santa of Death'." Hogan's fellow moderate, former New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie, responded to his former gubernatorial colleague, "Gov. Hogan, I do agree with a good deal of what you're saying, but to call Gov. DeSantis out by using nicknames the left uses all the time is a huge stretch." Christie also pointed to his former ABC News colleague Muir, "I know David Muir, I saw him all the time, he knows very well who the players are in the game of silly and pejorative nicknames, and that's not something you say if you're working for Fox News."

While most of the foreign policy discussion centered on Cuba and Ukraine, Candace Owens and Mike Pompeo took different directions by pointing to other countries of interest. Owens, who is of Caribbean descent through her grandmother, gave overtures to Miami's Haitian and Caribbean communities, "While we are here discussing about our future role with Cuba, let us not forget about the struggles of the Haitians escaping autocratic rule, including those who believe in strong family values and economic freedom - something that they don't have over there". Pompeo, meanwhile expressed his support for a free Venezuela, declared that "as President, Nicolás Maduro will not be recognized as President of Venezuela", and expressed his support for the "millions of Venezuelans seeking to become citizens of a country that welcomes them instead of starving them to death". Pompeo also faulted Biden for "choosing to just sit there and leave our border wide open without a credible plan to rein in immigration and deal with migrants that Latin American leaders advised Biden not to take in the way a child would approach a gumball machine", and alluded that if Maduro "attempts to further destabilize his people, I will even explore the possibility of an order to assassinate Maduro if that's what it takes to unchain the Venezuelans from their socialist 'leaders'".

Notably, Gov. DeSantis and Sen. Ben Sasse both chose to debate with open collars, with Sasse even drawing a joke from Vice President Mike Pence about his impromptu work stints at Chick-fil-A along the campaign trail. During a response to a question from moderator Calvin Hughes (the evening anchor at ABC's Miami affiliate WPLG) in which he asked Sasse about "whether or not the current leadership is 'infantilizing' America amounting to micromanaging", Sasse responded, "Both parties are doing a terrible job when it comes to empowering parents to make responsible decisions that everyone can live by. You have Democrats who encourage government welfare and helicopter parenting in the name of Barack Obama and Joe Biden and Republicans who go along with it thinking it will make them immune to primary fears from groups like so-called Religious Right activists who instruct parents to smother their kids instead of actually reading the Bible themselves and leave the judging to Jesus, and who were taught to support and then hate Chick-fil-A all because they abandoned the Salvation Army." Pence responded to Sasse, "Yeah, that's really going to go over well with Dan Cathy. I know the Cathys very well. I know they believe strongly in the values of their company, which has employed millions of great Americans over the years. I know this because Mother knows how to feed her cubs." Sasse retorted, "Do you seriously still hold your mother's hand every time you order at Chick-fil-A?", to an outburst of laughs. Pence returns the favor, "Not necessarily. I just know like Jesus they're not perfect, but at least they're not McDonald's."

During the debate, Pence also defended his role in certifying the 2020 election result for President Biden. "Believe me, I wish I could have done more, but the reality is if Republicans actually worked harder, talked to their neighbors like normal people about the great things President Trump did instead of throwing a bunch of ridiculous car parades that mean nothing, we would be standing here debating about who should be 46 instead of 47." Mike Lindell responded to Pence, "Yeah, so let's tell those who actually showed up and voted instead of filling out a form in the mail they aren't true Americans. Let's also tell those who wanted to show their support for Trump to park their car in the garage and shut up. Sounds very rich of you when working Americans continue to feel like they don't have a voice." Sen. Sasse responded, "Yeah, let's go ahead and throw every man, woman and child in jail for voter fraud. That's really going to put people back to work, isn't it. Never mind that Joe Biden is in bed with Xi and Trump tried to buddy up with him when he should have been defending Hong Kong more forcefully. We're supposed to be the party of freedom, right?"

The candidates also spoke on the environment, with DeSantis continuing to highlight the same environmental stances he brought up in last November's debate at the University of Michigan, "I am not against oil drilling, but I don't think the millions of tourists who come to Florida want to see a bunch of oil rigs out in the distance from our beaches", while Cruz defended his stance in favor of "drilling wherever there is sweet crude" and pointed out "Those rigs you're talking about won't be visible for miles for most beachgoers". On healthcare, Sasse proposed overhauling all federal insurance systems, "Repealing Obamacare, as we have seen, isn't good enough, and we must start over from the beginning to build a healthcare system that works for everyone, and gives you nothing more than the same healthcare that we all get as Senators and congressmen". And when asked by Ros-Lehtinen (who has a transgendered son) about whether or not LGBT Americans are welcome in the Republican Party, Cruz pointed out, "If they happen to be gay or lesbian or what have you, and happen to share our values as a party, then they should be welcomed with open arms", pointing to Caitlyn Jenner who Cruz referred to as "the most patriotic Olympian America has ever seen".

Following the debate, Pompeo drew significant criticism for openly suggesting that Venezuelan President Maduro should be assassinated, a move Pompeo defends by pointing out 1988 presidential candidate Pat Robertson's call to assassinate Maduro's predecessor Hugo Chavez during the George W. Bush presidency, including from human rights groups who called Pompeo's comments "unproductive" and "divisive". Pence also drew criticism from some Trump hardliners for his continued defense of his handling of the 2020 election results that resulted in the January 6th, 2021 attack on the Capitol, while Haley continued to receive praise from foreign policy hawks for her "sustained defense of Western democracy and American exceptionalism", including from noted Trump critic Bill Kristol (who now identifies as a Democrat due to his neoconservative foreign policy views having become persona non grata in the Trump era).

Attention was also drawn to the exchange between Pence and Sasse over Chick-fil-A, including a viral Des Moines Register political cartoon that featured what appeared to be an adult Ben Sasse in full Chick-fil-A uniform serving what appeared to be a Chick-fil-A kids' meal to a toddler Mike Pence (donning a kids' propeller cap) holding his mother's hand, intended to mock Pence as "supposedly infantile" in comparison to Sasse; this cartoon would make its way to the late-night TV circuit from Stephen Colbert to Greg Gutfeld. Pence responded to the cartoon by highlighting a two-page comparison showcasing all of his accomplishments as Vice President going as far as back as his days as Governor of Indiana, as a Congressman, and even during his days as a talk radio host in Indiana (where he famously called himself "Rush Limbaugh on decaf"), with the other page showing a blank page under Sasse's name, intending to portray Sasse "as a do-nothing Senator"; notably, Sasse's vote to convict former President Donald Trump was omitted from the page.

[Shaula🏳️‍⚧️]

Looking forward to more updates regarding Congress

[SaintStan86]

Before I continue, I will say to those who question the length of my posts (if there are any) that not only is it very easy for me to get lost in the moment of crafting a What-If TL, but there is also fascination as well with regards to what one can dream of when it comes to the future. True, some of what I have stated may have been influenced Law & Order-style (peeled right off the headlines), but sometimes you can't help it when you feel passionate about the moment you're about to write about. After all, if you do in fact happen to be right down the line, even if the dates aren't correct (as evidenced by Biden's nomination of Ketanji Brown Jackson which I got correct), you might as well become a legend in Atlasia. To those who appreciate what I have given y'all thus far I thank y'all very much.

This TL is definitely moving forward despite Trump's big CPAC showing, DeSantis's big non-Trump CPAC showing, and the peculiarities surrounding a racist degenerate's so-called "America First PAC" that could very well doom Marjorie Taylor Greene and the NeverTrump-heavy "Principles First Summit" that may be sort of a swan song for Liz Cheney and Adam Kinzinger. There have been so many TLs that flamed out quick when the commitments of real life have come a-knockin', but I am certainly not a quitter and as #HoustonStrong as they come.

Now, on to some very big updates from the carcass of the 2022 Texas primary...

• Greg Abbott won the GOP nomination well ahead of the runoff cutoff, and all points indicate to a 10-15 point win over Beto O'Rourke in November. In this TL, and most likely IRL there will be no U.S. Senate candidacy out of him in 2024, and much of the focus will instead turn to Julián Castro becoming the latest Texas Democrat to be "the one", but with another Democrat (Scott Kelly) lurking in the background depending on whether or not his brother Mark wins a full term in Arizona this year.
• Ken Paxton is going to remain Attorney General. Even if Eva Guzman endorses George P. Bush, there is no way that GPB makes it to victory in the runoff considering that there were a lot of conservatives whose main fault with Paxton was his ethical lapses, and it's safe to say a good chunk of Guzman's supporters (and especially those who voted for Louie Gohmert who dominated East Texas) will be going for Paxton in the runoff. I voted for Guzman in the election and will have to once again convince folks to hold their nose for Paxton again, as I am going for Paxton in the runoff in protest of the dirty campaign George P. Bush ran against Guzman, even using Trump imagery to bully her on the wall (never mind that Paxton, who himself attempted to take down Guzman using false claims that she pushed woke practices in our schools and law enforcement, was endorsed by Trump anyway).
• While I had no doubt that Van Taylor was going to have a competitive primary in the 3rd District after Trump loyalists found fault with his vote for a bipartisan January 6th commission (never mind that he later rejected a Pelosi-crafted January 6th committee after the commission idea faltered when Pelosi chose to throw a fit and not accept Kevin McCarthy's picks for the commission), the late-breaking ISIS Bride scandal in which he was alleged to have had an affair with a woman who escaped the Taliban dealt enough of a fatal blow (on top of not even clearing 50 percent) to his reelection chances. Former Collin County Judge Keith Self (whose former position amounts to the equivalent of a County Executive in Texas) is going to be the district's new Congressman, and is expected to be a reliable conservative vote for the GOP conference; I will not be shocked if he joins the House Freedom Caucus.
• Even if the ISIS Bride scandal didn't hit, there really wasn't much for Taylor to grow on for the future as 2nd District incumbent Dan Crenshaw is the most likely out of Texas's GOP reps to succeed Ted Cruz in 2024 (he is in fact already running in this TL to succeed Cruz), especially after he fended off a late-breaking challenge from a far-right challenger (who is now stirring controversy on social media claiming that he would rather support a Democrat than vote for Crenshaw) and also shepherded two comrades of his own in Morgan Luttrell and Wesley Hunt to November without a runoff in the nearby 8th and 38th districts in the Houston area. Safe to say you can now add Crenshaw to the latest in a long line of legacy names out of the "holy trinity" of Houston Republican politics long personified by the likes of George Bush, Ted Cruz and Dr. Ron Paul, among other Republicans who became national brand names out of the Houston area. Lance Gooden and Chip Roy have more solid conservative voting records than Crenshaw, but they probably won't go as far as Crenshaw will.
• Heading straight to Congress will be Republicans Nathaniel Moran (1st, replacing Gohmert) and Monica De La Cruz (15th, picking up Vicente Gonzalez's soon-to-be former seat from the Democrats; Gonzalez will return in the 34th) in addition to Self, Luttrell and Hunt. However, I will now predict that after she defeats the FBI-tarnished Henry Cuellar, Jessica Cisneros will now be headed to Congress as Republicans did not get much more votes total than Cisneros or Cuellar alone in the 28th; unless a lot of conservative Dems flip to either Cassy Garcia or Sandra Whitten (who are both in the runoff for this district) in November. Cisneros will join two other Democratic newcomers, Jasmine Crockett (30th, replacing the retiring Eddie Bernice Johnson) and Greg Casar (35th, replacing Lloyd Doggett who has moved to the new and long overdue 37th), that will form a trio of "Squad" members from the Lone Star State. Expect these "three C's" to be very influential amongst progressives in the Democratic primary, and very likely a thorn in the side of the Democratic establishment.
• The local election results could very well be seeing a red wave if the primary results hold up, and especially if independents do in fact break for the GOP statewide. In Harris and Fort Bend counties, for instance, Republicans generally got more votes on down ballot races unless there was a contested Democratic primary by about a few thousand votes. In this TL, while it has not been covered yet, Democrats Lina Hidalgo in Harris and KP George will have lost to their respective Republican challengers (which in the case of the latter will be Trever Nehls whose twin brother Troy is a clear favorite to win a second term in the 22nd District - imagine not being able to tell one from the other on national TV!). The big difference compared to past elections (especially before 2008) is that Democrats are all but certain to hang onto Dallas County since a lot of the conservative vote (especially outside of north Dallas and the Park Cities which maintain their conservative character) has definitely shifted out to the suburbs; unless Hispanics really make a big switch in urban Texas like the Tejanos did along the Rio Grande in 2020 and will in 2022, I don't see Dallas County flipping back to red anytime soon - maybe along the LBJ from Irving through Richardson to Mesquite, but other than that not much else.
• Now, for a little fun, former Travis County GOP Chairman (and professional carnival barker) Rob Morrow narrowly lost yet another GOP primary - this time for a State Board of Education seat in the Austin area. In this TL, he will be running for Cruz's Senate seat, and perhaps may draw more attention than even Crenshaw due to what can usually be expected of him (e.g. conspiracy theories, pictures of scantily clad women, false innuendos about his opponents, his famously calling Trump "a child rapist", etc.) and not in a good way.

Outside of Texas, there are also some big updates as well to report. In a big surprise, Fred Keller has decided he won't challenge his fellow Republican Dan Meuser in the 9th which Meuser has decided to stay in anyway instead of moving the 8th to take on Matt Cartwright; Cartwright is projected to and in this TL will lose to his 2020 Republican challenger Jim Bognet. There is a chance Keller may resurface in this TL should Meuser (who is himself independently wealthy courtesy of Pride Mobility) run for the U.S. Senate against his fellow NEPA resident Bob Casey, Jr., but we shall see since Donald Trump, Jr. has already announced in this TL he won't be challenging Casey. In addition, Florida Democrat Ted Deutch has decide he won't be running for reelection and will instead become CEO of the American Jewish Committee - the most prominent Jewish advocacy group in the nation. This likely means that his soon-to-be 23rd District is about to definitely become a competitive battleground in these midterms given it only leans Democratic by single digits. Look for a brand name Republican to stand out against a crowded Democratic primary field in a district that will be the latter party's to lose.

Now, on to the latest updates in this TL...

December 7, 2023
HANUKKAH BOMBINGS IN ISRAEL LEAVES DOZENS DEAD; WORLD LEADERS CONDEMN VIOLENCE
Suicide bombers in Israel committed a series of bombings throughout Israel on the first night of Hanukkah, including synagogues in Tel Aviv and Haifa, leaving dozens dead and hundreds injured. Hamas claimed responsibility for several of the bombings, with some of the bombers being traced to terror cells in Afghanistan that formed after the U.S. withdrew troops from that country in 2021. The victims included several students of a Jewish day school in Miami as well as students at Yeshiva University and New York University in New York City. Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis condemned the tragedy, taking a pause from his campaign to reach out to the victims' bereaved families - including attending the victims' funerals. Former U.S. Rep. Ted Deutch, now CEO of the American Jewish Committee, did not take too kindly to the news of DeSantis's outreach to victims' families, accusing DeSantis of using the tragedy to "boost his own presidential ambitions" while also pointing blame for the bombings on "the fanned flames of anti-Semitism fueled by provocateurs here in America". Deutch served 7 1/2 terms as a Congressman for a Fort Lauderdale-area congressional district that flipped to the GOP in the 2022 midterms.

In response, members of the Republican Jewish Committee called for a boycott of the AJC, accusing Deutch of "injecting partisan politics into what is supposed to be a nonpartisan Jewish advocacy group". Jewish conservative activist Andrew Pollack, whose daughter Meadow was killed in the 2018 Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School shooting in what was then Deutch's district, echoed the RJC's criticism of the AJC, "Ted Deutch doesn't surprise me, but for him to criticize Gov. DeSantis and make it look like he and Donald Trump are responsible for this is nakedly partisan and unbecoming of what one would expect of the supposedly nonpartisan AJC". Criticism is also directed at President Biden, with Sean Hannity remarking "the blood of the victims in Israel on the first night of Hanukkah are coated on the hands of President Biden, Secretary Blinken and their comrades at WestExec Advisors who are now advising Vice President Kamala Harris to do their dirty work".

President Biden and other world leaders including British Prime Minister Boris Johnson and Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau (among others) condemned the violence. "There is absolutely no place for the kind of violence that Israelis have long endured and continue to endure, especially at a place as sacred as a synagogue on the first night of Hanukkah," Biden said. Former President Donald Trump also condemned the attacks, and called out Israeli Prime Minister Yair Lapid for being "soft on Hamas", adding that the attacks would not have happened under his watch, and compared Lapid (a former newscaster) to American CNN anchor Anderson Cooper, "both are weak, bland and viewed only by enough people to fit in a broom closet". One of DeSantis's chief rivals, former Amb. Nikki Haley, also reacted, "My heart lies with the victims of these senseless tragedies in Israel. It is our sobering reminder, more than ever, that we must remain vigilant in the face of so much adversity in the world".

December 9, 2023
SEN. BERNIE SANDERS WILL NOT SEEK REELECTION IN 2024
After much consideration, three-term Vermont Sen. Bernie Sanders, a self-described "Democratic Socialist" who sought the presidency in 2016 and 2020, announced on Saturday that he will not seek reelection to a fourth term. In his statement, Sanders remarked "From my humble beginnings as the people's Mayor in Burlington, to my long career as Vermont's independent voice in Congress, to an even more esteemed career in the Senate where I worked to light a fire in the belly of progressives everywhere, I am eternally grateful to everyone who had the honor of voting for me to be the people's voice in Washington." Sanders was first elected to the Senate in 2006, where he succeeded fellow independent Jim Jeffords (who himself was first elected as a Republican in 1988 before switching to independent in 2001) in an open race. Before that, he served as the state's lone Congressman for eight terms, elected as an independent who otherwise caucused with the Democrats. A wide field of Democrats is expected to enter the race to succeed Sanders, though there is also the possibility of the Vermont Progressive Party fielding former Lieutenant Governor David Zuckerman, as well as the GOP fielding popular moderate Gov. Phil Scott.

With last week's announcements that Democratic Sen. Maria Cantwell of Washington will also not be seeking reelection and Republican Sen. John Barrasso's announcement that he will seek a fourth term (and third full one) in 2024, all of the incumbents have now decided what their 2024 plans are. In Washington state, two members of Congress, Democrat Suzan DelBene of the 1st District and Republican Cathy McMorris Rodgers of the 5th District, have both filed to run for Cantwell's seat, with McMorris Rodgers taking the extraordinary step of putting her campaign headquarters (along with renting a house nearby) in the Eastside suburbs of Seattle - far away from her political base in Spokane. Other candidates, including a more progressive challenger to DelBene and another Republican candidate more locally centered in the critical Seattle suburbs, are expected, but McMorris Rodgers has already earned the endorsement of first-term Rep. Reagan Dunn (whose 8th includes a large portion of the Eastside in Congress), potentially warding off other potential GOP challengers. In Wyoming, there is a movement by some to urge defeated former U.S. Rep. Liz Cheney to run against Barrasso as an Independent, as the state is so strongly Republican that a Democrat cannot conventionally win there, but state GOP officials there have warned that any Republican who attempts to assist in electing Cheney "will face severe sanctions from the Wyoming GOP". Barrasso shrugs off the threat, pointing out that "Liz Cheney's Wyoming support base is limited to the size of a small studio apartment" and vows to run a vigorous campaign should Cheney seek an independent run.

December 13, 2023
PBS SETS FIELD FOR SIXTH DEMOCRATIC DEBATE
On Wednesday's edition of the PBS NewsHour, anchor Judy Woodruff set the field for the sixth Democratic debate on Saturday in Des Moines, Iowa. Set to be held at the historic Hoyt Sherman Place - a large mansion for a wealthy Iowa banker that was also built to accommodate a museum and performing arts center, the debate is expected to start at 8pm ET and will be nationally broadcast on PBS. Woodruff will serve as a moderator alongside NewsHour political correspondent Lisa Desjardins, O. Kay Henderson (who hosts the political discussion show Iowa Press for Iowa PBS) and Washington Post columnist Jonathan Capehart (who represents the "liberal" half of Brooks & Capehart on Friday editions of the NewsHour). For this debate, the DNC has set a minimum criteria of 2.5 percent or higher based on an average of four polls and at least three polls with a minimum of 4 percent for candidates to participate.

PARTICIPANTS FOR THE DECEMBER 16TH DEMOCRATIC PRESIDENTIAL DEBATE (PBS @ Des Moines, IA)
Candidate	Avg. (12/13)	Poll A (12/12)	Poll B (12/9)	Poll C (12/6)	Poll D (12/4)
Vice President Kamala Harris (D-CA)	32.5	31	34	35	30
Sen. Elizabeth Warren (D-MA)	23.0	26	23	21	22
Former Sec. Pete Buttigieg (D-IN)	13.0	14	12	12	14
Gov. Jared Polis (D-CO)	6.5	5	7	7	7
Sen. Amy Klobuchar (D-MN)	6.3	6	7	6	6
Gov. Roy Cooper (D-NC)	5.8	5	6	7	5
Former Sec. Gina Raimondo (D-RI)	3.8	4	4	3	4

Based on the aforementioned criteria, all seven of the major candidates have qualified once again for the debate, with some even speculating that this probably may be the last one with such a low criteria; speculation abounds that the next Democratic debate (January 18th, 2024 in Chicago) will likely set the bar at 5 percent. Because of this, most of the pressure centers on former Commerce Secretary Gina Raimondo, who remains mired in last place among the seven despite overt efforts to portray herself as the "pro-business" New Democrat candidate in the Democratic field. The debate is also expected to be a major test for moderates like Buttigieg and Cooper, who have had success in states like Iowa, in appealing to the state's moderate electorate. Iowa is also known for its traditional populist politics, emphasizing such issues as education, healthcare, social issues and the economy with an emphasis towards agriculture and related manufacturing operations, which some speculate may give candidates like Sen. Klobuchar an advantage in this debate.

[Tekken_Guy]

So, if I'm not mistaken, the following house members are not running for re-election:

Republicans:
AZ-01: David Schweikert (running for Senate)
AZ-05: Andy Biggs (running for Senate)
AZ-09: Paul Gosar (running for Senate)
CA-20: Kevin McCarthy (running for Senate) - Is Mike Garcia switching to this seat? If not I'd like to see Vince Fong run.
CA-41: Ken Calvert (retiring) - Melissa Melendez is running, I believe.
MI-10: John James (running for Senate)
MO-02: Ann Wagner (running for Senate)
MT-02: Matt Rosendale (running for Senate)
OH-04: Jim Jordan (running for Senate)
TX-02: Dan Crenshaw (running for Senate)
TX-05: Lance Gooden (running for Senate)
TX-21: Chip Roy (running for Senate)
TX-25: Roger Williams (running for Senate)
WA-05: Cathy McMorris Rodgers (running for Senate)
WI-05: Scott Fitzgerald (running for Senate)
WI-08: Mike Gallagher (running for Senate)
WV-02: Alex Mooney (running for Senate) - Does McKinley go for it again?

Democrats:
CA-14: Eric Swalwell (running for Senate)
CA-25: Raul Ruiz (running for Senate)
CA-30: Adam Schiff (running for Senate)
CA-47: Katie Porter (running for Senate) - Rouda's running here, right?
HI-01: Ed Case (running for Senate)
HI-02: Kai Kahele (running for Senate)
MD-03: John Sarbanes (running for Senate)
ME-01: Chellie Pingree (running for Senate) - I assume her daughter’s running here, right?
MN-03: Dean Phillips (running for Senate)
NJ-11: Mikie Sherrill (running for Senate)
WA-01: Suzan DelBene (running for Senate)

If there's anyone else I missed please let me know. I'd really like a look at the races to replace them in the house

Also, re: Michele Tafoya. I don't see her running in 2024 if Qualls' campaign doesn't at the very least make it through the primary, and even then he should have at least a close race with Walz if he doesn't win. Will you be retconning that for the TL?

A few more things I'd like to see in the timeline:
-Guy Reschenthaler to run for PA-Sen
-A Clark County-based Republican candidate for NV-Sen (Laxalt is from Washoe)

[President of the great nation of 🏳️‍⚧️]

I want Becca for Bernie's seat. She lost the primary against Gray; she's got nothing to do and even less to lose.

EDIT: Though, now that I think of it, Gray's probably going for it, so Becca could go for Gray's seat and run for Welch's seat once he calls it quits in 2028.

[SaintStan86]

So, if I'm not mistaken, the following house members are not running for re-election:

Republicans:
AZ-01: David Schweikert (running for Senate)
AZ-05: Andy Biggs (running for Senate)
AZ-09: Paul Gosar (running for Senate)
CA-20: Kevin McCarthy (running for Senate) - Is Mike Garcia switching to this seat? If not I'd like to see Vince Fong run.
CA-41: Ken Calvert (retiring) - Melissa Melendez is running, I believe.
MI-10: John James (running for Senate)
MO-02: Ann Wagner (running for Senate)
MT-02: Matt Rosendale (running for Senate)
OH-04: Jim Jordan (running for Senate)
TX-02: Dan Crenshaw (running for Senate)
TX-05: Lance Gooden (running for Senate)
TX-21: Chip Roy (running for Senate)
TX-25: Roger Williams (running for Senate)
WA-05: Cathy McMorris Rodgers (running for Senate)
WI-05: Scott Fitzgerald (running for Senate)
WI-08: Mike Gallagher (running for Senate)
WV-02: Alex Mooney (running for Senate) - Does McKinley go for it again?

Democrats:
CA-14: Eric Swalwell (running for Senate)
CA-25: Raul Ruiz (running for Senate)
CA-30: Adam Schiff (running for Senate)
CA-47: Katie Porter (running for Senate) - Rouda's running here, right?
HI-01: Ed Case (running for Senate)
HI-02: Kai Kahele (running for Senate)
MD-03: John Sarbanes (running for Senate)
ME-01: Chellie Pingree (running for Senate) - I assume her daughter’s running here, right?
MN-03: Dean Phillips (running for Senate)
NJ-11: Mikie Sherrill (running for Senate)
WA-01: Suzan DelBene (running for Senate)

If there's anyone else I missed please let me know. I'd really like a look at the races to replace them in the house

Also, re: Michele Tafoya. I don't see her running in 2024 if Qualls' campaign doesn't at the very least make it through the primary, and even then he should have at least a close race with Walz if he doesn't win. Will you be retconning that for the TL?

A few more things I'd like to see in the timeline:
-Guy Reschenthaler to run for PA-Sen
-A Clark County-based Republican candidate for NV-Sen (Laxalt is from Washoe)

You are definitely correct about the seats you mentioned Tekken. Those seats, and the others I will add so far, are listed towards the end.

I do disagree about Tafoya though; while she is relatively new to the political scene, regardless of whether or not Qualls is the GOP nominee against Walz, a congressional seat is more of a step down compared to a Senate run for someone of her public stature. And even if she were to run for Congress instead of the Senate, where she resides is more Democratic than the rest of the state; Edina is one of the more blue areas of MN-03, which went for Obama even as it continuously sent Erik Paulsen to Congress until Trump's "suburban problem" did him in, and which is where Biden did well enough in 2020 to where Phillips' seat is essentially on the back burner compared to other GOP targets in the suburbs. Yes, Phillips is known for being the stepson of Dear Abby's son and for selling the Talenti gelato brand to Unilever, but he could have run for Senate with the wealth and background he had as an outsider, not unlike Mike McFadden for the GOP against Al Franken in 2014, before he decided to run against and eventually take out Paulsen in the 2018 "blue wave". Do keep in mind also that Tafoya would also have free rein to do well outside of the Twin Cities and in suburbs outside of Hennepin County, especially if she does perform well in the Lake Minnetonka suburbs that define MN-03.

Of course, there are those who bring up Nick Clooney in Kentucky and Clay Aiken in North Carolina, but the reality of the degrees of their fame tells a different story. The only thing people remember about the former is that his son is George Clooney, and the only part of the country where he was really considered a brand name was around Cincinnati where he was a top-rated news anchor competing against the likes of Al Schottelkotte and Jerry Springer (KY-04, which is dominated by Cincinnati's Northern Kentucky suburbs despite GOP incumbent Thomas Massie being from its rural fringes, was where Clooney covered the deadly Beverly Hills Supper Club fire from '77 on live TV - as seen on YouTube - nearly three decades before he made an unsuccessful run in 2004 for that same district when Blue Dog Dem Ken Lucas retired after three terms; other than when Lucas held it, it has been GOP-held since 1966). The latter is far more notable, having finished a very close second to Ruben Studdard on American Idol in 2003, but it's important to note that Aiken was born and raised in Raleigh and is notable enough that he could have been primed for a Senate run in this current cycle (which he chose not to do but may do in 2026), but like most American Idol alums who didn't win - Jennifer Hudson being one exception - has largely faded away from the mainstream. Being high up in a Cabinet post also doesn't guarantee you a long congressional career either - former Clinton HHS Secretary Donna Shalala learned that the hard way when she lost in 2020 to Maria Elvira Salazar in FL-27 after just one term.

I will go into detail about the Senate in a later TL post, but Reschenthaler is not going to run against Casey who is hardly as extreme as his contemporaries in the Senate (at least compared to Fetterman whose Senate victory in 2022 is seen in this TL as "remarkable"), and who already has the independently wealthy Dan Meuser running against him; Republicans are skeptical about dealing with a chaotic and convoluted primary similar to the situation they faced the year before with Dr. Oz and other candidates who stayed in even though most of the latter group's chances of getting past Oz and David McCormick were clearly next to nil, which ultimately made uniting Republicans after the primary challenging. The Nevada race is building up, and yes the likely GOP nominee is going to be from Clark County, but Nevada Dems are going to be motivated to help Jacky Rosen more so than not in this TL after Catherine Cortez Masto lost to Washoe-based Adam Laxalt. At this point in this TL, they're still trying to convince former Gov. Brian Sandoval to run for the seat, but he has made no decision yet and there is a holding pattern of sorts until Sandoval decides.

[SaintStan86]

So, if I'm not mistaken, the following house members are not running for re-election:

Republicans:
AZ-01: David Schweikert (running for Senate)
AZ-05: Andy Biggs (running for Senate)
AZ-09: Paul Gosar (running for Senate)
CA-20: Kevin McCarthy (running for Senate) - Is Mike Garcia switching to this seat? If not I'd like to see Vince Fong run.
CA-41: Ken Calvert (retiring) - Melissa Melendez is running, I believe.
MI-10: John James (running for Senate)
MO-02: Ann Wagner (running for Senate)
MT-02: Matt Rosendale (running for Senate)
OH-04: Jim Jordan (running for Senate)
TX-02: Dan Crenshaw (running for Senate)
TX-05: Lance Gooden (running for Senate)
TX-21: Chip Roy (running for Senate)
TX-25: Roger Williams (running for Senate)
WA-05: Cathy McMorris Rodgers (running for Senate)
WI-05: Scott Fitzgerald (running for Senate)
WI-08: Mike Gallagher (running for Senate)
WV-02: Alex Mooney (running for Senate) - Does McKinley go for it again?

Democrats:
CA-14: Eric Swalwell (running for Senate)
CA-25: Raul Ruiz (running for Senate)
CA-30: Adam Schiff (running for Senate)
CA-47: Katie Porter (running for Senate) - Rouda's running here, right?
HI-01: Ed Case (running for Senate)
HI-02: Kai Kahele (running for Senate)
MD-03: John Sarbanes (running for Senate)
ME-01: Chellie Pingree (running for Senate) - I assume her daughter’s running here, right?
MN-03: Dean Phillips (running for Senate)
NJ-11: Mikie Sherrill (running for Senate)
WA-01: Suzan DelBene (running for Senate)

If there's anyone else I missed please let me know. I'd really like a look at the races to replace them in the house

Also, re: Michele Tafoya. I don't see her running in 2024 if Qualls' campaign doesn't at the very least make it through the primary, and even then he should have at least a close race with Walz if he doesn't win. Will you be retconning that for the TL?

A few more things I'd like to see in the timeline:
-Guy Reschenthaler to run for PA-Sen
-A Clark County-based Republican candidate for NV-Sen (Laxalt is from Washoe)

Continuing with Tekken, there are also redistricting changes (most if not all of them announced already in this TL) in Alabama, Illinois, Maryland, New York, North Carolina and Texas (Ohio will not be until 2026). Illinois, New York and Maryland were singled out for their districts not being compact and stretched out into heavily Republican rural and suburban areas under the guise of "increased minority representation", while Texas's map was struck down due to diluted Hispanic voting strength in the Corpus Christi and Dallas-Fort Worth areas where new districts were recommended (a fourth "fajita strip" district plus a second Latino-focused minority opportunity district (MOD) in Dallas alongside the traditionally Black 30th District). Alabama's map, which originally avoided a redraw as the Supreme Court's reasoning was not to disrupt the 2022 filing cycle that was ongoing, finally gets a redraw with the adding of a second Black opportunity district, while North Carolina's redraw is the result of the Republican takeover of the North Carolina Supreme Court (which implemented the previous 2022 map under a slight Democratic majority) that tweaks the maps to improve Republican chances in some of the seats, improve representation for some areas (e.g. moving competitive Alamance County from the heavily Democratic Durham-based 4th to the competitive Greensboro-based 6th) and finally consolidate the 12th entirely into Mecklenburg County.

Alabama's new map (click here)

• 1st: Conservative parts of Mobile and its suburbs including Baldwin County, plus the Wiregrass region including Dothan. Majority White R+54 (based on Nate Silver's scoring) district. Republicans Jerry Carl and Barry Moore are the incumbents.
• 2nd: New minority opportunity district (MOD) with Montgomery and Tuskegee to the east and (most of) Mobile to the west. District leans Democratic (D+3) with a 49-44 Black-White coalition, as Trump only lost here by single digits. A Democrat would be favored here, but it's competitive enough to where a Republican is capable of winning not unlike GA-02 and NC-01.
• 3rd: Remains anchored in Anniston, Auburn, Talladega and the northern suburbs of Montgomery. Trump won two-thirds of the vote here in this R+43 district. Mike Rogers is retiring from the seat, but it's unlikely that Moore will move here given he's from the Wiregrass.
• 4th: Northwest corner of the state including Florence, Decatur, Cullman and Northport (north of Tuscaloosa). Conservative R+61 seat held by the venerable Republican Robert Aderholt.
• 5th: Northeast corner of the state including Huntsville, Gadsden and Fort Payne. R+37 district held by Republican freshman Dale Strong.
• 6th: Based in and around the suburbs and exurbs of Birmingham. R+54 seat that was the most Republican in the nation during the George W. Bush years, now second most conservative in the Trump era. Conservative Republican Gary Palmer is the incumbent.
• 7th: The legacy Black district in the state. Covers Birmingham, Tuscaloosa and Selma. D+31 majority Black MOD represented by Terri Sewell.

Illinois' new map (click here)

• 1st: Combines the core of the old 1st and 7th districts, westward from the DuPage County line through Chicago's West Side and the Loop south to Hyde Park. D+80 Black MOD with a sizable Latino populace. Freshmen incumbents Kina Collins (old 7th, backed by the Squad) and Jonathan Jackson (old 1st, middle son of Jesse Jackson) will face each other in the Dem primary.
• 2nd: Much of the rest of Chicago's South Side (Bridgeport, Englewood, what is called the "East Side") with south Cook County (Calumet City, Homewood, Matteson) and a sliver of Will County centered on Crete. Over 70 percent Black, heavily Democratic (D+75) district held by Robin Kelly.
• 3rd: The new Hispanic district in Chicago is now more discreetly targeted to its targeted demographic, stretching from such Northwest Side neighborhoods as Belmont Cragin through O'Hare International Airport, out to Elmwood Park, Elk Grove Village, Streamwood and Elgin. D+41 Hispanic MOD held by freshman Democrat Delia Ramirez.
• 4th: Chicago's legacy Hispanic district, repped by Democrat Chuy Garcia, remains based on the Southwest Side (including Midway Airport) and such suburbs as Cicero and Lyons, plus a largely Black section including Washington Heights so as not to pack the South Side's Black vote entirely in the 2nd. 60 percent Hispanic D+65 MOD.
• 5th: Covers Chicago's immediate northwest suburbs along the Golden Corridor including Schaumburg, Niles, Arlington Heights and Rosemont, as well as mostly White areas of the Northwest Side (Dunning, Mayfair). Both Democrats Mike Quigley (old 5th) and Raja Krishnamoorthi (old 8th) have been drawn into the new D+19 5th.
• 6th: The new, open 6th is restored to its traditional location exclusively within suburban DuPage County (Wheaton, Naperville, Bloomingdale and Oak Brook among others). Even though the new district is D+14 and voted for Joe Biden by 18 percent in 2020, Mitt Romney was even with favorite son Barack Obama in 2012 here; with neither Obama nor Trump on the ballot, this district is viewed as a prime pickup opportunity for the GOP in 2024.
• 7th: The old 6th's incumbent, freshman Republican Keith Pekau, is the incumbent in the new 7th in Chicago's southwest suburbs (Orland Park and Western Springs in Cook County and Downers Grove and Darien in southeast DuPage County). Like the new 6th, this D+10 seat was narrowly split between Obama and Romney in 2012.
• 8th: Everything old is new again as the late Phil Crane's old northwest exurban Chicago seat is restored, stretching from McHenry County to Palatine, Wauconda, Elburn and St. Charles. This is perhaps the most appropriate district for freshman Republican Catalina Lauf, a Trump-friendly millennial conservative whose new R+3 district barely went for Trump in 2016 but went for Biden in 2020.
• 9th: This remains Chicago's liberal lakeshore district, stretching from the Magnificent Mile, Navy Pier and Wrigley Field out to Evanston and Skokie. This D+66 seat is open as longtime incumbent Jan Schakowsky is retiring.
• 10th: The most Democratic suburban Chicago district outside of the 2nd, this district connects most of Lake County (Waukegan, Grayslake) to a northeast portion of Cook County including Wilmette and Northbrook. Brad Schneider is the incumbent in this D+28 district.
• 11th: Evenly-divided swing seat covering the lion's share of Will as well as Kankakee County. While some speculate that this open seat was designed as a "comeback opportunity" for Never Trumper Adam Kinzinger, Kinzinger has ruled out any interest in running for office. Former Democratic U.S. Rep. Lauren Underwood, who lost reelection in the old 14th in 2022, is seeking a comeback bid.
• 12th: One of two Southern Illinois districts, this R+17 seat covers the Metro East suburbs of St. Louis plus the college town of Carbondale. Republican Mike Bost is the incumbent.
• 13th: Having won in a linear, gerrymandered seat in 2022, Democratic incumbent Nikki Budzinski now has to run in a more compact, GOP-friendly R+16 district that is being heavily targeted by Republicans.
• 14th: GOP-tilted swing district connecting Aurora and Chicago's southwest exurbs in Kendall and Grundy counties out to Ottawa, Pontiac and Bloomington. Freshman Republican Scott Gryder is the incumbent in this district that voted for Romney in 2012 but voted against Trump twice.
• 15th:The other Southern Illinois district, covering such communities as Centralia, Mattoon, Danville, Harrisburg and Carlinville. Republican Mary Miller is the incumbent in this R+50 district.
• 16th: Stretching across portions of northern and central Illinois from Rockford, Freeport and DeKalb out to Dixon and suburbs of Peoria, this R+13 district favors the GOP. Darin LaHood is the incumbent.
• 17th: After winning a much more competitive version of this district in 2022, first-term Republican Esther Joy King is a safer incumbent in this R+17 district connecting Peoria, Quincy and Moline.

Maryland's new map (click here)

• 1st: R+13 district in the Eastern Shore counties (including Salisbury), Annapolis and such suburbs as Severna Park and Parole. Republican Andy Harris is the incumbent.
• 2nd: Already made more competitive in the last Democratic gerrymander from 2022, with longtime Democrat Dutch Ruppersberger having already announced his retirement, this seat has been turned into a GOP-leaning swing seat that is R+6 on paper, covering Harford and eastern Baltimore counties (Towson, Dundalk, Perry Hall, Hunt Valley) as well as a small section of Baltimore itself centered on the Greektown neighborhood. Prominent Black Republican activist Kim Klacik, whose 2020 bid in the neighboring 7th District was spotlighted at the 2020 Republican National Convention but has drawn more attention lately for her dispute with fellow Black conservative Candace Owens, is running in the new 2nd.
• 3rd: With John Sarbanes running for the U.S. Senate, Republicans sense an opportunity in this D+12 west suburban Baltimore district dominated by Carroll and Howard counties, and stretching southward to Glen Burnie and Olney (in the Washington, D.C. area). Still, while the district may have been evenly divided between Obama and Romney in 2012, Democrats are still favored to hold this seat.
• 4th: D+82 Black MOD located entirely within Prince George's County (including Landover, College Park, Laurel and Hillcrest Heights). Freshman Democrat Glenn Ivey is the incumbent.
• 5th: With longtime House leader Steny Hoyer retiring, this D+26 district is now a Black minority impact district (MID) covering Southern Maryland as well as communities in outer Prince George's and Anne Arundel counties including Bowie, Crofton and National Harbor.
• 6th: This district has been made more competitive in redistricting, now stretching from western Maryland to Frederick County, as well as more conservative parts of Montgomery County including Potomac and Germantown. Democrat and Total Wine co-founder David Trone is the incumbent in this D+3 district.
• 7th: Kweisi Mfume is the incumbent in this 62 percent Black, D+75 MOD which covers most of Baltimore and western Baltimore County including Owings Mills and Woodlawn.
• 8th: Diverse D+63 district in Montgomery County, centered in Bethesda and stretching northward to Gaithersburg and Burtonsville. The incumbent is Jamie Raskin.

[Tekken_Guy]

So, if I'm not mistaken, the following house members are not running for re-election:

Republicans:
AZ-01: David Schweikert (running for Senate)
AZ-05: Andy Biggs (running for Senate)
AZ-09: Paul Gosar (running for Senate)
CA-20: Kevin McCarthy (running for Senate) - Is Mike Garcia switching to this seat? If not I'd like to see Vince Fong run.
CA-41: Ken Calvert (retiring) - Melissa Melendez is running, I believe.
MI-10: John James (running for Senate)
MO-02: Ann Wagner (running for Senate)
MT-02: Matt Rosendale (running for Senate)
OH-04: Jim Jordan (running for Senate)
TX-02: Dan Crenshaw (running for Senate)
TX-05: Lance Gooden (running for Senate)
TX-21: Chip Roy (running for Senate)
TX-25: Roger Williams (running for Senate)
WA-05: Cathy McMorris Rodgers (running for Senate)
WI-05: Scott Fitzgerald (running for Senate)
WI-08: Mike Gallagher (running for Senate)
WV-02: Alex Mooney (running for Senate) - Does McKinley go for it again?

Democrats:
CA-14: Eric Swalwell (running for Senate)
CA-25: Raul Ruiz (running for Senate)
CA-30: Adam Schiff (running for Senate)
CA-47: Katie Porter (running for Senate) - Rouda's running here, right?
HI-01: Ed Case (running for Senate)
HI-02: Kai Kahele (running for Senate)
MD-03: John Sarbanes (running for Senate)
ME-01: Chellie Pingree (running for Senate) - I assume her daughter’s running here, right?
MN-03: Dean Phillips (running for Senate)
NJ-11: Mikie Sherrill (running for Senate)
WA-01: Suzan DelBene (running for Senate)

If there's anyone else I missed please let me know. I'd really like a look at the races to replace them in the house

Also, re: Michele Tafoya. I don't see her running in 2024 if Qualls' campaign doesn't at the very least make it through the primary, and even then he should have at least a close race with Walz if he doesn't win. Will you be retconning that for the TL?

A few more things I'd like to see in the timeline:
-Guy Reschenthaler to run for PA-Sen
-A Clark County-based Republican candidate for NV-Sen (Laxalt is from Washoe)

Continuing with Tekken, there are also redistricting changes (most if not all of them announced already in this TL) in Alabama, Illinois, Maryland, New York, North Carolina and Texas (Ohio will not be until 2026). Illinois, New York and Maryland were singled out for their districts not being compact and stretched out into heavily Republican rural and suburban areas under the guise of "increased minority representation", while Texas's map was struck down due to diluted Hispanic voting strength in the Corpus Christi and Dallas-Fort Worth areas where new districts were recommended (a fourth "fajita strip" district plus a second Latino-focused minority opportunity district (MOD) in Dallas alongside the traditionally Black 30th District). Alabama's map, which originally avoided a redraw as the Supreme Court's reasoning was not to disrupt the 2022 filing cycle that was ongoing, finally gets a redraw with the adding of a second Black opportunity district, while North Carolina's redraw is the result of the Republican takeover of the North Carolina Supreme Court (which implemented the previous 2022 map under a slight Democratic majority) that tweaks the maps to improve Republican chances in some of the seats, improve representation for some areas (e.g. moving competitive Alamance County from the heavily Democratic Durham-based 4th to the competitive Greensboro-based 6th) and finally consolidate the 12th entirely into Mecklenburg County.

Alabama's new map (click here)

• 1st: Conservative parts of Mobile and its suburbs including Baldwin County, plus the Wiregrass region including Dothan. Majority White R+54 (based on Nate Silver's scoring) district. Republicans Jerry Carl and Barry Moore are the incumbents.
• 2nd: New minority opportunity district (MOD) with Montgomery and Tuskegee to the east and (most of) Mobile to the west. District leans Democratic (D+3) with a 49-44 Black-White coalition, as Trump only lost here by single digits. A Democrat would be favored here, but it's competitive enough to where a Republican is capable of winning not unlike GA-02 and NC-01.
• 3rd: Remains anchored in Anniston, Auburn, Talladega and the northern suburbs of Montgomery. Trump won two-thirds of the vote here in this R+43 district. Mike Rogers is retiring from the seat, but it's unlikely that Moore will move here given he's from the Wiregrass.
• 4th: Northwest corner of the state including Florence, Decatur, Cullman and Northport (north of Tuscaloosa). Conservative R+61 seat held by the venerable Republican Robert Aderholt.
• 5th: Northeast corner of the state including Huntsville, Gadsden and Fort Payne. R+37 district held by Republican freshman Dale Strong.
• 6th: Based in and around the suburbs and exurbs of Birmingham. R+54 seat that was the most Republican in the nation during the George W. Bush years, now second most conservative in the Trump era. Conservative Republican Gary Palmer is the incumbent.
• 7th: The legacy Black district in the state. Covers Birmingham, Tuscaloosa and Selma. D+31 majority Black MOD represented by Terri Sewell.

Illinois' new map (click here)

• 1st: Combines the core of the old 1st and 7th districts, westward from the DuPage County line through Chicago's West Side and the Loop south to Hyde Park. D+80 Black MOD with a sizable Latino populace. Freshmen incumbents Kina Collins (old 7th, backed by the Squad) and Jonathan Jackson (old 1st, middle son of Jesse Jackson) will face each other in the Dem primary.
• 2nd: Much of the rest of Chicago's South Side (Bridgeport, Englewood, what is called the "East Side") with south Cook County (Calumet City, Homewood, Matteson) and a sliver of Will County centered on Crete. Over 70 percent Black, heavily Democratic (D+75) district held by Robin Kelly.
• 3rd: The new Hispanic district in Chicago is now more discreetly targeted to its targeted demographic, stretching from such Northwest Side neighborhoods as Belmont Cragin through O'Hare International Airport, out to Elmwood Park, Elk Grove Village, Streamwood and Elgin. D+41 Hispanic MOD held by freshman Democrat Delia Ramirez.
• 4th: Chicago's legacy Hispanic district, repped by Democrat Chuy Garcia, remains based on the Southwest Side (including Midway Airport) and such suburbs as Cicero and Lyons, plus a largely Black section including Washington Heights so as not to pack the South Side's Black vote entirely in the 2nd. 60 percent Hispanic D+65 MOD.
• 5th: Covers Chicago's immediate northwest suburbs along the Golden Corridor including Schaumburg, Niles, Arlington Heights and Rosemont, as well as mostly White areas of the Northwest Side (Dunning, Mayfair). Both Democrats Mike Quigley (old 5th) and Raja Krishnamoorthi (old 8th) have been drawn into the new D+19 5th.
• 6th: The new, open 6th is restored to its traditional location exclusively within suburban DuPage County (Wheaton, Naperville, Bloomingdale and Oak Brook among others). Even though the new district is D+14 and voted for Joe Biden by 18 percent in 2020, Mitt Romney was even with favorite son Barack Obama in 2012 here; with neither Obama nor Trump on the ballot, this district is viewed as a prime pickup opportunity for the GOP in 2024.
• 7th: The old 6th's incumbent, freshman Republican Keith Pekau, is the incumbent in the new 7th in Chicago's southwest suburbs (Orland Park and Western Springs in Cook County and Downers Grove and Darien in southeast DuPage County). Like the new 6th, this D+10 seat was narrowly split between Obama and Romney in 2012.
• 8th: Everything old is new again as the late Phil Crane's old northwest exurban Chicago seat is restored, stretching from McHenry County to Palatine, Wauconda, Elburn and St. Charles. This is perhaps the most appropriate district for freshman Republican Catalina Lauf, a Trump-friendly millennial conservative whose new R+3 district barely went for Trump in 2016 but went for Biden in 2020.
• 9th: This remains Chicago's liberal lakeshore district, stretching from the Magnificent Mile, Navy Pier and Wrigley Field out to Evanston and Skokie. This D+66 seat is open as longtime incumbent Jan Schakowsky is retiring.
• 10th: The most Democratic suburban Chicago district outside of the 2nd, this district connects most of Lake County (Waukegan, Grayslake) to a northeast portion of Cook County including Wilmette and Northbrook. Brad Schneider is the incumbent in this D+28 district.
• 11th: Evenly-divided swing seat covering the lion's share of Will as well as Kankakee County. While some speculate that this open seat was designed as a "comeback opportunity" for Never Trumper Adam Kinzinger, Kinzinger has ruled out any interest in running for office. Former Democratic U.S. Rep. Lauren Underwood, who lost reelection in the old 14th in 2022, is seeking a comeback bid.
• 12th: One of two Southern Illinois districts, this R+17 seat covers the Metro East suburbs of St. Louis plus the college town of Carbondale. Republican Mike Bost is the incumbent.
• 13th: Having won in a linear, gerrymandered seat in 2022, Democratic incumbent Nikki Budzinski now has to run in a more compact, GOP-friendly R+16 district that is being heavily targeted by Republicans.
• 14th: GOP-tilted swing district connecting Aurora and Chicago's southwest exurbs in Kendall and Grundy counties out to Ottawa, Pontiac and Bloomington. Freshman Republican Scott Gryder is the incumbent in this district that voted for Romney in 2012 but voted against Trump twice.
• 15th:The other Southern Illinois district, covering such communities as Centralia, Mattoon, Danville, Harrisburg and Carlinville. Republican Mary Miller is the incumbent in this R+50 district.
• 16th: Stretching across portions of northern and central Illinois from Rockford, Freeport and DeKalb out to Dixon and suburbs of Peoria, this R+13 district favors the GOP. Darin LaHood is the incumbent.
• 17th: After winning a much more competitive version of this district in 2022, first-term Republican Esther Joy King is a safer incumbent in this R+17 district connecting Peoria, Quincy and Moline.

Maryland's new map (click here)

• 1st: R+13 district in the Eastern Shore counties (including Salisbury), Annapolis and such suburbs as Severna Park and Parole. Republican Andy Harris is the incumbent.
• 2nd: Already made more competitive in the last Democratic gerrymander from 2022, with longtime Democrat Dutch Ruppersberger having already announced his retirement, this seat has been turned into a GOP-leaning swing seat that is R+6 on paper, covering Harford and eastern Baltimore counties (Towson, Dundalk, Perry Hall, Hunt Valley) as well as a small section of Baltimore itself centered on the Greektown neighborhood. Prominent Black Republican activist Kim Klacik, whose 2020 bid in the neighboring 7th District was spotlighted at the 2020 Republican National Convention but has drawn more attention lately for her dispute with fellow Black conservative Candace Owens, is running in the new 2nd.
• 3rd: With John Sarbanes running for the U.S. Senate, Republicans sense an opportunity in this D+12 west suburban Baltimore district dominated by Carroll and Howard counties, and stretching southward to Glen Burnie and Olney (in the Washington, D.C. area). Still, while the district may have been evenly divided between Obama and Romney in 2012, Democrats are still favored to hold this seat.
• 4th: D+82 Black MOD located entirely within Prince George's County (including Landover, College Park, Laurel and Hillcrest Heights). Freshman Democrat Glenn Ivey is the incumbent.
• 5th: With longtime House leader Steny Hoyer retiring, this D+26 district is now a Black minority impact district (MID) covering Southern Maryland as well as communities in outer Prince George's and Anne Arundel counties including Bowie, Crofton and National Harbor.
• 6th: This district has been made more competitive in redistricting, now stretching from western Maryland to Frederick County, as well as more conservative parts of Montgomery County including Potomac and Germantown. Democrat and Total Wine co-founder David Trone is the incumbent in this D+3 district.
• 7th: Kweisi Mfume is the incumbent in this 62 percent Black, D+75 MOD which covers most of Baltimore and western Baltimore County including Owings Mills and Woodlawn.
• 8th: Diverse D+63 district in Montgomery County, centered in Bethesda and stretching northward to Gaithersburg and Burtonsville. The incumbent is Jamie Raskin.

A few questions

-Is Jessica Taylor running again in that AL-03? She's from Autauga County, I believe.
-Does Katie Britt have any plans at running for congress again?
-Are Sean Casten or Rodney Davis planning comebacks?
-Will there be other GOP candidates in MD-02 or does Klacik clear the field?

[SaintStan86]

So, if I'm not mistaken, the following house members are not running for re-election:

Republicans:
AZ-01: David Schweikert (running for Senate)
AZ-05: Andy Biggs (running for Senate)
AZ-09: Paul Gosar (running for Senate)
CA-20: Kevin McCarthy (running for Senate) - Is Mike Garcia switching to this seat? If not I'd like to see Vince Fong run.
CA-41: Ken Calvert (retiring) - Melissa Melendez is running, I believe.
MI-10: John James (running for Senate)
MO-02: Ann Wagner (running for Senate)
MT-02: Matt Rosendale (running for Senate)
OH-04: Jim Jordan (running for Senate)
TX-02: Dan Crenshaw (running for Senate)
TX-05: Lance Gooden (running for Senate)
TX-21: Chip Roy (running for Senate)
TX-25: Roger Williams (running for Senate)
WA-05: Cathy McMorris Rodgers (running for Senate)
WI-05: Scott Fitzgerald (running for Senate)
WI-08: Mike Gallagher (running for Senate)
WV-02: Alex Mooney (running for Senate) - Does McKinley go for it again?

Democrats:
CA-14: Eric Swalwell (running for Senate)
CA-25: Raul Ruiz (running for Senate)
CA-30: Adam Schiff (running for Senate)
CA-47: Katie Porter (running for Senate) - Rouda's running here, right?
HI-01: Ed Case (running for Senate)
HI-02: Kai Kahele (running for Senate)
MD-03: John Sarbanes (running for Senate)
ME-01: Chellie Pingree (running for Senate) - I assume her daughter’s running here, right?
MN-03: Dean Phillips (running for Senate)
NJ-11: Mikie Sherrill (running for Senate)
WA-01: Suzan DelBene (running for Senate)

If there's anyone else I missed please let me know. I'd really like a look at the races to replace them in the house

Also, re: Michele Tafoya. I don't see her running in 2024 if Qualls' campaign doesn't at the very least make it through the primary, and even then he should have at least a close race with Walz if he doesn't win. Will you be retconning that for the TL?

A few more things I'd like to see in the timeline:
-Guy Reschenthaler to run for PA-Sen
-A Clark County-based Republican candidate for NV-Sen (Laxalt is from Washoe)

NOTE: Some of the names below have been changed from earlier posts to reflect new campaign developments as local as the congressional level. Once again, I am going by Nate Silver's partisan leans (e.g. D+6 translates into D+3 if Cook PVI were to be used instead).

New York's new map (click here)

• 1st: Eastern and central Suffolk County (Brookhaven to the Hamptons). R+12 district that had been won narrowly by freshman Republican Anthony Figliola in 2022 in a gerrymandered D+6 district, where he benefited from the presence of incumbent Lee Zeldin on the ballot for Governor. Democrats are still targeting this seat, but this time they will be a clear underdog.
• 2nd: R+7 minority impact district (MID) that is 25 percent Hispanic and 10 percent Black, including southwest Suffolk (Islip, Lindenhurst) and southeast Nassau (Merrick, Massapequa). Andrew Garbarino is the incumbent.
• NY-03: R+1 Trump-Biden district on Long Island's North Shore from Huntington and Smithtown in northwest Suffolk to Oyster Bay, Garden City and Great Neck in northern Nassau. This is an open seat because the Democratic incumbent, Alessandra Biaggi, has been moved out of the district. George Santos, who has lost two consecutive races as the GOP nominee here, is looking to make the third time the charm. Bill Staniford, who narrowly lost in NY-04 in 2022, has moved from Lawrence to Garden City to challenge Santos in the GOP primary.
• NY-04: Now a majority-minority D+23 district with Hispanic and Black voters over one-quarter of the population each. Includes southwest Nassau (Hempstead, Rockville Centre, the Five Towns) and a southeast portion of Queens including the Rockaways and JFK Airport. Freshman Kevan Abrahams, who won both a competitive Democratic primary and a competitive general election in 2022, is heavily favored for a second term in this new district.
• NY-05: D+69 Black-Asian coalition minority opportunity district (MOD) covering a south central portion of Queens (Jamaica, Hollis, St. Albans, Richmond Hill), plus a western part of Nassau in the vicinity of Belmont Park. Gregory Meeks is the incumbent.
• NY-06: D+22 Asian MOD in northeast Queens (Flushing, Bayside, Elmhurst, Glendale). Grace Meng is the incumbent.
• NY-07: Anglo-Latino coalition MID predominantly in Brooklyn - Park Slope, Red Hook, Borough Park, Bushwick, with a small sliver in Queens centered on Ridgewood. With the exception of a few Orthodox Jewish pockets, this is a thoroughly Democratic D+63 district. Longtime incumbent Nydia Velázquez is retiring, paving the way for Colombian-Jewish State Senator Julia Salazar, a self-described Democratic Socialist (think Bernie Sanders), to run in this district.
• NY-08: One of two diverse Black MODs in Brooklyn, this one covering Bedford-Stuyvesant, Canarsie and Sheepshead Bay with a D+56 lean (though more Republican and purple in the Orthodox Jewish-heavy portion west of Flatbush Avenue). The incumbent is House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries.
• NY-09: Asides from purple and conservative-tinged Midwood and New Utrecht (home to sizable Asian and Orthodox Jewish constituencies), Brooklyn's other diverse Black MOD in the heart of borough (also including Crown Heights and Flatbush) is a heavily Democratic D+63 district. Yvette Clarke is the incumbent.
• NY-10: There are two big changes to this Staten Island and southwest Queens district: it has swapped numbers with the old NY-10 (was NY-11), and it has been modified from a D+7 district in the midterms to an R+12 one in 2024 (with the Queens portion now stretching from Fort Hamilton to Coney Island). Second-term Republican Nicole Malliotakis, who survived a brutal reelection against former U.S. Rep. (and predecessor) Max Rose in 2022, is favored in this new iteration.
• NY-11: This west side Manhattan district, stretching from Columbia University and the Upper West Side to Madison Square Garden and Wall Street (as well as the west side of Times Square and the actual crystal Times Square ball), also encompasses the Brooklyn Bridge and includes the Navy Yard and Williamsburg on the Brooklyn side and is D+76 on paper. Venerable incumbent Jerry Nadler is retiring with a crowded Democratic field emerging, highlighted by attorney and former Obama-era State Dept. official Jack Schlossberg, the only grandson of John F. Kennedy.
• NY-12: The famed East Side Manhattan "silk stocking district", containing the Upper East Side, Central Park, the east side of Times Square and the Lower East Side, with the other portion encompassing a western portion of Queens including Long Island City and Maspeth - both separated by Roosevelt Island. Longtime incumbent Carolyn Maloney, who survived fierce primary challenges in her last three Democratic primaries, is retiring; while Republicans are promising to run a well-funded challenger in this very wealthy district (which a Rockefeller Republican represented during the Ronald Reagan and George H.W. Bush years but not since then), the winner of the crowded Democratic field in this D+65 district is heavily favored next November.
• NY-13: Historically Black district in northern Manhattan, covering Harlem, Washington Heights and Inwood, and extending northward to Woodlawn and Riverdale in the Bronx as well as southward to Astoria in Queens. Now a D+76 Afro-Latino coalition MOD with a large Dominican presence. Adriano Espaillat is the incumbent.
• NY-14: Split between the Bronx and Queens, with the former containing Parkchester, Eastchester and City Island and the latter containing Jackson Heights, Steinway, LaGuardia Airport, Citi Field and the Rikers Island jail. The incumbent in this D+58 Latino MOD with a one-quarter Black population? Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez.
• NY-15: Yankee Stadium is the centerpiece of this south Bronx district, surrounded by such neighborhoods as Morris Heights, Mott Haven, Morrisania and Castle Hill. Ritchie Torres is the incumbent of this majority Latino, 40 percent Black and D+79 MOD.
• NY-16: Dominated by Westchester County including White Plains, Yonkers, New Rochelle and Croton-on-Hudson, with a small section of the Bronx centered on the Wakefield and Eastchester neighborhoods. Incumbent Jamaal Bowman has decided to run for the U.S. Senate, challenging Democratic incumbent Kirsten Gillibrand from the left, but the district will have an incumbent as freshman Democrat Alessandra Biaggi (who was drawn out of the old, gerrymandered 3rd) will be running for a second term in this D+43 MOD where Latino and Black voters are the majority.
• NY-17: One of two outer suburban lower Hudson Valley districts, this is the one west of the Hudson (and by that extension, west of the Mario Cuomo Bridge Tappan Zee) including all or most of Rockland, Orange and Sullivan counties. Two incumbents, sophomore Democrat Mondaire Jones and freshman Republican Colin Schmitt, have been drawn into this Republican-tilting R+4 district that narrowly voted twice for Trump and where Orthodox Jewish voters in the community of Kiryas Joel can make or break a candidate's chances.
• NY-18: The other LoHud district - this one mostly east of the Hudson - covers more conservative areas of Westchester (all points north from Harrison, Rye, Valhalla, Chappaqua and Peekskill), as well as exurban Putnam County, southern and central Dutchess County (including Poughkeepsie), southern Ulster County (Wawarsing, Plattekill) and the northeast corner of Newburgh in Orange County. The district is D+5 on paper (D+17 in Westchester, R+3 in the remainder), but is represented by freshman Republican Marc Molinaro.
• NY-19: Covers the remainder of the Hudson Valley, plus most of the eastern and northern suburbs of the Capital District and the Plattsburgh, Glens Falls and Lake Placid areas. R+2 Obama/Trump/Biden district that is D+1 when based on 2012 and 2016. The incumbent is Elise Stefanik.
• NY-20: Albany, Schenectady, Troy and western parts of the Capital District. D+9 district where Paul Tonko is retiring, and where former U.S. Rep. Antonio Delgado (who actually grew up in Schenectady) has decided to embark on a comeback bid.
• NY-21: Much of the North Country including Watertown and Massena, as well as the Utica and Oneonta areas. At R+23, it is the most conservative district in all of New York. Claudia Tenney is the incumbent.
• NY-22: Centered on Syracuse and its surrounding suburbs, as well as the surrounding communities of Cortland, Canastota and Seneca Falls, along with eastern suburbs of Rochester. D+2 district represented by freshman Democrat Josh Riley.
• NY-23: This previously eliminated district, primarily centered in the Twin Tiers including Binghamton and Elmira, also encompasses the college town of Ithaca, extending westward to the southern suburbs of Rochester and eastward to Delaware County. R+9 district with a large manufacturing presence.
• NY-24:Northern and eastern suburbs of Buffalo (Amherst, North Tonawanda, Batavia, Warsaw) and Niagara Falls, plus a northern portion of Buffalo itself. Chris Jacobs is the incumbent in this Trump-Biden R+8 district.
• NY-25: D+15 district covering all of Rochester and Monroe County, as well as northern Livingston County. Joe Morelle is the incumbent.
• NY-26: Another Trump-Biden district that is R+4, covering most of Buffalo, its Southtowns suburbs (Orchard Park, Cheektowaga) and the Niagara Frontier from Jamestown to Wellsville. Longtime Democrat Brian Higgins is the incumbent.

North Carolina's new map (click here)

• NC-01: Unchanged D+6 Black MID from 2022 (Greenville and Rocky Mount areas). Erica Smith is the incumbent.
• NC-02: One-quarter Black MID that covers nearly all of Raleigh and is now D+26 on paper. Deborah Ross is the incumbent.
• NC-03: Unchanged R+29 district from 2022 in eastern North Carolina (New Bern, Kitty Hawk, Camp Lejeune). Greg Murphy is the incumbent.
• NC-04: Remains centered in Durham and Chapel Hill, but swaps out competitive Alamance County (which is in a separate TV market) for the relatively blue Raleigh suburb of Cary. Clay Aiken is the incumbent in this D+41 majority-minority Black MID.
• NC-05: R+20 district now covering all of Winston-Salem and most of its suburbs, stretching westward through Wilkesboro to Boone. Virginia Foxx is the retiring incumbent.
• NC-06: D+3 Black MID centered in Greensboro and its surrounding suburbs. Kathy Manning is the incumbent in what is now a blue-tinted battleground.
• NC-07: Unchanged R+16 Wilmington-based district that stretches out to parts of Fayetteville. The incumbent is David Rouzer.
• NC-08: The addition of blue-collar Rockingham and the Democratic stronghold of High Point makes this Fayetteville-based R+11 Black MID somewhat of a target for the DCCC, as incumbent Republican Richard Hudson has decided to move westward to the newly restored 9th to accommodate former U.S. Rep. Mark Walker who made an unsuccessful run for the GOP Senate nod in 2022.
• NC-09: Cabarrus County (northeast Charlotte suburbs) is now fully in this R+36 district that also includes Salisbury, Lexington and over half of Union County including Monroe. Dan Bishop had moved here in 2022 and while the district remains east of Charlotte in 2024, this time with the district reverting back to the 9th, Bishop has been moved into another district (see below). Fellow incumbent Richard Hudson is now the new incumbent.
• NC-10: The most heavily and historically Republican district in the state will now cover all of the Unifour region (including Hickory and Lenoir) along with exurban Charlotte's Iredell and Lincoln counties and the Lake Norman suburbs (Huntersville, Cornelius) in northern Mecklenburg County. The incumbent of this R+39 district is Patrick McHenry.
• NC-11: Unchanged R+16 western North Carolina district anchored in Asheville. Madison Cawthorn remains the incumbent, but is facing several primary challengers after a continued series of controversies that lingered into the new Congress.
• NC-12: This district is now entirely back within Mecklenburg County, taking in most of Charlotte. With the exception of historically Republican south Charlotte which swung hard against Trump in 2016 and 2020, this Black-White coalition district is D+46 on paper. 77-year old Alma Adams is retiring, with 41-year-old freshman Democrat Jeff Jackson all but assured reelection here.
• NC-13: Previously a swing battleground that included southern parts of Raleigh, this R+14 district has expanded further into the southern suburbs of North Carolina's capital city, with Sanford and Pittsboro now joining the likes of Fuquay-Varina and Smithfield. Freshman Republican Bo Hines, a former college football player for NC State and Yale, is the incumbent.
• NC-14: Designed as a favorably Democratic district in south Charlotte and the city's western suburbs in Gaston County, the new 14th now stretches further west to Shelby and Forest City, and now includes a heavily suburbanized western part of Union County (Wesley Chapel, Weddington) in addition to the Ballantyne, Piper Glen and Providence areas of Charlotte and the south Mecklenburg suburbs of Pineville, Matthews and Mint Hill. The district is now R+19 on paper, with the house of Dan Bishop now situated in the modified 14th.

[Tekken_Guy]

So, if I'm not mistaken, the following house members are not running for re-election:

Republicans:
AZ-01: David Schweikert (running for Senate)
AZ-05: Andy Biggs (running for Senate)
AZ-09: Paul Gosar (running for Senate)
CA-20: Kevin McCarthy (running for Senate) - Is Mike Garcia switching to this seat? If not I'd like to see Vince Fong run.
CA-41: Ken Calvert (retiring) - Melissa Melendez is running, I believe.
MI-10: John James (running for Senate)
MO-02: Ann Wagner (running for Senate)
MT-02: Matt Rosendale (running for Senate)
OH-04: Jim Jordan (running for Senate)
TX-02: Dan Crenshaw (running for Senate)
TX-05: Lance Gooden (running for Senate)
TX-21: Chip Roy (running for Senate)
TX-25: Roger Williams (running for Senate)
WA-05: Cathy McMorris Rodgers (running for Senate)
WI-05: Scott Fitzgerald (running for Senate)
WI-08: Mike Gallagher (running for Senate)
WV-02: Alex Mooney (running for Senate) - Does McKinley go for it again?

Democrats:
CA-14: Eric Swalwell (running for Senate)
CA-25: Raul Ruiz (running for Senate)
CA-30: Adam Schiff (running for Senate)
CA-47: Katie Porter (running for Senate) - Rouda's running here, right?
HI-01: Ed Case (running for Senate)
HI-02: Kai Kahele (running for Senate)
MD-03: John Sarbanes (running for Senate)
ME-01: Chellie Pingree (running for Senate) - I assume her daughter’s running here, right?
MN-03: Dean Phillips (running for Senate)
NJ-11: Mikie Sherrill (running for Senate)
WA-01: Suzan DelBene (running for Senate)

If there's anyone else I missed please let me know. I'd really like a look at the races to replace them in the house

Also, re: Michele Tafoya. I don't see her running in 2024 if Qualls' campaign doesn't at the very least make it through the primary, and even then he should have at least a close race with Walz if he doesn't win. Will you be retconning that for the TL?

A few more things I'd like to see in the timeline:
-Guy Reschenthaler to run for PA-Sen
-A Clark County-based Republican candidate for NV-Sen (Laxalt is from Washoe)

NOTE: Some of the names below have been changed from earlier posts to reflect new campaign developments as local as the congressional level. Once again, I am going by Nate Silver's partisan leans (e.g. D+6 translates into D+3 if Cook PVI were to be used instead).

New York's new map (click here)

• 1st: Eastern and central Suffolk County (Brookhaven to the Hamptons). R+12 district that had been won narrowly by freshman Republican Anthony Figliola in 2022 in a gerrymandered D+6 district, where he benefited from the presence of incumbent Lee Zeldin on the ballot for Governor. Democrats are still targeting this seat, but this time they will be a clear underdog.
• 2nd: R+7 minority impact district (MID) that is 25 percent Hispanic and 10 percent Black, including southwest Suffolk (Islip, Lindenhurst) and southeast Nassau (Merrick, Massapequa). Andrew Garbarino is the incumbent.
• NY-03: R+1 Trump-Biden district on Long Island's North Shore from Huntington and Smithtown in northwest Suffolk to Oyster Bay, Garden City and Great Neck in northern Nassau. This is an open seat because the Democratic incumbent, Alessandra Biaggi, has been moved out of the district. George Santos, who has lost two consecutive races as the GOP nominee here, is looking to make the third time the charm. Bill Staniford, who narrowly lost in NY-04 in 2022, has moved from Lawrence to Garden City to challenge Santos in the GOP primary.
• NY-04: Now a majority-minority D+23 district with Hispanic and Black voters over one-quarter of the population each. Includes southwest Nassau (Hempstead, Rockville Centre, the Five Towns) and a southeast portion of Queens including the Rockaways and JFK Airport. Freshman Kevan Abrahams, who won both a competitive Democratic primary and a competitive general election in 2022, is heavily favored for a second term in this new district.
• NY-05: D+69 Black-Asian coalition minority opportunity district (MOD) covering a south central portion of Queens (Jamaica, Hollis, St. Albans, Richmond Hill), plus a western part of Nassau in the vicinity of Belmont Park. Gregory Meeks is the incumbent.
• NY-06: D+22 Asian MOD in northeast Queens (Flushing, Bayside, Elmhurst, Glendale). Grace Meng is the incumbent.
• NY-07: Anglo-Latino coalition MID predominantly in Brooklyn - Park Slope, Red Hook, Borough Park, Bushwick, with a small sliver in Queens centered on Ridgewood. With the exception of a few Orthodox Jewish pockets, this is a thoroughly Democratic D+63 district. Longtime incumbent Nydia Velázquez is retiring, paving the way for Colombian-Jewish State Senator Julia Salazar, a self-described Democratic Socialist (think Bernie Sanders), to run in this district.
• NY-08: One of two diverse Black MODs in Brooklyn, this one covering Bedford-Stuyvesant, Canarsie and Sheepshead Bay with a D+56 lean (though more Republican and purple in the Orthodox Jewish-heavy portion west of Flatbush Avenue). The incumbent is House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries.
• NY-09: Asides from purple and conservative-tinged Midwood and New Utrecht (home to sizable Asian and Orthodox Jewish constituencies), Brooklyn's other diverse Black MOD in the heart of borough (also including Crown Heights and Flatbush) is a heavily Democratic D+63 district. Yvette Clarke is the incumbent.
• NY-10: There are two big changes to this Staten Island and southwest Queens district: it has swapped numbers with the old NY-10 (was NY-11), and it has been modified from a D+7 district in the midterms to an R+12 one in 2024 (with the Queens portion now stretching from Fort Hamilton to Coney Island). Second-term Republican Nicole Malliotakis, who survived a brutal reelection against former U.S. Rep. (and predecessor) Max Rose in 2022, is favored in this new iteration.
• NY-11: This west side Manhattan district, stretching from Columbia University and the Upper West Side to Madison Square Garden and Wall Street (as well as the west side of Times Square and the actual crystal Times Square ball), also encompasses the Brooklyn Bridge and includes the Navy Yard and Williamsburg on the Brooklyn side and is D+76 on paper. Venerable incumbent Jerry Nadler is retiring with a crowded Democratic field emerging, highlighted by attorney and former Obama-era State Dept. official Jack Schlossberg, the only grandson of John F. Kennedy.
• NY-12: The famed East Side Manhattan "silk stocking district", containing the Upper East Side, Central Park, the east side of Times Square and the Lower East Side, with the other portion encompassing a western portion of Queens including Long Island City and Maspeth - both separated by Roosevelt Island. Longtime incumbent Carolyn Maloney, who survived fierce primary challenges in her last three Democratic primaries, is retiring; while Republicans are promising to run a well-funded challenger in this very wealthy district (which a Rockefeller Republican represented during the Ronald Reagan and George H.W. Bush years but not since then), the winner of the crowded Democratic field in this D+65 district is heavily favored next November.
• NY-13: Historically Black district in northern Manhattan, covering Harlem, Washington Heights and Inwood, and extending northward to Woodlawn and Riverdale in the Bronx as well as southward to Astoria in Queens. Now a D+76 Afro-Latino coalition MOD with a large Dominican presence. Adriano Espaillat is the incumbent.
• NY-14: Split between the Bronx and Queens, with the former containing Parkchester, Eastchester and City Island and the latter containing Jackson Heights, Steinway, LaGuardia Airport, Citi Field and the Rikers Island jail. The incumbent in this D+58 Latino MOD with a one-quarter Black population? Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez.
• NY-15: Yankee Stadium is the centerpiece of this south Bronx district, surrounded by such neighborhoods as Morris Heights, Mott Haven, Morrisania and Castle Hill. Ritchie Torres is the incumbent of this majority Latino, 40 percent Black and D+79 MOD.
• NY-16: Dominated by Westchester County including White Plains, Yonkers, New Rochelle and Croton-on-Hudson, with a small section of the Bronx centered on the Wakefield and Eastchester neighborhoods. Incumbent Jamaal Bowman has decided to run for the U.S. Senate, challenging Democratic incumbent Kirsten Gillibrand from the left, but the district will have an incumbent as freshman Democrat Alessandra Biaggi (who was drawn out of the old, gerrymandered 3rd) will be running for a second term in this D+43 MOD where Latino and Black voters are the majority.
• NY-17: One of two outer suburban lower Hudson Valley districts, this is the one west of the Hudson (and by that extension, west of the Mario Cuomo Bridge Tappan Zee) including all or most of Rockland, Orange and Sullivan counties. Two incumbents, sophomore Democrat Mondaire Jones and freshman Republican Colin Schmitt, have been drawn into this Republican-tilting R+4 district that narrowly voted twice for Trump and where Orthodox Jewish voters in the community of Kiryas Joel can make or break a candidate's chances.
• NY-18: The other LoHud district - this one mostly east of the Hudson - covers more conservative areas of Westchester (all points north from Harrison, Rye, Valhalla, Chappaqua and Peekskill), as well as exurban Putnam County, southern and central Dutchess County (including Poughkeepsie), southern Ulster County (Wawarsing, Plattekill) and the northeast corner of Newburgh in Orange County. The district is D+5 on paper (D+17 in Westchester, R+3 in the remainder), but is represented by freshman Republican Marc Molinaro.
• NY-19: Covers the remainder of the Hudson Valley, plus most of the eastern and northern suburbs of the Capital District and the Plattsburgh, Glens Falls and Lake Placid areas. R+2 Obama/Trump/Biden district that is D+1 when based on 2012 and 2016. The incumbent is Elise Stefanik.
• NY-20: Albany, Schenectady, Troy and western parts of the Capital District. D+9 district where Paul Tonko is retiring, and where former U.S. Rep. Antonio Delgado (who actually grew up in Schenectady) has decided to embark on a comeback bid.
• NY-21: Much of the North Country including Watertown and Massena, as well as the Utica and Oneonta areas. At R+23, it is the most conservative district in all of New York. Claudia Tenney is the incumbent.
• NY-22: Centered on Syracuse and its surrounding suburbs, as well as the surrounding communities of Cortland, Canastota and Seneca Falls, along with eastern suburbs of Rochester. D+2 district represented by freshman Democrat Josh Riley.
• NY-23: This previously eliminated district, primarily centered in the Twin Tiers including Binghamton and Elmira, also encompasses the college town of Ithaca, extending westward to the southern suburbs of Rochester and eastward to Delaware County. R+9 district with a large manufacturing presence.
• NY-24:Northern and eastern suburbs of Buffalo (Amherst, North Tonawanda, Batavia, Warsaw) and Niagara Falls, plus a northern portion of Buffalo itself. Chris Jacobs is the incumbent in this Trump-Biden R+8 district.
• NY-25: D+15 district covering all of Rochester and Monroe County, as well as northern Livingston County. Joe Morelle is the incumbent.
• NY-26: Another Trump-Biden district that is R+4, covering most of Buffalo, its Southtowns suburbs (Orchard Park, Cheektowaga) and the Niagara Frontier from Jamestown to Wellsville. Longtime Democrat Brian Higgins is the incumbent.

North Carolina's new map (click here)

• NC-01: Unchanged D+6 Black MID from 2022 (Greenville and Rocky Mount areas). Erica Smith is the incumbent.
• NC-02: One-quarter Black MID that covers nearly all of Raleigh and is now D+26 on paper. Deborah Ross is the incumbent.
• NC-03: Unchanged R+29 district from 2022 in eastern North Carolina (New Bern, Kitty Hawk, Camp Lejeune). Greg Murphy is the incumbent.
• NC-04: Remains centered in Durham and Chapel Hill, but swaps out competitive Alamance County (which is in a separate TV market) for the relatively blue Raleigh suburb of Cary. Clay Aiken is the incumbent in this D+41 majority-minority Black MID.
• NC-05: R+20 district now covering all of Winston-Salem and most of its suburbs, stretching westward through Wilkesboro to Boone. Virginia Foxx is the retiring incumbent.
• NC-06: D+3 Black MID centered in Greensboro and its surrounding suburbs. Kathy Manning is the incumbent in what is now a blue-tinted battleground.
• NC-07: Unchanged R+16 Wilmington-based district that stretches out to parts of Fayetteville. The incumbent is David Rouzer.
• NC-08: The addition of blue-collar Rockingham and the Democratic stronghold of High Point makes this Fayetteville-based R+11 Black MID somewhat of a target for the DCCC, as incumbent Republican Richard Hudson has decided to move westward to the newly restored 9th to accommodate former U.S. Rep. Mark Walker who made an unsuccessful run for the GOP Senate nod in 2022.
• NC-09: Cabarrus County (northeast Charlotte suburbs) is now fully in this R+36 district that also includes Salisbury, Lexington and over half of Union County including Monroe. Dan Bishop had moved here in 2022 and while the district remains east of Charlotte in 2024, this time with the district reverting back to the 9th, Bishop has been moved into another district (see below). Fellow incumbent Richard Hudson is now the new incumbent.
• NC-10: The most heavily and historically Republican district in the state will now cover all of the Unifour region (including Hickory and Lenoir) along with exurban Charlotte's Iredell and Lincoln counties and the Lake Norman suburbs (Huntersville, Cornelius) in northern Mecklenburg County. The incumbent of this R+39 district is Patrick McHenry.
• NC-11: Unchanged R+16 western North Carolina district anchored in Asheville. Madison Cawthorn remains the incumbent, but is facing several primary challengers after a continued series of controversies that lingered into the new Congress.
• NC-12: This district is now entirely back within Mecklenburg County, taking in most of Charlotte. With the exception of historically Republican south Charlotte which swung hard against Trump in 2016 and 2020, this Black-White coalition district is D+46 on paper. 77-year old Alma Adams is retiring, with 41-year-old freshman Democrat Jeff Jackson all but assured reelection here.
• NC-13: Previously a swing battleground that included southern parts of Raleigh, this R+14 district has expanded further into the southern suburbs of North Carolina's capital city, with Sanford and Pittsboro now joining the likes of Fuquay-Varina and Smithfield. Freshman Republican Bo Hines, a former college football player for NC State and Yale, is the incumbent.
• NC-14: Designed as a favorably Democratic district in south Charlotte and the city's western suburbs in Gaston County, the new 14th now stretches further west to Shelby and Forest City, and now includes a heavily suburbanized western part of Union County (Wesley Chapel, Weddington) in addition to the Ballantyne, Piper Glen and Providence areas of Charlotte and the south Mecklenburg suburbs of Pineville, Matthews and Mint Hill. The district is now R+19 on paper, with the house of Dan Bishop now situated in the modified 14th.

I’ll be surprised if Alessandra Biaggi is winning the primary in NY-03. She is from Westchester County and has a very narrow path to winning a nomination in a Long Island-based seat. I assume the Long Island vote was split and she snuck through.

Also, was Bowman already running for senate before he got paired with Biaggi in redistricting, or was he planning on running for re-election.

Also, how did Claudia Tenney do in the primary in 2022? She’s not very popular even with Republicans. Did Trump’s endorsement help her? And how will she be doing in 2024.

Finally is Anthony Brindisi going to be making a comeback in this timeline?[/list]

[SaintStan86]

So, if I'm not mistaken, the following house members are not running for re-election:

Republicans:
AZ-01: David Schweikert (running for Senate)
AZ-05: Andy Biggs (running for Senate)
AZ-09: Paul Gosar (running for Senate)
CA-20: Kevin McCarthy (running for Senate) - Is Mike Garcia switching to this seat? If not I'd like to see Vince Fong run.
CA-41: Ken Calvert (retiring) - Melissa Melendez is running, I believe.
MI-10: John James (running for Senate)
MO-02: Ann Wagner (running for Senate)
MT-02: Matt Rosendale (running for Senate)
OH-04: Jim Jordan (running for Senate)
TX-02: Dan Crenshaw (running for Senate)
TX-05: Lance Gooden (running for Senate)
TX-21: Chip Roy (running for Senate)
TX-25: Roger Williams (running for Senate)
WA-05: Cathy McMorris Rodgers (running for Senate)
WI-05: Scott Fitzgerald (running for Senate)
WI-08: Mike Gallagher (running for Senate)
WV-02: Alex Mooney (running for Senate) - Does McKinley go for it again?

Democrats:
CA-14: Eric Swalwell (running for Senate)
CA-25: Raul Ruiz (running for Senate)
CA-30: Adam Schiff (running for Senate)
CA-47: Katie Porter (running for Senate) - Rouda's running here, right?
HI-01: Ed Case (running for Senate)
HI-02: Kai Kahele (running for Senate)
MD-03: John Sarbanes (running for Senate)
ME-01: Chellie Pingree (running for Senate) - I assume her daughter’s running here, right?
MN-03: Dean Phillips (running for Senate)
NJ-11: Mikie Sherrill (running for Senate)
WA-01: Suzan DelBene (running for Senate)

If there's anyone else I missed please let me know. I'd really like a look at the races to replace them in the house

Also, re: Michele Tafoya. I don't see her running in 2024 if Qualls' campaign doesn't at the very least make it through the primary, and even then he should have at least a close race with Walz if he doesn't win. Will you be retconning that for the TL?

A few more things I'd like to see in the timeline:
-Guy Reschenthaler to run for PA-Sen
-A Clark County-based Republican candidate for NV-Sen (Laxalt is from Washoe)

Lastly, in this detour from the TL to address the redistricting that has happened, I am going to go a little overboard on Texas since I am from here and know enough on the ground to give a rather detailed assessment...

Texas's new map (click here)

• TX-01: R+52 East Texas district including Tyler, Longview and Texarkana. Freshman Nathaniel Moran is the incumbent.
• TX-02: R+43 district also based in east Texas, stretching from the Piney Woods (Lufkin, Jacksonville, Livingston, Nacogdoches) to the Beaumont-Port Arthur area. Brian Babin is the incumbent.
• TX-03: This traditionally Republican district is once again entirely within Collin County, dominated by Plano, McKinney and Wylie along with several rural areas to the east. After lucking out when the previous incumbent's congressional career went down in an ISIS Bride-induced blaze, freshman Republican Keith Self will be the incumbent of this majority Anglo R+14 district where Asian, Latino and Black voters each make up at least 10 percent of the population.
• TX-04: R+46 district that includes the Dallas suburbs of Frisco and Rockwall, as well as the surrounding communities of Sherman, Greenville, Sulphur Springs and Paris. Pat Fallon is the incumbent.
• TX-05: This R+22 district in the eastern suburbs of the Dallas-Fort Worth Metroplex is D+12 in the Dallas County portion (which includes parts of northeast Dallas on opposite ends of White Rock Lake as well as the suburbs of Garland and Mesquite), but is otherwise heavily Republican in the exurban and rural areas of four counties stretching from Terrell to Palestine. Incumbent Republican Lance Gooden is running for the U.S. Senate, with several Republicans vying to replace him including former U.S. Rep. John Ratcliffe, who briefly served as Director of National Intelligence in the final months of the Trump administration.
• TX-06: Democrats are only competitive in the R+2 Tarrant County portion of the district that includes most of Arlington and Mansfield, as the remainder of the R+19 district in the southern suburbs of the DFW Metroplex is fail-safe Republican. Jake Ellzey is the incumbent.
• TX-07: After being turned into a favorably Democratic seat for the 2022 cycle, gerrymandering concerns resulted in this district being turned into a swing district that is R+4 on paper. The new district is an Anglo-Latino coalition district whose Republican lean is due to Republican-friendly voters in west Houston and the Memorial Villages, with the district stretching from the Galleria and Sharpstown areas out to the Energy Corridor and parts of the Cypress-Fairbanks (Cy-Fair) area along Texas 6/FM 1960. Three-term Democrat Lizzie Fletcher, who had a surprisingly competitive race in 2022, is now one of the GOP's top targets in 2024.
• TX-08: This R+49 district has been pushed even further north of Houston, now stretching from such exurbs as Conroe and Liberty to the College Station and Huntsville areas, going as far north as Crockett and Mexia. Freshman Morgan Luttrell is the incumbent.
• TX-09: Previously making up the core of the old 14th District, the heart of this district has been consolidated into the southeast suburbs of Houston and various communities surrounding Galveston Bay including Galveston, League City, Pasadena, Baytown and Anahuac. Most of this area's current representative, Randy Weber, is retiring, and this open R+30 district is expected to draw a wide field of Republican candidates.
• TX-10: This district remains a suburban/rural district stretching from the western suburbs of Austin (Round Rock, Cedar Park and areas along Lake Travis) to the western fringes of the Houston area roughly along the corridor of US Highway 290. Asides from the more competitive Travis and Williamson County portions, the R+15 district has a distinct Republican lean.
• TX-11: Connects across a large rural swath of west and central Texas, including the Midland, San Angelo and Brownwood areas. August Pfluger represents this R+62 minority impact district that is nearly 40 percent Hispanic.
• TX-12: With her district having been redrawn into a majority-minority district, two-term Republican Beth Van Duyne has been drawn into this suburban DFW district stretching from her political base in the suburbs surrounding DFW Airport (including Irving and Grapevine) to the north and west Fort Worth political base of venerable incumbent Kay Granger. Granger, who is in her final term as the lead Republican on the House Appropriations Committee (currently serving as Chairwoman) and will turn 81 in January, has already announced that she will not seek reelection.
• TX-13: With the exception of the liberal college town of Denton (home to the University of North Texas), this R+56 district is dominated by Republican strongholds in and around Amarillo and Wichita Falls. Ronny Jackson is the incumbent.
• TX-14: This R+23 district anchored in Houston's southern suburbs (now including Sugar Land and Pearland) and stretching out to several rural counties in the southwestern fringes of the Houston area is also a very diverse one, with a plural Anglo majority and a one-quarter Hispanic population, plus Black and Asian voters in the double digits. The district's longtime Republican, Randy Weber, is retiring after six terms.
• TX-15: This historically Democratic South Texas "fajita strip" district, stretching from Weslaco and Mission to Gonzales and Seguin, saw a dramatic shift to the GOP that exceeds its D+6 lean on paper, as freshman Republican Monica De La Cruz is now a slight favorite for a second term in this district that went from voting for Hillary Clinton by 20 points in 2016 to narrowly backing Donald Trump by a mere 2 points in 2020.
• TX-16: This D+37 district remains rooted in El Paso with little if any change. Veronica Escobar is the incumbent.
• TX-17: Many argue that this R+48 district, stretching from Waco to the western suburbs of Fort Worth, was drawn primarily to goad Roger Williams into running for the U.S. Senate, even though Williams had considerations to run for the Senate before incumbent Sen. Ted Cruz decided to solely run for President earlier in the year. There will be an incumbent in this district, as Williams' fellow Republican Pete Sessions will now get a larger part of the Dallas-Fort Worth metroplex that he previously represented in a Dallas-area district for many years.
• TX-18: Historically Houston's Black-majority congressional seat, this district is now an Afro-Latino coalition district that encompasses Houston's Third Ward and Fifth Ward, the Acres Home and North Forest areas and George Bush Intercontinental Airport. Longtime incumbent Sheila Jackson Lee is retiring from this D+53 district, with former Houston City Councilmember and one-time U.S. Senate candidate Amanda Edwards, herself a former aide of Jackson Lee's, believed to have the inside track to succeed her despite the district's growing Hispanic population.
• TX-19: Still a West Texas district encompassing the Lubbock and Abilene areas. Jodey Arrington is the incumbent in this R+55 MID, which is one-third Hispanic.
• TX-20: Joaquin Castro is the incumbent in this heavily Hispanic D+32 district that includes most of central and northwest San Antonio.
• TX-21: This one-quarter Hispanic R+35 district is anchored in north San Antonio, southwest Austin and their surrounding suburbs, stretching all the way to the Texas Hill Country including Kerrville and Fredericksburg. Chip Roy is the incumbent of this one-quarter Hispanic MID.
• TX-22: Historically a Fort Bend County-based district that once elected former House Majority Leader Tom DeLay, this district has been pushed further northward into the western exurbs of Houston including the Katy, Cypress, Rosenberg and Fulshear areas. The district, which is now an R+12 Anglo-Latino coalition district where Black and Asian make up at least 15 percent of the population, is represented by Troy Nehls.
• TX-23: This border district still connects the fringes of the El Paso area to north and west San Antonio, and also narrowly voted against Trump twice in 2016 and 2020. Tony Gonzales is the incumbent in this R+1 Hispanic minority opportunity district (MOD). Democrats will be targeting this district in 2024, not unlike it has in the past.
• TX-24: As part of the court ruling for Texas's congressional map, the old 24th was dismantled and turned into a third majority-minority district for the Metroplex, becoming a D+32 Hispanic MOD centered in downtown Dallas and stretching to Hispanic enclaves to the west and east of the city. 2020 candidate Candace Valenzuela, who narrowly lost to Republican Beth Van Duyne in 2020, is running again.
• TX-25: What was the 9th has been restored to its original number (the 25th), still remaining an Afro-Latino district in southern and southwestern parts of Houston (including the Texas Medical Center and the Museum District) and immediate suburban areas including parts of Missouri City and Mission Bend. Longtime incumbent Al Green is retiring from this D+59 district.
• TX-26: Still dominated by Denton County, including Lewisville, Flower Mound and Little Elm, and also encompassing exurban Wise County and Keller in Tarrant County. Michael Burgess is the incumbent in this R+32 district.
• TX-27: This district was the index case for the recent court ruling striking down the previous Texas map, due to its diluted Hispanic voting strength. The end result is a new R+9 "fajita strip" MOD from McAllen to western Corpus Christi that pushes the previous 27th further northeast along the Texas Gulf Coast and is two-thirds Hispanic, while also keeping incumbent Michael Cloud's base in Victoria (which is itself 47 percent Latino).
• TX-28: This three-quarters Hispanic MOD, which extends from Laredo into the eastern suburbs of San Antonio, has already become a top target of the NRCC despite its D+9 lean as Republican Gov. Greg Abbott won it in 2022 and its first-term incumbent, liberal Democrat Jessica Cisneros, is already proving to be a controversial incumbent.
• TX-29: D+32 MOD that is three-quarters Hispanic, connecting north and southeast Houston via downtown Houston, as well as communities along the Houston Ship Channel including Pasadena, Galena Park and Baytown. Sylvia Garcia is the incumbent.
• TX-30: Historically Black district in south Dallas and its suburbs where Black and Hispanic voters constitute at least 40 percent of the vote. Freshman Jasmine Crockett is the incumbent in this D+63 district.
• TX-31: R+20 district stretching from Austin's northern suburbs (Georgetown, Leander) to Bell and Coryell counties including Temple, Killeen, Fort Hood and Gatesville. Longtime Republican incumbent John Carter is retiring.
• TX-32: Previously turned into a fairly safe Democratic district represented by Democrat Colin Allred, this district has now been turned back into an evenly divided district connecting north Dallas and the Park Cities to all or part of the suburbs of Richardson, Garland and Carrollton. The NRCC has made this district a top target.
• TX-33: 40 percent Hispanic MOD with a one-quarter Black population based in Fort Worth, northern parts of Arlington (including Six Flags Over Texas, the home stadiums of the Dallas Cowboys and Texas Rangers and a major GM assembly plant) and a few Metroplex suburbs immediately north of Arlington including Bedford that is D+20 on paper. Marc Veasey is the incumbent.
• TX-34: Though this district is now three-quarters Hispanic with a D+3 lean, Gov. Greg Abbott has won all three times in this district, which now stretches from Brownsville and an eastern sliver of Hidalgo County to eastern portions of Corpus Christi, stretching as far north as Rockport and Refugio. Incumbent Vicente Gonzalez is being heavily targeted by the NRCC, with 2022 challenger Mayra Flores having declared her candidacy against Gonzalez.
• TX-35: This district continues to snake across much of the I-35 corridor across eastern parts of San Antonio and Austin, with pit stops in New Braunfels and San Marcos. It remains a D+32 district on paper, with the incumbent being leading Democratic Socialist Greg Casar.
• TX-36: This district (previously the 2nd) effectively swapped district numbers with the old 36th, but still covers much of the same territory in the northern Houston suburbs, specifically northeast Harris County (including Crosby, Spring and Kingwood - the latter of which is actually part of the city of Houston) and southern Montgomery County (including The Woodlands). The district's high-profile incumbent, Dan Crenshaw, is running for the U.S. Senate seat of Ted Cruz, with former Crenshaw and Cruz advisor Matthew Wiltshire, former Harris County Tax Assessor-Collector Mike Sullivan and 2022 GOP primary challenger Jameson Ellis among several Republicans having already entered the race.
• TX-37: D+48 MID that is one-quarter Hispanic, centered in the heart of Austin and Travis County, along with such surrounding areas as Pflugerville and West Lake Hills. Longtime incumbent Lloyd Doggett is retiring.
• TX-38: After initially being drawn as a heavily Republican district in west Houston and Harris County, the courts ordered that both this and the nearby, heavily Democratic 7th be drawn into two equally competitive districts, with the 38th drawn into an R+6 MID that is over 30 percent Hispanic with Black and Asian voters comprising over 10 percent of the population. While the DCCC is targeting freshman incumbent Wesley Hunt in this district that now covers such areas of Houston and Harris County including River Oaks, Bellaire, Spring Branch, the Heights, Jersey Village, Champions and Tomball, Hunt is considered a rising star in the GOP and is widely favored to win reelection.

Since we're talking about Texas to wrap the redistricting changes that have occurred as a result of the mid-decade redistricting that happened in this TL, before I give a list of the retiring incumbents so far based on what Tekken has jotted down so far, let me get back on track with another Texas-centric update:

December 15, 2023
MIKE KNOX ELECTED HOUSTON MAYOR; ELECTION SEEN AS OMINOUS BELLWETHER FOR DEMOCRATS
After a protracted fight over absentee ballots that lingered for a number of days, Republican-endorsed at-large Houston City Councilman Mike Knox defeated longtime Democratic Texas State Sen. John Whitmire by a narrow 50-49 margin. Despite being the most openly conservative and Republican at-large member on the City Council of the nation's fourth-largest city (which went 2-1 for Joe Biden in 2020 and had not elected a Republican Mayor since Jim McConn lost his primary in 1981), Knox had widespread appeal amongst a number of key electoral groups. In addition to dominating conservative and affluent Anglo and Latino voters in west and southwest Houston, as well as the traditional Republican bulwarks of Clear Lake City and Kingwood, Knox also made inroads among Hispanics on the city's East End and its Northside neighborhoods and won a majority of Asian-American voters, many of them concentrated in southwest Houston.

The endorsement by the liberal-leaning Houston Chronicle of Knox, which emphasized Knox's steadfast fiscal conservatism and anti-crime bonafides in contrast to Whitmire's recent shortcomings on legislation relating to criminal justice and infrastructure, pointing out that Whitmire had "become more focused on grievances related to perceived inabilities to govern the Democratic minority in the State Senate instead of working to find common ground like he had done in the past", also may have contributed to Whitmire's narrow defeat despite nearly 50 years of experience in the Texas Legislature. The victory of Knox was widely seen as a bellwether of Democratic chances in 2024, and Knox's victory in the officially nonpartisan race sets off alarm bells within Democratic circles, with the Democratic National Committee urging its candidates to "prove to voters that we are a 50-state party" in a recent email to supporters. In a coincidental twist of fate, Knox will succeed term-limited Mayor Sylvester Turner who served in the Texas Legislature for many years alongside Whitmire in a state house district overlapping a large portion of Whitmire's state senate district, and who ascended to office alongside Knox in 2015.

[SaintStan86]

Based on Tekken's response, these are the House incumbents who aren't seeking reelection so far in this TL:

Republicans
AL-03: Mike Rogers (retiring) - 2022 U.S. Senate candidate Jessica Taylor is running.
AK-AL: Don Young (retiring after a remarkable 52-year career).
AZ-01: David Schweikert (running for Senate)
AZ-05: Andy Biggs (running for Senate)
AZ-09: Paul Gosar (running for Senate) - former GOP Chairwoman Kelli Ward is running.
CA-01: Doug LaMalfa (retiring)
CA-20: Kevin McCarthy (running for Senate)
CA-41: Ken Calvert (retiring) - former State Sen. Melissa Melendez is running.
CO-05: Doug Lamborn (retiring)
FL-11: Daniel Webster (retiring) - 2022 FL-07 candidate Anthony Sabatini is running here, but others will emerge.
ID-02: Mike Simpson (retiring)
IN-04: Jim Baird (retiring) - his son, State Rep. Beau Baird, is running to succeed him.
MI-01: Jack Bergman (retiring)
MI-10: John James (running for Senate)
MO-02: Ann Wagner (running for Senate)
MO-03: Blaine Luetkemeyer (retiring)
MT-02: Matt Rosendale (running for Senate)
NJ-04: Chris Smith (retiring)
NC-05: Virginia Foxx (retiring)
OH-01: Steve Chabot (retiring) - Major DCCC target likely to flip blue with former Cincinnati Mayor John Cranley running.
OH-04: Jim Jordan (running for Senate)
OK-03: Frank Lucas (retiring)
OK-04: Tom Cole (retiring)
PA-09: Dan Meuser (running for Senate) - former U.S. Rep. Fred Keller is running.
PA-12: Glenn Thompson (retiring)
PA-16: Mike Kelly (retiring)
SC-02: Joe Wilson (retiring)
TN-04: Scott DesJarlais (retiring) - 2020 U.S. Senate candidate Manny Sethi has moved from TN-05 to run in TN-04.
TX-05: Lance Gooden (running for Senate)
TX-12: Kay Granger (retiring) - Beth Van Duyne has been redistricted from old TX-24 and will run here.
TX-14: Randy Weber (retiring) - old district shifted eastward to new TX-09; open seat is the shifted former TX-27.
TX-17: Roger Williams, current TX-25 (running for Senate) - current TX-17 incumbent Pete Sessions will be running here.
TX-31: John Carter (retiring)
TX-36: Dan Crenshaw, district swapped numbers with new TX-02 (running for Senate) - multiple candidates have filed.
WA-05: Cathy McMorris Rodgers (running for Senate)
WV-02: Alex Mooney (running for Senate)
WI-05: Scott Fitzgerald (running for Senate)
WI-08: Mike Gallagher (running for Senate)

Democrats
AZ-03: Ruben Gallego (running for Senate)
AZ-07: Raúl Grijalva (retiring) - 2022 6th District candidate Daniel Hernández is running.
CA-02: Jared Huffman (running for Senate)
CA-04: Mike Thompson (retiring)
CA-07: Doris Matsui (retiring)
CA-12: Barbara Lee (retiring)
CA-14: Eric Swalwell (running for Senate)
CA-16: Anna Eshoo (retiring)
CA-18: Zoe Lofgren (retiring) - former U.S. Rep. Josh Harder, who was defeated in another district in 2022, is running.
CA-25: Raul Ruiz (running for Senate) - 2020 candidate and commentator Erin Cruz is running for the GOP.
CA-30: Adam Schiff (running for Senate)
CA-31: Grace Napolitano (retiring) - former State Sen. Ed Hernández is running.
CA-32: Brad Sherman (retiring)
CA-38: Linda Sánchez (retiring)
CA-43: Maxine Waters (retiring)
CA-47: Katie Porter (running for Senate) - former U.S. Rep. Harley Rouda is running.
CO-01: Diana DeGette (retiring)
CT-03: Rosa DeLauro (retiring)
DE-AL: Lisa Blunt Rochester (running for Senate) - Ben duPont, son of the late former Gov. Pete du Pont and whose sister-in-law is the wife of Dr. Mehmet Oz, is running on the GOP side.
FL-24: Frederica Wilson (retiring)
GA-13: David Scott (retiring)
HI-01: Ed Case (running for Senate)
HI-02: Kai Kahele (running for Senate)
IL-09: Jan Schakowsky (retiring)
ME-01: Chellie Pingree (running for Senate) - her daughter, former State House Speaker Hannah Pingree, is running, as is defeated liberal former Portland Mayor Ethan Strimling. More moderate Dems are hoping for better choices here...
MD-02: Dutch Ruppersberger (retiring) - Kim Klacik is running here in this prime GOP target, feud with Candace Owens notwithstanding...
MD-03: John Sarbanes (running for Senate)
MA-01: Richard Neal (retiring)
MA-02: Jim McGovern (retiring) - former Lt. Gov. Karyn Polito is running for the GOP.
MA-08: Stephen Lynch (retiring)
MA-09: Bill Keating (retiring)
MI-06: Debbie Dingell (retiring) - End of an era, indeed.
MN-03: Dean Phillips (running for Senate) - state Sen. Julia Coleman, whose father-in-law is former U.S. Sen. Norm Coleman, has rented somewhere along Lake Minnetonka to run here.
MN-04: Betty McCollum (retiring)
MS-02: Bennie Thompson (retiring)
MO-05: Emanuel Cleaver (retiring)
NJ-11: Mikie Sherrill (running for Senate)
NY-07: Nydia Velázquez (retiring) - state Sen. Julia Salazar is running as the Squad-ification of NYC continues...
NY-11: Jerry Nadler (retiring) - multiple Dems running here including JFK's grandson, Jack Schlossberg.
NY-12: Carolyn Maloney (retiring) - very crowded field here.
NY-16: Jamaal Bowman (running for Senate) - Alessandra Biaggi is the new incumbent (see below).
NY-20: Paul Tonko (retiring) - former U.S. Rep. Antonio Delgado is running here.
NC-12: Alma Adams (retiring) - incumbent U.S. Rep. Jeff Jackson is running here.
OR-03: Earl Blumenauer (retiring)
SC-06: Jim Clyburn (retiring)
TN-09: Steve Cohen (retiring)
TX-18: Sheila Jackson Lee (retiring) - former Houston City Councilmember Amanda Edwards is running here.
TX-25: Al Green, old TX-09 (retiring)
WA-01: Suzan DelBene (running for Senate)
WA-02: Rick Larsen (retiring)
WA-09: Adam Smith (retiring)

In addition, mid-decade redistricting has resulted in the following:
AL-01: Jerry Carl (old AL-01) vs. Barry Moore (old AL-02)
AL-02: OPEN (Barry Moore redistricted to AL-01)
IL-01: Jonathan Jackson (old IL-01) versus Kina Collins (old IL-07) in race pitting the old Black guard (Jackson, whose father is Jesse Jackson) against the Squad (Collins)
IL-05: Mike Quigley (old IL-05) versus Raja Krishnamoorthi (old IL-08)
IL-06: OPEN (Keith Pekau redistricted to IL-07)
NY-03: OPEN (Alessandra Biaggi redistricted to NY-16)
NY-17: Mondaire Jones (old NY-17) versus Colin Schmitt (old NY-18)
NY-23: OPEN (eliminated GOP-held district restored)
NC-08: OPEN, swaps with old 9th (Richard Hudson is relocating to the new 9th). Former U.S. Rep. Mark Walker is running here.
NC-09: OPEN, swaps with old 8th - Richard Hudson is relocating here from the old 9th.
NC-14: OPEN (Jeff Jackson running in NC-12) - incumbent U.S. Rep. Dan Bishop is running here.
TX-02: Brian Babin (swapped district numbers with new TX-36)
TX-09: OPEN (shifted northward from previous TX-14) - State Sen. Mayes Middleton has already declared.
TX-24: OPEN (Beth Van Duyne redistricted to TX-12) - 2020 Democratic nominee Candace Valenzuela is running here.

Also, while neither open nor home to a retiring incumbent, TX-27 will look radically different as the previous TX-27 was singled out for diluted Hispanic voting strength by the courts. The new TX-27 still has Michael Cloud as the incumbent, but with his Victoria base now serving as the district's northern end; his now majority Hispanic district now includes the western half of Corpus Christi and goes all the way down to McAllen.

[SaintStan86]

Source: Wikimedia Commons Author: C.A. Tucker

Source: Wikimedia Commons Author: Janet Mootz

The historic Hoyt Sherman Place west of downtown Des Moines, Iowa, site of the December 16, 2023 Democratic presidential debate.

December 16, 2023
DEMOCRATS TACKLE HEALTHCARE, FARM ISSUES IN IOWA DEBATE
On Saturday evening, Democrats debated before a packed audience at the historic Hoyt Sherman Place in Des Moines, where the candidates tackled issues of importance to Iowa voters from healthcare to agriculture. Broadcast on PBS, the seven candidates on stage defended President Biden's accomplishments on domestic and economic policy, including his signature infrastructure package, while also emphasizing the need for a more progressive (and populist) approach to the needs of working families. They also took turns lambasting the Republican congressional majority as (in the words of Pete Buttigieg) "beholden to the interests of Donald Trump and his billionaire fat-cats who sold out American farmers while giving tax breaks to corporations who squeezed our workers dry and tainted our food supply".

The debate was seen an opportunity for Sen. Amy Klobuchar of neighboring Minnesota to make her case for a "farm-fresh Democrat who rises with the sun to lead". During the debate, Klobuchar vowed to "ensure that our federal food supply is 100 percent controlled by American farmers" and took aim at Republicans for "favoring foreign corporations who take our beef, our chicken and our vegetables, ship them to China, and send them back on boats as if nothing happened". She also pledged to work towards "a constitutional amendment to overturn Citizens United, as Hillary Clinton promised in 2016", referring to the landmark campaign finance case (Citizens United v. FEC) that struck down campaign finance provisions in the McCain-Feingold Act, and vowed to offer tax incentives to allow family farmers to "keep their land for generations to come instead of losing them to foreign entities who wish to undermine our farming communities".

The debate was also viewed by many as a major test for another candidate, former Commerce Secretary Gina Raimondo, to try to build up support before next January's debate (for which the DNC is widely expected to tighten participation thresholds) and in anticipation of upcoming major endorsements before next month's caucus in Nevada and primary in South Carolina. When asked by moderator and Iowa PBS public affairs host O. Kay Henderson about what distinguishes her from Vice President Kamala Harris, Raimondo replied, "As someone with experience on Wall Street and hands-on experience dealing with Main Street, the difference is that when it came to small businesses in America who needed a friend in government, I was there for them from the very beginning. That is what's important, especially with the gap between small businesses and large corporations now wider than ever before". Raimondo also took aim at her rivals for their comparable lack of experience in the private sector, of which one, Colorado Gov. Jared Polis, responded "Unlike Gov. Raimondo, whose popularity was weak in Rhode Island before COVID hit, I have been consistently popular with Coloradans, pushing business-friendly policies that reduced our social spending, increased prosperity and kept taxes at competitive races, while also respecting the diversity of our great state across racial, religious and sexual barriers. Also unlike the others on stage, I actually have the balls to say that", to laughter from the audience.

Another topic that came up was the lingering issue of the January 6th, 2021 attack on the Capitol. When asked by moderator Lisa Desjardins, a PBS NewsHour political correspondent who was attacked by a rioter during that attack, about whether or not January 6th rioters should be afforded a right to a fair trial, Vice President Harris responded, "Of course I do believe that those who were arrested that day deserve a fair trial. What does matter, however, is that these individuals broke into a sacred institution, driven by false narratives by a tyrant who wanted them to believe that their country was being stolen from them. For that reason, that right to a fair trial will be rooted in facts, not grievances from right-wing extremists who wish to return to the dark holocaust of the Donald Trump years." Sec. Buttigieg also responded, "It's important to bring everyone who broke into the Capitol that day and interrupted what was supposed to be a peaceful transfer of power to justice, but we must also remember that not everyone who was there and is facing or serving jail time is without remorse".

Education was another topic that came about, with moderator Judy Woodruff asking the candidates about their thoughts on "countering the brain drain" affecting Iowa and other Rust Belt states. Sen. Klobuchar pointed to efforts to increase funding for education, "As a Senator, preparing our kids for the future has always been a priority, and as your next President, I will do my earnest so that everyone can reach for the stars". North Carolina Gov. Roy Cooper, meanwhile, vowed to "become THE Education President", and laid out various proposals for education reform. "What we ought to be taking a look at is how can places like Iowa retain great talent?", and pointed to vocational and skills training as a 'building block of sorts'. He also emphasized an all-encompassing program for trade school graduates including social benefits, vowing to "add 15 million new tradesmen to the workforce in my first term as President", while also providing "guaranteed benefits including workers' protections, medical care and enforced safety regulations so that our tradesmen can focus on their jobs and not sweat about the small stuff".

Sen. Elizabeth Warren reemphasized her call for a national health insurance system, and also vowed to crack down on large corporations taking advantage of farmers and food factory workers, "The quality of the food we eat matters, because the last thing anyone wants is to go hungry because they don't trust that the food will be safe". She also emphasized the need to incentivize farmers who utilize zero-emissions practices, "Not only should our farmers be given an equal opportunity to compete on a level playing field, but we should also ensure that the carbon footprint our farmers leave behind is very low". Buttigieg echoed Warren's sentiment, "The rise of electric trucks and other green methods of transporting our crops and our vegetables is something we should take note of and stick with, as opposed to give in like so many of our Republican colleagues have done already".

While the debate was overall collegial in tone, there were some heated moments. When asked by moderator Jonathan Capehart about past hesitance to support Democratic initiatives on issues such as election reform despite agreeing with most of the legislation's framework, Warren responded "It's not that the policy prescriptions don't work, rather they do not go far enough to put the interests of the people ahead of corporate interests who seek to put profits ahead of people". Harris retorted, "In Elizabeth Warren's world of ideal progressive utopianism, 80 percent of what Democrats want, especially when we never had much in the way of a Democratic majority throughout the Biden presidency, is better than demanding a perfect progressive package that is due to be sabotaged by whichever one or two Senators of ours gets kickbacks from the Republicans". Warren responded back, "At a time when Democrats, more than ever, should stand for progressive change, the last thing we need is a President using GOP talking points to defend short-sighted 'leadership'. Which worked so well for us in the last election."

Harris also took heat from her colleagues over whether or not her personality quirks detracted from her ability to empathize with the American people. When asked in a Q&A session by Buttigieg about "occasional bursts of laughter during serious moments" that resulted in punch-line criticism from Republicans, Harris responded, "Of course, I did not mean to laugh about the issues facing the targeted audience. When I did laugh, it's often in response to the absurdity of the question at hand. Of course, as Vice President I have done nothing but emphasize what can be done to make the situation better whether it's supply chain issues, racial reconciliation, the war in Ukraine and other matters," and added that "if the media spent more time not trying to offend Fox News viewers by actually reporting the truth, I probably wouldn't be laughing at reporters". (Critics ultimately gave mixed reviews of Harris's response, with Fox News host Laura Ingraham remarking the following Monday, "Dismissing the laughter may seem all cutesy and nonchalant, but to millions of Americans struggling to get by the 'new normal' of Bidenflation, Kamala's response is as bossy as it gets.")

Overall reviews of the debate were positive for Warren and Buttigieg, but most especially for Klobuchar (whose experience as a U.S. Senator from Minnesota was viewed as an advantage to potential Iowa voters), while Cooper's ambitious goal of increasing the employment pool for skilled trades drew praise from pundits. As for Raimondo, while her debate performance was noticeably strong, at times calling out the Vice President for shortcomings in the Biden administration, post-debate polling indicated that her performance "may not necessarily be strong enough to get past anticipated thresholds by the DNC to winnow out the field". With Raimondo's cash flow beginning to wane and an expected increased threshold for participation in DNC debates, not to mention the advent of early voting in South Carolina's primary around the corner and Nevada's primary polling for caucuses largely a jockey for first place between Harris and Warren, many speculate that the end may be near for Raimondo. Or is it?

[SaintStan86]

December 17, 2023
SINCLAIR STATIONS TO SIMULCAST SPLIT NEWSMAX DEBATES ON TUESDAY
On Sunday's edition of her Sinclair Broadcast Group-produced Sunday morning talk show Full Measure, anchor Sharyl Attkisson announced the lineups for Tuesday's twin debates at the Smith Center for the Performing Arts in Las Vegas. The debates will be primarily broadcast on the cable channel Newsmax, and will also be simulcast on stations primarily owned by Sinclair along with those of other companies including Cox Media Group (which owns WSB radio and TV in Atlanta, among other stations), Gray Television, TEGNA and Entertainment Studios (the latter two of which have direct business ties with Sinclair over the Bally Sports networks); the twin debates have been cleared for syndication in over 90 percent of the country, and come with few if any programming conflicts as most of the stations carrying include those in duopoly markets that can easily shuffle around preempted network programming, mostly encores as most if not all of the Christmas specials and holiday-themed episodes on the networks have already aired. In addition to Attkisson, other moderators will include Newsmax hosts Greg Kelly and Sean Spicer (the latter of whom was Donald Trump's first White House Press Secretary) and conservative Las Vegas Review-Journal columnist Victor Joecks.

The two debates will air simultaneously from 7pm-11pm ET and rebroadcast from 11pm-3am ET. The candidates in even-numbered position will go first from 7pm-9pm, while the ones in odd-numbered position will go from 9pm-11pm. In addition to being weighted based on four qualifying national polls, the weighted average also includes weighted toplines from each of the early states.

PARTICIPANTS FOR THE DECEMBER 19TH PRESIDENTIAL DEBATE (Newsmax/Sinclair @ Las Vegas, NV)
Candidate	Weighted Avg. (12/17)	Poll A (12/14)	Poll B (12/12)	Poll C (12/10)	Poll D (11/9)	IA Topline	NH Topline	SC Topline	NV Topline
PARTICIPATING
Gov. Ron DeSantis (R-FL)	18.4	20	21	16	20	11	17	11	20
Fmr. Amb. Nikki Haley (R-SC)	15.5	14	13	12	14	12	18	52	16
Fmr. Vice President Mike Pence (R-IN)	14.2	15	15	15	13	19	13	8	11
Sen. Ted Cruz (R-TX)	11.8	12	14	10	12	12	11	7	14
Sen. Ben Sasse (R-NE)	7.6	6	6	10	7	14	10	3	8
Fmr. Sec. of State Mike Pompeo (R-KS)	5.8	8	6	5	5	7	4	3	6
Sen. Tom Cotton (R-AR)	4.8	4	5	7	5	5	2	2	3
Fmr. Gov. Larry Hogan (R-MD)	4.7	5	4	5	6	3	7	1	3
Sen. Marco Rubio (R-FL)	4.4	5	3	7	3	2	5	2	6
Fmr. Gov. Chris Christie (R-NJ)	3.1	3	2	2	5	2	6	1	5
Commentator Candace Owens (R-TN)	2.5	1	3	3	3	2	2	5	1
Businessman Mike Lindell (R-MN)	1.9	2	2	2	2	3	1	1	1

To participate in the debate, Newsmax has required that each of its candidates either poll on average at least 2 percent or higher on three of four qualifying national polls or poll at least 5 percent on at least two early state topline polls, with those achieving the latter threshold being positioned first followed by any who qualify based on the national polls. Based on this criteria, while all 12 of the above candidates have qualified based on national polls, eight candidates - DeSantis, Haley, Pence, Cruz, Sasse, Pompeo, Rubio and Christie - will be prioritized based on the averages of the early state toplines first, with the others following suit based on the national polling averages. This plot twist creates a somewhat unusual situation based on the strong polling of one particular candidate whose home state happens to be one of the early states.

CANDIDATE POSITIONING FOR FIRST DEBATE (7PM-9PM ET)

Larry Hogan	Mike Pompeo	Ron DeSantis	Ted Cruz	Chris Christie	Mike Lindell
5	5	14.8	11	3.5	2

CANDIDATE POSITIONING FOR FIRST DEBATE (9PM-11PM ET)

Tom Cotton	Ben Sasse	Nikki Haley	Mike Pence	Marco Rubio	Candace Owens
5.25	8.8	24.5	12.8	3.8	2.5

The controversial placement of Haley above DeSantis is in large part due to the former's "favorite daughter" status in South Carolina, where she served in the state legislature and later as Governor before becoming U.S. Ambassador to the United Nations under President Trump; this has accordingly resulted in many candidates prioritizing Nevada over South Carolina with regards to the two early states after New Hampshire. DeSantis responds to his placement in the earlier debate, pointing out, "With respect to the former Ambassador and her hometown candidate status, nothing changes the fact that outside of South Carolina and other early states, our campaign is the strongest of any Republican, and it's important to note that more people are watching around 7pm than around 9pm on a weekday." Notably, the debate placement also pits DeSantis against only one former Trump administration alum - former Sec. of State Pompeo, with his other debate contemporaries being Christie and Hogan (both moderate former Governors hoping to appeal to those wishing for a clean break from Trump), Sen. Cruz and Lindell. The other debate will pit Haley against fellow hawks Cotton and Rubio, who have in recent polls benefited at Haley's expense, while giving Pence a more direct opportunity to counter Sasse with regards to Iowa (where the latter has been inching up on the former's lead in that state) and Owens more leeway to challenge her rivals without directly attacking DeSantis (who is thought to have the most support amongst hardcore Trump supporters).