No. Soft-pedaling their excruciatingly small minority is not throwing them under the bus. But you're illustrating the point perfectly. You're talking about alienating millions of undecided voters for 0.0019% of college athletes. Politically, that's dumb. Dems have to WIN first.
No. Soft-pedaling their excruciatingly small minority is not throwing them under the bus. But you're illustrating the point perfectly. You're talking about alienating millions of undecided voters for 0.0019% of college athletes. Politically, that's dumb. Dems have to WIN first.
Define "soft-pedaling"?
Being a small minority doesn't make trans people less vulnerable, it makes them more vulnerable and therefore more in need of legal protection.
Democrats and other Progressives may do well to tread lightly on the trans women in sports issue. It directly affects an excruciatingly small number of trans athletes, and I don't think it's a ditch worth dying in before the elections. Dems have to WIN first, and "identity politics," as the Right calls it, has a pretty sizeable opportunity cost. It just does.
The Republicans are hitting back hard on this one. Last night I saw a Republican ad in opposition to the Democratic nominee in my home district, and I saw a similar ad against Ossoff in the Georga Senate race.
Yet, it is estimated less than 1% of trans women end up in female sports.
You can call that making a mountain out of a mole hill, I guess.
My opinion is that Trans Policy should be well down the Progressive platform in 2026 & 2028.
Trans rights really aren't on the mainstream Democratic agenda anywhere. A very few Democratic elected officials are responding strongly to the attacks on trans people which Republicans started, but most are cowardly dodging trans questions if they're asked, or outright agreeing with Republicans that trans people's rights should be restricted.
This is a very good illustration of a phenomenon in the American media: Democratic Party officials are held to account for the opinions of the wildest leftists on social media (a la Hasan Piker), most of whom aren't even Democrats; but Republican candidates can accept literal millions of dollars from an exciting variety of white/Christian supremacists and still be called a "pro-business" or "small government" party rather than a pro-apartheid party.
On a personal note I'm disgusted to see that kind of transphobic language being used here and I find the stance associated with it equally repulsive. If people join fascists in throwing those they demonise and scapegoat under a bus and refusing to defend them, then congratulations to those politicians and voters on joining a fascist movement themselves. And it tells me as someone who belongs to another of their scapegoated groups that I wont be defended either and they'll sell me out too just as soon as they think that is convenient.
If you let the Democrats move the goalposts on defending the rights of vulnerable minorities once (and this applies to any vulnerable minority), it will just never stop. We have plenty of evidence of that here in the UK. Labour didn't change their tactics once they got elected; they got worse.
Kansas’ 2026 U.S. Senate race between Republican Sen. Roger Marshall and Democrat Adam Hamilton is officially rated a Toss Up by the Cook Political Report as of October 2026, marking a rare competitive contest in a state that hasn’t elected a Democratic senator since 1932.
Roger Marshell is a surgeon by profession. He was known to sue patients who were past due on their medical bills. The Democrats are now running ads hitting him on affordability issues--especially medical affordability.
On the other hand, Adam Hamiltion is the pastor of the largest United Methodist Church in Kansas. He is well liked. Republicans accuse him of being soft on crime, a tax and spend liberal, and out of touch with Kansas values. Funny thing is Hamilton in the last election was a registered Republican.
With less than 4 weeks to go, the Democrats now look virtually certain to get a majority in the House and look increasingly likely to get a narrow majority in the Senate.
The classic Trump move re diesel from Russia demonstrates his willingness to suborn a strategic issue to short term electoral needs. I think it may well backfire, may even do further damage to GOP prospects in close races.
It may be worth noting for those not in the US that voting in the mid-terms is already underway.
In those states with all-mail voting (8, plus the District Columbia), ballots have been mailed to voters or will be soon. In other states, absentee voting by mail is already happening, and early in-person voting has started or will soon start in the states that have it, which is most states with in-person.
In my state in recent elections, the majority of voters (60%+) of have voted early rather than on Election Day. What that means is that developments in the final weeks before Election Day, including October Surprises, are likely to have less effect on the outcome than they would have a few decades ago.
Guaranteed to bring smiles to a few Democratic faces this evening:
A Republican super PAC trying to influence a crucial Senate race in Maine spent thousands of dollars running an attack ad in the wrong Portland, targeting voters thousands of miles away in Oregon.
Guaranteed to bring smiles to a few Democratic faces this evening:
A Republican super PAC trying to influence a crucial Senate race in Maine spent thousands of dollars running an attack ad in the wrong Portland, targeting voters thousands of miles away in Oregon.
I am an early voting person in the US..YES,many did vote early. But polls can be deceiving , polls can’t also be trusted.
That’s an overstatement. Some polls can’t and shouldn’t be trusted. Some polls are generally trustworthy, but errors can happen.
I tend to think it’s generally not a good idea just to look at individual polls. Instead, I tend to look at models that draw on multiple polls done by reputable pollsters and that are designed to use historical data to take a variety of factors into account.
I am an early voting person in the US..YES,many did vote early. But polls can be deceiving , polls can’t also be trusted.
In Britain at any rate, we have, or possibly used to have, the “Quiet Tory” voter, which was used to explain polls that underestimated the Tory vote. I seem to remember this was also the case for the “Leave” vote at the Brexit referendum. Maybe it’s a right wing thing.
One hears of the “quiet Trump voter” here, but whether that’s a real thing is a matter of debate.
What does seem to be the case is that conservatives are generally less likely to respond to polls. That’s one reason I look more at models than individual polls, as models attempt to take that into account.
One hears of the “quiet Trump voter” here, but whether that’s a real thing is a matter of debate.
What does seem to be the case is that conservatives are generally less likely to respond to polls. That’s one reason I look more at models than individual polls, as models attempt to take that into account.
Having already voted, I find each day in my mail box ads telling how they want me to vote. Sorry people the box has been checked. I find it interesting that most are for people and issues I voted against.
FiftyPlusOne is showing Democrats as a 99% probability to win a House Majority. It also shows the Democrats as a 75% probability to win the Senate.
A Democratic majority in the Senate; the polls forecast holds even if they underestimate the GOP vote by 2%, but it falls is the underestimate is 3% or more.
Apparently there is a bit of a scarcity of recent polls so I don’t think there is that much evidence of recent trends.
Democrats regaining the House now looks to be a foregone conclusion. The Senate? It suggests there is still a lot to play for in the toss up States.
Actually, it’s already going on through early voting (an option in most states) and absentee mail-in voting. In my state, recent history is that around 2/3 of voters vote during early voting rather than on Election Day.
And there are a number of states where all voting is by mail, so voting is underway in those states, too.
In regards to most of Gwai's points, the NY Times has a piece on possible Republican shenanigans (gift link). It says legal scholars don't think these things are likely, but legal scholars tend to come off as a sober, sensible bunch, which makes me think they underestimate Republicans' sneakiness. On the other hand, that people are thinking about such things give me hope that those in positions to counter these moves are engaged in some advance planning.
Dems will win the Senate since that's what the polls say. (Is the polling better than in 2016 and 2024?)
Well, these days it's all about how they weight the polling responses. Republican voters are a bit less likely to respond to polls, especially rural Republicans, so pollsters have to decide how heavily weight the responses they do get to counterbalance Democratic voters' relative eagerness to give their opinions (Pew Research Center discusses poll weighting here). I've seen several pieces (sorry, was ill, didn't keep links) saying they think pollsters may be weighing Republican too heavily this time. Another thing I think is important to note is that the polls underestimated Republican votes in presidential election years because Trump voters weren't well-represented in the pre-election polling, but the midterm election polling wasn't so far off the last two times. Finally, the numbers I've seen for early voting show Democrats voting in very large numbers, massively out-performing early voting in previous midterms. This doesn't mean Republicans won't catch up on Election Day itself, but it's still a good sign.
Senate race details: Counting seats not up for re-election and those which are safe or likely for one party or the other the tally is Democrat/Independent = 47, Republican = 45. So Democrats need four of the following seats to have a majority (five if you think John Fetterman is going to switch sides, which IMO is a total wild card):
Lean Dem: 4 states Alaska - Mary Peltola (D) still looks very good here. The NY Times/Siena poll has her at 50%. Maine - Recent high-quality polling is going Troy Jackson's (D) way by 2-4 percentage points. Susan Collins (R) has outperformed polls before, but being a Republican is much more a hindrance this year than in the past, and her age (or more importantly, people's perceptions of her age) is a serious issue. Michigan - recent polls have El-Sayed (D) up by 1-6 percentage points. The only poll saying Rogers (R) is out front is his own. Ohio - the most recent high-quality poll has Brown (D) leading by 4 points.
Toss-up: 3 states
First I will point out that it's nuts that these seats are toss-ups. Democrats have had sad, unfulfilled hopes and dreams about Texas for a while, but Iowa and Kansas? Wild. Iowa - very mixed polling, the definition of "toss-up" Kansas - more recent polls have Hamilton (D) out front than Marshall (1) Texas - a couple of polls have Paxton (R) leading by one point, more have Talarico (D) leading by 2-6 points.
Lean Rep: 1 state South Carolina - this is Lindsay Graham's seat, where his sister (R) is leading by 1-3 points in recent polls (and by 13 in one outlier).
We're still two weeks out from the end of voting, and the states the Democrats need to win have in recent years been battlegrounds or predominantly Republican The Republicans are pouring a lot of money into turning out their voters. Interesting, though, their anti-trans ads may be backfiring. I am cautiously optimistic, but there are still plenty of ways for this to go wrong.
I am hearing the early voting is substantially higher in most states this mid term. If the old adage holds true: Democrats should do quite well in higher voting.
Meanwhile Trump has already signaled if the Democrats win, there will be rioting in the streets. I think we have seen this show before.
Meanwhile Trump has already signaled if the Democrats win, there will be rioting in the streets. I think we have seen this show before.
Best case scenario for a riot...
MAGA idiots riot in their home states, rather than DC, under the impression that Trump can pardon them, but at least some of the laws broken are state, not federal, so a bunch of tbem end up in jail with no chance of absolution.
I wonder where eg. attacking the headquarters of your state Democratic organization would fall between state and federal crime, if the purpose was to reverse the results of a presidential election.
I wonder where eg. attacking the headquarters of your state Democratic organization would fall between state and federal crime, if the purpose was to reverse the results of a presidential election.
It would be a state crime. In general, property crime is state-level unless you attack a federal thing, like a post office.
But attacking a state party office wouldn't do anything to election results. You'd have to attack places where votes are cast, counted, or certified. Attacking or somehow screwing with the certifications would be the way to go (like Jan 6, 2021). Votes are cast and counted in too many different places.
There’s an old joke among election officials about The Election Worker’s Prayer: “Dear God, whoever wins, may they win big.”
Post-election legal challenges in close races are nothing new. (Remember 2000 and hanging chads in Florida?) Sometimes they change the results of an election, but usually they don’t.
Sending ICE or the FBI or whoever to polls on Election Day? There are 90,000+ polling places in the US on Election Days; covering all of them is impossible, so how to decide which ones to target. And how do you do that without risking suppressing the vote among those who support you? (This is leaving aside how to do it without violating federal and state law.)
If there is to be mischief from the White House, I think it’s more likely that it will happen in the form of challenges after Election Day, because only then can strategic assessments be made. Much will depend on where, if anywhere, there is the right mix of a close vote in a tipping point election.
I think there will be two interesting dynamics to watch how they play out. The first is Trump’s behavior. He has certainly said he cares about the midterms (“vote like I’m on the ballot”), but he’s behaved in ways and said things that even Republicans know hurt them. And we all know that what he really cares about is himself. He can’t accept it when he loses, but this go around, he won’t be the loser, even if Republicans go down in flames. He can just say they lost because he wasn’t on the ballot to pull them up.
The other dynamic is how Republicans—I’m thinking mainly of congressional Republicans—react to any mischief Trump tries to foment. Whatever happens in this election, Trump is a lame duck once it’s over. If congressional Republicans lose big, they’ll know full well that Trump and his policies are a major reason they lost. And they’ll be looking ahead to 2028, both congressional elections and the presidential election. Their own political interests, if nothing else, should have them questioning their unconditional support of him.
In the past, Trump had the power to end congressional Republicans’ political careers by supporting primary challengers. But they may think now that the last thing they need is Trump’s support. (See how many now are trying to downplay or avoid any association with him.)
I could, of course, be quite wrong. But I’ll be interested to see how it all plays out.
Good answer, Ruth. Honestly I'm just really jumpy about elections after the last few years and how messed up they've been. The evidence does support everything you just said.
My main concern right now is the continued triumpalism in some parts of the Demicratic base. I've now seen at least one article de facto assuming the Democrats win the midterms and thus presenting "How should they govern afterwards?" as the main issue warranting discussion.
PERSONAL BIAS: My only clear memory of the 1992 UK election besides "We're all right!!" is a New Statesman article about who will be in Kinnock's cabinet if, "as now seems likely" Labour wins in a few days.
Comments
Define "soft-pedaling"?
Being a small minority doesn't make trans people less vulnerable, it makes them more vulnerable and therefore more in need of legal protection.
I'm speaking specifically about the issue of trans women (hidden text - transphobic language - la vie en rouge, Purgatory host)
The Republicans are hitting back hard on this one. Last night I saw a Republican ad in opposition to the Democratic nominee in my home district, and I saw a similar ad against Ossoff in the Georga Senate race.
Yet, it is estimated less than 1% of trans women end up in female sports.
You can call that making a mountain out of a mole hill, I guess.
@The_Riv I have hidden a term in your post which is offensive to trans people. Please refrain from using this term.
Hostly beret off, la vie en rouge, Purgatory host
Trans rights really aren't on the mainstream Democratic agenda anywhere. A very few Democratic elected officials are responding strongly to the attacks on trans people which Republicans started, but most are cowardly dodging trans questions if they're asked, or outright agreeing with Republicans that trans people's rights should be restricted.
This is a very good illustration of a phenomenon in the American media: Democratic Party officials are held to account for the opinions of the wildest leftists on social media (a la Hasan Piker), most of whom aren't even Democrats; but Republican candidates can accept literal millions of dollars from an exciting variety of white/Christian supremacists and still be called a "pro-business" or "small government" party rather than a pro-apartheid party.
https://forums.shipoffools.com/discussion/6226/trump-officially-fucks-trans-kids-over#latest
On a personal note I'm disgusted to see that kind of transphobic language being used here and I find the stance associated with it equally repulsive. If people join fascists in throwing those they demonise and scapegoat under a bus and refusing to defend them, then congratulations to those politicians and voters on joining a fascist movement themselves. And it tells me as someone who belongs to another of their scapegoated groups that I wont be defended either and they'll sell me out too just as soon as they think that is convenient.
Apologies to all.
Roger Marshell is a surgeon by profession. He was known to sue patients who were past due on their medical bills. The Democrats are now running ads hitting him on affordability issues--especially medical affordability.
On the other hand, Adam Hamiltion is the pastor of the largest United Methodist Church in Kansas. He is well liked. Republicans accuse him of being soft on crime, a tax and spend liberal, and out of touch with Kansas values. Funny thing is Hamilton in the last election was a registered Republican.
The classic Trump move re diesel from Russia demonstrates his willingness to suborn a strategic issue to short term electoral needs. I think it may well backfire, may even do further damage to GOP prospects in close races.
In those states with all-mail voting (8, plus the District Columbia), ballots have been mailed to voters or will be soon. In other states, absentee voting by mail is already happening, and early in-person voting has started or will soon start in the states that have it, which is most states with in-person.
In my state in recent elections, the majority of voters (60%+) of have voted early rather than on Election Day. What that means is that developments in the final weeks before Election Day, including October Surprises, are likely to have less effect on the outcome than they would have a few decades ago.
A Republican super PAC trying to influence a crucial Senate race in Maine spent thousands of dollars running an attack ad in the wrong Portland, targeting voters thousands of miles away in Oregon.
https://www.nytimes.com/2026/10/12/us/politics/maine-troy-jackson-ad-portland-oregon.html?unlocked_article_code=1.IVE.ZQnH.XSow3eyfzd6L&smid=url-share
I woulda thought calling your company The 1903 Group is just inviting the punch lines. Maybe it's some shared in-group reference.
I tend to think it’s generally not a good idea just to look at individual polls. Instead, I tend to look at models that draw on multiple polls done by reputable pollsters and that are designed to use historical data to take a variety of factors into account.
In Britain at any rate, we have, or possibly used to have, the “Quiet Tory” voter, which was used to explain polls that underestimated the Tory vote. I seem to remember this was also the case for the “Leave” vote at the Brexit referendum. Maybe it’s a right wing thing.
What does seem to be the case is that conservatives are generally less likely to respond to polls. That’s one reason I look more at models than individual polls, as models attempt to take that into account.
Or they just say…Undecided…to the pollsters.
A Democratic majority in the Senate; the polls forecast holds even if they underestimate the GOP vote by 2%, but it falls is the underestimate is 3% or more.
Apparently there is a bit of a scarcity of recent polls so I don’t think there is that much evidence of recent trends.
Democrats regaining the House now looks to be a foregone conclusion. The Senate? It suggests there is still a lot to play for in the toss up States.
Not long to go now.
And there are a number of states where all voting is by mail, so voting is underway in those states, too.
I voted yesterday.
Well, these days it's all about how they weight the polling responses. Republican voters are a bit less likely to respond to polls, especially rural Republicans, so pollsters have to decide how heavily weight the responses they do get to counterbalance Democratic voters' relative eagerness to give their opinions (Pew Research Center discusses poll weighting here). I've seen several pieces (sorry, was ill, didn't keep links) saying they think pollsters may be weighing Republican too heavily this time. Another thing I think is important to note is that the polls underestimated Republican votes in presidential election years because Trump voters weren't well-represented in the pre-election polling, but the midterm election polling wasn't so far off the last two times. Finally, the numbers I've seen for early voting show Democrats voting in very large numbers, massively out-performing early voting in previous midterms. This doesn't mean Republicans won't catch up on Election Day itself, but it's still a good sign.
Senate race details: Counting seats not up for re-election and those which are safe or likely for one party or the other the tally is Democrat/Independent = 47, Republican = 45. So Democrats need four of the following seats to have a majority (five if you think John Fetterman is going to switch sides, which IMO is a total wild card):
Lean Dem: 4 states
Alaska - Mary Peltola (D) still looks very good here. The NY Times/Siena poll has her at 50%.
Maine - Recent high-quality polling is going Troy Jackson's (D) way by 2-4 percentage points. Susan Collins (R) has outperformed polls before, but being a Republican is much more a hindrance this year than in the past, and her age (or more importantly, people's perceptions of her age) is a serious issue.
Michigan - recent polls have El-Sayed (D) up by 1-6 percentage points. The only poll saying Rogers (R) is out front is his own.
Ohio - the most recent high-quality poll has Brown (D) leading by 4 points.
Toss-up: 3 states
First I will point out that it's nuts that these seats are toss-ups. Democrats have had sad, unfulfilled hopes and dreams about Texas for a while, but Iowa and Kansas? Wild.
Iowa - very mixed polling, the definition of "toss-up"
Kansas - more recent polls have Hamilton (D) out front than Marshall (1)
Texas - a couple of polls have Paxton (R) leading by one point, more have Talarico (D) leading by 2-6 points.
Lean Rep: 1 state
South Carolina - this is Lindsay Graham's seat, where his sister (R) is leading by 1-3 points in recent polls (and by 13 in one outlier).
We're still two weeks out from the end of voting, and the states the Democrats need to win have in recent years been battlegrounds or predominantly Republican The Republicans are pouring a lot of money into turning out their voters. Interesting, though, their anti-trans ads may be backfiring. I am cautiously optimistic, but there are still plenty of ways for this to go wrong.
Meanwhile Trump has already signaled if the Democrats win, there will be rioting in the streets. I think we have seen this show before.
The guy should really be in jail.
Best case scenario for a riot...
MAGA idiots riot in their home states, rather than DC, under the impression that Trump can pardon them, but at least some of the laws broken are state, not federal, so a bunch of tbem end up in jail with no chance of absolution.
I wonder where eg. attacking the headquarters of your state Democratic organization would fall between state and federal crime, if the purpose was to reverse the results of a presidential election.
It would be a state crime. In general, property crime is state-level unless you attack a federal thing, like a post office.
But attacking a state party office wouldn't do anything to election results. You'd have to attack places where votes are cast, counted, or certified. Attacking or somehow screwing with the certifications would be the way to go (like Jan 6, 2021). Votes are cast and counted in too many different places.
https://www.ncronline.org/news/faith-leaders-unite-across-religions-counter-voter-intimidation-election-day
Post-election legal challenges in close races are nothing new. (Remember 2000 and hanging chads in Florida?) Sometimes they change the results of an election, but usually they don’t.
Sending ICE or the FBI or whoever to polls on Election Day? There are 90,000+ polling places in the US on Election Days; covering all of them is impossible, so how to decide which ones to target. And how do you do that without risking suppressing the vote among those who support you? (This is leaving aside how to do it without violating federal and state law.)
If there is to be mischief from the White House, I think it’s more likely that it will happen in the form of challenges after Election Day, because only then can strategic assessments be made. Much will depend on where, if anywhere, there is the right mix of a close vote in a tipping point election.
I think there will be two interesting dynamics to watch how they play out. The first is Trump’s behavior. He has certainly said he cares about the midterms (“vote like I’m on the ballot”), but he’s behaved in ways and said things that even Republicans know hurt them. And we all know that what he really cares about is himself. He can’t accept it when he loses, but this go around, he won’t be the loser, even if Republicans go down in flames. He can just say they lost because he wasn’t on the ballot to pull them up.
The other dynamic is how Republicans—I’m thinking mainly of congressional Republicans—react to any mischief Trump tries to foment. Whatever happens in this election, Trump is a lame duck once it’s over. If congressional Republicans lose big, they’ll know full well that Trump and his policies are a major reason they lost. And they’ll be looking ahead to 2028, both congressional elections and the presidential election. Their own political interests, if nothing else, should have them questioning their unconditional support of him.
In the past, Trump had the power to end congressional Republicans’ political careers by supporting primary challengers. But they may think now that the last thing they need is Trump’s support. (See how many now are trying to downplay or avoid any association with him.)
I could, of course, be quite wrong. But I’ll be interested to see how it all plays out.