Everyone knows that the Democrats' precarious hold on the Senate is in grave jeopardy because of Manchin and Sinema. But not everyone knows that they are just the front for other conservative Democrats nearly as bad, just unwilling to unmask themselves as DINOs.
One of the worst of the worse is-- unlike either Manchin or Sinema-- is up for reelection in November: Maggie Hassan in New Hampshire. How bad is Hassan? When the Democrats were finally on the verge of passing the Raise the Wage bill, Hassan showed her contempt for working families by joining with 7 other Democrats and all the Republicans to kill it at the last minute. None of the other Democrats-- Joe Manchin (WV), Jon Tester (MT), Jeanne Shaheen (NH), Kyrsten Sinema (AZ), Chris Coons (DE), Tom Carper (DE) and Angus King (ME)-- are electorally vulnerable this cycle.
That's Hassan, a conservative, anti-worker jackass with a lifetime "D" score from ProgressivePunch. Is there any reason for any self-respecting Democrat to vote for her? Of course there's the Democratic Party's favorite argument: she's the lesser of two evils if you allow yourself to get trapped in that self-defeating mindset. And then there's a Woman's Right To Choice. Even the most rotgut conservative Democratic women-- from Sinema, Feinstein, Hassan and Shaheen in the Senate to Stephanie Murphy, Cheri Bustos, Abigail Spanberger, Terri Sewell, Elissa Slotkin, Kathleen Rice, Annie Kuster and Julie Brownley (all "F" score Democrats) in the House-- get religion when it comes to women's choice because, well, you know, as far right as they are on everything else they are, after all women and this is their ox being gored.
The Supreme Court Roe leak came in the nick of time for Hassan's worthless campaign. She finally has a Democratic issue to rally the New Hampshire Democratic base around. Look at that cool ad up top that her ad makers made for her. New Hampshire is a blue-leaning swing state. In 2016, Hillary eked out a win over Trump, 348,526 (47.6%) to 345,790 (47.2%), while Hassan ousted Kelly Ayotte, 354,649 (48.0%) to 353,632 (47.8%). In 2020, Biden did better, besting Trump 424,921 (52.7%) to 365,654 (45.4%).
Even though New Hampshire Democrats went overwhelmingly for Bernie in 2016 (60.4% to just 38.0% for Hillary) and gave him the win again in 2020, Hassan, alas, has no primary opponent. As of March 31, she reported having raised $21,579,817 to protect her seat, over ten times more than the 6 Republicans combined. Only 3 are raising enough money to get their messages out:
Chuck Morse- $740,348
Kevin Smith- $409,486
Don Bolduc- $384,706
Imagine what a rout it would be if Hassan wasn't such a weak, values-free, Republican-lite senator, voting badly on Climate, badly on taxes, badly on immigration policy, etc. Instead, the most recent Granite State Poll shows her losing to Morse by 2 points, and barely ahead of Smith (2 points) and Bolduc, an actual fascist, (1 point).
Hassan only had one thing to run on before: "I may be terrible and utterly worthless but the GOP is so much worse and TRUMP, TRUMP, TRUMP." But now she has the national uproar over Roe. I wonder how many minimum wage workers will decide that's enough to get them out to the polls in November. Take a look at the list of Blue America endorsed Senate candidates... Maggie Hassan isn't one of them.
lesser evil is still evil.