Anyone Who Imagined DeBene Would Be Better Than Maloney Must've Been High
For most Democrats in Congress— not all— the election is either about their own careers or, somewhat better, about preventing a fascist takeover. That would be more true of Hakeem Jeffries, the potential next speaker, than most. To a few members of Congress and a few candidates, even more important is what they hope to accomplish for their constituents and the American people. If I care at all about establishment politicians’ career trajectories, it would be to hope they’re derailed. Right now Jeffries and his leadership team (which includes the completely execrable Pete Aguilar) are running around campaigning for candidates who will help them win the House majority and a step up in their careers. They’re not campaigning for any particularly good candidates, who will help move along a progressive agenda, just for candidates who will help them get to the magic 218, even if they won’t support that agenda. And there are plenty who won’t.
The New Dem-controlled DCCC and Jeffries and his team are campaigning almost entirely for corporate whores endorsed by the New Dems, the corporate whore caucus. “Jeffries,” wrote John Bresnahan yesterday, “has been blitzing swing districts during the last week, including in the Midwest. On Thursday, Jeffries was in Long Island, N.Y., for Laura Gillen, who’s challenging embattled GOP Rep. Anthony D’Esposito. On Friday, Jeffries attended a fundraiser in Milwaukee for Democratic hopefuls Rebecca Cooke and Peter Barca. NBA legend Doc Rivers was there. On Saturday, Jeffries revved up the crowd for [Angie] Craig. Then it was on to Nebraska, where Democrat Tony Vargas has a good chance to unseat Republican Rep. Don Bacon. That will be followed by a trip to New Hampshire for Maggie Goodlander.” You’d never know it from the media, but Gillen, Cooke, Barca, Craig, Vargas and Goodlander are all corporate conservatives. Gillen, Cooke, Craig, Vargas and Goodlander have all been endorsed by the New Dems. Cooke has also been endorsed by the Blue Dogs, who are even more conservative and more hostile to anything progressive. Not visiting NJ-07 to campaign with Sue Altman against MAGA Republican Thomas Kean Jr.? No shock there. The DCCC has spent just $400 in her district and the Jeffries-controlled House Majority PAC has sent zero and is only backing conservatives, especially corrupt conservatives… even though NJ-07 is far more gettable than most of the districts where the DCCC and HMP are squandering tens of millions of dollars.
“The DCCC,” wrote Bresnahan, “has clobbered the NRCC on fundraising, although the Congressional Leadership Fund— the Republican-leadership-aligned super PAC— has kept the GOP in the money game. [And so has South African fascist criminal Elon Musk.] And the House GOP majority has been one of the least productive in history. Hardline conservatives ousted Kevin McCarthy as speaker as speaker in October 2023. [Bresnahan forgot to mention that McCarthy is a hardline conservative and the people who ousted him as fascists, a word they are not allowed to use to decribe members of Congress at PunchBowl.] Then Democrats have to save Speaker MAGA Mike Johnson following another uproar from the right over Ukraine aid. Pretty much anything significant that House Republicans got done this Congress occurred because Democrats either supplied a majority of votes— government funding and the debt limit— or there was a bipartisan deal that won Democratic support, such as the prospective ban on TikTok and FAA reauthorization. The historic level of GOP inaction and infighting should put Democrats in an ideal position to win the House. It’s all right there for them. Yet thanks to redistricting and a deeply divided country, only a few dozen House seats are really in play.”
And another thing— the Democrats couldn’t have put together a worse roster of candidates if Jeffries and Aguilar had hired someone to find the worst possible candidates who could still, kind of, be called Democrats. They have so many Republicans running pretending to be Democrats that I’ve lost count. If they manage to win in 2 weeks, they will surely be defeated when Democratic voters figure out they’ve been had in two years.
Since Jeffries is from New York, Bresnahan asked him about the races there. There are 4 districts Biden won that are held by Republican freshmen:
NY-04 (Gillen v D’Esposito)— Biden +14.5
NY-22 (Mannion v Williams)— Biden +11.4
NY-17 (Jones v Lawler)— Biden +10.1
NY-19 (Riley v Molinaro)— Biden +4.5
The DCCC and HMP aren’t spending enough money in NY-22 or NY-17 to win and are only seriously pushing Gillen and Riley. As suicidal as ever. Bresnahan wonders if Jeffries worries about a backlash [his own ouster as party leader] if Democrats don’t win the House, especially since the road to the majority goes through New York? ‘Our objective is to win back the House of Representatives. We’ll leave the post-mortem for the post-election period,’ Jeffries said. Jeffries predicted Democrats could pick up at least two of the New York seats they’re targeting.
A friend of mine in South Jersey— so not in NJ-07— asked me this morning, “Is the DCCC so corrupt that they'd throw control of the House to MAGA just to stop a progressive?” He has just read a piece in Sunday’s Star-Ledger by Brianna Kudisch that must have made him wonder. “Across a northern splotch of New Jersey, from rural counties on the Pennsylvania border all the way to the suburbs just outside Newark,” she reported, “one of the nation’s most important elections is playing out— a U.S. House race unlike any other. The battle between first-term Republican Rep. Tom Kean, Jr. and Democratic challenger Sue Altman in the state’s 7th CongressionalDistrict has drawn so much attention that even Elon Musk… has gotten involved through his PAC. That‘s because the hotly contested showdown in New Jersey’s most purple congressional district will help decide the makeup of the House of Representatives, currently led by Republicans. And a just-released poll says the two candidates are neck and neck less than a month before the Nov. 5 election.”
Hotly contested enough for Musk to spend over $760,000 against Altman but not hotly enough for the would-be Democratic speaker. It’s a nationalized fight by the Democratic side isn’t coming to Sue’s aid, and for just one reason— she’s the only progressive among the DCCC’s 33 Red-to-Blue candidates and the New Dems who run the program are determine dot derail her. Jeffries is— at best— allowing that to happen. [UPDATE: Last night, embarrassed at having been called out for their bullshit, the House Majority PAC leaked their intention to come into NJ-07 and spend $4 million at the last minute. We'll see if they follow through. Still nothing from the DCCC itself.]
Kean is somehow getting away with “painting himself as a moderate while still supporting Trump… But his campaign has gotten unwanted attention. Kean has been accused of dodging both the press and his constituents, including a recent refusal to talk to an NJ Spotlight reporter. Video of him declining to answer several questions while in an elevator and the hallways at the U.S. Capitol went viral. The issue came up again in an awkward moment during the candidates’ only debate. When Altman asked Kean if he would support deporting undocumented migrants, he stared at the camera, remaining silent for several seconds. ‘Now I know how the reporters feel,’ Altman quipped.”
Altman, the longtime leader of the New Jersey Working Families Alliance, and a former teacher and basketball star at Columbia University, “has positioned herself as the opposite of Kean’s reticence by canvassing all over the district. She has also hammered him on reproductive rights, including abortion and IVF, and has made the threat of democracy a central theme of her campaign. But despite the consistent echo of this unified Democratic message, national Democrats have not injected big cash into the race to help sway voters— even though it is among several dozen targeted by the DCCC [on paper but not in fact].
The anti-progressive talking point that Kudisch regurgitated— “When Altman launched her campaign last year, Democrats privately questioned whether the fiery advocate was too progressive for the purple district— is the excuse the New Dems and their DCCC use as the excuse for the $400. Altman told Kudisch that the issue hasn’t come up, and that her views are largely the same as the Democratic Party’s.
It’s worth mentioning that when the Democrats redrew the district’s boundaries they made NJ-07 redder so that they could make several other districts bluer. Still it has an R+1 PVI, Biden won it by 3.9 points and the DCCC is pouring millions of dollars into far redder districts (with conservative candidates)
Kean— whose victory helped Republicans gain control of the House during the 2022 midterms— is rabidly anti-Choice, but telling low-info voters that he’s pro-Choice. Pro-Choice is what Sue Altman is, pledging to work towards codifying Roe v.Wade, if elected— something Kean quietly opposes.
As for conservative Democrats and GOP insistence that “fshe is too progressive, Altman noted she has also broken with the left on two issues: opposing the defunding the police movement and supporting Israel. ‘I’m in this race because I believe that we need to take back the House,’ Altman said. ‘If Vice President (Kamala) Harris wins, we need to have a Democratically-controlled House to certify the election. If, God forbid she loses, we need to make sure we have a House that is a firewall against the worst instincts of a Trump presidency, which could get very ugly given Project 2025 ambitions,’ she added.”
Although the core issues matter, pollsters say, they also might not determine the race’s outcome as much as the certainties in elections, akin to life’s death and taxes idiom: turnout and fundraising.
“It’ll be really tricky for both candidates to kind of navigate this moderate terrain where voters are often, like many parts of New Jersey, center right on fiscal issues and center left on social issues,” [Rutgers University’s Eagleton Center for Public Interest Polling director Ashley Koning said.
“And so it kind of comes down to who has the better messaging and who has the better tapping into the national party to win over these voters,” she said.
Kean has raised almost $5.4 million this cycle, according to the research group OpenSecrets. Meanwhile, national Republican groups have poured huge bucks into the race on Kean’s behalf, with GOP groups allocating roughly $7.7 million on advertising alone. Musk’sPAC is spending money to ensure Kean and other Republicans are flush with funds for get out the vote efforts.
Altman has raised more than $5.1 million, but has not yet gotten any money from national Democrats, although the DCCC recently put up billboards on abortion rights for Altman and other Democrats in tight races.
“Perhaps no race sums up Dems’ challenge of getting 218 House seats like #NJ07, where national Dems still haven’t seen fit to make a sizable investment in Sue Altman,” Dave Wasserman, of the nonpartisan Cook Political Report, recently wrote on Twitter.
Registered Republicans in the 7th District outnumber registered Democrats by fewer than 20,000 voters, but larger still is the number of unaffiliated voters in the district, which is nearly 220,000, according to state voter registration data.
President Joe Biden won the district in 2020. Two years later, in 2022, the district was redistricted more in Republicans’ favor.
The 7th District has a little bit of everything: rural areas in Warren and Sussex, counties, including more than two dozen Republican leaning towns that were added in 2022; solidly blue Union County towns like Rahway and Linden; and large swaths of affluent suburbs across several counties, where voters of both parties may not be as friendly to Trump.
“The only reason we’re really talking about this district at all as a potential flip for the Democrats is because Donald Trump is (at) the top of the Republican ticket,” said Ben Dworkin, director of the Institute for Public Policy and Citizenship at Rowan University.
The Cook Political Report believes the race is tilting more in Kean’s favor, recently shifting its rating from toss-up to leaning Republican [entireley because of the DCCC’s hostility to Altman, although they would never admit that.]
But a Monmouth University Poll released last week says the race is extremely tight. Among registered voters in the district, 46% will definitely or probably vote for Kean, while 44% while definitely or probably vote for Altman. That’s within the margin of error.
“Kean has the edge on a number of issues, including the economy, immigration, and crime while Altman has a large advantage on abortion policy,” the pollsters said in a release. “Overall, voters are somewhat more likely to see Kean’s political views as being in step with the district than Altman’s.”
However, 37% say they will definitely not vote for Kean and 38% will definitely not vote for Altman, according to the poll.
“The level of support for each candidate may be equal right now, but there is more than enough room for one of them to break away,” said Patrick Murray, the director of the Monmouth University Polling Institute. “There is a sizable undecided vote and both candidates have relatively high ceilings for their potential vote share.”
Historically, an incumbent is most vulnerable during their first re-election.
Murray said he’ll be watching the solidly blue towns that were added to the district. Voters might not realize they’ve been moved, so turnout in those areas will be particularly crucial for the Altman campaign.
He said he’s watched Altman engage with Republicans.
“She’s very comfortable talking to Republicans, and they may grudgingly respect her, but when you talk to those same voters after their encounter, they’re not changing their mind,” Murray said.
“So it really does come down to turning out voters that may feel that the election isn’t all that important, or that not much is going to change in any direction.”
Either way, all eyes will be on the state‘s 7th district, as a bellwether of the nation’s political mood and future.
“An upset is possible,” Dworkin said. “I think it would be a surprise to a lot of people
And if Altman wins, she’d be in the enviable position of owing the party’s corrupt congressional leadership nothing at all and being able to concentrate entirely on her constituents and their priorities, not on whatever warped, Machiavellian priorities Jeffries and Aguilar come up with.
Yesterday, the NY Times recounted the story of a far-right Democrat— not unlike some the candidates the DCCC is backing— in a very red suburban/exurban district northwest of Atlanta, where extremist freak Barry Loudermilk is the incumbent. It includes all of Barrow, Gordon and Pickens counties and parts of Cherokee and Cobb. The biggest cities are Marietta and Smyrna, the PVI is R+11 and Trump beat Biden by 22 points. Democrats aren’t remotely competitive there.
“Democrats,” wrote Rick Rojas in a cute human interest story, “have been spending the precious final days of the campaign making an urgent appeal: Do not vote for the ‘Democrat.’ After a dizzying sequence of events, the party has disavowed the candidate listed as its nominee for Georgia’s 11th House District: Katy Stamper, a lawyer who argues that the Republican incumbent is not conservative enough and has offered herself as a choice who would be.” She’s not that far from Democratic incumbents like Jared Golden (Maine’s MAGA “Democrat), Mary Peltola (Alaska Republican-lite), Henry Cuellar (Texas Republican-lite who will finish the term in prison) and Marie Gluesenkamp Perez (Washington Republican-lite) and challengers like John Avlon (NY), Rudy Salas (CA) and Adam Gray (CA). Stamper, though, is too far over the edge even for the DCCC. She refers to herself as an “independent candidate running on the Democratic ticket,” (not that different from Janelle Stelson, who the DCCC is supporting) and her platform “includes a call for the mass deportation of undocumented immigrants, whom she has described as ‘invading ungrateful hordes.’ She wants to repeal the right to gay marriage.”
Rojas wrote that “Democrats have been scrambling to mobilize a write-in campaign, trying to direct support to another candidate [Tracey Verhoeven]— one with views that are not diametrically opposed to the party’s position on just about every issue… Stamper’s place in the election has helped create a situation that is, quite simply, bizarre: Democrats in the district are hoping for a surge in turnout to boost Vice President Kamala Harris in a crucial swing state, while also wishing that in this one specific race that support will not trickle down the ballot.”
How did Stamper win the primary against the 2022 candidate, Antonio Daza? In part, identity politics; a study from Northwestern University found that “Democratic voters were more likely to favor female candidates over male ones.” No doubt others just like Stamper because she’s openly as racist and xenophobic as they are. “In a video she shared recently on social media, she said that when she saw Latino families in public, she pointed at them and counted their children. ‘It offends me when I hear this jibber-jabber about how we’re a nation of immigrants,’ she said in the video. ‘We’re a nation of conquerors and settlers.’” She says that 25 million people need to be deported and called for stripping away the tax-exempt status of any nonprofit that helps undocumented people with anything other than leaving the country.
Aside from the $27,714 she self-funded, she’s only raised $906. But she’s already spent over $37,000 so there are likely some Georgia vendors who are going to get stiffed. She should probably approach Elon Musk for funding.
Across the country, yesterday’s L.A. Times reported that “Some of California’s most competitive congressional races are in districts with significant Latino populations. In the 13th Congressional District, which is centered in Merced County and stretches from Lathrop to Coalinga, 50% of all eligible voters are Latino. In the 22nd Congressional District, encompassing portions of Kern, Kings and Tulare counties, that share is 59%. And in the 27th Congressional District, which spans northern Los Angeles County from Santa Clarita to the Kern County line, it’s 33%. The races for those seats— currently occupied by Republicans but all of which President Biden won in 2020— are critical to determining which party will control Congress next year and, by extension, how much the next president will achieve while in the White House. If Democrats flip just four seats held by Republicans across the country, they would take back control of the U.S. House. In California, home to six tight congressional races, winning could come down to who appeals to the most Latino residents.”
Reporter Andrea Castillo forgot me mention that the candidates in the 3 districts last cycle were pure garbage, making it possible for Republicans to win blue districts. Two of those candidates, Rudy Salas and Adam Gray, are running again this year. And of the three, two of the Democrats are Anglos. All three Republicans are Latinos. But… “a poll of 1,000 Latino voters released Wednesday by the Latino Community Foundation found that Democratic challengers in the 13th, 22nd and 27th congressional districts all hold significant leads over their Republican opponents, with around a quarter of voters still undecided. In these districts, Latino voters overwhelmingly cite cost of living, the economy and concerns about jobs as the top issues facing the country, according to the poll.”
In close races like Duarte’s, which he won in 2022 by just 564 votes, every vote is worth gold, Garza said.
That fact isn’t taken lightly by locals such as Eliseo Gamiño, who heads the Central Valley Leadership Round Table, a coalition of Latino community leaders and elected officials. Earlier this year, the group issued their first-ever GOP endorsement in favor of Duarte over his opponent Gray.
It’s not a ringing endorsement, though.
“Cual es el menos peor— which is the least worst?” he said. “Because none of them are the ideal candidate.”
Gamiño pointed to Gray’s ad featuring longtime Merced County Sheriff Vern Warnke, who previously cooperated with immigration authorities seeking custody of jail inmates for deportation. No incarcerated immigrants have been transferred to federal authorities for the past two years, according to the Merced Focus.
Gamiño contrasted that with an ad by Duarte’s campaign that features a Latino family playing the Mexican bingo game lotería. He said it’s clear that Duarte knows he needs Latino voters, and many in the community are disillusioned with the Democratic Party’s inability to pass immigration reform.
“Hispanics don’t forget that,” Gamiño said of the sheriff. “Duarte is doing more in regards to talking about bringing families out of the shadows. You’ve got to give him credit.”
Duarte broke with most Republicans last year when he voted against the hard-line Secure the Border Act, citing a desire to protect the Valley’s farmworkers who lack U.S. citizenship. Last year, he co-sponsored a bill that would establish a path to permanent residence for immigrants who arrived in the U.S. as children. Gray has said he supports comprehensive immigration reform that includes a path to citizenship. As a California assemblyman, he voted for a 2017 bill that prohibited landlords from disclosing tenants’ immigration status.
Earlier this month, the Mendota Chamber of Commerce hosted a Spanish-language debate for Duarte and Gray, but only Duarte showed up. Gray said he wasn’t invited until a couple days before and when his campaign said he couldn’t make it, the chamber didn’t offer to reschedule.
“My opponent is running a campaign trying to mislead voters,” Gray said. “They’re trying to get in with the Latino community despite the fact that he helped to kill the compromised immigration reform bill.
The DCCC has poured more money into Gray’s race than any other in the country— over $8.4 million so far ($6.4 for Salas). In the Assembly, Gray and Salas were known as the two most right-wing Democrats in the legislature and the two most corrupt. The DCCC didn’t recruit them despite that; that is why they recruited them. Look at that Courage score! And, while we're at it, look at Salas' too:
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UPDATE: Last night, embarrassed at having been called out for their bullshit, the House Majority PAC leaked their intention to come into NJ-07 and spend $4 million at the last minute.
Great news, if true, but awfully late.
Howie, your continued spotlight on Altman might have helped shame the HMP into doing this.
Congratulations - take a bow.