One of our readers sent in a link to their blog, which has a very thorough rundown of the Senate, House and Governor’s races in the form of a Google spreadsheet. This person gave their full name in the email, which I don’t want to share. The person who did this should sound off in the comments, because the spreadsheet is a great resource that took a lot of work. Open thread.
Reader Interactions
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germy
talkingpointsmemo
Adam L Silverman
@germy: If anyone knows about being contempt, it’s members of Congress.
germy
germy
@Adam L Silverman: Did you see Nunes on Fox yesterday? He said Trump never met Papadopoulous.
They didn’t bother contradicting him with photographic evidence; they just nodded their heads.
Adam L Silverman
@germy: I’ve seen the clips.
SiubhanDuinne
@germy:
What would a contempt of Congress charge really mean? Is there a fine? Jail time? And is this Congress, in any case, likely to impose it on Bannon?
germy
@SiubhanDuinne: I was wondering the same thing.
efgoldman
@SiubhanDuinne:
No dessert after supper, unless they make a formal referral to DOJ to get it into court.
Starfish
To the person that created this list, this website contains a list of all the people running for governor of Colorado.
WaterGirl
@germy: looks like somebody was promised a pardon.
WaterGirl
@germy: so much for separation of powers!
Starfish
@efgoldman:
Not even a single scoop of ice cream?
Ohio Mom
I look at that spread sheet, think about the hours that went into creating it, and look at the hours of effort it is calling us to do, and I am gobsmacked.
Hopefully, the wind will stay at our backs these next nine months. Maybe we need a countdown clock somewhere to remind us exactly how short the time we have is.
skerry
The spreadsheet is fantastic. Thanks to anonymous for pulling the info together. I plan to share with friends and allies.
SiubhanDuinne
@efgoldman:
Yup. From what very little I recall about high-profile people being found in contempt of Congress, it doesn’t seem that the punishment is ever anything more than Congress saying “We find you in contempt.” It’s hardly even embarrassing. Have to wonder why they even bother.
(A quick Google search tells me that somebody in the 1930s was sentenced to jail for ten days, but since then it hasn’t even amounted to a slap on the wrist.)
germy
@WaterGirl:
JPL
@germy: Why not! IOKIYR Until they suffer consequences, it will continue.
The spreadsheet is amazing and will be useful in voting out the republicans.
SiubhanDuinne
Thanks and congratulations to the person who created the spreadsheet. I’ve barely glanced at it, but it’s clear that it took a lot of work and care and planning. It will be a great resource, so thank you!
Immanentize
@SiubhanDuinne: So, here is the process — If a committee subpoenas a witness and they refuse to appear, then that committee can vote to find the individual in contempt. That decision is ‘appealable’ to the full House. If they vote to find the person in contempt, that decision is referred to the Department of Justice. The Department of Justice then makes an independent determination whether they will pursue the charge or not (prosecutorial discretion/resources/etc.) If the DOJ agree to proceed, then it proceeds like a normal contempt (of court) case where an arrest warrant can be issued to bring the person in. This would be, generally, a case of civil (not criminal) contempt, which of course, can be remedied by simply testifying before Congress.
The House can also arrest someone on their own authority of that person is in the Capital building — the Sergeant at Arms has that power and there are holding cells in the building — just in case.
Inventor
Darrell Issa is not running in CA 49th. Also, and this is important, Mike Levin is damn sure NOT the leading Democratic challenger for this seat, Doug Applegate is. I hope whomever will correct the spreadsheet.
Colonel Applegate took Issa to a recount and lost by an eyelash in 2016. Levin and the local Democratic organization would not lift a finger to help. After Colonel Applegate ran a great campaign and Trump weakened Issa further with the healthcare vote, the Party suddenly became interested in the seat and Levin tossed his hat into the ring.
Applegate has the name recognition and, as a retired Marine Colonel, the popularity around Camp Pendleton to win the district. He is also much more progressive than Levin.
SiubhanDuinne
@Ohio Mom:
The midterm elections take place on Tuesday, November 6 — exactly nine months, and exactly 39 weeks, from today.
I like setting up weekly calendars for the first, say, seven months (through Labor Day) and then go to daily goals and activities in the final two-month push. (This is my personal style; I’m not necessarily suggesting it for BJ, though I do like the regular reminders we’ve been getting.)
p.a.
“Are you showing contempt for this Congress?”
“I’m sorry sir I’m trying to hide my contempt for this Congress.”
SiubhanDuinne
@Immanentize:
Thank you! That’s very clear and helpful.
SiubhanDuinne
@p.a.:
LOL
cain
@germy:
They are literally destroying democracy. They don’t want to lose their grip on power and they are throwing a tantrum. This party needs to be razed to the ground and destroyed and the ground salted. It’s unbelievable what’s going on right now.
TKinNC
Some info for “Volunteer SM is researching this race”
Walker – NC 06 – Filing period is 2/12-2/28. Currently 3 people have indicated that they will file as Ds but filing fee $1740 is a chunk of change and some may not follow through.
Margot Horney / Ryan Watts / Gerald Wong (alphabetically).
Of course, others may step up before close of business 2/28.
AND: SCOTUS has stayed an order to redraw the Congressional districts which can always be lifted.
This info does not fit neatly into little boxes – and that is exactly what the Rs in the NCGA want: CHAOS & CONFUSION.
Kay
Education is a great issue for Democrats in state races.
I’ll give her some money.
Roger Moore
@germy:
They don’t even pretend to care about democratic elections anymore.
Suffragette City
Raises hand but I’m not the person who created it.
I don’t even know the guy but saw it in a tweet he sent to Joy Reid and was impressed with his work so offered to help.
And sorry, meant to include the name I use here, just forgot.
P.S. His twitter handle is @radumanolescu. If so inclined he deserves a shoutout for his work.
SiubhanDuinne
Way off topic, but two things:
1. Anybody heard from DAW/IOL today? Dorothy, if you’re there, do let us know how it’s going with Mr. IOL’s MRI.
2. Any of our FPs planning to put up a thread and video link for the Super Rocket launch? It’s supposed to be sometime within this hour, I believe.
Mnemosyne
@Inventor:
I don’t trust Levin just from what I’ve seen on Twitter. He seems to be trying to jump in after Applegate did all of the hard work.
(I’m in CA-30, FWIW. Deep dark blue up here.)
Marcopolo
@Inventor: Second this comment on Applegate. He ran an excellent campaign in 2016 & stood up and ran when none of the “regular” D party folks had the guts to do it. He needs to be added.
Also too, the info for MO-2 is not accurate. Kelly Dunway dropped out back in Nov. Mike Evans did not participate in the sole candidate forum that I attended and a cursory check of his candidate’s blog shows no posts since last July. As far as I know, and I am following the race, he is not an active candidate. However, Cort VanOstrand, the challenger who has raised the most money so far, definitely is and he isn’t listed on the spreadsheet.
Anyhow, thanks for the effort you put into this and I realize it is probably a work in progress but seeing these inaccuracies I’d advise anyone here (and that should be everyone!) who wants to be involved in a district flipping house race should maybe just use this as a jumping off point for information.
japa21
Illinois primary cominbg up in March. Already ads are filling the airwaves. Rauner has a challenger in the GOP primary, basically calling him out for being too moderate (what a joke). Rauner will win pretty easily.
One of the interesting things is that there are ads for candidates for the state legislature where party affiliation is not disclosed. You have to look at who paid for the ad. Only then do you find out that these particular candidates are GOPers. They know the GOP brand is dead in Illinois. Hopefully, people will see through this come November.
Lapassionara
@Marcopolo: Cort VanOstrand thinks he can beat the odious Ann Wagner. I will do what I can to help. He definitely needs to be on the sheet.
Spanky
@SiubhanDuinne: The NASAlive page redirects to SpaceX here. Now rescheduled for 3:05 PM EST. Looks like the winds aloft are holding things up.
SiubhanDuinne
@Spanky:
Thanks so much. Hadn’t heard about the delay, but I’ve been on the phone for the past hour or more.
low-tech cyclist
@Inventor: I got a lot of flak around here a week ago for linking to an article that talked about the DCCC playing games like this. Oh no, they said, it’s from the Intercept, they’re exaggerating. Nothing to see here.
I’ll have to toss a few shekels Applegate’s way. When’s the primary?
Mnemosyne
@low-tech cyclist:
FWIW, it’s probably the CA state Dems playing games, not the DCCC.
schrodingers_cat
Upstanding central casting Marine general has to say this about the “dreamers”
marcopolo
@Lapassionara: Hello fellow St Louisan! As for the folks running against Wagner, the grassroots buzz (what I’ve heard at Indivisible St Louis events and from folks I know) is that they actually like Mark Osmack the most. VanOstran is hooked into the local D party apparatus, which is what has helped with his fundraising, but the people from the 2nd who have met both of them prefer Mark. That being said, I am not taking sides until someone wins the primary in August. Then I’ll support whoever the nominee is.
Alternative Fax, a hip hop artist from Idaho
@schrodingers_cat: I loathe him almost as much as I do Chicken Fried Cheeto. The difference is quite small, really.
Miss Bianca
@schrodingers_cat: Oh, look, a new low.
Mnemosyne
@Alternative Fax, a hip hop artist from Idaho:
I think I may hate Kelly more. In some ways, the Cheeto can’t help himself — he is what he is, and he doesn’t really pretend to be otherwise. He presented himself as a bigot and a white supremacist from the start, and he’s been showing his true colors since he got sued for housing discrimination in the 1980s.
Kelly pretended to be this upstanding guy, and then revealed himself as a loathesome, bigoted asshole as soon as he was in a position of power. That makes him way scarier, IMO.
Ocotillo
Several years back in Ohio they had a good Senate candidate named Paul Hackett, I think (olds here, memory not the best without googling). Anyway, there was a conflict on whether he should get the seat or Sherrod Brown and of course, Brown did but Hackett seemed like a good Dem who deserved his turn. What ever happened to him?
schrodingers_cat
@Mnemosyne: He never did apologize for insulting Rep. Wilson and the Sgt Johnson’s widow did he?
WaterGirl
@germy:
You know, I always wondered what it would be like to live in the Wild West. One stolen election, and the next thing you know we are living in the Wild West where republican politicians just do whatever they please, regardless of the rule of law.
Un-fucking-believeble. These people need a good lesson in CONSEQUENCES.
JPL
@Mnemosyne: It wouldn’t surprise me if someone said that Kelly was throwing rocks at buses when they tried to integrate schools in Boston.
marcopolo
@Ocotillo: Hackett ran for Congress in OH-2 against mean Jean something (don’t remember her last name but she was a piece of work) in a 2005 special election (I was active in DFA and on DKos at the time and both places supported him). He fell just short in a mostly R district. I think he had an abortive race to run against Mike DeWine a few years later but he never was in any contest against Sherrod.
Leto
@schrodingers_cat: He’s a vindictive, racist prick who was also a Marine. JFC this guy. White House Chief of Staff: Trump not expected to extend DACA deadline
Also this nugget:
Excuse me while I go do shots of Drano.
WaterGirl
@schrodingers_cat: That man is a disgrace.
MisterForkbeard
@germy: It’s long past the point where Fox could even remotely be considered to be truthful about anything. Assumptions should be made that they’re lying at all times. I’ve been able to point this out to various republican family members of mine, and they usually don’t even try to rebut it – they just say that ALL media is exactly the same, and repeat that the media (CNN/NYT) has been super wrong about Trump all the time as evidence.
When asked for this evidence, they usually point to… Fox News. Epistemic closure at its finest.
pamelabrown53
@Mnemosyne: #43,
I tend to agree about Kelly. I think when he was director of Homeland Security, he set the stage for ICE, a cruel agency out of control. Why don’t we read more about that?
WaterGirl
@Alternative Fax, a hip hop artist from Idaho: @schrodingers_cat: I am trying to image the uproar if President Obama or anyone in his administration had used the phrase “too lazy to get off their asses”. In any context.
Ohio Mom
@SiubhanDuinne: I am impressed with your approach — it should be front-paged once a week. Some of us need the goosing.
marcopolo
@Leto: Papers please! Show me your papers!
Chyron HR
@Leto:
Well, the important thing is that we finally vanquished “The Clintons”.
FlipYrWhig
@low-tech cyclist: Why is it that Really Really Super True Progressive Grassroots Challengers can’t overcome the odious backstabbers of THE CORRUPT DEMOCRATIC ESTABLISHMENT but dimwit dumbfuck dumbwit dimfucks like David Brat can do it to Eric Cantor? That’s the nature of a grassroots challenge, isn’t it? You don’t have the support of anyone important but you win anyway because more people vote for you. It’s such a self-serving woebegone complaint. I’m not surprised when it wafts over from The Intercept because that place emanates bad faith like a miasma, but you’d think that otherwise good-hearted and well-intentioned progressive people would want to stop being played for chumps, as opposed to enjoying it quite so much.
Ohio Mom
@Ocotillo: I used to know the answer to that question but forgot it. If I had to guess, after two losses, he decided politics wasn’t for him.
He ran for Congress first — he would have been my rep had he won. I always thought he should have given that another try instead of doing that Icarius thing by running against Brown.
Yes, I think he was a bit of a flake. But he would have been our flake.
FlipYrWhig
@marcopolo: Hackett was The Really Really Super True Progressive Grassroots Challenger of that year (against Jean Schmidt), and was up in the firmament of Daily Kos with people like Darcy Burner and Christine Cegelis. Then Hackett contemplated running for Senate until he was BIGFOOTED BY THE CORRUPT ANTI-LIBERAL ESTABLISHMENT in the form of Sherrod Brown. And Cegelis was BIGFOOTED BY THE CORRUPT ANTI-LIBERAL ESTABLISHMENT AND RAHM!!1! in the form of Tammy Duckworth. And Catherine Kennedy was BIGFOOTED BY THE CORRUPT ANTI-LIBERAL ESTABLISHMENT in the form of Kirsten Gillibrand. At a certain point one notices a pattern, a pattern of losing, misplaced hope, excuse-making, wishful thinking, and bad judgment.
MisterForkbeard
@Mnemosyne: It’s bad of me, but I reflexively distrust anyone who shares a last name with Mark Levin. It’s like if you ran for office as “Bob Hannity” or “John Limbaugh” I’m gonna look at you funny. Unfair, but all three of those guys are just so awful I have a visceral reaction to the name.
And in this case, Doug Applegate was a decent candidate that could have won with more institutional support.
Roger Moore
@FlipYrWhig:
It helps that the teabagging crazies have support from billionaires who want to push the Republican party further to the right. If there were a left-wing equivalent, we might see the same frequency and effectiveness of challenges from the crazies on the left. Instead, the best we get are left-wing crazies being funded by the right to act as spoilers.
Leto
@WaterGirl: That’s part of the Trump effect: fully embracing/releasing the inner racist for the world to see. They’re just “telling it like it is” don’cha know? Tough love and boot strap pulling.
MisterForkbeard
@low-tech cyclist: To be fair, if you’re citing The Intercept for a “Democrats are awful” article, you’re rightly going to get a lot of flak for it. Frequently the information cited is technically correct but wildly misleading and/or stated to sound more more perfidious than it actually is.
@Mnemosyne: And in some ways, he’s more contemptible. Trump at least may not KNOW how awful he is. Kelly hid his own bigotry for a long time – he’s perfectly aware of how immoral it is.
Ohio Mom
@marcopolo: I see you got here first. It was Mean Jean Schmidt, and it’s good to be reminded we are rid of her. Not that her successor, Tea Partier/podiatrist Brad Wenstrup, is any better.
There may be a plausible Democratic candidate this year in Janet Everhart (who is an actual, real doctor, in contrast to her opponent the foot doctor). It’s a very gerrymandered district, the odds are very against us.
FlipYrWhig
@Roger Moore: They don’t even have to be crazies, though. In a low-turnout race like a Congressional district primary you can win with a tiny percentage of halfway-interested people. I think it would be more successful if more people in those districts actually wanted anti-establishment whatever. Maybe they just don’t. But there’s one way to find out: organize, compete, and win. Even when people are mean to you and make it hard. Maybe especially then.
Mnemosyne
@schrodingers_cat:
Nope. Because he thinks that they were wrong and he was right. Asshole. ?
Ohio Mom
@FlipYrWhig: Is that snark? Because Hackett was a newbie whose claim to fame was that even though he was a Democrat, he owned a shotgun. I’d take Sherrod Brown over him any day.
marcopolo
@Ohio Mom: I stand corrected on Hackett running in the D primary against Brown in 2006. According to Wiki Brown originally said he wouldn’t run, Hackett declared, Brown changed his mind, D party establishment got behind Brown and made campaigning difficult for Hackett, Hackett withdrew in Feb of that year.
Leto
@Chyron HR: I’m fairly certain that Republicans subscribe to the Game of Thrones Iron Island religious saying: “What is dead may never die”. Meaning, both Bill and Hillary will be dead for 50 years and Republicans will claim their ghosts are permanent residents of the capital, influencing events from beyond the grave. Or that their deaths were a hoax/false flag operations, and they’re off in their cryotubes manipulating events from their non-frozen/computer linked brains.
WATCH OUT! GHOST HILLARY IS COMING FOR YOU! OOGA BOOGA!
Roger Moore
@FlipYrWhig:
I agree. I think the primary factor is that the crazies on the right are far more numerous than the crazies on the left, so there simply aren’t enough of them to turn even a primary election, except possibly in places that are already extremely liberal. Some of the left lacking the equivalent of the racism that drives the crazies on the right, but a surprising amount is the lack of a crazy leftist infrastructure. There simply isn’t the same kind of dedicated media designed to take moderate lefties and drag them into the leftist fever swamps the same way there is on the right, largely because there aren’t enough crazy leftist ultra-rich people to build that infrastructure.
Ohio Mom
@marcopolo: Good thing there is a such thing as Wikipedia because who could remember such a complicated story correctly?
As I said, I remember thinking he was kind of flakely, but possibly electable. I also remember being disappointed when he disappeared.
Immanentize
Kelly is the Great Santini. I am sure there is a whole hell of a lot of backstories for the industrious.
Leto
@MisterForkbeard:
It’s not that he hid it any better, it was that he wasn’t in the public eye like CheetoBenito has been for the past 40 years. As soon as he had a camera/mic directed at him, internal racist came out. As good as the military is with integrating people of various ethnicities/background (and we’re pretty good with that), it’s still a majority Republican demographic (and all that implies).
The Moar You Know
@Inventor: My district as well. Agree with all. Also gotta point out that the local Dem party seemed to have a vested interest in keeping Issa there by running unelectable stooges. Probably good for donations. Levin is getting some MSM traction and he is absolutely not what this district needs.
FlipYrWhig
@Ohio Mom: That’s the way it was spun on DailyKos. After enough rounds of THE ESTABLISHMENT DONE STOLE MAH LUNCH MUNNAY (some of which I detailed earlier) I gave up on that community. But the sentiment is seemingly deathless.
Alternative Fax, a hip hop artist from Idaho
@Ocotillo: I mainly remember him chasing a car that hit his fence in the middle of the night and getting the car’s occupants on the ground at gunpoint. That was in 2007. He later had a minor bar discipline issue for an employment agreement that required any associate who left his firm give 95% of the fee back to the firm if a client went with the associate. A former associate settled a PI case for a client who wrote to Hackett that he was staying with associate, and Hackett sued his former employee. I’m not a fan, in case that’s not obvious.
marcopolo
@FlipYrWhig: So we have 4 special elections in MO for State House happening today. They are all in heavily R areas but my Indivisible St Louis group wrote over 10K GOTV postcards for them, but I wanted to figure out some kind of benchmark that we might have had some effect. So I checked results from Nov 2016. First district no D candidate. Second district no D candidate (but an Ind got 14.5%). Third district no D candidate (but a Lib got 25%). Fourth district no D candidate. I am seeing a pattern. On the glass half full side, we are contesting these special elections this year! I am thinking that if the D candidates get anything north of 30% maybe that is a win? I mean, I don’t realistically hold out a lot of hope for actually winning the seats but part of the D playbook this year is to increase the D margin in red rural districts so that the big D margins in the urban areas can help someone like McCaskill win (cause I am betting that Jason Kander, who lost to Roy Blunt by 3% in 2016, would have gotten a few more points statewide if these State House races had been contested). The only other way to benchmark would be to see the votes the D Gov candidate got in these districts but the numbers are not broken out like that.
Chyron HR
@The Moar You Know:
And yet the person who “almost beat” Trump is supposed to live on a desert island wearing sackcloth for the rest of her life and definitely not involve herself in politics much less run again. Go figure!
FlipYrWhig
@marcopolo: Perfect! Contest everything everywhere and to hell with anyone who says it can’t be done or that THEY will stop you.
marcopolo
@Roger Moore: I think there are just as many crazies on the left as right. But on the left they are a lot more disorganized. And one thing to consider vis a vis Brat & Cantor–Bannon & Breitbart (and some other folks) really go behind Brat early on. This was covered in the This American Life piece, The Beginning of Now
Ocotillo
@Leto: Boy is that the truth! I was on a treadmill at the gym watching the Super Bowl and one of the other TVs Fox was running something about the 90’s with all sorts of unflattering old photos of the Clenis and Hildebeast.
MisterForkbeard
@marcopolo: Fantastic! Even getting all those elections contested is a major win, let alone what the actual win/loss results of the election are. Carry that energy forward. :)
@marcopolo: Until the 2016 election I would have argued vociferously that the Left has significantly less crazy than the right. I think it’s still the case, but the existence of diehard Steiniacs and BernieBros certainly shows some crazy exists in decent numbers.
That said, totally agree that the biggest difference is that the Left doesn’t put its crazy people into power. The Right not only does this, but generally encourages it and general insanity within their party as the only way to retain any power.
Yutsano
@MisterForkbeard: It’s also critical to start getting Democratic names out there as well. Even in a deep red district, just getting name recognition can start a spark and even get ore attention the next go round. This is why contesting every race matters.
marcopolo
@MisterForkbeard: There are 163 seats in the MO House. Depressingly, in 2016 Ds did not contest either 66 or 67 of them basically ceding a supermajority to the Rs without a fight. Last I heard this year the Ds currently have candidates in 120+. I would love to see that hit 140 but being a D candidate in a red district where there has been no sign of D life for around a decade has got to be really really hard. My hat is off to all of the folks who are stepping forward in today’s elections and in the rest of the state this year.
Brachiator
@Leto:
Trump really likes to build things. A very anal personality, And he is fixated on his obsessions, walls, keeping out Muslims and other nonwhite people, and he keeps coming back to these obsessions despite anything he might say about “deals,” or working with Democrats.
Ohio Mom
@FlipYrWhig: oh I get it. I tried The Great Orange Satan years ago but could not master the layout.
TenguPhule
@Brachiator:
This is not true.
He likes to steal large amounts of money. If anything is built in the process, its considered an afterthought.
Ohio Mom
@Alternative Fax, a hip hop artist from Idaho: Reading your comment was a surreal experience. I once knew the car/fence/gun story, completely forgot it, and then, as I read what you wrote, it all came back.
Sometimes you know you forgot something (“What was her name again?” “What am I forgetting to get in this supermarket?”) but I did not know I had forgotten any of this. It was completely gone, non-existent.
But then it all came back. So maybe I didn’t forget it? What else is waiting in the dark recesses of my mind to be recalled? Memory is such a weird ability.
Anyway, clearly what I was always able to recall was that he gave a better first impression than anything else. When he first came into the public eye, he really seemed like a godsend. It was a disappointment that he lost.
Now that my recall is back, I do remember a growing sense of relief as it became obvious that we had dodged a bullet in Hackett losing.
Brachiator
@TenguPhule:
Trump certainly likes to talk about building things.
The jury is still out on the magnitude of his thievery.
Lapassionara
@marcopolo: I know the thread is dead, but do you know why they prefer the Mark guy?
My goal is to have a strong shot at her.
Ruckus
@MisterForkbeard:
He had to hide his overt racism or get the boot. Even in the late 60s early 70s the military was serious about open racism. Now as long as it was kept outside the line of sight that was entirely different.
marcopolo
@Lapassionara: So far as I can tell he has just made a better personal impression on them–they have met these folks in person. I have not met any of the candidates personally. But at the forum I attended, Kelly (who dropped out at the end of the night) obviously made the best connection with the audience, I’d say Mark was second & Cort was third but it was close. I do not think the audience appreciated that Cort continually dropped the names of local pols who’d endorsed him in his answers to questions. As I said before, I will go with whomever wins the primary but I have other things to spend time and energy on up until then (like Claire’s campaign).
Lapassionara
@marcopolo: Thanks. I am going to give BC permission to give you my email, if you decide to ask for it.
We moved here in fall of 2014, so I am not plugged in yet. Hoping to get plugged in soon. Name dropping not a great tactic.