I’ve always liked the idea of giving to longshot races. First of all, the amount of money a longshot Senator might raise is could be 1/50 of what the fan favorites are taking in, and you never know when a family-values conservative Republican incumbent is going to get caught with his pants off or a couple of wetsuits on. I bet that chance is more than one-in-fifty. But they can still win if they’re running essentially unopposed.
Here’s three longshot Democratic Senatorial candidates that Liz Warren is promoting.
Merav Ben-David, Wyoming Senate
Marquita Bradshaw, Tennessee Senate
Abby Broyles, Oklahoma Senate
Also, here’s some incumbents that could use our help: Doug Jones, who may be making this race closer than we thought, and Peter DeFazio in OR-4 whom a reader warns me may get hurt by not having students vote because of COVID.
Doug Jones, Alabama Senate (incumbent)
Peter DeFazio (OR-4, incumbent)
TaMara (HFG)
I’m sure you were referencing the South Park parody, but now I’m going to have this song stuck in my head.
DougJ
@TaMara (HFG):
I hate South Park and I’m sorry to learn they did a parody of this. I love the original.
Nicole
BEST ORIGINAL SONG FROM THE RANKIN-BASS HOLIDAY SPECIALS. GO ON, FIGHT ME.
Benw
Twas the night before the election, when all through the Juice
Not a poster was posting, not even clicking a mouse
The pet pics were listed on the sidebar with care
In hopes that internet traffic soon would be there
DougJ
@Nicole:
That’s a bold statement.
Yutsano
@Nicole: IN.DUB.I.TAB.LY.
EDIT: especially since this will randomly get stuck in my head.
Yutsano
@Benw:
Or Change a mouse to the moose in the second line. We’ll make this work people!
Benw
@Yutsano: yes, excellent! Or even “all through the BJ house”
lol to “even clicking a moose”!
TaMara (HFG)
@DougJ: Oh, good! I love this little Christmas special and search it out every year.
piratedan
@Nicole: I raise you the Heat Miser/Snow Miser clapback from The Year Without A Santa Clause…… consider the gauntlet as tossed!
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_SGlPnA_iCk
Another Scott
An extended writeup on Ben-David at ScienceMag:
Cheers,
Scott.
Nicole
@piratedan: Pistols at dawn!
Or, in this case, dueling mp3 players.
A Ghost to Most
I’ve heard the word “miracle” enough, thanks. See also “hero”, “patriot”, and “conservatism”.
piratedan
@Nicole: I was going to suggest either accordions or bagpipes…
Nicole
(I will clarify that I don’t think it’s the best of the specials themselves; I think that’s a throwdown between Santa Claus Is Comin’ to Town and Rudolph the Red-nosed Reindeer, but it’s the best of the original songs, probably because it’s one of the few that sound like it took longer than 5 minutes to compose.)
Nicole
@piratedan: Or kazoos?
mrmoshpotato
@Nicole:
^^Them’s fightin’ words.
(I don’t have a wombat in this dance-off. I’m just noting.)
mrmoshpotato
@Nicole:
@piratedan: Air drum-off under the Halloween moon.
Benw
Got two postcards reminding me to vote from the local town democrats, and a full size mailer with all the early voting info from the NYSDC.
The Dems want people to VOTE
MC
This is one of those days where social media thinks the presidential election is a longshot.
Mj_Oregon
Thanks for putting Peter DeFazio on the list. His opponent is a tough one this year and a seat we thought was safely Democrat has now moved all the way over to Leans Democrat. There’s a metric buttload of out of state money pouring into the Skarlatos campaign. I’d really hate to see my district, which includes Eugene and Corvallis, elect someone who said in the state voter guide that his previous government experience was “National Guard sniper.”
Please donate!!! I did last night!
Formerly disgruntled in Oregon
@Mj_Oregon: I’ll second this. Pete is my Congress Critter too. He’s been a good rep, and built significant seniority in the caucus. This race is a closer one than his last few. Would really suck for him to lose.
Turgidson
Another candidate for a long-shot race worth chipping in for is CA-01. Audrey Denney is a really good candidate, and ran in 2018 against Trumpist dolt Doug LaMalfa and held him to a fairly narrow win. No one is watching this race but I have some hope that with presidential turnout she can spring an upset, especially since California’s MAGAts know Dear Leader won’t win the state and might thus lack motivation to cast their ballots.
EmbraceYourInnerCrone
@piratedan: Yes! Heat Miser!
Ben Cisco
Alabama, ya’ll:
My personal observation was that there were too many people at one of the two locations in the country for me to risk going in person – I’ll opt for Election Day at my smaller, suburban precinct.
Miracles, indeed.
WaterGirl
I asked MazeDancer if she could put together a tweet to address the complicated rules for a valid PA ballot. I think it’s outstanding. If you tweet, maybe think about putting this out there.
J R in WV
We donated to Ben-David some time back, I just did another smaller donation. But I hit up the incumbent in Oregon pretty big, we can’t afford to lose seats we’ve already won!!
I’m pretty proud to see Balloon Juice people kicking in so strongly. Hope it works for us!!
And thanks to everyone who is helping candidates out in any way!!
Leumas
A brief plea for Broyles who is running against Jim Inhofe (Senator Snowball). She is a good candidate on the issues. The most recent published poll from September showed a massive 30 point gap, about what you would expect in this Red state. However, there are reports of an internal Broyles poll showing a 6 point gap, 49-43. Inhofe has not released a rebuttal poll, and is running constant television commercials. Odd behavior for an incumbent not worried about reelection. This is a long shot race not on anyone’s radar. Broyles will most likely carry the State’s largest county, Oklahoma, but by a modest margin. The third largest county, Cleveland, is suburban and home to the University of Oklahoma. This is the type of educated voter that has been fleeing the Republican party this cycle. The second largest county is Tulsa, which is Inhofe’s home base. The city is purple, but the suburbs are Rock Ribbed Ruby Red Republican, often voting 4-5 to 1 for whatever Republican is on the ballot. Broyles is little known in the Tulsa media market, thus the need for funds. It is a long shot, probably no more than 5%, but that is much improved from a month ago. It would take strange things to happen, but…….it is 2020.
Mj_Oregon
@Formerly disgruntled in Oregon:
DeFazio is the chair of the transportation committee too. His previous opponent for five election cycles was the weird and wacky Art Robinson, who got way more votes than I ever thought he’d get in the last two elections. One of DeFazio’s main voting blocs are the students at UO and OSU, neither of which are at full resident capacity due to covid. That’s what concerns me the most.
Skarlatos has a real chance at flipping this district because of his notoriety from the Paris train attack in 2015 and the subsequent movie in which he portrayed himself, plus being a local boy. He styles himself as a Real American Hero and his entry in the state voter guide lists his occupational background as Army National Guard Sniper, Author and Actor. His politics are right in line with extreme libertarian views and rabid 2nd Amendment support. It wouldn’t surprise me in the least if he’s a member of one of the local militias.
There go two miscreants
In for DeFazio and (thanks to Another Scott’s comment) Ben-David. I have chipped in for all the others previously; will look at the budget a bit more.
Jesse
I took a look at Merav Ben-David’s campaign web site. That’s really impressive! She’s promoting a lot of sensible ideas, including FDR’s Federal Job Guarantee program (never went anywhere, to my knowledge, despite FDR’s immense political skills). Great stuff! Thanks for highlighting her, Doug.