Cause otherwise midterms discussion will be scattered around a bunch of separate Culture War thread posts. And it's nice to have more off-the-cuff rapid reactions in a dedicated megathread.
The first thing I've noticed so far: if the exit polls are correct, Americans are very pessimistic about AI.
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Well, I've been lurking in /r/fivethirtyeight and listening to Nate Silver and the FiveThirtyEight alumni on youtube, and a few things pop out that I think mottizens would want to know:
A. Semafor revealed for the shocking win by Annie Andrews against Darline Graham, sister of Lindsay Graham, in South Carolina that: "On Oct. 5, the Andrews campaign received a poll showing her with a 3-point lead over Graham. But the Democrat’s campaign decided against publicly releasing the poll — or any subsequent internal poll — showing Andrews with a lead over Graham, wary of drawing too much attention from national Republicans and jeopardizing a peak at the right time, according to Chas Goldman, a strategist for Andrews."
A.1. I must say this is pretty shrewd and speaks to a certain appetite for risk/bravery from Andrews. I'm just trying to imagine being in the situation where there is unexpectedly positive internal polling, and some advisors would be saying "it's great news, we should release the polls so that we can get more funding and drive excitement" and etc., and then some others would argue the way that Andrews decided on.
A.2.. It was a gamble also that Graham/Trump camp, who hopefully got some pollsters that gave the same numbers, didn't release those same Dem-positive polling.
A.3. We don't have a counterfactual on what would have happened if Andrews did release those polls. But based on what I think of Trump and Musk, there might have been a lot more GOP money pumped in the last few weeks.
B. I don't have a good link or verified these numbers but the bottom 4 states in terms of Democratic shift are Jackson in Maine (+3 shift), Flannagan in Minnesota (+6 shift), Markey in Massachusetts (+7 shift), and El-Sayed in Michigan (+8 shift). All four runs under the +13 national average shift. Bernie Sanders only made 4 Senate endorsements in 2026, three are in the bottom four (Minnesota, Massachusetts, Michigan), and the fourth was Graham Platner of Maine.
B.1. These could be signs that progressive liberal politics really do need a blue tsunami to win any office.
B.2. Or this is particularly prescient of Bernie, as progressive as possible yet still win.
C. On the other hand, Ossof in Georgia is winning a comfortable +18 in 2026, especially compared to +1 back in 2021
C.1. This might mean that once red state citizens get past the fears of a blue politician, they might come to like it.
C.2. Anyone who wants to be part of a presidential primary campaign should come running to Georgia.
D. Can I remind everyone that Angie Nixon who lost by 3 points in Florida is DSA.
D.1. Of the races to sacrifice in terms of national strategy, this is apparently a good one cause this Florida is expensive, big movements here would have gotten Trump's personal attention, and because this is a special election the race would come up again in 2028 anyway.
D.2. I personally think maybe Angie Nixon has a chance to be the Stacey Abrams of Florida. Fight so hard to lay the groundworks and rebuild the Dem party in a ruby red state, then some other guy would swoop in and win on that foundation
D.3. Some Democratic operative somewhere, maybe even the Morris Katz guy, is probably combing for some left-leaning, young, masculine Cuban-American to run in 2028.
E. Adam Hamilton in Kansas , Sherrod Brown in Ohio, Roy Cooper in North Carolina are really good examples of excellent candidate grooming by the Dems.
E.1. In contrast are gonna be the Republican candidates (Roger Marshall, Jon Husted, Ashley Hinson) in these races.
E.2. In a good +6 Dem environment, which was around July-Sep this year based on a quick glance here, these races might have been more nail-bitingly close than this clear Dem sweep.
E.3. This has plenty of down ballot implications which we will only figure out in the days and weeks ahead.
F. Shoutout to Roy Cooper of North Carolina still going undefeated in North Carolina.
F.1. This will be overshadowed because of the Roy Cooper factor but this is apparently an inexperienced Trump pick in Michael Whatley?
G. The crown jewel is obviously blue Texas, and Talarico really ran up the score, which certainly helped Hinojosa.
G.1. For me though the dark crown jewel would be if Mississippi is confirmed flip. And then people can joke about how once Mississippi got a little educated they stopped being red.
G.2. "Pick another protein? I'd rather pick another senator" is the best political ad of the year.
G.3. Talarico in Texas, Hamilton in Kansas, Warnock in Georgia, the Dems have certain individuals that can credibly say counter the image that Republicans are the only one representing the religious of America.
It's insane that this is the broad consensus, because to me what she said was obviously good advice and they're punishing her for telling them the truth.
"Hot dogs are five cents cheaper"
"Make your own $20 burrito"
Good advice and true statements, unfortunately, do not win votes. As attack ad soundbites go, this one was probably the least obvious in the moment, though.
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It's both. Yes, it's good advice, and personally higher beef prices helped me discover that I actually might prefer pork anyway. And I doubt there's much a senator can do about it. But elected officials or candidates for elected office are pretty much not allowed to tell the public any variation on "deal with it", because they will lose to someone who will say "Unlike my opponent, I will deal with it for you".
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