David Nir

I really can't believe it's been 23 years, but here we are! My dream is to be able to keep publishing for at least that long, if not longer. You'd be doing us an immense honor—and giving us a huge boost in carrying out our mission—by starting a paid subscription today.

How you know Election Day is almost upon us: It's time for The Downballot's annual prediction contest, with prizes sponsored by the gloriously delicious GreensBabka.com! And this year's contest is bigger and badder than ever. Click below for full details & a link to submit your guesses. Good luck!

Next week's elections could give Arizona Democrats something they haven't had in 60 years: control of the governorship and both chambers of the legislature.

Best day for democracy worldwide in quite some time: Brazil’s center-left president won the runoff in an upset, blocking the far-right from gaining unified power. Serbia’s right-wing authoritarian government finally lost control of parliament after more than a decade in power

The Downballot's special sale for our 23rd anniversary ends *tonight* at midnight! We're working super hard in this last push before Election Day, so we'd be extremely grateful for your support. You can unlock access to all our paywalled content & subscriber perks for just $7 a month or $58 a year!

We've pulled new FEC reports (covering the first two weeks of October) for all House & Senate candidates. Dems continue to crush: Raised: D: $123 million R: $39 million Spent: D: $193 million R: $130 million Cash: D: $466 million R: $300 million See both tabs of the linked spreadsheet.

I never got the Yglesias thing. Never. Yet so many Dem pols and insiders seek him out and heed his words Shortly after Ruben Gallego got sworn in as a Senator, he hosted a fundraiser featuring Yglesias - and Marc Andreessen - in Sedona www.rollingstone.com/politics/pol...

Republicans tried to gerrymander this Missouri congressional seat out of contention, but their map got blocked. Now the top GOP super PAC is airing ads to boost Rep. Ann Wagner against Democrat Fred Wellman.

NEW from The Downballot: @stephenwolf.bsky.social has cataloged *53* different ballot measures on voting rights that will go before voters next month—and he explains all of them, concisely. Read his complete guide here -->

Troy Jackson might be wise to try to link this effort to what Ramaswamy's doing in Ohio.

This is going to make Aqua Buddha look like a genius move

Tonight feels like a good night to reshare our requirements for what polls we will—and won’t—include in our coverage.

I feel like no one told me and definitely no one asked my permission when "compute" became a noun. Like I'm a friend to all nerds. But this was a little out of hand. And shld have been reined in.

We were investigating Wedgewood for faking their data and emailed them for comment this morning, ahead of publishing the findings tomorrow. They are now trying to cover up their fraud with the "we were doing a social experiment" excuse. Full story here: blog.fiftyplusone.news/p/fiftypluso...

If Zohran Mamdani or Abdul El-Sayed had used the word “Shylock” as an insult, the ADL would be attacking them by name relentlessly. But Donald Trump used it, so we get a generic condemnation of the word without any specific reference to who actually used it, and with no assumption of intent.

The Republican Party of Florida is threatening criminal prosecution over this campaign ad.

Mark Amodei is just waiting by the phone for every opportunity to shit-talk David Flippo to reporters www.wsj.com/politics/ele...

James Talarico began September with a 46.7 to 44.1 advantage in an aggregate of polling compiled by @fiftyplusone.news. A month-and-a-half and nine figures of GOP spending later, that average is 48.8 to 46.0 Talarico.

RANDOM POSTER WHOSE OPINION I HAVE NO REASON TO TRUST: A result like this in NV-03 would be seismic. That’s deep Blortles country. It was Vinkum +8 in ‘24 ME DURING ELECTION SEASON: totally. i just need to look at 9000 more of these

Is there a difference between a "lawyer" and an "attorney"? Well, there's a difference between press secretary and former press secretary.

NEW: Our complete charts of 3Q fundraising data for *every* race for Congress Some real narrative-busting details: Dems & allied indies smashed Republicans, raising $499 million to $194 million With better ad rates for candidates, this goes a long way toward neutralizing the flood of outside GOP $

This was very likely the only plausible option available to Democrats: absorb the massive spending, pray you survive, then whale on them with whatever you have left at the end. Seeing as the polls haven't gotten worse for Ds (if anything, they keep getting better), it seems like this is working.

See, I see an AI menu and I’m immediately uninterested This menu? I’m in.

This is an absolutely nutty story —>

Both parties are focusing on five Pennsylvania Senate races. Democrats need to win three of them to deadlock the chamber, and four to secure outright control. The difference between those two outcomes is huge: Democratic Lt. Gov. Austin Davis can break ties on procedural matters, but not on bills.

Democrat James Talarico announces raising a giant $64 million in third quarter for his campaign to flip Texas' Senate seat. May be the most any candidate for Congress has ever hauled in for a single quarter.

We're planning a public execution. We only admit white "refugees" from a former apartheid state. Our domestic security service uses white nationalist messaging. And the president routinely appears to encourage or endorse violence against his opponents & the media. Nothing subtle or complicated here.

"Sicker Together" (the motto of The Downballot's Discord server)

This is the kind of perceptive and instructive history lesson that (among many other reasons) has kept me reading Josh Marshall for 25 years.

The kicker in this story from @jimswift.bsky.social at @thebulwark.com is just a gem. Make sure you read to the last sentence.

Dems can "make it clear that everyone who aids and abets Trump in his Neroism can and will be held accountable to the full extent of the law. ... Anyone who says something like 'We should look forward, not back' is making it significantly less likely that we will have anything to look forward to."

Texas Republicans aren't a lock for any of the five Democratic-held seats they targeted with their gerrymander, and they've reportedly just redirected resources away from one of them. We have LOTS more in our newest Morning Digest.

This framing is wild because somehow, the people who pushed the lie get passive-voiced away into a generalized “mistrust”, the Democrats get named as the ones who need to learn their lesson from this, and then we move on to a broader framing for the Republicans who are described as simply “worried”.

The RGA appears to have triaged a major governor’s race in a swing state (first broken by @mirsnews.bsky.social last week), and yet it seems to have drawn very little attention.

Another banger from @donnermaps.bsky.social: September polls of House races with named candidates suggested a D+11 environment. But does that actually mean anything for the midterms? The answer is yes.

these companies need to be strangled to death with the full force of the regulatory state at the soonest opportunity

Roger Marshall charged his patients 18% annual interest on their unpaid bills. His bakery bill for $678.75 was due six years ago. At 18% interest compounded annually, the total he'd owe would be at least $1,800. Marshall just paid the bakery $1,300—far less than what his patients would owe.

this is my favorite genre of social media post and I am soliciting links or screenshots to your favorites