Jeff Singer

This summer, we banned low-rent poll aggregation engagement farms from our Discord server. Didn’t need any further examples to back us up, but we sure got one tonight.

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!

Could Missouri Republicans' gerrymandering crusade actually *cost* them a seat?

I've been involved in The Downballot in some capacity since 2013, and there may be no single decision I feel prouder about in those 13 years than deciding in June that Wedgewood, which we'd never seen before, should go on our ignore list.

Talarico: "We just found out that [Elon Musk] is almost single-handedly bankrolling this effort to install Ken Paxton in the U.S. Senate and defeat this movement...Elon Musk wants our land. He wants our water. He wants his very own personal United States senator. He is trying to buy Texas."

I accidentally stumbled on The Swing State Project in 2008 having no idea it was already five years old and immediately got hooked! I never would have even dared to dream I'd be working there eighteen years and two names later.

I'm a Downballot sicko and you should be too. It's a great deal at the usual price, and at this discount it's an obvious addition to your media diet

Today is The Downballot's 23rd anniversary, so we're celebrating with a special 23% off sale! Unlock premium content and awesome perks 𝙥𝙡𝙪𝙨 support our unique work at a steep discount off our normal rates. Click below to take advantage—the offer is good for just one week!

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 $

Republican Rep. Anna Paulina Luna five months after she talked about running for RNC chair: "Sounds to me like some in leadership need to focus on winning races instead of gaming their next steak donor dinner."

This is like if LBJ's opponent that one early campaign went "this week, I had to explain that no I'm not a pig fucker"

One of HMP's targets is Republican Rep. Anna Paulina Luna, whose #FL13 backed Trump 56-43. If Luna loses to Leela Gray ... this May article from Politico will have aged interestingly! www.politico.com/live-updates...

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.

As Wisconsin has shown, state supreme court races as massive contests that have huge consequences. @stephenwolf.bsky.social previews the key races to watch next month across the country.

From that same Paxton fundraiser where the last (checks notes) *three* leaks came from.

NEW: Republicans are flooding key races with a massive deluge of money … but it’s not translating to a similar advantage on the airwaves. In a special Sunday piece, we explain why. And perhaps most notable, the GOP spending spree has yet to register in the polls.

Elections for secretary of state are some of the most crucial races on the ballot next month. In a brand new piece, @stephenwolf.bsky.social runs down the major contests to watch across the country.

There are races here even I didn't know about!

A nerdy topic even for *us,* but an important one!

In primaries this year, Democratic turnout utterly dwarfed Republican turnout. But does it mean anything for November? It turns out the answer is very much yes. A new analysis from @donnermaps.bsky.social suggests that Dems are on track for a 13-point blowout in the House vote. Here's why.

Learned this morning on The Downballot's Discord that actor Robert Duncan McNeill, AKA Tom Paris of "Star Trek: Voyager," is running as a Democrat for a seat on the Wasatch County, UT Council!

It is so on-brand for Democrats to spend crucial time ahead of an election debating a divisive resolution that wouldn't actually do anything. Oh wait, this is the GOP.

I appreciate Matthew Yglesias owning up to his worldview that calling out attacks on democracy is "resistance maximalism." A lot of people in the mainstream press aren't as honest about the institutional bias toward both-sidesing democracy for fear of alienating Republicans, but he just says it!

He's a college freshman and saying the vibes are the worst he has ever seen. Fair, but he hasn't seen very much.

Mike Rogers making a college freshman campaign chair of at least four counties is unusual, but lots of young people in politics prove to be strong leaders. But most of them don't go on social media to complain about how bad things are going.

In this day and age, I don't think any candidate should WANT to be called "the prototype of a United States Senator." www.detroitnews.com/story/opinio...

Deep thought: Ballot measure numbers should be like hurricane names. If they're big enough, the name gets retired. Otherwise, heaven help you if you're a California campaign that randomly gets assigned the number Proposition 8.

After the MO Supreme Court reinstated the 2022 map a week ago today, we reverted our pres-by-CD calculations to feature those numbers instead. We left them in place this week, which proved to be the right call based on SCOTUS' stay this AM. Find them here! www.the-downballot.com/p/the-downba...

A good question I don't know the answer to. Most states hold elections for governor and mayor of their capital city at different times, with Rhode Island being an exception. In California, for example, governor races are in midterm years while Sacramento elects its mayor in presidential cycles.

Despite some high-profile misses (which we should expect sometimes!), election polls remain a very useful tool. But there's a *lot* of sketchy polling out there. To help us—and everyone else—separate wheat from chaff, The Downballot has updated our criteria for which polls we'll report on and why.

In the months after the 2024 election a lot of Democrats said/did a lot of things to fight the last war that poisoned them with the base, like Seth Moulton’s transbashing and Angie Craig’s vote for the Laken Riley Act. Didn't work out well for either.

If you see people tweeting about the "runoff" for U.S. Senate in Mississippi ... show them this.

In light of the new poll showing GOP Sen. Cindy Hyde-Smith up 44-38 on Democrat Scott Colom, a reminder that there will be *NO* runoff for #MSSen, no matter what. To repeat: There are *NO* general election runoffs for regularly scheduled elections for federal offices in Mississippi.

GOP strategist in June: "If the Republicans are smart, they’ll make Platner the poster boy for the 2026 midterms." Two months later, Republicans in tough races in Ohio and across the country aren't even distancing themselves from Max Miller especially hard.

I have every Morning Digest going back to August 2014 in my inbox, and this is the first time the word "urine" has been in any of them.

There's finally a Republican Trump won't dump no matter what, and its Max Miller.

Andy Ogles sounds like the Borg here. www.politico.com/news/2026/08...

Hex marks the spot!

The Downballot's best-of-breed quarterly fundraising charts are out! We have complete 2Q data for more than 750 candidates for both the Senate and House. Find it all here!

Folks, a *very* exciting announcement: The Downballot has just published updated 2024 presidential results by congressional district for every state with a new map this year! That's 10 states in all, covering a full one-third of the House. Please dive in!

To unlock our complete primary preview, *and* every upcoming preview (many more to come!), *and* support our work, you can upgrade to a paid subscription right here! www.the-downballot.com/subscribe

Georgia is also on our minds. Trump and Brian Kemp are behind the same candidate for governor, but he has to overcome a massive spending blitz from his billionaire opponent. Lots more on all these races, and more, in our primary preview.

In the history of the Swing State Project, Daily Kos Elections, and The Downballot, we've never quite had a headline like this!