Inside:
Florida and Texas Are In Play
Our Week In Hong Kong
Xi Visits DC, and Trump Straps On the Kneepads
Trump Beclowns Himself at the UN. Again
The White House Media Ban Backfires
The Pod Bros Forget About Trump
The Furry Threat
Trump TV Craps The Bed
Shut Up About 2028. Please.
Cranky About My Plane
What I’m Reading
Scenes from the Home Front
So many pictures!
Note: A little different formatting this time. More links in the text instead of up top.
The Big Picture: Florida and Texas Are In Play
For most of my career, Florida and Texas were where Democratic hopes went to be quietly put down, and I held the pillow over the face of struggling Democratic candidates more than once. That history generally makes me the last guy in the room to buy Democratic optimism about either state.
This month the political realities, the data, the MAGA candidates’ behavior, and the handicappers dragged me there anyway.
The ratings come first, because the professionals don’t do vibes.
Decision Desk HQ moved the Florida governor’s race from “Leans Republican” to “Toss Up” on Wednesday, with Byron Donalds’ win probability down to 60 percent, an 8-point drop since the start of the month. Cook had already moved Florida from Solid R to Likely R back on August 27, and Sabato’s Crystal Ball and Inside Elections have shifted the contest left as well. Why? Because David Jolly is running a focused, smart campaign about data centers, affordability, and insurance costs while Byron Donalds is slowly freaking the fuck out.
This is happening in a state where registered Republicans still outnumber Democrats by more than 1.5 million. A Democratic-aligned Change Research survey has Jolly-Graham leading Donalds-Avila 47 to 44, with Donalds at 34 percent favorable and 46 percent unfavorable despite spending $65 million. Discount the sponsor all you like. Sixty-five million dollars that buys you a negative favorability rating is a campaign problem no pollster invented.
Texas is worse for them. In the Senate race, Cook has moved the contest to Toss-Up, and Nate Silver’s model now puts it at Lean Democrat, giving Talarico roughly a 70 percent chance. The latest poll has Talarico up 50-44 over Paxton.
On the governor’s side, Cook downgraded Abbott from Solid to Likely Republican on August 20, and Emerson has Abbott’s job approval at 46 percent with 49 disapproving. The polling is noisy, to be sure, but can you imagine if Greg Abbott goes down because of Ken Paxton’s drag on the ticket? Mmmm…MAGA tears.
It gets worse for Texas. The chances of the failed dummymander, the Talarico win, and an Abbott loss are becoming greater by the day.
An NPR/Marist poll that Hinojosa’s campaign is trumpeting has her ahead 49-46, while a Mason-Dixon poll had Abbott up 48-41 in early September. A three-term incumbent with a war chest the size of a small nation’s GDP should not have noisy polling in late September, but here we are. Given the power of the Texas governor, if this race goes Democratic, it’s absolutely seismic.
Even the Florida Senate race, which everyone wrote off, is twitching. Sabato moved it to Safe Republican the day after Angie Nixon won the Democratic nomination, citing
