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No matter how many primaries their hand-picked favorites lose, no matter what the polls say, the Democratic establishment and their allies in the MSM are fighting a desperate rear-guard action against progressives in the party from Florida to Michigan to Minnesota.
I’ll get to those campaigns, but first I’ve got to put a stake in the heart of a monster who keeps getting out of his political coffin.
Rahm Emanuel Embodies Thirty Years of Neoliberal, Neocon Dem Failure
Some nightmares, like Rahm Emanuel’s political career, never end. For three decades, the former key Bill Clinton aide, head of the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee, Chief of Staff to POTUS Obama, Mayor of Chicago, and Ambassador to Japan has failed upward time and time again.
Never fear, despite a four-year tenure in Tokyo that was marked by nonstop controversy (mostly for his aggressive advocacy of LGBTQ issues he now criticizes Democrats for over-emphasizing) and conflicts with his host country and China (toward which he was so belligerent the Biden admin had to reign him in) following on the heels of his disastrous term as Chicago mayor that saw him essentially run out of town on a rail after covering up a notoriously racially charged police murder and endemic sexual violence against Chicago school children and earning an 18% approval rating by his term’s end, Rahm is back on the campaign trail teasing a 2028 run and getting the fawning press coverage from the MSM that has been a hallmark of his career despite consistently abysmal poll numbers with Dem voters.
Rahm is also trying to claim credit for what seems like the inevitable Trump midterm Blue Wave election that could see Democrats take majorities in both houses. He’s got experience, having done the same in 2006, despite running a centrist strategy that set the Dems up for the 2010 wipeout.
But that’s enough about Rahm. I want to cover a couple of big-picture trends that are shaping the political context and which the conventional wisdom just refuses to acknowledge.
Anti-System Voters
The other eternally recurring Groundhog Day meme of my political era has been the relentless appeal of outsider candidates from H. Ross Perot in 1992, to John McCain in 2000 (as unbelievable as that seems in retrospect it’s true), Howard Dean in 2004, to Bernie Sanders and Trump in 2016 and Sanders (but not Trump) in 2020, and Trump in 2024.
Political analysts are finally realizing that the appeal of these candidates is less about their position on some idealized right-left spectrum and more about their outsider status itself.
G. Elliott Morris writes about a newish (Dec 2025) paper by political scientists Christopher Williams and Leon Kockaya that argues the key swing bloc is not the “economically liberal, socially conservative” unicorn that Emanuel and Schumer and their ilk have been chasing since the Clinton era, but rather “a key bloc of swing voters who distrust both parties, believe elites are corrupt, and think the political system is rigged against people like them.”
This study pairs well with a Wall Street Journal piece that makes what must be a painful admission for Rupert Murdoch’s flagship, “Americans Want Populist Policies That Defy Traditional Political Labels:”
Americans in both parties back government-imposed price caps and other market interventions to make life more affordable, suggesting new support for populist ideas that were once largely outside the political mainstream.
That’s the takeaway of a new Wall Street Journal survey that asked respondents what they want from their elected officials and the political system. Voters of all partisan stripes strongly support capping the cost of prescription drugs, child care and credit-card interest rates.
The survey suggests that a coalition reaching beyond the nation’s familiar party labels exists for a range of policies at a time when Americans view Republicans and Democrats negatively.
The other context I want to provide comes by way of The Bulwark which points out that Libertarians could likely have an outsized impact on the 2026 elections, since many erstwhile Republicans are abandoning their party but can’t go all the way blue:
Libertarian and other third-party candidates are poised to play a particularly consequential role this cycle—likely as spoilers for Republicans, and likely to a greater degree than in past elections. Several Democratic pollsters told me they’ve been surprised by how well those candidates continue to poll, noting that historically their support tends to fade as voting nears. And there is widespread belief that their overperformance will squarely hurt Republicans: The theory goes that pissed-off GOP voters will choose to back third-party candidates as an act of protest against Donald Trump or GOP incumbents without having to vote blue.
“We’re seeing Libertarians poll steadily a month out from the election at 4 to 5 percent, depending on the poll and depending on the state,” said Kevin Akins, a Democratic pollster who is working on a number of competitive battleground races this cycle.
“The Libertarian impact and effect here has the potential to be more pronounced than ever in battleground races,” he added. “If the Libertarian candidates hold their current position . . . it could be the difference in flipping the U.S. Senate this year.”
Democratic officials told me that they’re seeing this dynamic play out in competitive House races in North Carolina, Ohio, Iowa, Florida, Pennsylvania, and Texas. They also believe it could be a factor in Senate races in Iowa, Texas, South Carolina, Ohio, and Kansas.
With the above in mind, let’s move on to Florida.
Bernie Sanders to the Rescue in Florida
Dem Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer and his New York Senate sidekick Kirsten Gillibrand, head of the Democratic Senate Campaign Committee (DSCC) have been busy since they forced Graham Platner out of the Maine Senate race.
Busy doing nothing in Florida, that is. The national Dem establishment backed the well-funded, pro-Israel Alex Vindman in the primary, and ever since he got crushed by Democratic Socialist Angie Nixon, they’ve been on the sidelines, pouting.
But Bernie Sanders is stepping up and stepping in on the race, telling Politico he’s going to put his money where his mouth has been and back Nixon, per Florida Politics:
U.S. Sen. Bernie Sanders will use his campaign dollars to boost Angie Nixon’s U.S. Senate campaign in Florida.
The Vermont independent told POLITICOhe will step up spending ahead of the Midterms to help candidates he endorsed for Senate as Democrats try to gain a majority in the upper chamber.
Sanders caucuses with Democrats in the chamber.
The two-time presidential candidate listed several candidates, some of whom aren’t receiving support from the Democratic Senatorial Campaign Committee but have polled well against Republicans in the current political environment.
Sanders endorsed Nixon shortly after she won Florida’s U.S. Senate Primary against the significantly better-funded Alex Vindman, and he said he will support her candidacy along with Peggy Flanagan in Minnesota and Abdul El-Sayed in Michigan.
“I am very proud that many strong progressives have won Democratic primaries. We got to defend them right now,” Sanders said. “We got three Senate races in Michigan and Minnesota and Florida that I want to see us win, three great candidates, and they’re all taking on enormous amounts of money.”
Nixon faces U.S. Sen. Ashley Moody, a Republican appointed to her seat last year. Major political prognosticators, including Sabato’s Crystal Ball and Cook Political Report, list Florida as a safe Republican seat in Senate forecasts, and most polls in the current RealClear Polling index show the incumbent in the lead. But a St. Pete Polls survey for Florida Politics this month showed Moody and Nixon tied.
Florida’s not the only state where Sanders feels compelled to step in and fill a vacuum left by the DSCC (which is encouraging donors to throw their money away on a long-shot race in Mississippi).
What Is El-Sayed Doing in Michigan?
After edging out Haley Stevens, despite being hugely, almost farcically outspent 10-1 in Michigan’s August US Senate primary, Dr. Abdul El-Sayed has twisted himself in knots to try to win Chuck Schumer’s elusive centrist voter.
He’s apologized to Jewish Democrats, begged for their approval, denounced Hasan Piker (whose support was crucial in the primary for El-Sayed), and most inexplicable of all, campaigned with Kamala Harris — in the state where she alienated the key Arab vote that cost her the presidency in 2024.
Presumably, Lynn Cheney was unavailable.
This is happening even as his opponent Mike Rodgers is desperate to distance himself from Trump’s war with Iran (after praising it in the spring) and the deeply unpopular data center boom.
But I guess I’m stupid because whatever family blogging El-Sayed has been doing seems to be working:
Let’s go to Maine where the Dem establishment got to overrule the preference of a record number of Maine primary voters who nominated Graham Platner and now they’re getting Troy Jackson.
The Accidental Candidate Hires Terrible Consultants
New York’s Rebecca Traister called him “The Accidental Candidate” (free version) and subheaded the article “How the Democratic Party is seizing control of his Senate campaign.”
As you’d imagine, they’re doing a bang-up job:
For the past year, the Senate race in Maine has been part of a larger war within the Democratic Party. In primaries from New York to Michigan to Minnesota, the electorate has been bucking the wishes of those at the top, rallying behind insurgent candidates. Some of them are leftists, some are populists, some are young and untested, and some say radical and unpopular things—but all of them are challenging a broadly defined Establishment epitomized by Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer, House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries, and their allies in the punditconsultant class.
Before Platner dropped out in July, Maine was the chief battleground in this fight, pitting the silver-tongued and infamously Totenkopf-adorned oysterman against Schumer’s pick, the listless Governor Janet Mills, who was swept aside by Platner’s army in a race that drew a record number of voters. In the wake of his departure, both sides could claim victory: party bigwigs for dispatching their tattooed white whale, and the grass roots for securing Jackson, a Bernie Sanders–adjacent left populist, as his replacement. Jackson’s entry could have been a hard reset in a race that had dominated national headlines for both its outlandish details and its vital importance: The balance of power in the Senate may hang on whether Democrats can defeat five-term Republican incumbent Susan Collins, who has managed to win against all kinds of Democrats in a state that reliably votes blue in presidential contests. Instead, the battle between Beltway denizens and Maine’s grass roots, between the party and the people, has quietly moved inside the Jackson campaign.
Since the event in Lisbon Falls, the Democratic side of the race has been defined by an unsure candidate with little national experience, thrust into a huge and disorienting spotlight and counseled by a cadre of hardened advisers from out of state who are trying to guide him to victory in extremely challenging circumstances. These consultants, some connected to the Democratic Senatorial Campaign Committee and national party leaders, have strong views on how to win tough elections: flood the airwaves with ads, stay ultradisciplined on the kind of messaging that will prompt donors to open their pockets, and appeal to centrist voters they imagine as a 55-year-old suburban woman who voted for Hillary Clinton and Collins. Charged with beating Collins, the consultants are trying to make it happen with a candidate who doesn’t take to such adjustments naturally.
According to multiple sources, these advisers are frustrated by Jackson and his backwoods cadence, his insistence on taking questions, and his unapologetically progressive stances. Jackson, a decent, marble-mouthed logger with a phone belt clip—one of my friends described him as “heartbreakingly normal”—has often deferred to their expertise, angering longtime allies and organizers who have their own thoughts on how he can win. “These people are very convincing,” said one person with knowledge of the campaign. “And he’s a very trusting guy. He’s being taken advantage of by people who have a lot of power and influence in this political sphere.”
Jackson’s online response to the article was so effective that it got him kicked out of his own Facebook supporters’ group, per the (GOP aligned) Maine Wire:
An account bearing Troy Jackson’s name got kicked out of a Facebook group devoted to supporting him after members decided its replies were so insulting they couldn’t possibly have come from their candidate.
Screenshots from “Mainers for Troy Jackson” show members arguing over whether they were dealing with the real Jackson, an impostor or someone else using his account. One member posted images identifying the profile as Jackson’s personal page, complete with a Facebook designation that made for an awkward endorsement: “Former member of Mainers for Troy Jackson.”
And Drop Site reported on the real insider agenda:
Driving it all is a fight for control of the direction of the Democratic Party. During the primary, the Washington establishment was beaten handily by a populist wave that lifted Graham Platner to victory. After Platner’s withdrawal from the race, the establishment was beaten again in the contest to replace him, this time by the populist Troy Jackson, powered by Platner’s volunteers, who organized in every county to overwhelm the party apparatus at the nominating convention.
The party brass’s third run at power has been more successful, as they’ve managed to surround Jackson with consultants from a wide array of losing campaigns, from Dan Goldman in New York to Haley Stevens and Mallory McMorrow in Michigan and Colin Allred in Texas. After Platner ran fiercely against AIPAC and Israel’s genocide in Gaza, the Jackson consultants have brought in Impact Research, one of AIPAC’s top pollsters, to run polling for the campaign.
The funding strategy for the campaign has also changed. After Platner powered his way to the Democratic nomination in Maine at the head of a volunteer army powered by millions in small dollars, the new nominee, Jackson, effectively disbanded the volunteers, focusing instead on high-dollar fundraisers over grassroots supporters.
…
Sources in Jackson’s orbit say the campaign is effectively being dominated by Communications Director and Allred alum Dan Gottlieb, as well as David Farmer, who comes from Bernstein Shur, a corporate law and lobbying firm. Consultant B.J. McCollister is also playing a major role, and has brought in his own firm, Frame, to cut ads for the campaign, a job potentially worth many millions of dollars in a short stretch of time. As Traister puts it, “These firms had also been involved in Jackson’s gubernatorial efforts, but now they were in the driver’s seat.”
To establish leverage for moderating Jackson on Gaza, as Traister’s piece acutely explains, the consultants have sought to bring in donor dollars from pro-Israel sources. In the last three weeks, documents reviewed by Drop Site reveal Jackson’s campaign has held at least three fundraisers with prominent Democratic fundraisers with favorable views of Israel’s military actions in the Middle East. The consultants appear to believe that by surrounding Jackson with big donors who have a sympathetic view of Israel, they will be able to pressure Jackson into moderating his public statements on the genocide in Gaza. “They have told him to stop saying genocide, moved him to blocking offensive only, and his answers are pissing off voters,” said one source familiar with the guidance.
The consultants are doing some of their most notable work — and these are the people responsible for Mallory McMorrow’s campaign-killing cringe at the Michigan Dem convention — with Jackson’s inexplicable “Boba Tea” ad drawing hate from voters of both parties.
The polls are showing Collins pulling ahead of Jackson, who lead early, despite some serious coverage of her corrupt antics from ProPublica.
Jackson attempted a course correction, referring to Israel’s actions in Gaza as a “genocide”, but he’s already apologizing for it, so, yeah. Dude seems pretty cooked.
Oh well, election results don’t matter for political consultants. The name of the game is collecting the paycheck and moving on to the next host body.
Alright, let’s hit Minnesota and call it a post.
Minnesota Senate Race Very Close
Minnesota is another race where the Democratic nominee, Lt. Governor Peggy Flanagan, has crossed Chuck Schumer and is now relying on Bernie Sanders for national support instead of the DSCC.
She’ll need all the help she can get as she’s only leading GOPer Michele Tafoya by 1 point, per The Hill. The GOP is scoring points by associating Flanagan with the “Outstanding Refugee” blamed for a $5.7 million fraud.
Just another rinse-and-repeat election cycle in the twilight of the American Republic. Hang tough, y’all.
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