The Runaround, Vol. 0.1
Some of the Election News That is Fit to Post
Background: My students and I send out a weekly newsletter about employee ownership. A few dozen people open it each week (yay!). Its main beneficiary, though, is yours truly. I have learned a lot by putting it together.
Separately, I read a truly silly amount of political news. Maybe it’s because I teach politics. Maybe it’s my equivalent of social media addition. Either way, I wondered what it would look like if I pulled together what I’m seeing.
Enjoy; this may be the first and last of these! If you would read a second, let me know—a heart, a comment, an email.
Stuff in the News I Didn’t Spend Much Time Thinking About
Kamala Harris sat for her first interview as a presidential candidate Thursday night (some clips here; full interview to be posted Friday). After a few weeks of fumbling around for the right attack line against Harris, it seems like Republicans now have their talking point: she’s a flip-flopper.
RFK Jr is out. …sort of? It’s hard to parse fact from fiction here, but some definite fiction in this speech is RFK Jr’s depiction of 1950s and 1960s politics. When JFK won, there weren't binding primaries. He was chosen by Democratic Party elites RFK Jr says he hates, after he had demonstrated that Protestants would, in fact, vote for a Catholic.
Donald Trump’s visit to Arlington Cemetery did not go well
What I’ve Actually Been Paying Attention To: Texas Edition
Breitbart takes a shot at Colin Allred and the El Paso Times. Meanwhile, Scott Braddock at The Texas Take wonders if Allred is even running a campaign.
Jeremy Wallace picks his three hottest congressional races in Texas, in McAllen and Laredo: Monica De La Cruz (R) v. Michelle Vallejo (D); Vicente Gonzalez (D) v. Mayra Flores (R), and Henry Cuellar (D) v. Jay Furman.
It's already harder to vote in Texas than in any other state, but Greg Abbott and Ken Paxton are working to tighten things further. Paxton raided the offices of a voter registration group, and Abbott claims to have kicked 1 million Texans off the voter rolls.
What I’ve Been Paying Attention To: US Edition
Some conservative Christian activists are intent on banning IVF. Donald Trump, for whom >80% of evangelicals voted in 2020, wants the government to pay for it (h/t RGW).
Republican anti-Trump and anti-anti-Trump elites are still sniping at each other about David French’s endorsement of Kamala Harris and everybody’s responses to it. Meanwhile, the actual Republican Party is on the ground working the refs in Georgia, while the candidate cranks it up an angry notch on Truth Social.
Democrats, for their part, are by the numbers having a some very good weeks, according to Republican pollster Patrick Ruffini.
Tim Walz? He just wants America to take care of its gutters (h/t DD):
ICYMI
Nate Silver reminds us: Your friends are not a representative sample of public opinion.