Aftyn The Lovin'

Winning by losing?

Democrats are actually celebrating the results of the special U.S. House election in Tennessee's Seventh Congressional District, in which Democratic candidate Aftyn Behn, below, lost - yes, lost - by about eight percentage points to her MAGA Republican opponent Matt Van Epps.

Aftyn Behn - whose name sounds like a Philadelphia suburb in Montgomery County, Pennsylvania - is a member of the Tennessee House of Representatives who ran for the vacant U.S. House seat in her district and campaigned on affordability, which is an issue even in a low-tax, no-services Southern state.  While she lost by eight points, Donald Trump had carried the district by twenty-two points in 2024.  Democrats are celebrating this as a moral victory because it means that maybe, just maybe, in other districts that are more competitive,  the Democrats can swing the vote by as many percentage points and overwhelm and defeat their Republican opponents.

That's as may be, she still lost.

And she lost in a state that is best known for producing moderate Democratic U.S. Representatives like Harold Ford, Jr., Jim Cooper, and, before he went to the Senate, Albert Gore (who remains the last Democrat elected to the U.S. Senate from Tennessee - in 1990).  Behn is clearly a progressive - so progressive that she can't stand country music despite living in Nashville.

Which is why there won't be a rematch between her and Van Epps in November 2026.  Democrats don't get second chances when they lose, and they're not allowed to make comebacks.  If you disagree, I have a "Dukakis in '92" campaign button to sell you.

Not to mention an "Al Gore in '04" bumper sticker. 

Sorry, Aftyn.  Nice try.  You failed.  But at least you still have your House seat in Nashville.  Look to work your way up in the Tennessee House, because you will never get to Washington.

Suozzi Land

(Okay, Swaziland is called Eswatini now, but what the heck . . .)

Democrat Tom Suozzi won the special election on Long Island to fill the U.S. House seat vacated by George Santos, the same seat Suozzi himself vacated to run (unsuccessfully, of course) for governor of New York.   

Suozzi, the son of an Italian immigrant, campaigned on immigration issues and stressed his support for the border security bill that House Speaker Mike Johnson wouldn't allow for a vote because it didn't go far enough - I mean, because Donald Trump didn't want it to pass.  Democratic Senator Chris Murphy of Connecticut said that Democrats running for Congress should use Suozzi's success as an example of how to run in the general election this November. 

Not so fast.  Part of the reason Suozzi won is because he's a known quantity; he had represented the district in question, New York's Third U.S. House District, for six years prior to stepping down to run for higher office.  Also, Suozzi is a moderate Democrat.  As Speaker Johnson himself noted, Suozzi, when talking about immigration, sounded like a Republican.  Most Democrats don't.  That bill Suozzi said he supported had nothing for allowing children brought over the border by their parents as undocumented immigrants to become citizens, and it offered no paths to citizenship for any other migrants.  A couple of districts over in the Bronx, Representative Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez certainly wouldn't agree with Tom Suozzi on the border bill, and she would say also that, in another country, she wouldn't even be in the same party with Tom Suozzi.  And there are more progressive Democrats who would side with her, not Suozzi or Chris Murphy. 

Also, this was a special election to replace George Santos, a special person.  The circumstances of any special election are different from a regular general election, especially a regular general election in which presidential candidates are on the ballot, but for this special election that goes double. 

There was one silver lining in the form of literal storm clouds.  It snowed big time in the Greater New York area, and though there was less snow on Long Island than there was in northern New Jersey, there was still plenty of snow out that there.  Yet Democrats came out to vote, as did many independents.  For so, so long, Republicans have been famous for going out in any weather, no matter how inclement, to vote; they'd go out to vote in a hurricane.  Democrats, being wusses, would stay home in a nagging drizzle.  That's changing now, thanks to Donald Trump.  Trump has become so toxic for many Democrats that they're not going to let a little snow get in their way to vote for one of their own.  If Speaker Johnson was right about the weather affecting turnout on Long Island, that means it was Republicans who saw the winter storm alerts and decided to stay home.

And Joe Scarborough made another point - Long Island voters saw how House Republicans fumbled on the immigration issue and how they tried to weaponize the issue against the Democrats after rejecting a bipartisan Senate border security bill, and they punished the Republicans by awarding Tom Suozzi, the Democrat.  If the Republicans keep acting like this, they could make the polls showing a Trump victory in November irrelevant.

Actually, Suozzi made the polls in his district irrelevant.  Polls showed him winning this past Tuesday's special election narrowly; he won it by eight points. 

One Step Forward, One Step Back

Kathy Hochul's victory in the special election for House of Representatives in New York's 26th Congressional District Tuesday could do for Democrats what Scott Brown's victory in the 2010 Massachusetts special U.S. Senate election did for Republicans - galvanize the party and reverse their electoral fortunes. Hochul was elected due to the fears of House Budget Committee Chairman Paul Ryan's plan to turn Medicare into a worthless voucher system, a plan endorsed by all but four house Republicans. Ryan (R-WI) accused Democrats of scare tactics by making his plan seem catastrophic, but for people who have been working for thirty-five years and are now just below the age threshold for qualifying for Medicare, it is scary. People between 50 and 64 start to get sick more often, they're in greater danger of getting laid off these days, and their medical insurance becomes more expensive. Maybe Ryan's plan won't affect Americans 65 or older, but the ones coming up behind them are in danger of being left behind.

PBS's David Chalian doesn't see a clear advantage for the Democrats, though. Yes, they have a better shot at taking back the House in 2012 despite GOP-friendly redistricting, but he thinks the new advantage given to the Democrats in the Medicare debate may be temporary. After all, they still have to come up with solutions to reduce the debt and fix the economy - two issues the Republicans are still very much able to exploit.

While the progressive movement gained an advantage, they lost a spokesman, at least for a week. After right-wing blonde talk radio host Laura Ingraham bashed President Obama for traveling to Europe while devastating tornadoes blew through Missouri and Oklahoma - even though the President's official trip was scheduled before anyone could have predicted the weather in those two states and he could not just drop everything and return home - Ed Schultz called her a slut on his radio show. Schultz apologized with great regret and empathy - just before starting a one-week suspension from his MSNBC show. Ingraham - no stranger to shooting the wounded - said that she was unaware that Schultz has a radio show, and that it must be an Internet show. A nasty comment, to be sure, as was her commentary about Obama, but thanks to Schultz's hot-headed, misogynistic rhetoric, she's getting away with it even as Schultz pays.

So am I going to apologize to Ingraham for calling her someone who shoots the wounded? Hell, no! Right-wingers have been saying that about liberals for decades, and so it's time to counterattack. I won't call her a slut - I'm sure her personal life is beyond reproach - but I will attack her for her attacks.

In other news, Florida governor Rick Scott has a 29 percent approval rating. Good. That's as may be, though, Florida Democrats won't likely be giving Alex Sink another shot at the office. Democrats, like Laura Ingraham, shoot the wounded - their own.

Primary Election Fallout: May 2010

Many pundits have found an anti-incumbent trend in the voting in yesterday's primaries for U.S. Senate seats. Arlen Specter, who has served five terms as a U.S. Senator from Pennsylvania, was denied the opportunity to seek a sixth term as a Democrat, the former Republican losing to Delaware County congressman Joe Sestak. Meanwhile, the strong showing of Senate candidate D.C. Morrison in Arkansas forced Senator Blanche Lincoln in a runoff with Lieutenant Governor Bill Halter scheduled for June 8. Lincoln got the most votes but was denied a majority. In Kentucky, establishment Republican Senate candidate Trey Grayson was defeated by eye surgeon Rand Paul, son of Texas congressman Ron Paul and a darling of the Tea Party movement. Neither President Obama nor Senate Republican leader Mitch McConnell have been able to get any of their chosen candidates elected or re-nominated recently.

The mainstream media are likely to focus on the strength of the Tea Party movement in getting one of their own nominated to run for Senate, and they are already saying that Democrats are in trouble because of the anti-incumbent sentiment, but they're missing a lot if they focus on the Tea Party exclusively. More Democrats voted in Kentucky's Democratic Senate primary than in the Republican primary than Republicans in the Republican primary, which stands to help Jack Conway, the Democratic nominee. Defeated Democratic candidate Dan Mongiardo, who came very close to winning, demanded a recount between himself Conway, but changed his mind and conceded. Though Rand Paul believes he can win in a state where Obama is unpopular, some of his proposals - like repealing civil rights laws and the Americans With Disabilities Act - might make him, uh, hard to relate to. The success of Joe Sestak suggests that people want a candidate far more progressive than the Democratic establishment has offered. Meanwhile, in Arkansas, Lincoln is running scared against a populist upstart who has support from unions, and this is in a right-to-work state.

The anti-incumbent trend is likely to snag at least as many Republicans as Democrats. Republican senator Richard Burr of North Carolina is vulnerable, for example. and if Democrats are associate with the sluggish economy and bound to fail, how does that explain Democrat Mark Critz's success in a special election, winning the House seat of the late John Murtha in a Pennsylvania congressional district carried by John McCain in the 2008 presidential election?

Ed Schultz believes that liberal Democrats will be energized by the likes of Sestak and possibly Halter on their respective state ballots in November, and this could only help elect more progressives and help Obama pass his agenda. It's hard to argue with that analysis, especially given the unexpected enthusiasm by progressives in yesterday's voting.

A lot happened last night that still needs to be analyzed and explained. Many are arguing what was the biggest surprise from yesterday's results was.

I would say the biggest surprise was that a man named Mongiardo could make such a strong showing in a state like Kentucky. :-D