Are There Any Districts With Democratic Incumbents Where Trump Will Have Coattails?

There are 22 congressional districts that Trump won in 2016 that turned around and elected a non-incumbent Democrat two years later. None of the 7 California freshmen are included:

• CA-10- Josh Harder (F)-- Hillary beat Trump 48.5% to 45.5%
• CA-21- TJ Cox (F)-- Hillary beat Trump 55.2% to 39.7%
• CA-25- Katie Hill (F)-- Hillary beat Trump 50.3% to 43.6% [see below]
• CA-39- Gil Cisneros (F)-- Hillary beat Trump 51.5% to 42.9%
• CA-45- Katie Porter (F)-- Hillary beat Trump 49.8% to 44.4%
• CA-48- Harley Rouda (F)-- Hillary beat Trump 47.9% to 46.2%
• CA-49- Mike Levin (B)-- Hillary beat Trump 50.7% to 43.2%

Unfortunately most of the Democratic candidates were picked by the DCCC and are weak, flawed and are open to defeat in a non-wave cycle. Each candidate's ProgressivePunch score follows their name. (Katie Porter, who beat the terrible DCCC preferred candidate, is an exception and has been a much better member of Congress than the others.) My guess is that, with the exception of scandal-rocked Katie Hill, they will all be returned to Congress in 2020, largely because of Trump's presence at the top of the ticket. 2022 could proven deadly for the weakest of them, especially Cisneros, Rouda and Harder. The only 2020 rematch with a former incumbent-- at least scheduled so far-- is between Cox and David Valadao.

The bigger problem for Democrats, of course, are the 22 seats in districts Trump won. Most of the new Democratic incumbents are weak and uninspiring. Chosen by the DCCC to appeal to Republicans, few of them can get much positive enthusiasm from the Democratic base and, of course, they don't actually appeal to Republicans, just to imaginary centrists who don't exist in the real world. Most of them are likely to be safe next year with Trump leading the Republican change, even though this were Trump 2016 districts and anti-Trump 2018 districts,

• GA-06- Lucy McBath (F)-- Trump beat Hillary 48.3% to 46.8%
• IA-01- Abby Finkenauer (F)-- Trump beat Hillary 48.7% to 45.2%
• IA-03- Cindy Axne (F)-- Trump beat Hillary 48.5% to 45.0%
• IL-14- Lauren Underwood (F)-- Trump beat Hillary 48.7% to 44.8%
• ME-02- Jared Golden (F)-- Trump beat Hillary 51.4% to 41.1%
• MI-08- Elissa Slotkin (F)-- Trump beat Hillary 50.6% to 43.9%
• MI-11- Haley Stevens (F)-- Trump beat Hillary 49.7% to 45.3%
• MN-02- Angie Craig (F)-- Trump beat Hillary 46.5% to 45.3%
• NH-01- Chris Pappas (B)-- Trump beat Hillary 48.2% to 46.6%
• NJ-02- Jeff Van Drew (F)-- Trump beat Hillary 50.6% to 46.0%
• NJ-03- Andy Kim (F)-- Trump beat Hillary 51.4% to 45.2%
• NJ-11- Mikie Sherrill (F)-- Trump beat Hillary 48.8% to 47.9%
• NM-02- Xochitl Torres Small (F)-- Trump beat Hillary 50.1% to 39.9%
• NV-03- Susie Lee (F)-- Trump beat Hillary 47.5% to 46.5%
• NY-11- Max Rose (F)-- Trump beat Hillary 53.6% to 43.8%
• NY-19- Antonio Delgado (F)-- Trump beat Hillary 50.8% to 44.0%
• NY-22- Anthony Brindisi (F)-- Trump beat Hillary 54.8% to 39.3%
• OK-05- Kendra Horn (F)-- Trump beat Hillary 53.2% to 39.8%
• SC-01- Joe Cunningham (F)-- Trump beat Hillary 53.5% to 40.4%
• UT-04- Ben McAdams (F)-- Trump beat Hillary 39.1% to 32.4%
• VA-02- Elaine Luria (F)-- Trump beat Hillary 48.8% to 45.4%
• VA-07- Abigail Spanberger (F)-- Trump beat Hillary 50.5% to 44.0%

Writing for Politico Sunday, Sarah Ferris and Ally Mutnick note that ousted Republicans are plotting rematches as impeachment revs up and that former GOP lawmakers think having Trump on the ballot is their ticket back to the House, particularly during the polarizing impeachment debate." Keep in mind, that although nationally impeachment numbers are high and growing, in some districts won by Trump in 2016, the pro-impeachment numbers are lower. Ferris and Mutnick start with NY-22, where an especially bad far right extremist, Claudia Tenney, lost her seat to a really bad conservative Democrat, Blue Dog piece of crap Anthony Brindisi. He beat her last year 127,715 (50.9%) to 123,242 (49.1%). Brindisi won in the two biggest counties-- Oneida and Broome, where voters are looking for a real Democrat, not a Republican-lite Democrat. Brindisi is about as far right as you can go without being an actual Republican. He has the worst voting record of any Democrat in the House, tied with fellow Blue Dogs Joe Cunningham and Jeff Van Drew at 20.00%, which is a worse score than Republican John Katko (in the district next door), in fact worse than 3 Republicans and former Republican, now Independent Justin Amash (32.86).

[W]ith Trump back on the ballot in 2020, Tenney and her supporters see a chance to make her comeback.

“I think it’s going to be a good year,” Tenney said in an interview. “In a presidential year, I think we’ll be able to get some of those gains back.”

And she’s not the only one. A series of ex-Republican lawmakers who lost narrowly in Trump strongholds in 2018 are plotting rematches next year with dreams of riding on the president’s coattails.

Particularly amid an impeachment debate that has polarized the country, the former lawmakers think a juiced-up Trump turnout will lift them past their Democratic opponents and potentially help Republicans win back the House.

Former GOP Rep. David Young is running against freshman Democrat Cindy Axne in a district that includes Des Moines, Iowa-- a repeat of the tight 2018 race. Former GOP Rep. Karen Handel is seeking a rematch against Rep. Lucy McBath, a Democrat representing suburban Atlanta.

Another former Republican congressman, Rod Blum, could be eyeing a challenge to freshman Democratic Rep. Abby Finkenauer in northeast Iowa; he protested outside Finkenauer’s office this month at a Trump campaign-sponsored event to condemn impeachment. And former Republican Rep. Mike Bishop has yet to publicly rule out a run against Democrat Elissa Slotkin in Michigan.

“It was a tough year, just not a great environment for Republicans,” Tenney said of 2018. “I think the environment now is different.”

But Tenney and other the congressional alumni may not be able to count on Trump. His approval ratings are near historic lows for presidents heading into a second term, and freshman Democrats have worked hard to win over independents and moderate Republicans.

Public support is also growing for impeachment, with 45 percent of independents now backing it, compared to 32 opposed, according to a Reuters/Ipsos poll this week.

Still, Trump holds a grip over the Republican base that seems unshakable, even amid the ongoing investigation into alleged efforts by the president to withhold military aid unless Ukraine publicly investigated his political rivals.

Trump’s most ardent supporters have already begun organizing in Brindisi’s district, more than a year out from the next election. Pro-Trump groups staged protests outside the freshman Democrat’s office and at some of his public events-- including a town hall here in October-- to rally local support in New York’s 22nd Congressional District.

Many of those who have picketed, including Mount Vernon, N.Y. resident Gilda Ward, have focused squarely on Democrats’ impeachment push. And it doesn’t matter to them that Brindisi, one of the most vulnerable freshmen, remains one of seven holdouts in his caucus who oppose the impeachment inquiry.

If he did come out in favor, Ward predicts, “It would be a death knell.”

“I am totally opposed to any kind of impeachment,” she said in an interview after attending a Brindisi town hall. “It really bothers me, and it bothers many of us who voted for Trump.”

Tenney-- an enthusiastic Trump supporter who appeared alongside the president and his family at campaign events in 2018-- plans to once again embrace the president. The former congresswoman said that since announcing her campaign in late September, she’s gotten calls from Republican friends who say Trump is happy she’s running again.

Brindisi’s campaign is eager to zero in on his House opponent and avoid the presidential politics.

“This district has long turned the page on Claudia Tenney, who delivered for late night TV more than she ever did our district,” said Luke Jackson, a Brindisi campaign spokesperson.

Republicans are betting that if Trump remains popular with the GOP base, he could significantly ramp up turnout-- clawing back seats that were lost in the 2018 wipeout.

That includes the district where Tenney and Brindisi will battle it out next year. Trump won nearly 160,000 votes in the district in 2016. Turnout plummeted two years later when Tenney got less than 124,000 votes.

GOP campaign operatives are looking at the same math for Trump-backed districts across the country that are now held by Democrats.

Young said in an interview he is working to find Trump voters who stayed home in 2018 through a “data deep dive” as he plans his rematch against Axne. He added that he senses an energy from voters in his Des Moines-based district that are frustrated by Democrats’ “obsession with trying to remove the president.”

Trump won nearly 193,000 votes in Iowa's 3rd District in 2016. Young won just under 168,000 when he lost to Axne by 2 points two years later. Activists on both sides are motivated, Young said, but he argued Democrats neared their high-water mark in 2018. Axne came close to matching Hillary Clinton's 2016 vote total but Young won far fewer votes than Trump.

“In November 2018, the Democrats had high voter turnout, almost presidential levels,” Young said. “I think to some extent they may have peaked or are getting close to peaking, but Republicans have so much more room to grow.”

In the midterms, dozens of Democratic candidates outperformed Clinton in their districts. But it’s not clear if they achieved those margins because Trump voters stayed home. Those candidates likely owe their victories in part to two other factors: their ability to persuade Trump voters to back a Democrat for Congress as well as their skill at turning out Democratic voters who typically sit out the midterms.

Rob Simms, a top strategist for Handel, who is seeking a rematch with McBath in suburban Atlanta, blames her loss on high Democratic turnout caused by Democrat Stacey Abram's narrow loss for governor.

“The Democrats, really the Abrams campaign, did a tremendous job at bringing out voters who would not typically vote in an off year elections,” said Simms, a former executive director of the National Republican Congressional Committee. Georgia will be more of a battleground in 2020, he said, and Republicans will be ready.

But particularly in suburban districts with highly-educated voters like Georgia's 6th, the momentum is moving away from the GOP and there may be a large chunk of persuadable voters up for grabs. Mitt Romney won the seat by 24 points in 2012 but Trump carried it by 1 point.

Fundraising appears to be an early advantage for McBath, too. The Georgia Democrat outraised Handel nearly 2 to 1 in the last quarter, and has a fundraising war chest of $1.3 million, compared to Handel’s roughly $630,000. Handel also has to clear a GOP primary before she can challenge McBath again.

Meanwhile, few ousted GOP lawmakers seem eager to try again in districts that Hillary Clinton carried in 2016. (Former California Republican David Valadao is a rare exception, as he tries to reclaim his Central Valley-based district that Trump lost by 15 points.)

Two Republicans who once represented suburban districts are running again in different, more GOP-friendly spots, an indication that they still view the climate as unfavorable in their old seats.

Republican Pete Sessions who lost a Dallas-area district is now running 100 miles south in Waco. And Darrell Issa, who retired in 2018 from a Clinton-won seat, is running in a neighboring San Diego district held by embattled GOP Rep. Duncan Hunter.

Still, Republican strategists see a path back to the House majority through the 31 Democratic-held seats that Trump won in 2016.

“The dynamics in ’20 are going to be much different,” Simms said of GOP chances in suburban Georgia. “We have an incumbent president. We have an incumbent senator who’s going to be on top of the ticket. Their campaigns are already organized and functioning and working in the state today.”

Tenney is not intelligent and made a big mistake calling Brindisi a leftist; she's doing the same thing again

I spoke with an old friend who's active in the Broome County Democratic Party, which was Brindisi's best county in 2018 and performed at a solid D+13 level for him. The county voted to reelect Kirsten Gillibrand as well, but turned against Andrew Cuomo, who lost to a little known Republican candidate, Mark Molinaro. Molinaro only scored 36.2% statewide but managed to beat Cuomo 50.7% to 43.6% in Broome. My friend pointed to Cuomo-hatred as a place where Brindisi is heading. "People here were eager to defeat Trump and Tenney last year. No one I know cared who the Democrat was. Brindisi represented an Assembly district far from here and few people knew how conservative he was; Tenney, of course, tried to paint him as a socialist. Now people are disappointed in Brindisi's conservatism and his lack of political courage. He may win next year because Democrats will be out in force to vote against Trump. But when Trump isn't on the ticket, he'll be in trouble." So, whose perspective is right, the Broome County party official or crackpot and obviously mentally ill Gilda Ward from Mt. Vernon?

UPDATE: Katie Hill

And if that isn't bad enough, look who already is getting ready to toss his Russian sailor's cap into the race, a genuine Trump jailbird/coffee-boy:

Iowa Republicans Will Have To Chose Between 2 Right-Wing Nuts, One Obsessed With Homosexuality And One Obsessed With Racism

Republican homophobic maniac Randy Feenstra may stop thinking about sex with men long enough to run against Steve King

Anthony Brindisi was a worthless New York state senator, beloved by the NRA and never shy about abandoning his own party when they tried passing progressive legislation and crossing the aisle to vote with the GOP. Perfect for the DCCC, right? Absolutely. This year he ran in a little-noted race in upstate New York against a pathetic right-wing, Trump-enthused backbencher, Claudia Tenney. It was a pure lesser of two evils race in a district Obama won twice but where Trump beat Hillary 54.8% to 39.3%. NY-22 is a north-south district that stretches from Lake Ontario through Rome, Utica, Oneida and Cortland to Binghampton and the border with northeast Pennsylvania above Scranton. There are 8 counties and Brindisi won 3 of them, including the only two-- Oneida and Broome-- with sizable populations. This is how close it was:

Brindisi spent $4,528,959 and Tenney spent $3,143,743 but those figures were smaller than the outside spending. The DCCC spent $2,191,416, Pelosi's SuperPAC spent $2,503,046 and DCCC satellite groups spent over a million more-- almost $6 million to elect a worthless Blue Dog who will absolutely be voting with the GOP over and over and over.

None of this really has anything at all to do with Iowa neo-Nazi Steve King, the topic. I just wanted to draw a contrast between how DCCC & Friends spent millions on a dirty NRA-loving Blue Dog and was happy to let Steve King off scott free.

Last week I had a great dinner with King's opponent, JD Scholten, who may run for the Iowa 4th district seat again in 2020 or may-- as I hope-- run for the U.S. Senate seat that Joni Ernst is occupying. JD, a first-time candidate and a strong grassroots progressive, raised an astonishing $3,253,487. Although a few grassroots groups like Blue America, People for the American Way, Ultraviolet, and MoveOn spent some money on JD's behalf, Pelosi's PAC and the DCCC adamantly refused to spend a nickel on the race. Had they, JD would be in Congress and King would be living in Hungary or some other friendly fascist-leaning state. That wouldn't serve the interests of the DCCC, where they hate independent-minded progressives like Scholten and prefer conservatives like Brindisi. And in this case, they like using King as a fundraising bogeyman and have no real interest in seeing him leave Congress, let alone America.

JD held King to a meager 50.3% win. Consider that in 2016, King took 61.2% of the vote, in 2014 he took 61.6% and the only time a Democrat did even close to as well as JD did was when the DCCC and Pelosi's SuperPAC spent almost $1 million to push the former governor's wife Christie Vilsack, who held King down to 53.0%.

On Wednesday, Iowa's Republican governor, Kim Reynolds, announced she will not come to King's aid in what promises to be a lively Republican primary for his seat. In 2018 she had chosen him as a co-chair of her reelection bid.

"The last election was a wake-up call for it to be that close," Reynolds said during an interview in her formal office at the Iowa Statehouse, "That indicates that it does open the door for other individuals to take a look at that."

King won re-election in 2018. But despite a nearly 70,000 registered voter advantage that Republicans have over Democrats in the district, King only beat his Democratic challenger, former professional baseball player J.D. Scholten, by three points.

"I will stay out of the primary," the governor said, "I'm not going to weigh in."

The revelation by Reynolds follows critical comments she made about King following the November election when she said, "I think that Steve King needs to make a decision whether he wants to represent the values of the 4th District or he needs to find something else to do."

King has faced criticism in the past for endorsing a white supremacist mayoral candidate in Toronto last year and comments about immigrants.

Tuesday morning, three-term State Senator Randy Feenstra, a Hull Republican, announced that he would run for King's seat in 2020.

"The President needs effective conservative leaders in Congress who will not only support his agenda, but actually get things done,” Feenstra said in a statement. “Today, Iowa’s 4th District doesn’t have a voice in Washington, because our current representative’s caustic nature has left us without a seat at the table. We don’t need any more sideshows or distractions, we need to start winning for Iowa’s families,” the statement also said.

King's son, Jeff, who serves as the Congressman's campaign manager, responded, "Today, misguided political opportunism, fueled by establishment puppeteers, has revealed that Mr. Feenstra is easily swayed by the lies of the Left. Today’s announcement by Feenstra is the third attempt by the establishment in as many primary cycles to take the 4th District out of the hands of grassroots Republicans. Further, it’s an obvious attempt to undermine an effective and leading Congressional ally of the President’s whom Trump frequently refers to as ‘the world’s most conservative human being.’ From his statements, it appears that Mr. Feenstra offers Republican voters nothing but warmed over talking points from liberal blogs and failed Democratic candidates.”

In an interview with the NY Times yesterday, King was embarrassing Iowa again by asking "White nationalist, white supremacist, Western civilization-- how did that language become offensive?"

By the way, Feenstra, 49, serves as assistant majority leader in the Iowa state Senate. He's a mentally disturbed evangelical who graduated from an evangelical high school and got his bachelor's degree from Dordt College. He isn't an actual Nazi like King but he's a 100% Trumpist and an extreme right radical and hysterical homophobe who seems so hung up on men sleeping with each other (he claims to oppose it) that rumors have been whispered that he sleeps with boys on the down low.

NY-22-- A Republican, A Teabagger And A Blue Dog Walk Into A Race. What Happens? Who Cares?

The huge upstate New York district (NY-22) that stretches from Lake Ontario through Rome and Utica and all the way down past Cortland and Binghampton to the Pennsylvania border along the Southern Tier ws virtually tied in the 2008 and 2012 presidential races, Obama (twice) and McCain and Romney each getting 49% of the vote. The congressman from the district, Republican Richard Hanna, is retiring on a note that includes endorsing Hillary and refusing to endorse the Tea Party Republican running for his seat, Assemblywoman Claudia Tenney. Hanna has said Tenney is way too extreme for the district and he had endorsed Steve Wells in the June 28 primary. In a 3-way contest Tenney bested Wells 8,876 (41.5%) to 7,214 (33.7%). In 2012, Kirsten Gillibrand was reelected to the Senate with every one of the 8 counties that make up NY-22-- and by a landslide, each of the two big population centers, Oneida and Broome counties giving her well over 60% of the vote.

It''s a swing district that been leaning a little red, although Hillary should do well there. So what about the House seat. The Democrats recruited the daughter of a multimillionaire, Kim Myers, a garden variety conservative Democrat backed by EMILY's List. She's first term member of the Broome County legislature but is best known because he father founded the Dick's Sporting Goods chain. She went to the Blue Dogs and asked for an endorsement, which she got-- so... what we're looking at is a clueless and worthless candidate clearly belonging to the Republican wing of the Democratic Party.

A new poll shows a dead heat between the teabagger and the Blue Dog, 35% each (according to the Blue Dog polling firm, Anzalone Liszt Grove Research. The third party candidate, Republican multimillionaire Martin Babinec is drawing 21% but when undecided voters and those supporting Babinec were asked to choose between the two major-party candidates, Tenney and Myers were still tied, at 41% each. Babinec is running on the Upstate Jobs Party, which he created himself and he has already self-funded to the tune of a million dollars and has spent $784,283. Myers had raised $689,220 as of June 30 and had self-funded to the tune of $245,400. Tenney had raised $254,541 by June 30 but had spent all of it to win the primary. The Oneida Indian Tribe spent $601,695 against her during the primary and a Chamber of Commerce-type group (the Defending Main Street SuperPAC) backing Wells spent another $215,000 against her.

Although Babinec had given contributions to both parties-- and to Hillary more than to anyone else-- he says if he wins, he'll caucus with the GOP. Roll Call calls him the "wild card in the race."

Anzalone Liszt claims that the reason Myers has a chance to win is because Tenney hasn't been able to consolidate GOP voters. Only 57% of Republicans support her at this point, while 75% of the district's Democrats say they'll vote for the Blue Dog. Both parties are expected to spend millions of dollars on this stupid race between three awful candidates. What a tragedy that the DCCC will waste a fortune on Myers when they should be spending on any of the progressives who won their primaries currently being shunned by Pelosi and his ridiculous operation-- the candidates you can support by clicking on the thermometer below (no Blue Dogs or New Dems included, of course):

Today's Big News-- Utah And New York Are Pointing In The Same Direction

Which was the bigger deal today, the release of a new poll in Utah, showing Beehive State voters prefer Hillary to Trump 36-35% or the first Republican congressman admitting publicly that he's not only not voting for the Trumpanzee but that he is voting for Hillary?

With Mitt Romney toying with the idea of endorsing Libertarian Gary Johnson for president, the new Hinckley Institute-Salt Lake Tribune poll showing Hillary even with Trump in one of America's reddest states, could be worrying for the Trump campaign. No one ever thought of Utah as a swing state. But no one ever thought of it as Trumpanzee country either. 177,204 Republicans participated in this year's Utah caucuses. Cruz came in first with 122,567 votes (69.2) and won all 40 delegates. John Kasich came in second with 16.8% and the Trumpanzee came in dead last with 14%. He didn't win a single county and in Utah County (Provo) he couldn't even break 10%. The only county where Trump actually did respectably was in tiny Piute County, where his 70 supporters amounted to 41.7%. Trump was basically wiped up in the northern part of the state. Bernie beat him almost everywhere. Almost 3 times as many people voted for Bernie as voted for Trump. Look at these results in the half dozen most populous counties:

• Salt Lake- Bernie- 35,610, Trumpanzee- 6,542
• Utah- Bernie- 6,071, Trumpanzee- 3,713
• Davis- Bernie- 3,563, Trumpanzee- 2,902
• Weber- Bernie- 5,465, Trumpanzee- 1,695
• Washington- Trumpanzee- 3,090, Bernie- 1,509
• Cache- Bernie- 2,906, Trumpanzee- 1,049

And Trump's ugly conflict with the Gold Star Khan family hasn't helping improve his standing with Utahans. Utah has 6 electoral votes and republicans have been able to take the state for granted for half a century, In 2004 Bush won it with 72%. Romney beat Obama 73-25%. And in 1992 Ross Perot finished ahead of Bill Clinton!

The NY Times editorial this morning castigating spineless Republicans, came out just as news broke on the internet that the Republican congressman who represents Utica, Rome and Binghampton in New York, Richard Hanna, has announced he is voting for Hillary. The Times editors pointed out that although "some Republicans, like the House speaker, Paul Ryan; the Senate majority leader, Mitch McConnell; and Senator Kelly Ayotte of New Hampshire released statements defending the Khans... they still refuse to back off their support for Mr. Trump." But they really let McCain have it. "Few carry as much weight on military matters as Senator John McCain of Arizona, himself a decorated hero of the Vietnam War, who issued a statement Monday sharply criticizing Mr. Trump, saying, 'It is time for Donald Trump to set the example for our country and the future of the Republican Party.' It’s hard to imagine, a year into the campaign, that Mr. Trump could ever set such an example. The truth is, it’s time for Mr. McCain and other Republican leaders to set an example for their party by withdrawing support for Mr. Trump.

Also early this morning, before the Hanna news broke, Stuart Rothenberg wondered aloud in the Washington Post when Republican officials will really start jumping ship on Trump. "The last couple of weeks," he wrote, "have been nothing short of disastrous for the Republican Party... Things have deteriorated for the GOP because Donald Trump’s comments about Russia and Vladimir Putin have further shredded the Republican Party’s historically greatest strength: national security and defense themes. Add to that Trump’s-- and GOP delegates’-- performance at their convention (“Lock her up!”) and Trump’s positions on trade, taxes, spending and entitlements, which also contradict the long-standing Republican message, and the party is nothing short of a mess." Rothenberg didn't even have to mention the Khans in asserting that "whatever Trump’s personal weaknesses-- and the list is very long-- he is in the process of undermining the entire rationale for the Republican Party."

For many lifelong Republicans and committed conservatives, as well as dozens of down-ballot Republican candidates, the redefinition of their party and the tone of the nominee are simply unacceptable. That’s clearly why Mitt Romney, the Bush family, Sen. Ben Sasse of Nebraska, Sen. Ted Cruz of Texas, Ohio Gov. John Kasich and others refuse to back Trump.

Of course, some high-profile Republicans-- from House speaker Paul D. Ryan (Wisc.) to Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell (Ky.) and Sen. Marco Rubio of Florida-- hesitated to embrace Trump but eventually backed him. They promised (or at least hoped) that Trump would “grow” as a candidate when the general election arrived.

They are still waiting.

...Trump’s message is not about the limits of political power-- it is about the unlimited nature of his own power and abilities.

All of this raises the question of whether Republican officeholders and party leaders who announced their support for Trump will now reverse themselves and pull their endorsements. Though Sen. John McCain of Arizona has come close, it’s very difficult to believe many will take that dramatic step.

Like Ryan and McConnell, most will criticize a Trump statement or otherwise indicate a different point of view. But pulling an endorsement is a much bigger step.

Most, if not all, of those unshakably loyal Republicans apparently have concluded that Clinton is so untrustworthy and her politics so far left that any Republican is preferable, no matter how flawed that person may be. For many, the election is about only the Supreme Court.

It’s easy for those Republicans to rationalize supporting Trump, no matter how vulgar he is or how far his views stray from what only a couple of years ago was Republican orthodoxy. “He’s not Hillary Clinton” covers a lot of Trump’s shortcomings.

Chuck Todd started the day by wondering if this isn't the last exit ramp for Republicans who want to get off the SS Trumpanzee before it goes down and pointed to Bret Stephens' memo to Paul Ryan in today's Wall Street Journal, To the Go-Along Republicans.

Of all of Donald Trump ’s vile irruptions-- about Sen. John McCain ’s military record, or reporter Serge Kovaleski’s physical handicap, or Judge Gonzalo Curiel ’s judicial fitness-- his casual smear of Ghazala Khan is perhaps the vilest.

This isn’t simply because Mrs. Khan is a bereaved mother. Bereavement alone does not place someone above criticism, especially when it comes to political differences. Nor is it because Mrs. Khan’s son, U.S. Army Capt. Humayun Khan, died heroically to protect his troops in Iraq. The special deference given to Gold Star parents is, at bottom, a social convention.

No: What makes Mr. Trump’s remarks so foul is their undisguised sadism. He took a woman too heartbroken and anxious to speak of her dead son before an audience of millions and painted a target on her. He treated her silence as evidence that she was either a dolt or a stooge. He degraded her. “She was standing there. She had nothing to say,” Mr. Trump told ABC’s George Stephanopoulos. “She probably, maybe she wasn’t allowed to have anything to say. You tell me.”

In this comment there was the full unmasking of Mr. Trump, in case he needed further unmasking. He has, as Humayun’s father Khizr put it, a “black soul.” His problem isn’t a lack of normal propriety but the absence of basic human decency. He is morally unfit for any office, high or low.

This is the point that needs to dawn-- and dawn soon-- on Republican officeholders who pretend to endorse Mr. Trump while also pretending, via wink-and-nod, that they do not. Paul Ryan has tried to walk this razor’s edge by stressing how much he disagrees with Mr. Trump’s “ideas.” On Sunday the speaker issued a flabby statement extolling the Khan family’s sacrifice and denouncing religious tests for immigrants without mentioning Mr. Trump by name.

Mr. Ryan is doing his personal reputation and his party’s fortunes no favors with these evasions. The central issue in this election isn’t Mr. Trump’s ideas, such as they are. It’s his character, such as it is. The sin, in this case, is the sinner.

It will not do for Republicans to say they denounce Mr. Trump’s personal slanders; his nativism and protectionism and isolationism; his mendacity and meanness and crassness; his disdain for constitutional protections—and still campaign for his election. There is no redemption in saying you went along with it, but only halfway; that with Mr. Trump you maintained technical virginity. To lie down with him is to wake up with him. It’s as simple as that.

That’s a thought that ought to frighten Republicans. The Khan slander was not Mr. Trump’s first and will not be his last or worst. As one wag on Twitter put it, the man always finds a new bottom. Nor are we likely done with new disclosures about Mr. Trump’s business practices and associations. Conservative die-hards may try to hold fast to the excuse that Hillary Clinton was, is, and always will be “worse,” but the argument can’t be sustained indefinitely. Mrs. Clinton is not the apotheosis of evil. She may be a corner-cutter and a liar, and she’ll almost surely appoint liberals to the Supreme Court. But at least she’s not a sociopath.

Politics is mostly the business of maintaining popularity in the here-and-now. Not always. Come January, Mrs. Clinton will likely be president. Whether there is a GOP that can still lay a claim to moral and political respectability is another question. Mr. Ryan and other Go-Along Republicans should treat the Khan episode as their last best hope to preserve political reputations they have worked so hard to build.

And then came Rep. Hanna's editorial for syracuse.com explaining why he's going further than his previous announcement that he won't vote for Trump to the place where Republicans are petrified to go, even-- like McCain and Graham-- they plan on doing so in the privacy of the voting booth: casting their ballot for Hillary. "Months ago," he wrote today, "I publicly said I could never support Trump. My reasons were simple and personal. I found him profoundly offensive and narcissistic but as much as anything, a world-class panderer, anything but a leader. Little more than a changing mirror of those he speaks to. I never expect to agree with whoever is president, but at a minimum the president needs to consistently display those qualities I have preached to my two children: kindness, honesty, dignity, compassion and respect. I do not expect perfection, but I do require more than the embodiment of at least a short list of the seven deadly sins."

I have long held the belief that the Republican Party is becoming increasingly less capable of nominating a person who is electable as president. The primary process is so geared toward the party's political base, which ignores the fact that we have largely alienated women, Hispanics, the LGBT community, young voters and many others in general.

Thankfully gerrymandering does not protect candidates in a national election.

If I compare the life stories of both candidates I find Trump deeply flawed in endless ways. A self-involved man who is worth billions yet is comfortable-- almost gleefully-- using bankruptcy laws to avoid the consequences of his own choices. A man of character would not defend his actions but rather display shame and or at least regret. He is unrepentant in all things. Think about those average people who paid for his choices.

...Secretary Clinton has issues that depending on where one stands can be viewed as great or small. But she stands and has stood for causes bigger than herself for a lifetime. That matters. Mrs. Clinton has promoted many of the issues I have been committed to over the years including expanding education and supporting women's health care.

While I disagree with her on many issues, I will vote for Mrs. Clinton. I will be hopeful and resolute in my belief that being a good American who loves his country is far more important than parties or winning and losing. I trust she can lead. All Republicans may not like the direction, but they can live to win or lose another day with a real candidate. Our response to the public's anger and the need to rebuild requires complex solutions, experience, knowledge and balance. Not bumper sticker slogans that pander to our disappointment, fear and hate.

Trump can't threaten to fund a $20 million superPAC against Hanna-- the way he has in regard to Ted Cruz and John Kasich-- because Hanna, a multimillionaire, is retiring in January. The Republican nominee to replace him, Assemblywoman Claudia Tenney is a Trumpist crackpot and Hanna has also announced he wouldn't be voting for her. He said he will either vote for Democrat Kim Myers or independent Martin Babinec but hasn't decided yet.

DuWayne Gregory: "My opponent continuing to stand next to Donald Trump shows once again that he is putting politics before service members. Even Republicans like Senator John McCain are denouncing Trump’s comments but Peter King hasn’t. I ask that Peter King apologize to Khriz and Ghazala Khan and denounce Trump’s comments."

NY-22... Just Doomed

Richard Hanna is an old fashioned conservative multimillionaire who hasn't served long in Congress but has had enough of it's pointless, hyper-partisan dysfunction. He's retiring and doesn't seem to regert that he won't be enmeshed with his Republican congressional colleagues in the future. He's not going to the convention and he told a local paper that "The Republican Party is not capable of nominating anyone who is electable nationally." He refused to vote for Trump, Cruz or Kasich on Tuesday, saying "I can't support a candidate who doesn't support women's health care... I think the orthodoxy of the Republican Party is really hurting the party and pushing it to the extreme. These are people I never imagined would gain national prominence, and yet here they are." He refused to rule out voting for Hillary in November.

We didn't include Trump-like Martin Babinec, a multimillionaire who started a successful online employment agency, in our survey of congressional self-funders, mostly because he's a third-party candidate with little chance to win in the race for the swing district (NY-22) the independent-minded Hanna is giving up in a weirdly disjointed district that slices New York in two, from Pulaski on Lake Ontario, through Rome and Utica and all the way down past Cortland to Binghampton and the Pennsylvania border. The district basically tied 49-49% both times Obama ran. Hanna won the district in 2010 from clueless Blue Dog Michael Arcuri. By 2014, the pathetic Democrats didn't bother running a candidate against him. There are 3 Republicans, 2 Democrats and a Libertarian in the race, as well as Babinec, who's running on the Independence Party. Babinec has given mostly to conservative Democrats, particularly just over $15,000 to Hillary Clinton and 11 contributions to Blue Dog congressman Scott Murphy amounting to around $17,000. Straight from Trump's rich-people hymnal: "I'm running for Congress as an independent, to be a voice for all the people who are forgotten, and if elected I will beholden to no one but the voters."

Republican Steven Wells, another rich businessman who founded a vending machine company, had already self-funded $100,000 when Babinec tossed his hat + a $1,000,000 check of his own, into the ring.

The other rich person looking for a congressional seat-- and remember, both the DCCC and the NRCC actively discourage candidates from middle class and aggressively recruit rich people-- is Kim Meyers, daughter of Dick Stack, founder of dick's Sporting Goods. She sounds like a typical Democratic Party weeny: "I'm running for Congress because we do things the right way here. But that's not what happens in Washington. There's too much partisanship. Common sense doesn't carry the day... The only way we're ever going to change anything is to elect good people, who have their heart in the right place, who are willing to work together to put jobs and families first, and have the experience to get things done for their community."

The other Democrat in the race, Dave Gordon, openly brags that he's a conservative and was planning to take on Hanna from the right before Hanna announced his retirement. The Oneida County Conservative Party, where he's a county legislator, gleefully ranks him as the most conservative lawmaker in the county. "The district constantly elects moderate Republicans," he said. "How about electing a Conservative Democrat?" That sounds like some race shaping up-- a lesser of 7 evils kind of contest! Which brings us to right-wing nut case, Assemblywoman Claudia Tenney who has an internal poll she's pushing on the media, showing her beating ex-Broome County legislator George Phillips and Wells 48-13-9%. She's better known than anyone else because she ran a crazy teabagger campaign against Hanna last cycle-- and lost in a close call for Hanna, 54-46%. The NRCC hates her and is working to sabotage her crackpot campaign but in an anti-establishment environment, their opposition could help her. The NRCC added Phillips and Wells to their Young Guns program and very ostentatiously left out Tenney. She was, however, endorsed by the New York State Conservative Party, so even if she loses the June 28 primary, she'll be in the general election. In 2014, she spent $183,284 smearing Hanna, $112,000 from her personal bank account. The NRCC is still fuming. So far she's self funded this cycle another $50,000.

Tenner told that media that she's "the only conservative Republican running for Congress in the 22nd district with a proven record of championing our conservative principles. In Congress, I will stand up to the political class and special interests to advance commonsense reforms to create economic growth, cut taxes and spending, secure the border, rebuild our military and protect our values. Like I have done in Albany, I will fight to end the failed policies in Washington that are punishing low and middle income families in New York, and driving jobs out of our country." She has an A from the NRA and has been endorsed by far right hate groups Citizens United and the Family Research Council.

The Democratic crackpot in the race, Dave Gordon has $66 cash on hand so it isn't likely that the fortunate daughter is going to have too hard a time beating him in the Democratic primary.

Conservative Democrats Use Politics To Make Sure Their Policy Goals Aren't Threatened By Progressives

Once Rahm Emanuel got the power to fire Howard Dean as DNC chair-- the first catastrophic decision of the Obama presidency-- replacing him with 2 consecutive talentless sieves-- first Tim Kaine and then, much worse, Debbie Wasserman Schultz-- and scrapping Dean's 50-state strategy, it was apparent the Republican Party would have a free-hand in scores of districts where they could be challenged over the long term and that Washington would no longer back sensible strategies for winning back congressional seats or state legislatures.

It was an identical realignment from one I saw taking the music industry, where I had been working, into the toilet. Once the record companies abandoned "artist development" and opted for instant gratification, the industry was finished. At my own label, for example, we had worked on artists like Depeche Mode and Barenaked Ladies for many years before breakthrough albums exploded their catalogue and brought the company millions of dollars in profit. The Emanuel/DNC/DCCC/DSCC strategy is to never look past the current cycle and never develop anything. The result has been a net of nearly 70 lost congressional seats and an even more horrific result on the state legislative level.

If Wall Street and the Republican Party wanted to destroy the Democratic Party from within, they could not have found someone better to do it that Rahm Emanuel and the chimpanzees from the Wall Street-funded New Dems-- like Wasserman Schultz-- who have worked to cut the Democratic Party's now tenuous ties with the kind of Franklin and Eleanor Roosevelt progressivism that has always made Democratic insiders and elites uncomfortable.

Saturday night when an ABC host asked Bernie if corporate America will love a President Sanders and the candidate responded "No they won't... and Wall Street will like me even less," the Democratic base exploded with approval. The Rahm-Wasserman Schultz Wall Street wing of the party, felt justified in trying to rig the nomination for Hillary, the overwhelming establishment choice.

This dynamic plays out locally, of course, up and down the ballot. Ever since Rahm was head of the DCCC-- and Wasserman Schultz was head of the Red-to-Blue Committee (until she was caught trying to rig 3 Miami Dade congressional elections for her Republican buddies, Ileana Ros-Lehtinen and the Diaz-Balart brothers and against the 3 Democratic candidates)-- the DCCC has had a monumentally failed recruitment system that disadvantages progressives and recruits Republican-lite and Republican candidates. People like Rahm, Chris Van Hollen and Steve Israel-- the 3 consecutive worst DCCC chairmen in history-- who do not believe in progressive values and principles, look for corrupt, compromised centrists like themselves and insist that only that kind of candidate can win. The record of the DCCC shows they are entirely wrong but Pelosi and the rest of the House leadership seem incapable of reading the results of elections or of understanding why there are dozens and dozens fewer Democrats in Congress now than there were a decade ago.

Last week the Kaiser Foundation released a poll that showed that most Americans, for example, favor single-payer Medicare for all, a progressive idea that hacks like Israel, Wasserman Schultz and the rest of the New Dems fight against as strongly as Republicans do. 58% of Americans-- not to mention 81% of Democrats-- are in favor, as, of course, is Bernie Sanders, the candidate the Democratic Party establishment is working feverishly to derail.

Again, once Rahm murdered Dean's 50 state strategy, there were obviously going to be no wins to the South outside of urban cores. But even in the northeast, the DCCC has utterly dropped the ball and failed to hold or win seats that should be in Democratinc hands. Lets look at two that are in the news today, NY-22 (Utica, Rome and Binghamton) and PA-06 in the suburbs and exurbs northwest of Philly. Both have relatively mainstream Republican congressmen, Richard Hanna in New York and freshman Ryan Costello in Pennsylvania, Both seats are swing districts that the Democrats must win if they are going to take back the House while writing off huge sections of the country. Obama performed well in both districts, 49-49% ties with McCain and Romney in NY-22 and a 53-46% win against McCain and a 48-51% loss against Romney in PA-06.

Weak DCCC candidates did far worse. After progressive Democrat Maurice Hinchey retired in 2012, the DCCC recruited a weak Hinchey staffer, Dan Lamb, who lost every single county in the district to Hanna-- who won 157,941 (56.4%) to 102,080 (36.4%)-- drastically underperforming Obama, and with the DCCC abandoning the race early and refusing to spend any money on Lamb's behalf. In 2014, the DCCC didn't bother recruiting a candidate and Hanna was reelected without opposition after a bitter primary fight with a teabagger.

With the retirement of long-time incumbent Jim Gerlach in 2014, PA-06 was an open seat, the perfect opportunity for a Democratic win. Instead, the DCCC re-recruited two-time loser Manan Trivedi, another uninspiring, values-free centrist, who had lost to Gerlach in 2010 42.9-57.1% and in 2012 42.9-57.1%. So why would anyone be surprised that Trivedi would lose 43.7-56.3% in 2014, especially with the DCCC spending zero dollars on the race?

Over the weekend, when Hanna announced his retirement, the clueless Beltway trade press reacted by immediately projecting a "tossup" from a "safe Republican" designation. That's because they don't take DCCC incompetence into account. The crazy teabagger who ran against Hanna in 2014, Assemblywoman Claudia Tenney, had already announced she would primary him again-- so she's all in-- but Oswego County GOP Chairman Michael Backus and Oneida County Executive Anthony Picente are also interested in running. The Democrats are looking at Assemblyman Anthony Brindisi who has a superb environmental record but doesn't have a good record on guns and is way more appreciated by the NRA than most Democrats in the state legislature. He was endorsed by NARAL and has a good voting record on Choice and was endorsed by the AFL-CIO and has a good record on unions and workers, although he voted with the Republicans against raising the minimum wage in 2012.

The Pennsylvania district is more problematic. Steve Israel has been adamant about handing the nomination over to another of his "ex" Republicans, Mike Parrish, who has until very recently been contributing thousands of dollars to Republicans like Mitt Romney and Pennsylvania's hated ex-governor, Mike Corbett. But Parrish has been unable to raise any money this cycle-- just $74,517 even with DCCC help-- and Roll Call reported that the DCCC has dumped him as a candidate and is looking for someone else. (In 2014 he raised $150,318 for a quickly aborted primary against Trivedi.) Presumably there will be a time in the future-- apparently after Pelosi retires and we get a viable DCCC-- when the Democratic Party realizes that recruiting Republicans for run as Democrats is a bad idea on every level.

And, yes, yes... Hillary Clinton is better than the Republicans running for the presidency. But is this what you want to see as the Democratic nominee? You can contribute to Bernie's campaign and to the campaigns of congressional candidates who have endorsed Bernie right here on this Blue America ActBlue page. I urge you to watch this video and to share it with your friends:

Mainstream Conservative Richard Hanna (R-NY) Spills The Beans On GOP Benghazi Hypocrisy

When New York lost two House seats after the 2010 census, the 24th CD morphed into a slightly redder 22nd CD that includes not just Utica and Rome, but also Binghamton way down south, which used to be part of Maurice Hinchey's very blue district. In 2010 Republican multimillionaire Richard Hanna ran-- for a second time-- against cowardly freshman Blue Dog Richard Arcuri, who lost much of the district's progressive base by voting against the Affordable Care Act and obsessively carrying water for Wall Street. Hanna, a mainstream Republican and Lebanese-American, ran to Arcuri's left on several issues (Hanna was anti-TARP, pro-LGBT, pro-Choice) and exploited Arcuri's ugly Islamophobia. He beat Arcuri in 8 of the district's 11 counties (including populous Oneida, Herkimer and Broome counties), winning 53-47% in a district that saw 49-49% ties for Obama in 2008 and 2012. Last year Hanna beat Democrat Dan Lamb 61-39%.

Wednesday night the above sound clip from an interview Hanna has just done with WIBX radio host Bill Keeler began circulating. Eventually it will wind up as evidence in Alan Grayson's ethics complaint against Trey Gowdy and Kevin McCarthy for their roles in using taxpayer dollars to conduct a partisan witch hunt. The entire interview with Hanna is worth listening to since he;'s one of the only even remotely rational Republicans left in Congress. But the evidentiary part is towards the end of the recording (around 9:40):

Sometimes the biggest sin you can commit in D.C. is to tell the truth. This may not be politically correct, but I think that there was a big part of this investigation that was designed to go after people, an individual, Hillary Clinton... This has been the longest investigation-- longer than Watergate... you’d like to expect more from a committee that’s spent millions of dollars and tons of time.

He then went on to predict he and other mainstream Republicans would work with the Democrats to prevent GOP extremists from shutting down the government, which he called "an unmitigated crime against this country." This all infuriated Wisconsin neo-fascist Ron Johnson, a senator about to lose his seat to Russ Feingold, who immediately attacked Hanna on CNN and called his statement on the Benghazi Committee, "is opinion; I don't share that opinion. Johnson, a vicious Ayn Rand devotee, is obsessed with Hillary Clinton's e-mails and vows to keep the controversy going no matter what happens in Trey Gowdy's compromised faux-investigation.

Clinton is due to testify before this partisan witch hunt in less than a week. It's outrageous that the committee hasn't disbanded by now and apologized to the American people for wasting at least $4 million in taxpayer money. As Steve Benen, put it at the MaddowBlog, "The Benghazi Committee isn’t investigating a scandal. The Benghazi Committee is the scandal... Given the circumstances, it’s not unreasonable to think there should be an independent investigation into the Republican’s Benghazi Committee itself in order to uncover why it was formed, why its redundant work was deemed necessary, how it spent millions of taxpayer dollars, why the probe has been dragged out for so long, and whether the panel violated ethics laws by using official resources for partisan political purposes. Clinton’s testimony will no doubt receive a bright spotlight next week, but testimony from House Speaker John Boehner (R-Ohio), Committee Chairman Trey Gowdy (R-S.C.), and other GOP leaders would probably shed more light on the ongoing controversy."

Or, in the immortal words of Kevin Drum, "Republicans have screwed the pooch on Benghazi. The press can only play along with their faux investigation as long as they maintain plausible deniability about its partisan goals. But now we have (a) Kevin McCarthy spilling the beans, (b) news reports that John Boehner wanted to use the committee to attack Hillary, (c) Richard Hanna agreeing that it was mostly a partisan witch hunt, and (d) no less than the New York Times reporting that the committee has all but given up on Benghazi in favor of holding hearings on Hillary's email server. We knew all along there was a man behind the curtain, but now he's actually been exposed. It's getting harder and harder to play along with the charade."

This 62 seconds earned Bernie Sanders almost $3 million in small contributions immediately after the debate. (It infuriated Donald Trump though, who is now busy attacking Bernie.) Americans are getting sick and tired of this GOP hyper-partisanship and irresponsible use of public funds.