Some political notes from Jess Craven's Extra! Extra! post on Chop Wood, Carry Water for this week. (The environmental concerns mentioned there will be shared in another post of mine.)
On Saturday, across all 50 states and Washington, D.C., we came together across nearly 3,000 events for No Kings: Vote Early – the largest single-day early voting activation in American history.
In a win for democracy, a judge ruled the Trump administration must stop buying and airing taxpayer-funded ads featuring Trump for the midterms.
Hundreds of North Carolina A&T students marched an hour each way to early voting, because their on-campus polling site had been removed by the election board.
The Chicks brought James Talarico out on stage during one of their concerts this week! Oh, also the “Friday Night Lights” cast made a video for him.
The number of Nashvillians casting a ballot on the first day of early voting has risen nearly 1400% compared to the last midterm election in 2022.
Bernie Sanders and Angie Nixon spent the weekend holding rallies with massive crowds all over Florida.
As voters start casting their ballots, many of the seats the GOP hoped to flip are trending blue in spite of the White House push to rig the maps.
A GOP ad buyer mixed up Portlands, buying ads for Senator Collins in Oregon instead of Maine.
Georgians came to the polls in droves on the first day of early voting, breaking the midterm election early voting record with more than 188,600 ballots cast, an increase of more than 53,000 voters over the 2022 midterm election.
Mike Rounds, a Senate Republican running for re-election in ruby-red South Dakota, has joined a growing number of candidates putting distance between themselves and Trump by scrubbing mentions of the president from his website.
Senator Chris Murphy has promised to investigate Meta’s suppression of the No Kings account on Saturday.
Don Bolduc (R), the Trump-endorsed Republican nominee for U.S. Senate in 2022, is leading a group of GOP figures and prominent independents backing Democratic Senate candidate Chris Pappas in New Hampshire.
James Talarico announced he raised $64 million last quarter, with 97% of his contributions being $100 or less. Sen. Ossoff announced raising more than $33 million last quarter. Just like Talarico, 97% of these donations were $100 or less. NC’s Roy Cooper said his campaign raised $19.5 million last quarter. More than 95% of his donations were $100 or less. Talk about people power!
In a major ruling, a federal judge struck down the Trump administration’s nationwide voter roll campaign, delivering a damaging blow to the DOJ’s effort to obtain states’ unredacted voter rolls.
Political funding groups associated with Trump abandoned a pair of endangered Republican incumbents, GOP Reps. Mariannette Miller-Meeks in Iowa and Tom Kean Jr. in New Jersey, all but conceding their races are lost.
A Georgia appeals court allowed Gwinnett County's pro-voting policy permitting voters to hand-deliver mail-in ballots at early voting sites without drop boxes to stand before the midterms.
Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez sent $1 million to Democratic nominee Abdul El-Sayed to boost his chances in Michigan’s Senate race.
Rep. Angie Craig campaigned for Peggy Flangan this weekend after losing to her in a bruising Democratic primary for U.S. Senate.
According to a new poll, 80% of voters want either complete and total upheaval or substantial change in how the country is run.
Cook shifted eleven more House races toward Democrats. All of them were in Midwestern red states.
Democrats are running up lopsided majorities of the early votes as Americans head to the polls and mail in their ballots, carving out a clear majority of the votes cast so far.
Nearly 2 in 3 Americans say Trump is using the presidency to enrich himself — and most of the increase over the past year has come from people who lean Republican.
A new NBC News/SurveyMonkey poll finds President Trump’s approval at 34%, while 66% disapprove — a new low in this poll.
According to a Texas political insider, Texas Republicans are “freaking out” about the midterms.
A federal judge dismissed the Trump administration’s lawsuit against New York City over city policies that limit the extent to which local law enforcement can cooperate with federal immigration authorities.
In North Carolina, Democratic early vote turnout is up 66% from the same point in 2022. Wow!
Abdul el-Sayed gave a master class in defanging (and humiliating) a troll today. A Christian Nationalist named Tommy—a paid plant sent by Michigan Republicans—went to an Abdul el-Sayed Town Hall to try to create a viral “gotcha” moment. Instead, El-Sayed schooled him brilliantly and the moment went viral because it made Tommy look like an idiot. (Seriously. Watch the video.) https://substack.com/@jesscraven101/note/c-363851562?utm_source=notes-share-action&r=160ms
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The No Kings Facebook page posted this:
Meta Suspended a No Kings account during a Historic Day of Action.
The account was restored, but organizers were locked out for hours. This is why we can’t rely on corporate social media platforms to connect us.
Meta claimed that an automated system mistakenly suspended the account due to high activity.
Don't let Meta decide what you see.
Facebook, Instagram, and Threads are all owned by Meta.
Building communities exclusively on these platforms leaves us vulnerable.
We encourage everyone to follow us on platforms outside of Meta.
Our ability to organize shouldn't depend on decisions of billionaires.
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The League of Women Voters posted this:
Today, our partner, No Kings Coalition, reported that Meta took down its Instagram account during the coalition’s nationwide #NoKingsVoteEarly day of action. It took hours for access to be restored, which was only due to the massive outcry on social media. Fort Myers, FL
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More photos as I see them...lots of people are sharing them to another newsletter I receive daily:
roberthubbell@substack DOT com
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When we are open to beauty, it is more likely to appear to us. When we share that gift by pointing it out to others, we find we have even more of it to celebrate.
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Trebbe Johnson |
