In Deep Red Districts, Democrats Are Running for Office in Record Numbers

Before she could talk about her campaign for the Texas House of Representatives, Lisa Seger needed to check on her goats. Seger, who lives with her husband and 30 goats on a farm 40 minutes outside of Houston, had a doe in the maternity stall that was due any minute. “Spring is kidding season,” she explained.

If elected, the 47-year-old Seger, a sustainable agriculture proponent who got into farming after reading Michael Pollan’s The Omnivore’s Dilemma, would likely be the only member of the legislature with her own brand of yogurt. But what makes her so unusual in the state’s third district isn’t her background, it’s her party—Seger is the first Democratic candidate to run for the seat since 2010, when the Republican incumbent Cecil Bell Jr. was first elected. Seger’s state senator also ran unopposed in her last election.

“I couldn’t remember the last time I was even able to vote for a Democrat in one of our elections here,” Seger says.

In West Texas, two millennial friends, Armando Gamboa, a 25-year-old from Odessa, and 24-year-old Spencer Bounds of Midland, decided to run for neighboring state house districts where Democrats have been AWOL for at least a decade. No one has run in Gamboa’s district since 2004; Bounds’ opponent is a 50-year incumbent who last faced a Democrat in 2008.

Seger, Gamboa, and Bounds are part of a trend. Call it the “Virginia Effect”: A little more than a year after the inauguration, Democrats in deep-red districts are running for office at a historic clip, determined to find and turn out progressive voters in places where no one has competed in years. It’s a sign that the enthusiasm that swept progressive activists in the first year of the Trump administration and led the party to big gains in the Old Dominion and elsewhere in 2017 is still burning heading into the midterm elections. These local races, flying mostly under the radar, could also give a party struggling for relevance in large swaths of the country a quiet boost this fall.



https://www.motherjones.com/politics/2018/02/texas-democrat-candidate-surge/

Bernie Sanders stepdaughter hopes to be Burlington mayor

BURLINGTON, Vt. — Bernie Sanders’ stepdaughter is hoping the city that launched her stepfather’s political career nearly 40 years ago will show her the same love in her run for mayor.

Carina Driscoll, the former city council member and state legislator, who now runs the Vermont Woodworking School, is challenging incumbent Democratic Mayor Miro Weinberger, who is seeking his third three-year term in the March 6 election.

Another independent and political newcomer, Infinite Culcleasure, is also in the race.

From her campaign office in the working class neighborhood of the lakeside college city of about 43,000, Driscoll speaks with some of the same conviction as Sanders about her community and the role of the mayor’s office, but has said she is her own candidate. She has the backing of the Progressive Party, described as a people-powered party engaged in grassroots organizing.

“Being Bernie’s daughter is one small piece, but it’s an important piece because it helps people understand the vision for Burlington that I’m talking about,” she told The Associated Press. “I am very committed to these values and ideals of a progressive city and we have drifted far too far from that. For me, it was a choice of quietly letting that continue or turning us around. And that is what I’m trying to do.”


https://www.washingtonpost.com/national/bernie-sanders-stepdaughter-hopes-to-be-burlington-mayor/2018/02/25/65027b74-1a45-11e8-98f5-ceecfa8741b6_story.html?utm_term=.77031e8addd8

California Democratic Party offers no endorsements in U.S. Senate or governor's races

The California Democratic Party decided not to endorse in the U.S. Senate contest on Saturday, an embarrassing rebuke of veteran Sen. Dianne Feinstein.

Feinstein, who has represented California in the Senate for a quarter-century, is facing an insurgent bid by a fellow Democrat, state Senate leader Kevin de León.

He earned nearly 500 more votes than the senator, who was first elected in 1992.

Though De León did not get the endorsement, his success in blocking Feinstein from receiving it shows that his calls for generational change and a more aggressively liberal path have resonated with some of the party’s most passionate activists.

Feinstein has never been a state party glad-hander, while De León has cultivated relationships with the party’s delegates. He still faces a significant challenge in trying to topple Feinstein, who trounces De León in all public polling and fund-raising.


http://www.latimes.com/politics/essential/la-pol-ca-essential-politics-updates-california-democratic-party-endorses-xx-1519534142-htmlstory.html

TX-SEN: Beto ORourke nearly triples Ted Cruz fundraising in 2018

U.S. Rep. Beto O’Rourke has raised nearly three times as much money as U.S. Sen. Ted Cruz in 2018.

O’Rourke, a third-term Democratic congressman from El Paso, has raised $2.3 million through Feb. 14 toward his U.S. Senate campaign. Cruz, a Houston Republican seeking his second term, raised $800,000.

While O’Rourke touted his bounty as soon as the fundraising reporting period closed on Feb. 14, Cruz has not yet announced the numbers in his fundraising report, which was due, on paper, with the secretary of the Senate at the end of last week. An electronic copy won’t be available for a few days. But The Dallas Morning News reported the figures contained in the report Friday.

Cruz continues to have a cash advantage over O’Rourke — $6 million to $4.9 million — but O’Rourke has been closing the gap.

According to O’Rourke’s campaign, the latest totals came from more than 43,000 contributions.

Asked about O’Rourke’s fundraising momentum at a recent campaign stop in New Braunfels on behalf of Republican congressional candidate Chip Roy, Cruz told reporters he does not underestimate the passion on the left.

“They’re angry, they hate the president,” Cruz said. “We’ve seen all across the country the Democrats’ fundraising numbers are through the roof because their base is so energized.”

“This is a volatile political time,” Cruz said. “That energy on the hard left is dangerous … if conservatives are complacent, if conservatives stay home. I hope that doesn’t happen.


http://www.mystatesman.com/news/state--regional-govt--politics/beto-rourke-nearly-triples-ted-cruz-fundraising-2018/9gnJNWTwuYQUXD2bW8R40L/

Dems see big Texas turnout early for first primary of 2018

AUSTIN, Texas (AP) — Democrats in Texas are early voting in large numbers ahead of the first primary elections before the 2018 midterms, stoking party optimism that backlash to President Donald Trump won’t escape the biggest conservative state in the country.

More Democrats have cast ballots than Republicans since early voting began this week in Texas, according to state election figures released Thursday, and turnout among Democrats is up 46 percent over the last midterm elections in 2014. For Republicans, meanwhile, turnout is basically flat.

Trump won Texas by 9 points in 2016 and so dominant are Republicans that they haven’t lost a statewide race since 1994. Political strategists cautioned against reading too much into early turnout totals and said a relatively dull slate of GOP statewide primary races isn’t energizing Republican voters like four years ago.

But the numbers still encouraged Democrats whose best hopes in Texas for 2018 are flipping a few congressional seats as Republicans defend their majorities in the House and Senate. GOP U.S. Sen. Ted Cruz is also up for re-election but is a heavy favorite to win another term.

“It definitely says there was a large number of Democrats who couldn’t wait to get out and vote,” said Mark Jones, a political science professor at Rice University.

The Texas primary is March 6 and is the first in the country this year. Illinois also has an early primary on March 20 but other states won’t begin voting until May.


https://www.apnews.com/4514c155deb74fe5b6d6bd1c634a4b4c?utm_campaign=SocialFlow&utm_source=Twitter&utm_medium=AP_Politics

California Democrats Have Too Many Candidates for Congress

Democratic activists in Orange County threw an impromptu party with cake, party hats and singing after Republican Rep. Darrell Issa announced he was retiring.

But the exhilaration over the opportunity to capture a Republican congressional seat quickly turned to political panic.

There are so many Democrats running for Congress in some districts that they could split the votes in the June 5 primary and send two Republicans to the November election, thanks to California's top-two primary system. Democrats need 24 seats to reclaim the majority in the U.S. House — and are putting money and attention toward 10 California contests. In other words, every race matters.

The volume of Democratic candidates is a particular problem in Issa's 49th Congressional District in San Diego and south Orange County.
On a recent phone call with 300 local activists, organizers fretted over the entry of a fifth Democrat into the race and rumors about a sixth.

"What I would like to do is ship all these candidates to a deserted island for a season of 'Survivor,' " Terra Lawson-Remer, who leads the Flip the 49th grassroots group, said on the call.

Democrats also see possible trouble in the 39th Congressional District, set mostly in northeastern Orange County and currently represented by Rep. Ed Royce, who is retiring. There are at least eight Democratic candidates, and only one with experience as an elected official.

The fears are well founded. In 2012, when the top-two primary system began, the same dynamic cost Democrats a congressional seat in the Inland Empire despite a 5 percentage point advantage in voter registration.

The question for this year's high-stakes midterm elections is how Democrats can continue to harness the supercharged atmosphere of activism, enthusiasm and fundraising sparked by the resistance to President Trump in California while boosting the candidates with the best shot at winning.


http://www.latimes.com/politics/la-pol-ca-democrats-narrowing-house-fields-20180224-story.html

GOP reps call on Ryan to bring background check bill up for vote

A group of House Republicans is calling on House Speaker Paul Ryan (R-Wis.) to bring to a vote a measure aimed at bolstering the accuracy of the nation's background check system for gun buyers.

In a letter led by Rep. Leonard Lance (N.J.), the GOP lawmakers called on Ryan to allow "immediate consideration" of the Fix NICS Act, which would push federal and state agencies to comply with existing laws and more accurately report criminal records to the National Instant Criminal Background Check System (NICS).

"The Fix NICS Act, would greatly improve the sharing of mental health and criminal record information between state and local agencies and the federal background check database," the lawmakers, many of whom are members of the moderate Tuesday Group, wrote.

"It has broad bipartisan support in both the House and Senate. Let us pass this legislation and take an important step toward making our Country safer from gun violence."


http://thehill.com/homenews/house/375324-gop-reps-calls-on-ryan-to-bring-background-check-bill-up-for-vote

"Black Panther" Movie Is Breaking Box Office Records In Africa

Through Monday, the Marvel Studios release has earned $242.2 million domestically, the second-best four-day return ever for a feature film, behind only Star Wars: The Force Awakens.

Internationally, Black Panther is also a giant blockbuster, earning $184.6 million through Monday — and that's before the film has premiered in China, Japan, and Russia, three of the biggest markets in the world.

The film has become a watershed for movies starring black actors, dismantling the myth in Hollywood that they aren't financially successful internationally. It is also an unprecedented hit for a film set in Africa — in Black Panther's case, the fictional nation of Wakanda, but still emphatically set within the continent.

So it's perhaps not that surprising that Black Panther also broke several box office records in Africa. Disney confirmed to BuzzFeed News that the film earned the third-biggest opening weekend in South Africa (behind 2015's Furious 7 and 2017's The Fate of the Furious), and set new opening weekend records in the film distribution territories of West Africa and East Africa (each consisting of several countries).

The amounts of those records are fractions of what Black Panther has earned elsewhere in the world: In South Africa, it was $1.4 million; in West Africa, roughly $400,000, and in East Africa, roughly $300,000.


https://www.buzzfeed.com/adambvary/black-panther-box-office-records-africa?utm_term=.qmVYQBdxm4#.mmx0LKr6D3

CPAC official: We elected Michael Steele chairman because he was a black guy

Do you think Manafort was in fear for his own life?

That mad scramble for cash described by Rachel Maddow looks to me like the Russians threatened to kill him and/or his family.