The Progressive Midwesterner

One of the most high-profile victories for the Democratic Party in this year's midterm elections was Sharice Davids's election to the U.S. House of Representatives in the 3rd Congressional District of Kansas, which includes much of the Kansas portion of the Kansas City metropolitan area. Davids became the first Democrat to win election to either house of Congress as a Democrat since 2008, and Davids became one of the first two Native American women to be elected to either house of Congress from any state (Deb Haaland of New Mexico was the other Native American woman elected to the U.S. House in 2018). Now, Democrats in Kansas are flipping state legislative seats after the votes have been counted in this year's elections. That's because two state senators and one state representative have switched their party affiliation from Republican to Democratic in recent days. The two state senators who have defected to the Democrats are Dinah Sykes, who represents State Senate...

Ten score years ago, on December 3, 1818, Illinois became the 21st state to be admitted to the Union. Now, with the great State of Illinois celebrating its 200th birthday, here are 20 of the most defining moments in Illinois political history, one for each decade that Illinois has been a U.S. state (although not all decades are represented, and some are represented more than once) and presented in chronological order: Illinois's admission to the Union - During much of the year 1818, what was then the Illinois Territory went through a lengthy process to become what is now the State of Illinois . On April 18, 1818, the U.S. House of Representatives was officially notified that President James Monroe had signed an Act of Congress titled "An Act to Enable the People of Illinois Territory to form a constitution and state government and for the admission of such state into the Union on an equal footing with the original states" into law. In July of 1818, delegates to a sta...

President Donald Trump is floating a political trial balloon for potentially launching a government-run media outlet that, if launched, would serve as a taxpayer-funded, pro-Trump propaganda outlet that would be comparable to, for example, state-run media in authoritarian dictatorships like North Korea: President Trump on Monday suggested the government start its own television network as he voiced frustration with the way CNN in particular has covered his administration. "Throughout the world, CNN has a powerful voice portraying the United States in an unfair and false way. Something has to be done, including the possibility of the United States starting our own Worldwide Network to show the World the way we really are, GREAT!" Trump wrote on Twitter. It's important to note that Trump is already the beneficiary of pro-Trump propaganda from a segment of the corporate media, including Fox News, Sinclair-owned television stations, and right-wing talk radio. Furthermor...

Here's a couple of interesting points of analysis about the elections in North Dakota earlier this month, which included a whopping 13 (!!!) statewide elections in North Dakota this year (two federal legislative elections, six state executive elections, one state supreme court election, and four state referenda). First, soon-to-be-former U.S. Sen. Heidi Heitkamp (DNPL-ND) got a similar percentage of the vote in her unsuccessful U.S. Senate re-election bid this year to the percentage of the vote that she received in her unsuccessful gubernatorial bid in 2000. Here's a set of maps, courtesy of J. Miles Coleman of Decision Desk HQ, comparing the 2018 U.S. Senate election in North Dakota to the 2000 gubernatorial election in North Dakota: The #NDSen result this year was very similar to 2000, when Heitkamp ran for Governor. She lost to John Hoeven by 10% then. Most of her gains in 2018 were around Fargo & in American Indian counties. The western region, however, has gotten...

U.S. Rep. Marcia Fudge (D-OH) is considering a bid for U.S. House Speaker , as it's not clear if the presumed Speaker-designate, U.S. Rep. Nancy Pelosi (D-CA), has enough votes to be elected speaker in the upcoming Congress that will be sworn into office in January of next year. While I'm open to the idea of new leadership of the House Democrats (I believe that U.S. Rep. Barbara Lee (D-CA) would be a fantastic House Speaker, although, if I recall correctly, she is running for Democratic caucus chair instead of the Democratic nomination for House Speaker), nearly all of the serious opposition to Pelosi within the House Democratic caucus is ideologically to the right of Pelosi, meaning that, if Fudge or anyone else who is supported by the faction of anti-Pelosi Democrats who want to shift the Democratic Party rightward is elected Speaker, there will be immediate criticism towards Fudge or whoever else the new Speaker would be from progressives and Pelosi loyalists, two factions...

Thirty years ago, 1988 Democratic presidential nominee Michael Dukakis actually won an Illinois county that neighbors Champaign County (specifically, Vermilion County), while losing Champaign County en route to losing Illinois as a whole as part of a landslide loss nationally to Republican George H.W. Bush. 1988 was the last time a Democratic presidential nominee lost Champaign County, but, until Tuesday, Champaign County had a strong Republican machine that, with few exceptions, dominated countywide elections. On Tuesday, the blue wave hit Champaign County in a big way, with all of the Democratic statewide candidates carrying Champaign County on the way to statewide victory (even Republican attorney general candidate Erika Harold, who is from Urbana, lost her home county on the way to losing statewide to Democratic Attorney General-elect Kwame Raoul), and Democratic countywide candidates in Champaign County winning five countywide races, including the newly-created office of county ...

Since the population of the average state legislative district in North Dakota is significantly less less than the population of, for example, the population of the average state senate district in my home state of Illinois, it's, as far as I'm aware of, not common to see television advertising for state legislative candidates in North Dakota. However, the all-female Democratic-NPL slate of candidates in North Dakota state legislative district 17, which includes part of Grand Forks County in the northeastern part of the state, is running a high-quality television advertisement featuring state senate candidate Phyllis Johnson and state house candidates Monte Gaukler and Angela Urlacher engaging in conversations with voters: There is immense energy working cooperatively with empowered women. @Angela_Urlacher , Phyllis Johnson, and I have enjoyed our journey together and we are hoping to travel to Bismarck. We would appreciate your support on November 6th. #WorkingTogetherMovin...

After eight years of busting labor unions, mismanaging Wisconsin state government, and alienating some of his own former state cabinet members, it appears that Wisconsinites have finally had enough of Scott Walker's destruction of Wisconsin. It is my hope that this is the final time that I will write a blog post criticizing Walker. Unlike the failed 2012 recall attempt against Walker and the 2014 general election, this time feels a lot different in regards to Democratic prospects of defeating Walker. One reason why Walker is in bigger electoral trouble than in previous elections is because of the Democratic challenger who is running against Walker this year. Unlike past Democratic opponents against Walker, which included Tom Barrett and Mary Burke, Tony Evers is already well-established in Wisconsin politics as the state superintendent of public instruction, so he had an iron-clad electability argument that was one of numerous reasons why he was able to win the Democratic guber...

Yesterday, I created this spreadsheet containing a county-by-county analysis of the 2018 early vote in North Dakota, as of October 20. Early voting participation in North Dakota has been high: some North Dakota counties have already seen numbers of received early vote ballots that are more than one-quarter of the total number of overall votes cast in the 2012 U.S. Senate election in North Dakota. Here are some important notes regarding the analysis of the North Dakota early vote so far: As of this writing, no votes have been actually counted for any candidates in North Dakota in the 2018 elections; vote totals for specific candidates are not reported until after the Election Day polls close. Unlike every other U.S. state, North Dakota lacks voter registration, so there aren't official early voting statistics based on party registration and/or race like some, but not all, other states provide. The North Dakota Secretary of State's office maintains a drop-down list of earl...

At yesterday's U.S. Senate debate in Missouri between Democratic incumbent Claire McCaskill and Republican challenger Josh Hawley, McCaskill's response to Hawley's claim that he'll protect health care coverage for Missourians contained multiple sentence, but one sentence in particular stood out: If he believes we should protect pre-existing conditions, he should ask tomorrow for the case to be dismissed. Hawley is currently the Attorney General of Missouri, and Hawley is one of numerous Republican state attorneys general who are suing in an attempt to undermine health care coverage protections for those with pre-existing conditions. Hawley, if he wanted to, could withdraw the State of Missouri from the lawsuit, but he hasn't done so. What Hawley and a lot of other Republicans are doing amounts to gaslighting, since they're claiming to support protecting health care coverage for those with pre-existing conditions, while, at the same time, their actions seek to...

Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-KY) may not have to face Kentucky voters himself until two years from now, although he recently proposed cutting the budgets of three core programs that are part of America's social safety net, Social Security, Medicare, and Medicaid : McConnell said it was “very disturbing,” and driven by Medicare, Social Security, and Medicaid spending. The solution to cutting the deficit, he concluded, is making “entitlement changes.” Asked about the federal debt reaching $21 trillion and the deficit projected to top $1 trillion next year, McConnell did not mention tax cuts at all. “It’s very disturbing, and it’s driven by the three big entitlement programs that are very popular,” he said. “Medicare, Social Security, and Medicaid. That’s 70 percent of what we spend every year. The subject we were just discussing, the funding of the government, is about 30 percent of what we spend. There’s been a bipartisan reluctance to tackle entitlement changes bec...

At a League of Women Voters (LWV) forum for Minnesota State House District 25A (district map here ), which includes northwestern Olmsted County and portions of Dodge County in southern Minnesota, Republican incumbent Duane Quam and Democratic-Farmer-Labor (DFL) challenger Jamie Mahlberg were required to share a microphone. While that was a well-intentioned idea on the part of the local LWV chapter in that part of Minnesota (I assume they didn't want the candidates talking over each other, which is a common occurrence in political debates/forums where each candidate has a dedicated microphone), it didn't work out well. That's because Quam, at one point in the forum, ripped the microphone out of Mahlberg's hands, and, after giving a rebuttal to Mahlberg's response to a question about education funding in Minnesota in, threw the microphone down in front of Mahlberg: It's inherently clear that Representative Quam has zero respect for women. I seriously doubt th...

I feel nauseously disappointed having to type this, since I don't like having to say this about any Democrat running for re-election, but I'm beginning to seriously doubt that U.S. Sen. Heidi Heitkamp (DNPL-ND) can win re-election. A recent Fox News poll had Heitkamp trailing Republican challenger Kevin Cramer by 12 percentage points (41%-53%) among likely voters and by nine percentage points (41%-50%) among eligible voters. The sample of the poll was 29% Democratic, 54% Republican, and 17% Independent/Other by political party identification among likely voters, and 29% Democratic, 52% Republican, and 19% Independent/Other by political party identification among eligible voters. The poll represents an apparent surge in support for Cramer, despite Cramer having made a series of disgusting remarks about sexual assault . Furthermore, the poll appears to corroborate a recent poll by an obscure marketing firm called Strategic Research Associates showing Heitkamp trailing by ten p...

Based on recent pre-election opinion polling in the gubernatorial race here in Illinois, Democratic nominee J.B. Pritzker has a commanding lead over Republican incumbent Bruce Rauner, with Pritzker close to majority support in Illinois (only a plurality of the vote is needed to win election to the governor's office in Illinois). Southern Illinois University Carbondale (SIU Carbondale) has a pre-election opinion polling operation that focuses on polling high-profile Illinois electoral races, such as races for governor, and a recent poll that they conducted had Pritzker with a commanding, but not prohibitive, lead in this year's gubernatorial race : The poll was conducted September 24-29 and has a margin of error of plus or minus 3.1 percentage point for the entire sample. The poll covered a sample of 1,001 registered voters. The election analysis presented here is based on 715 likely voters. The margin of error for likely voters is 3.7 percentage points. When asked, “If th...

TRIGGER WARNING: This blog post contains content including profanity and referencing an act of sexual assault that did not occur in real-life. Reader discretion is advised.

In recent years, the 5K (i.e, five-kilometer) run, has become an important part of American culture. Typically, 5K runs, which are typically held on public roads or pathways instead of on purpose-built running tracks, are not serious athletic contests like, for example, high-profile marathons like the Boston Marathon that is held annually in Massachusetts, but are often organized as charity or awareness events for a particular cause. Often, 5K runs are organized for clearly non-political causes (such as fundraising for charitable causes), although empowering women in politics has officially become a 5K-worthy cause. A week or so ago, a group called Courage to Run held a 5K run in Washington, D.C. as an officially nonpartisan effort to raise awareness about women who are politically and civically active in this great country, and some participants in the Courage to Run 5K completed their runs in other parts of the country. Organizers of the Courage to Run plan to hold another 5K even...

TRIGGER WARNING: An alleged act of sexual assault committed by a nominee for a U.S. Supreme Court seat is referenced in this blog post. Reader discretion is strongly advised.

Eric Greitens, the former Missouri Governor who resigned from office in disgrace after being caught threatening to blackmail a woman who he had an extramarital affair with, is reportedly considering running for his old job in the 2020 gubernatorial election in Missouri, even if meant running in a Republican primary against incumbent Gov. Mike Parson (R-MO): Former Gov. Greitens has called at least one donor to test the waters re: a 2020 gubernatorial primary. — Jeff Smith (@JeffSmithMO) September 16, 2018 The fact that someone like Greitens is even considering a political comeback proves that Greitens has no sense of shame or decency.

Brady Mallory, a news reporter for Sioux Falls, South Dakota-based CBS affiliate KELO-TV, interviewed President Donald Trump following a rally for South Dakota Republican gubernatorial candidate Kristi Noem, a far-right Trump loyalist. During the interview, Trump insulted farmers whose livelihoods have been negatively impacted by the Trump trade war: You heard that correctly. President Trump said that farmers whose lives have been negatively impacted by the Trump trade war would have lost their farms anyways. That kind of rhetoric is insulting and hateful to farmers and people who live in communities where agriculture is a vital industry to their community. Furthermore, America has a lot of arable land that is used for many different forms of agriculture, and many states, especially in the South, the Midwest, and some of the western states, have large agricultural industries that have seen loss of export markets due to the Trump trade war. As someone who is probably more of a pro...

Gov. Scott Walker (R-WI) has resorted to desperate measures in his re-election bid in Wisconsin. Actually, that's a major understatement. In a desperate attempt to smear Wisconsin State Superintendent and Democratic gubernatorial nominee Tony Evers, Walker has resorted to airing ads on Wisconsin television stations that come very close to being child pornography: Three months ago, Gov. Scott Walker called his opponent "pathetic" for using the word "goddamn" in a speech to supporters. But now, the Republican incumbent is airing an ad that flashes the partially blurred words "blow job" and zooms in on a young girl's breasts. https://t.co/ze2cgd7Tte — Patrick Marley (@patrickdmarley) September 7, 2018 Make no mistake about it, Scott Walker is resorting to broadcasting sexually explicit content on Wisconsin television stations, without regard to either what programs the stations are airing at any given time or any standard of human decency. I ...

Most election analysts are already predicting that this year's midterm elections are likely to be a very strong election year for the Democratic Party nationally. One region of the country that could amplify an already-likely "blue wave" of Democratic electoral victories is the Inland Midwest, a six state region consisting of Iowa, Kansas, Missouri, Nebraska, North Dakota, and South Dakota. The Inland Midwest region gets its name because all six states are Midwestern states, but none of the six states have a shoreline along any of the Great Lakes. The Inland Midwest is a very Republican-leaning region of the country, as Donald Trump received slightly over 56% of the vote in last year's presidential election in the six-state region . However, at least one statewide race in each of the six states in the Inland Midwest are competitive (including all three U.S. Senate races in the region), and several U.S. House seats in the region are competitive as well. As much of th...

You may have come across a few headlines in the national media about a woman who accused Donald Trump of sexual misconduct running for a seat in the Ohio House of Representatives this year. She has a name. Her name is Rachel Crooks, and she is a fantastic candidate. Let me make it clear: Rachel did not decide to run for a state house seat in Ohio because of what Trump did to her, in fact, Rachel makes this point clear in her campaign website's biography page . Rachel is running for a state house seat in the 88th Ohio State House district ( includes all of Sandusky County and most of Seneca County ) because she wants to make her community and her state a better place to live. As someone with extensive experience working with international college students at Tiffin University and Heidelberg University, Rachel has helped do the hard work to make America a more inclusive country. As a state house candidate, Rachel has promised to support common-sense progressive ideals to make ...