The Progressive Midwesterner

In a poll , conducted by Anzalone Liszt Grove Research for the campaign of South Dakota Democratic gubernatorial nominee Billie Sutton, Sutton, a state senator and rancher from Burke, is trailing Republican nominee Kristi Noem, the U.S. Representative from Castlewood, by only four points, with the poll's margin of error at 4.4%, meaning that the South Dakota gubernatorial election is within the statistical margin of error. The poll had Noem at 46% and Sutton at 42%. The poll did not appear to include Libertarian nominee Kurt Evans or the Constitution Party's nominee, which will be determined on August 14 . The Libertarian and Constitution nominees would likely pull more votes from Noem than Sutton, which would increase the odds of a Sutton victory. More importantly, an informed-ballot test showed that Sutton has a six point lead over Noem (48% Sutton-42% Noem) after the informed-ballot test. This information tells me that Billie Sutton has a path to victory in South Dakota .

Even though the 2018 general election for all 435 U.S. House seats aren't until November 6, U.S. Rep. Jim Jordan (R-OH), who, when he was an assistant wrestling coach at The Ohio State University, turned a blind eye to sexual assault committed by now-deceased team doctor Richard Strauss, launched his bid for U.S. House Speaker. There are precisely two reasons why Jordan would launch a bid to become speaker: either Jordan believes that current House Speaker Paul Ryan (R-WI), who has already announced that he will not run for re-election to his House seat, is going to give up the speakership before the midterm elections, or Jordan is deluded enough to believe that Republicans are all but certain to retain a majority of seats in the House (according to a FiveThirtyEight weighted aggregation of polls, Democrats have, as of this writing, a 7.7% generic congressional ballot lead, which, given the Republicans' net gerrymandering advantage, that would mean that Democrats have at leas

There are eight Democratic candidates who are actively seeking the Democratic Party’s nomination in the race for Governor of Wisconsin. Seven of them are candidates that I believe are capable of defeating Scott Walker, should any one of them win the Democratic nomination. The other is Matt Flynn, a former chairman of the Democratic Party of Wisconsin who, as an attorney, helped cover-up sexual abuse committed by priests of the Catholic Archdiocese of Milwaukee. I strongly believe that Flynn is completely unelectable as a statewide candidate in Wisconsin, because of the fact that he helped cover-up sex abuse committed by Catholic priests and because of his belligerent attitude toward those who stand with victims of sexual assault and have the courage to publicly criticize Flynn because of his role in enabling pervert priests. For example, Flynn has publicly called for those who have called for Flynn to end his gubernatorial bid to “jump in a lake” . Two members of the Wisconsin

Kylie Oversen, the Democratic-Nonpartisan League nominee in this year's election for the office of Tax Commissioner of North Dakota, now has a full campaign website for her bid for tax commissioner. On the "issues" page of her website, Kylie pointed out how Republicans in North Dakota have left North Dakotans with a higher property tax burden: During the last legislative session, the legislative and executive branches eliminated the 12% property tax buydown and cut $115 million from property tax relief. After promises have been repeatedly broken by Republican leadership, Kylie is committed to working with leaders at all levels of government and on both sides of the aisle to create a plan for meaningful, lasting property tax reform. Since I'm not from North Dakota, I had to do some online research about North Dakota property tax policy to understand what the property tax buydown that Kylie was referring to, and I found an article on the website of The Bismarck Tr

The office of the Secretary of State of Wisconsin, currently held by Doug La Follette, doesn't have any significant authority over election administration in Wisconsin , although that didn't stop La Follette, a Democrat who is facing a strong primary challenge from Madison city council member and roller derby athlete Arvina Martin, from complaining about efforts in Arvina's hometown of Madison to make it easier for differently-abled people to vote: I went to the @MadisonWIClerk ’s office to vote and check out what @DougLaFollette called “suspicious computers.” /1 pic.twitter.com/N3OhtBDJsX — Arvina Martin (@Arvina4WI) July 25, 2018 You have to read Arvina's entire thread of tweets to understand how the voting machines that differently-abled voters in Madison can use work, but, in short, the machines allow voters whose disability makes it impossible to use a pen to fill out a traditional paper ballot to use a touch-screen voting machine to print out a paper ballot.

U.S. Rep. Don Bacon (R-NE), who is in a competitive election in the Omaha-based 2nd Congressional District, is downright laughably claiming that the fact that President Donald Trump is soft on the Vladimir Putin regime in Russia is a "false narrative": Congressman @DonJBacon : “I believe the assertion that this administration is soft on Russia is a false narrative.” https://t.co/73DFjRBClw — Edward G Robinson ☕️ (@Post_Truth_Era) July 16, 2018 In cased you missed the Helsinki summit between Trump and Putin, you missed one of the biggest acts of betrayal in U.S. history, in which Trump openly sided with Putin, the Russian dictator, against the U.S. intelligence community on the issue of the Putin regime's interference in the 2016 U.S. elections to the benefit of Trump and the Republican Party. It's not a false narrative to say that Trump is soft on Russia, in fact, it has been alleged , although not confirmed, that the Russians have kompromat (i.e., compromising i