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Polls In Florida's Sixth District Special Are Scaring Republicans

Polls In Florida's Sixth District Special Are Scaring Republicans

Last Tuesday, a Democrat pulled off an upset win in a deep-red Pennsylvania state Senate seat where President Donald Trump won by 15 percentage points last year.

Add that into the list of other special elections Democrats have overperformed in this year, and it’s clear why Republicans are suddenly sweating the special election in Florida's Sixth Congressional District.

Florida’s Sixth District was vacated by Republican Mike Waltz, who you might now know as the world’s most incompetent national security adviser. Last year, Trump won the district by 30 points—a huge margin—so it shouldn’t be, by any stretch of the imagination, competitive.

And yet …

A poll by St. Pete Polls for news outlet Florida Politics finds that Republican nominee Randy Fine is leading Democrat Josh Weil by a measly four points, 48 percent to 44 percent. That puts a Weil victory within the poll’s margin of error. Even worse for Republicans is that an internal poll from Tony Fabrizio, Trump’s 2024 pollster, finds Fine down 3 points to Weil, according to Axios. The same pollster had Fine up 12 points in February.

But let’s take a breath. Normally, undecided voters end up voting in line with their district/state’s partisan lean, which is R+14 for Florida’s Sixth, according to the Cook Political Report. That means it’s 14 points more Republican than the country as a whole. So, in a normal election, I would expect the Republican would win this seat with roughly 57 percent of the vote to the Democrat’s 43 percent—a spread of 14 points.

That, in itself, would flash some warning signs in GOP hallways. In November, Waltz won the seat with over 66 percent of the vote, in what ended up being a good cycle for Republicans overall.

But this isn’t a normal election. This is a special election in April, in a climate in which rank-and-file Democrats are seething over the state of the nation. Turnout will be the name of the game, and by all indications, Democrats are far more motivated than Republicans.

In the St. Pete/Florida Politics poll, Weil leads among those who have voted, 51 percent to 43 percent. As of Thursday, in early-voting returns, registered Republicans have just a five-point advantage in who has voted so far. The chances of an upset are small, but they do exist—shockingly. And a lot of that could be because, according to that St. Pete’s/Florida Politics poll, 51 percent of the district’s likely voters approve of the job Trump is doing as president, while 45 percent disapprove. Remember, he won by 30 points in November. Given that, it’s not so surprising to see Fine’s anemic early performance.

Uncertainty over this district reportedly played a role in the Trump administration pulling Rep. Elise Stefanik’s nomination to be U.N. ambassador. The nomination had already been languishing as House Republicans were loath to (temporarily) lose her vote, given their razor-thin majority in the chamber.

But pulling Stefanik’s nomination doesn’t solve the GOP’s bigger problem. Its ability to maintain party discipline in the House has been genuinely impressive, and has been driven almost exclusively by Trump’s strong-arm efforts to threaten members who stray with primary challenges. They fear Trump. And Elon Musk, who might fund those challengers if a representative crosses the president.

But what happens if Trump is also alienating voters to such an extent that districts that backed him by 30 points are now competitive?

Put another way, Trump keeps his troops in line because they think his backing will give them the best chance to win reelection in 2026. So what happens if being closely tied to Trump makes it less likely they survive? What good is weathering a Republican primary only to end up getting steamrolled by a Democrat in the general election? It’s quite the conundrum, isn’t it?

The closer the margin in Tuesday’s special election, the bigger that conundrum for Republicans. And if Democrats pull off a big upset?

Then look out.

Reprinted with permission from Daily Kos.

Karoline Leavitt

White House Pushing Smear Campaign Against Atlantic Editor (And His Wife)

As part of ongoing efforts to escape the growing scandal around leaked war plans, Donald Trump’s White House has now resorted to attacking the spouse of The Atlantic's editor Jeffrey Goldberg, who broke the story.

During her daily press briefing on Wednesday, White House press secretary Karoline Leavitt opened a new front in the White House effort.

“If this story proves anything, it proves that Democrats and their propagandists in the mainstream media know how to fabricate, orchestrate, and disseminate a misinformation campaign quite well,” Leavitt said. “There’s arguably no one in the media who loves manufacturing and pushing hoaxes more than Jeffrey Goldberg. Goldberg is an anti-Trump hater. He is a registered Democrat. Goldberg’s wife is also a registered Democrat and a big Democrat donor who used to work under who? Hillary Clinton.”

Leavitt did not offer any evidence that Goldberg makes up stories. In fact, a past Goldberg article that Trump has complained about for years—that Trump called dead veterans “suckers” and “losers”—was later verified by Trump’s former chief of staff, John Kelly.

Goldberg is married to Pamela Ress Reeves, a policy strategist. Her big sin, according to Leavitt, appeared to be her work as director of the State Department’s International Fund for Women and Girls, under the department’s secretary at the time, Hillary Clinton.

The Trump administration and Elon Musk’s so-called Department of Government Efficiency have cut funding for vulnerable women and children around the world.

Leavitt joined the Trump team after praising a January 6 insurrectionist as a “hero” and promoting conspiracy theories about the 2020 presidential election.

In her new position, Leavitt has repeatedly lied on Trump’s behalf. Despite bipartisan uproar about Trump’s decision to pardon January 6 convicts, including many convicted of violent crimes, Leavitt said it didn’t cause much controversy. She followed that up by pushing the falsehood that the Biden administration spent $50 million on condoms for the Gaza Strip, and by awarding a right-wing hoaxer with a pass to the briefing.

The administration is clearly aware the scandal is a problem.

The party has gone after the issue with gusto, alongside their allies at conservative media outlets like Fox News and Newsmax. But instead of coming clean about what was disclosed, firing involved parties, and working to provide a full accounting, the Trump team would rather smear reporters and their closest relatives.

Reprinted with permission from Daily Kos.

Pete Hegseth

Bone Stupid: Trump Officials Leaked Military Secrets On Phone App

Democrats are aghast after the editor-in-chief of the Atlantic reported that he was accidentally added to an unsecure text chain in which Vice President JD Vance, Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth, Secretary of State Marco Rubio, national security adviser Mike Waltz, and multiple other top national security and Trump administration officials discussed planning a military strike in Yemen.

The Trump administration says the text chain—in which the officials were discussing not only whether to strike the Iran-backed Houthi rebel group, but how and when they would do it—is authentic. They are looking into how Atlantic Editor-in-Chief Jeffrey Goldberg was added to the thread.

But the fact that the Trump administration officials were discussing classified and highly sensitive military plans on a messaging app is the real problem.

Goldberg reported that Hegseth was discussing information that, “could conceivably have been used to harm American military and intelligence personnel, particularly in the broader Middle East, Central Command’s area of responsibility.”

He also reported that multiple national security lawyers said Waltz “may have violated several provisions of the Espionage Act, which governs the handling of ‘national defense’ information.”

From Goldberg’s report:

All of these lawyers said that a U.S. official should not establish a Signal thread in the first place. Information about an active operation would presumably fit the law’s definition of “national defense” information. The Signal app is not approved by the government for sharing classified information. The government has its own systems for that purpose. If officials want to discuss military activity, they should go into a specially designed space known as a sensitive compartmented information facility, or SCIF—most Cabinet-level national-security officials have one installed in their home—or communicate only on approved government equipment, the lawyers said. Normally, cellphones are not permitted inside a SCIF, which suggests that as these officials were sharing information about an active military operation, they could have been moving around in public. Had they lost their phones, or had they been stolen, the potential risk to national security would have been severe.

And on top of that, Goldberg reported that by using an app like Signal—where texts are set to disappear—the Trump officials could also have been violating federal record laws.

“If you read one article today, make it this one,” Rep. Joe Neguse (D-CO) wrote in a post on X of Goldberg’s report. “Total incompetence, yet again. And putting our national security at great risk.”

Democrats are now demanding information and threatening to launch investigations.

“Only one word for this: FUBAR,” Rep. Pat Ryan (D-NY), who served as an Army intelligence officer in Iraq, wrote in a post on Bluesky, referring to the military slang term to describe something as “Fucked Up Beyond All Repair.” “If House Republicans won’t hold a hearing on how this happened IMMEDIATELY, I’ll do it my damn self.”

Only one word for this: FUBAR. If House Republicans won’t hold a hearing on how this happened IMMEDIATELY, I’ll do it my damn self.

[image or embed]

— Pat Ryan (@pkryan.bsky.social) March 24, 2025 at 5:11 PM

Rep. Salud Carbajal (D-CA) also said he will demand an investigation.

This article completely exposes the Trump Administration's incompetent and irresponsible methods of handling our national security.

[image or embed]

— Rep. Salud Carbajal (@carbajal.house.gov) March 24, 2025 at 5:30 PM

Sen. Tammy Duckworth (D-IL), who lost both of her legs while serving in Iraq, was aghast at the recklessness of the Trump administration officials.

Pete Hegseth, the most unqualified Secretary of Defense in history, is demonstrating his incompetence by literally leaking classified war plans in the group chat... Hegseth and Trump are making our country less safe.

[image or embed]

— Tammy Duckworth (@duckworth.senate.gov) March 24, 2025 at 7:54 PM

Sen. Chris Coons (D-DE) said, “Every single one of the government officials on this text chain have now committed a crime – even if accidentally – that would normally involve a jail sentence.”

And Rep. Don Beyer (D-VA) connected the incompetence of the Trump administration’s national security officials to the Trump giving co-President Elon Musk and his Department of Government Efficiency bros access to Americans’ personal information.

“The Trump Administration, which just committed one of the biggest and most incompetent national security breaches in history, is also giving Elon Musk and his team of unvetted lackeys access to every American's personal information,” Beyer wrote, putting in stark terms just how much trouble we all are in with these fools leading the federal government.

Ultimately, there is so much irony to this story.

First, almost every member of that chain criticized former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton’s use of a private email server, citing national security concerns.

“Talk about a DOUBLE STANDARD: Biden’s sitting National Security Advisor Jake Sullivan sent top secret emails to Hillary Clinton’s private account and the DOJ didn't do a DAMN THING about it,” Waltz—who is responsible for adding Goldberg to the text chain in which they were recklessly discussing military operations—said in a 2023 appearance on Fox News. “No wonder Americans are losing faith in our justice system.”

“Seems like every day there are new revelations on how Hillary's private email server put national security at risk,” Rubio wrote in a 2016 tweet.

"Hillary Clinton put some of the highest, most sensitive intelligence information on her private server because maybe she thinks she's above the law, or maybe she just wanted the convenience of being able to read it on her Blackberry,” Rubio also said at a campaign event for his failed presidential bid in January 2016. “This is unacceptable."

Even more ironic is that just last week, Hegseth reported that the Department of Defense was going to be investigating who leaked his plan to brief co-President Elon Musk on the United States' plans for war with China—another thing that makes Americans less safe as there is no reason Musk should be privy to that information.

Given that Hegseth is discussing confidential military plans via Signal, maybe he should look in the mirror for why that information leaked.

Worst of all, as Democrats lambast the Trump administration officials and call for investigations, Republicans have been virtually silent—even though they would be screaming to the heavens if a Democratic administration had done anything even remotely similar.

As of press time, few Republican lawmakers have commented. Rep. Mike Lawler (R-NY) posted on X, “Classified information should not be transmitted on unsecured channels—and certainly not to those without security clearances, including reporters. Period. Safeguards must be put in place to ensure this never happens again.”

Sen. John Cornyn (R-TX) told Semafor’s Burgess Everett that it, “Sounds like a huge screw up. I mean, is there any other way to describe it?”

We can guarantee that Cornyn would’ve had much stronger words if it had been Biden administration officials doing the same.

And Trump himself used the age-old excuse that he hadn’t heard the news in order to avoid commenting on it.

“I don't know anything about it. I'm not a big fan of The Atlantic. To me, it's a magazine that's going out of business. ...You're telling me about it for the first time,” Trump told reporters on Monday.

If the commander in chief did not yet know about the fact that his top aides were putting the country at risk by discussing military operations via text message, then that’s a scandal in and of itself.

Reprinted with permission from Daily Kos.

AOC And Bernie Sanders Draw Giant Crowds At 'Fighting Oligarchy' Rallies In West

AOC And Bernie Sanders Draw Giant Crowds At 'Fighting Oligarchy' Rallies In West

On the heels of record-breaking attendance at a "Fighting Oligarchy" event in Tempe, Arizona earlier this week, Sen. Bernie Sanders of Vermont and Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez of New York held a rally in Denver, Colorado on Friday evening that drew more than 34,000 people—making it either largest event that Sanders or Ocasio-Cortez has ever held.

Sanders, an Independent, wrote on social media on Friday that the turnout is a sign that "the American people will not allow Trump to move us into oligarchy and authoritarianism. We will fight back. We will win."

According to Anna Bahr, Sanders' communications director, the senator's largest rally prior to Denver took place in Brooklyn, New York in 2016, when he was running for president.

Ocasio-Cortez, a Democrat, wrote online that "something special is happening... Working people are ready to stand together and fight for our democracy. Thank you Colorado!"

At the rally, which took place at Denver's Civic Center Park, the two lawmakers hit on the same themes they spoke about in Arizona.

"The American people are saying loud and clear, we will not accept an oligarchic form of society," Sanders said, according to Colorado Public Radio. "We will not accept the richest guy in the world running all over Washington, making cuts to the Social Security Administration, cuts to the Veterans Administration, almost destroying the Department of Education—all so that they could give over a trillion dollars in tax breaks to the wealthiest one percent."

"If you don't know your neighbor, it's easier to turn on them," said Ocasio-Cortez, per CPR. "That's why they want to keep us separated, alone, and apart. Scrolling on our phones thinking that the person next to us is some kind of enemy, but they're not."

Sanders launched his "Fighting Oligarchy: Where We Go From Here" tour in February, with the aim of talking to Americans about the "takeover of the national government by billionaires and large corporations, and the country's move toward authoritarianism.

"The series of "Fighting Oligarchy" events have been taking place as some Democrats have gotten an earful at town halls back home, where constituents have come out to implore them to do more to counter efforts by the Trump administration.

Earlier in the day, Ocasio-Cortez and Sanders also held a rally in Greeley, Colorado—which is represented by Republican Gabe Evans in the House of Representatives—which drew more than 11,000 people.

Semafor reporter David Weigel, who attended both the Greely and Denver rally, posted online that at the Greeley rally it wasn't easy to find people in the crowd who had voted for Sanders in the 2020 presidential primary. Weigel also wrote that the Sanders team told him that half of the RSVPs to the rallies were not from the lawmaker's supporter list.

Eric Blanc, an assistant professor at the School of Management and Labor Relations at Rutgers University, wrote on Bluesky on Saturday that it is "pretty remarkable how AOC and Bernie have become leaders not just of lefties, but of the Democratic Party's mainstream liberal base."

While its dangerous that "establishment liberals" are yielding to Trump, he wrote, "the silver lining is that this has enabled anti-corporate forces such as labor unions and AOC-Bernie to set the tenor of Resistance 2.0."

"Because today's anti-Trump resistance is more focused on economic concerns, more rooted in labor unions, and more anti-billionaire, it has the potential to sink much deeper roots among working people and, in so doing, to definitively overcome MAGA," wrote Blanc.

Reprinted with permission from Alternet

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