So, two big campaign stories. Mallory McMorrow has dropped out in Michigan. This isn't unexpected given her polling has been in single digits recently. And while she's failed to endorse a candidate, honestly, eh, she's probably gonna back Stevens I would guess, if anyone. Some suspect the dem establishment pressured her to drop out given Stevens is struggling vs El Sayed, but McMorrow doesn't seem to be endorsing stevens either.
As I see it, establishment backs establishment, and I see McMorrow as more establishment than progressive. It's what turned me off from her in the first place. She wasn't some progressive warrior advocating for change, she was actually really mealy mouthed and really timid, and seeingly being pro establishment while still having plausible deniability. but anyone on the progressive left just knows, and yeah, she wasn't fooling anyone.
I dont know where this leaves the primary. I suspect most McMorrow supporters will back Stevens over El Sayed. This could lead to a tightening in polling. While, at this point, the electability difference between Stevens and El Sayed seems minimal, well....ideologically, full on El Sayed. I just don't like Stevens. At all. She has a lane, but it ain't my lane.
So, with that said, let's move on to Graham Platner. He has a new scandal where a woman accused him of straight up sexual assault. We're not talking just, him being a bit rough, or making crude comments about wanting to rape a burglar to show dominance, we're talking him drunk, going to the home of a woman he dated uninvited, and him forcing himself on her. And while, yeah, I get the reflexive response of "well how do we know this is true? anyone can make an accusation", well, the woman has texts talking about it in 2023 before he started his senate run. So we got solid evidence that this isn't just made up here. Let's not be the types who ignore accusations like this for political reasons. I mean, this is credible. I get that the establishment has been trying to back away from Graham and look for an excuse to remove him, but uh...yeah. This is a bit more than I'm willing to support in a candidate. He's done. He's dropped 7 points in polling in the past few weeks, with him going from being almost a lock on Maine with me giving him a 97% chance of winning, to the race being a toss up, and this is probably gonna tank him into the negatives. We should be operating under the assumption that we are LOSING this race now.
With that said, are we stuck with Janet Mills? Oh god I hope not, and again, I get the skepticism, because dems would LOVE to use this as a pretext to force him out and give Mills the nomination, but Mills sucks, she's another establishment do nothing democrat, and her numbers when she dropped out are STILL worse than where Platner is right now (although it Platner keeps going in the direction he is, he will soon be worse than her). Some people are pushing for a progressive alternative in Troy Jackson, and while I dont know a ton about him, he seems decent I guess? Scandals aside I'd still prefer Platner I think, but he's way better than Mills is.
So....yeah. Idk. If this scandal is legit, and it looks legit to my own observation, Platner's toast and he needs to drop out. I get that there's the risk of the establishment using that to foist someone unpopular who know one likes on us, but uh....idk, this is looking bad and if we don't do this, well, we're gonna lose Maine.
Again, you can see my election predictions over time. I've been fairly regular with them since last month. I'll probably go biweekly until around late september/octoberish, then I'll be doing them more frequently. But yeah, a month ago on June 5th, I had him at 7.4% ahead with a 97% lock on winning. Fast forward to the 19th and he's 4.5% ahead with an 87% chance. Still good, but obviously losing ground. As of this weekend, he was at 0.7% with a 57% chance of winning, so he went straight from likely D to tossup/Tilt D. This is Joe Biden again in a way. And given Susan Collins is a historical overperformer, and we just got a new scandal, yeah, he's cooked. Time to replace him with someone who can win.
On that front, a relatively unreliable pollster who doesnt make RCP's averages has Platner losing by 4, Mills tied, and Jackson up by 5. Despite the pollster not being well known, well, this is the data we got, so yeah, give us Jackson. He's relatively progressive and can win? Replace Platner with Jackson.
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