US Midterms

[Labster]

One of CBC's commentators has pointed out that, with a chance of six seats there flipping R->D, the California vote might actually make a difference this year.

Oh yes, I have noticed. I worked a bit for Katie Hill, Harley Rouda, and Katie Porter, all candidates for Congress in Southern California. I had a lot of friends running for office this year, but Katie Hill sucked all of the oxygen out of the room in terms of volunteering -- though I think it was also true on the other side for Steve Knight. I spent a day walking for Katie, and it was a freaking zoo in sheer number of volunteers, and voters over there are so tired of hearing from us. But hell, the race is currently 43 votes apart.

PROTIP: If you vote by mail and actually mail in the ballot, we will stop bugging you by the following Friday when data updates. I know people have a ritual of going to the polls, clapping their hands twice, ringing the bell, and voting -- but seriously you are making your life worse, and ours too.

Looks like Bob Menendez (D-NJ) is going back to the Senate, despite those charges that were dropped last year.

Oh, last I had heard it was just a mistrial, but the charges were dropped. He's definitely not our star player on the Democratic team, but this year we felt we really needed votes to stop the populists.

Of special note is the fact that Proposition 6 failed, the Mobilize Republicans to the Polls Act, er, I mean the Gas Tax Repeal. As a fiscal conservative, I'm happy to see that people are paying taxes to support transportation infrastructure, rather than increasing borrowing. As a meteorologist, I think y'all Republicans are bitching an awful lot about a 15¢ tax 23 years since the last petrol tax increase, which isn't even enough to deter carbon consumption. Back as a fiscal conservative, saying that the government should pay for it with other money is not a substitute for budgeting.

Still don't know what's gonna happen on a lot of these races, but at least we flipped our city council from purple to blue. Still a lot of pro-business developers there, but at least we can look forward to climate change preparedness and no immigration policing.