So doubtlessly you've heard the story -- which has gotten heavy coverage in the political press all week long, of course -- of the very progressive Democrat who not only won the primary for an open Senate seat but also impressively outperformed polling expectations, right? It was a huge story -- because it will mean there will now be three progressives on November Senate ballots in three swing states. Progressives scored a big win, which has given rise to much discussion among the pundits over whether this is a good thing or a bad thing for the Democratic Party, because it is such a risky strategy right now (with control of the Senate hanging in the balance).

What's that? You didn't hear about all of this?

Well, that's because the mainstream media decided a different primary race was worth all their ink and airwave time instead. They obsessed over a progressive who very narrowly lost a primary in a governor's race (which is just not as important, to national politics, as the Senate races), because they could barely contain their relief and glee over seeing a progressive lose (even though the polls said she would win).

The race the media has been obsessing over happened in Wisconsin, where David Crowley, the establishment Democrat, edged out (by a fraction of a percentage point) the progressive in the race, Francesca Hong. All sorts of sweeping conclusions are being drawn from this race, most of which are pretty laughable when you take a look at what actually happened. There was a game of musical chairs in the final few weeks of this race, as three establishment candidates dropped out -- one of whom then re-entered the race and went on to win it. Much like what happened in the 2020 primary that Joe Biden won, the establishment candidates closed ranks and settled on one candidate who could go head-to-head with the progressive. In the end, this worked.

But once again, this was only a governor's race. It will have almost zero impact on national politics, no matter who wins the general election. Meanwhile, in the state right next door, progressives chalked up another big win -- in a much-more-important Senate race.

In Minnesota, sitting Lieutenant Governor Peggy Flanagan won her primary by beating Angie Craig. Flanagan, you will immediately note, has already won a statewide election (on a ticket with Minnesota Governor Tim Walz). She is not a crank or outsider or fringe candidate, in other words, but rather a politician who already has made a name for herself in state-level politics. Flanagan repeated her campaign slogan in her victory speech after the primary results came in, saying: "For months now, I have been telling you that this campaign was about the many versus the money. Well guess what? The many just won." That's a pretty good slogan, you have to admit.

Here's how PBS summed up the dynamics of this race:

In the race to replace retiring Democratic Sen. Tina Smith, [Representative Angie] Craig lined up support from Democratic establishment figures including House Speaker Hakeem Jeffries and former Speaker Nancy Pelosi, as well as senators from battleground states.

She pointed to her record of winning tough races in a closely divided House district in the suburban Twin Cities, saying she had the experience to bring the change voters are demanding to Washington.

. . .

[Lieutenant Governor Peggy] Flanagan was backed by popular progressives including Sens. Bernie Sanders and Elizabeth Warren, as well as Smith, who rallied with her in the campaign's final weeks.

Flanagan highlighted Craig's support from wealthy donors and blasted her vote for a Trump-backed immigration bill, which became a liability after immigration agents shot and killed Renee Good and Alex Pretti in Minneapolis.

The report also notes: "U.S. support for Israel and the influence of corporations and wealthy donors also figured prominently...."

The polling in the race was kind of all over the place. There were three polls released in the final weeks of the race, one of which showed the race tied at 40 percent, one of which showed Flanagan up by a whopping 14 points (46 to 32 percent), and one of which showed Craig up by two points (42-40). On Tuesday, Flanagan vastly outperformed all of these polls, winning the race by an astounding 20 points. She got 59 percent of the vote.

So where were all the stories about this incredibly impressive showing? Where were all the pundits weighing the chances of a progressive candidate (a Native American one, at that) in November? Where were the compare-and-contrast pieces about the progressive Senate candidates who will be on the ballot in Michigan and Maine? For the most part, they simply did not exist. The mainstream media collectively yawned over what happened in Minnesota, and focused instead on the Wisconsin gubernatorial race (where the progressive candidate lost). Draw your own conclusions for this sad state of media coverage.

Here is a good (and rather pathetic) example -- a story the New York Times ran this week, written by Nate Cohn, their in-house polling expert. The story was titled: "Can Polls Measure The True Strength Of The Left?" But the article does not answer that question because the word "Minnesota" did not appear anywhere in it. The Michigan and Wisconsin primaries were discussed in depth, but because the Minnesota results were the exact opposite of the case Cohn wanted to make, he just flat-out ignored the race. The answer to Cohn's titular question seems to be: "Not when you ignore the results and cherry-pick states to make your case." This wasn't an isolated example, either -- plenty of other very similar stories appeared all over the place.

Moving along from primary politics, a few other big things happened in the political world this week, as usual. There was the spectacle of The Hunger Games... oh, pardon... meant to say "The Patriot Games," of course... where one male and one female high school student from every state and territory met to do... well, something? Rather than this being a true sporting contest, these teens instead played kickball. And dodgeball. Once again, these are high school students, not third-graders. You probably didn't even notice this extravaganza of performative reality television, because who would, really? Donald Trump had fun, though, appearing at the finals so he could hog the stage while handing out trophies and essentially hold a miniature (the crowd was tiny) political rally for himself. Which is about par for Trump's course, really. The Washington Post reporter who drew the assignment of covering the extravaganza could barely contain his snark, opening his article with:

In a swift motion, he sent the ball flying over the makeshift fence. It was one of those no-doubter home runs, the type you dream of as a kid who just spent a warm summer evening at the ballpark.

After the win, the athlete was composed in front of cameras and a sideline reporter, stuffing his giddiness into a furrowed brow. Then, as the broadcast’s light flashed off, he turned to his peers.

"For America!" yelped the high-schooler (yes, you read that right) after his team won a kickball tournament (yep, that as well) at the 2026 Patriot Games on Sunday (we'll get to this). His parting sentiment? "This was for Trump!"

The article also points out that "roughly 90 percent of the athletes participating were White." And (of course) Trump was the one to hand out the trophies, after which he (of course) stayed on the stage with the winners while they celebrated, so everyone could bask in his wonderfulness.

There were other things happening in the political world that were much more serious, but for some reason we had to start out with yet another example of Trump's reality-television idiocy, just because.

There is, of course, a war going on. Iran now has the upper hand in any negotiations that may happen, because they hold all the cards. They know this, and they just released a new list of demands the U.S. will have to meet before they will allow the Strait of Hormuz to open again. Trump's blustery pronouncements of victory have worn so thin that even Fox News is now ignoring him when he tells everyone the lie that the Strait of Hormuz is already fully open again.

Another rightwing media outlet, the Wall Street Journal, reported this week that Trump is apparently now willing to cave on the entire question of what to do about Iran's nuclear program. The half-ton of highly-enriched uranium is still sitting exactly where it was when Trump started this war of choice, and Iran hasn't given an inch in any negotiations, so Trump is just going to shrug his shoulders and walk away -- leaving the whole mess for the next president to deal with. Even though throughout the whole war Trump insisted over and over again that this was the biggest and most important reason for the war in the first place.

The price of oil headed back upwards in response to all of this. And gasoline prices in America have never been as high as they are right now (still over $4 a gallon nationwide) this late in the year.

Meanwhile, Russia and China are following the war's developments very closely, as America's stockpiles of our high-tech weaponry continue to shrink (including, it was reported this week, MQ-Reaper drones). Trump reacted to a story about the dire conditions sailors on the aircraft carrier U.S.S. Abraham Lincoln are now experiencing by ordering a new carrier to the region (so the Lincoln can finally go home, after an extended deployment). He ordered the U.S.S. George Washington to sail to the Middle East to relieve the Lincoln, which came with a rather jaw-dropping bit of military analysis from the administration:

The move would leave the waters of the Pacific without a U.S. carrier presence for an unknown period of time. The Trump administration sees China, the dominant power in the region, as a "settled force" that only needs to be deterred from dominating the U.S. or its allies and not the top global adversary that it was under the Biden administration.

You can bet your bottom dollar China read that news tidbit with great interest. Especially considering how low our stockpiles of high-tech missiles now are.

But Trump is keeping his eye on the ball! He just announced new tariffs on tubas, trumpets, and trombones -- because they are considered crucial for "national security." You really can't make this stuff up, folks. Nothing like getting your priorities straight, right?

(Sigh.)

 

We're going to stay focused on the primaries for our awards this week. A good case could be made for handing the Most Impressive Democrat Of The Week to David Crowley, who beat Francesca Hong in the Wisconsin primary for governor this week. That certainly was the most impressive come-from-behind primary victory of the entire year, so far.

But we decided not to do that. Perhaps this is pure bias, since we are not exactly ideologically impressed with Crowley, but mostly it is just a reaction to the fact that he already got an absolute tsunami of good media coverage this week, and we just don't feel the need to add to it at all.

So instead, we are handing the MIDOTW award to Peggy Flanagan, for her much-more-impressive (by the vote count, at least) victory over Angie Craig in Minnesota.

Flanagan seems to be one of those rare progressives that even some establishment Democrats can get behind, for starters. She does not seem to inspire anger or fear among the centrists in the party (at least not in the same way as Dr. Abdul El-Sayed does in Michigan), which is going to help in the general election. She is already a proven quantity in statewide elections, being the state's sitting lieutenant governor. Flanagan is not only a woman, but also an Ojibwe activist who will bring a diverse viewpoint to the U.S. Senate (if she wins).

She has an excellent chance of winning, too. She will be running against Republican nominee Michele Tafoya, who is a "former N.F.L. sideline reporter." That ought to make for some interesting debates, at the very least.

Flanagan deserves a lot more media attention than her primary victory got her this week. The pundits were all so happy to cover a progressive losing in a governor's race that they completely ignored Flanagan winning a Senate primary right next door. Hopefully this will change, over the course of the general election campaign, but for now we think her victory was a lot more impressive than the mainstream media made it out to be, so she is our choice for this week's Most Impressive Democrat Of The Week award.

[Congratulate Minnesota Lieutenant Governor Peggy Flanagan on her official contact page, to let her know you appreciate her efforts.]

 

Again, we know this opens us up to accusations of ideological bias, but we have to hand this week's Most Disappointing Democrat Of The Week to Francesca Hong, for losing the governor's race in the Wisconsin Democratic primary. This wasn't so much because Hong was all that impressive a candidate (from most reports, she just wasn't), but because she generated so much disappointment in her loss -- which everyone was assuming was going to be an easy win for her.

Her loss also generated a wave of relief and glee from the establishment wing of the Democratic Party, who have been losing a lot of races to progressive candidates in this year's primary election cycle. This race gave them a big win they could point to while continuing to make the case about general-election electability being the most important quality for any Democratic candidate to have.

This year is going to put that whole theory to the test, in a big way. Either the establishment Democrats are going to angrily say "We told you so!" if the progressive candidates fail to win in November, or else the establishment is going to have to face a new reality and make room for progressive candidates who can win even in swing states. Those battles within the party will all take place right after the November results come in.

The reality may be more subtle and nuanced than this, of course. Some candidates may win just on their own personality and charisma alone. Some may win (or lose) based on their policy positions. Since it isn't a presidential year, the record is quite likely to be a mixed one, in the end.

The establishment got the candidate they wanted in Wisconsin, even though whomever wins the gubernatorial election there won't really matter much at all to national politics (at least, not to the extent that winning control of the Senate will). In doing so, they disappointed a large part of the Wisconsin electorate (the race was about as close as can be imagined) as well as some progressives elsewhere in the country. So we have to hand this week's Most Disappointing Democrat Of The Week award to Francesca Hong.

[Contact Wisconsin state Representative Francesca Hong on her official contact page, to let her know what you think of her actions.]

 

Volume 852 (8/14/26)

We've got another mixed bunch of talking points this week, starting with one that just won a big primary race (and is wonderfully short and sweet and to the point).

 

   The many versus the money

We had to kick the talking points off with the winning slogan in the Minnesota Senate race this week, because it is so catchy a talking point -- and, quite obviously, it worked. Other Democrats (especially progressive ones) should take note. From Peggy Flanagan's Tuesday night victory speech:

For months now, I have been telling you that this campaign was about the many versus the money. Well guess what? The many just won.

 

   Another Trump peace deal bites the dust

No wonder he hasn't won a Nobel Peace Prize yet....

"Donald Trump thought he had the answer to the war raging between Israel and Gaza -- he was going to turn the whole territory into a new Riviera! That, of course, hasn't happened. Then he came up with a 15-point peace plan for both Hamas and the Israelis, which he announced with great fanfare as the first time peace would come to the region in thousands and thousands of years. Well, that one just bit the dust too, since Benjamin Netanyahu just announced that Israel wasn't going to agree to it. So the war that Trump was going to end on Day One continues, without any end in sight. Proving yet again that Trump has absolutely no idea what he is doing, when it comes to peace deals. This doesn't bode well for negotiations with Iran -- or the price of gas. Trump can't even get his biggest ally in the region to agree to a deal, so don't hold your breath waiting for anyone else to, either."

 

   No better time?

This seems pretty obvious, but we hope we are wrong about that.

"So let's review... after six months of a war of choice with Iran that was supposed to be over in six weeks, the American military is fast running out of high-tech defensive interceptor missiles and other weaponry, and Trump just ordered the only U.S. aircraft carrier operating in the Pacific to the Middle East to relieve one of the carriers in the Iran war because the quality of life for the sailors aboard has gotten so bad they are attempting suicide by leaping off the ship. The Pacific Ocean will be without a U.S. carrier group for an unspecified amount of time. You know what I'd be thinking if I was the leader of China right about now? That there will never be a better time to invade Taiwan. That should be a frightening thought to those in the Pentagon who still consider this to be a big threat."

 

   Max Miller sinks to a new low

Democrats are now getting a lot more optimistic about the possibility of flipping a certain House seat in Ohio -- for good reason.

"Republican House member Max Miller is a real piece of work, folks. Not only has his ex-wife accused him of flinging a pan of boiling water at her and breaking the collarbone of his two-year-old daughter, but this week he decided to rebut the charges by -- are you sitting down? -- posting, among other photos, a picture of his two-year-old toddler stark naked on the internet for everyone to see. This man is clearly unfit to hold any office in America, but the so-called 'party of family values' is still backing him, rather than insisting he resign his seat immediately. To them this is all par for the Republican course these days, but to any American with a shred of decency this is downright reprehensible and disgusting."

 

   More from the party of family values

This one needs a lot more attention than the media has so far given it.

"House Speaker Mike Johnson, who likes to portray himself as a good Christian Republican, just held a fundraiser for a House candidate in Texas -- a guy who ran after the sitting representative, Tony Gonzales, had to withdraw due to a sexual harassment scandal. So you'd think Johnson would only back a candidate in this district who was above reproach, right? Well, you would be wrong about that. Here is what Brandon Herrera had to say -- only three years ago -- about how much he values mothers and their political support. I apologize in advance for the language, but this is a verbatim quote:"

The fact that you kept your cum trophies doesn't make you any less wrong about the dumb shit that you say. Being a mother doesn't make your opinion any more or less valid. Just because you let somebody creampie you doesn't mean I have to give a shit about your political opinions.

"Charming stuff, isn't it? This is the same guy who has also 'poked fun at veteran suicides' and 'joked about the Holocaust.' There's a video of him testing out a Nazi-era submachine gun and then goose-stepping to a Nazi marching song, too. And yet none of that was disqualifying to Mike Johnson -- he not only is not out there demanding this guy drop out of the race, but Johnson is actually holding fundraisers and actively raising money for the guy. All brought to you from the vaunted 'party of family values.'"

 

   Most expensive gas on this date, ever

Keep hitting this one, because it is the strongest argument Democrats have.

"Donald Trump campaigned on bringing prices down. In particular, he promised gasoline would be under two bucks a gallon within his first year in office. But instead, he's setting records in the other direction. Gas is still over four bucks a gallon nationwide, and according to the analysts, the price of gas has never been this high so late in the year. I don't know about you, but I'm getting pretty sick of Trump's broken promises on the economy. It's pretty obvious he doesn't have a clue -- which you can see for yourself every time you fill up your tank. Highest prices ever, for August. That's the reality of Trump's economy, folks."

 

   Suck it up!

We wrote about this yesterday in greater detail yesterday, in case anyone's interested.

"Some rightwingers were talking about the economy recently and one had the temerity to point out that conservative college students were complaining about the high price of buying a burrito. This led to a flood of ridicule from the Republicans, because to them anyone who has the temerity to complain about high prices is either just not manly enough -- or could (gasp!) actually be a communist. You can't make this stuff up, folks -- you really can't. Other Republicans are telling young people complaining about the sky-high price of gas to just cut a few trips to Starbucks out and everything will be fine. Oh, and also that you're just not a red-blooded patriot if you think gas costs too much. Seriously -- again, you cannot make this stuff up! So this is now the go-to GOP response to anyone complaining about affordability or the cost of living: Suck it up, Buttercup!"

-- Chris Weigant

 

Follow Chris on Twitter: @ChrisWeigant

Cross-posted at: Democratic Underground