A look at a possible welcome trend, after-the-jump ….
But first: Top Comments appears nightly, as a round-up of the best comments on Daily Kos. Surely ... you come across comments daily that are perceptive, apropos and .. well, perhaps even humorous. But they are more meaningful if they're well-known ... which is where you come in (especially in diaries/stories receiving little attention).
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Twenty years ago, I looked at spring elections as a danger zone for liberals. Springtime elections traditionally are for local elections (city council, school board, et al) with a much lower turnout for November elections. Pollsters then believed that a higher turnout election was better for Democrats, not a lower-turnout one.
And when there was a hot-button election issue (say, a non-discrimination ordinance) … we’d invariably come out on the short end, especially when it brought out the Christian soldiers.
Now? Maybe not so much.
In the past few years, Democrats have been out-performing expectations in special elections, such as in 2023, through this spring (and showcased by the D/K front-page story yesterday morning).
Wisconsinites went through a state Supreme Court election that was elevated by Elon Musk … and Democrats not only won that election, but also that of state schools superintendent (defeating a private school voucher lobbyist).
Several weeks ago, GOP governor Jeff Landry placed four self-serving constitutional amendments on the Louisiana state ballot (with items such as tax cuts/restricted budgets and incarceration for juveniles) … that went down by 2-1 margins. (He, of course, chalked-it-up to … George Soros). A noted pollster was quoted as saying (observing the early voting period), “I have just never seen an early vote this strong for Democrats”.
Wasn’t it nice to see book-banning, anti-LGBTQ+ school board members lose, earlier this month?
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Conservative school board candidates across Texas suffered an array of defeats in Saturday’s local elections, marking a setback for the GOP-aligned movement to shape how grade school curriculums and library books confront issues of race, sex and gender.
— Texas Tribune (@texastribune.org) 2025-05-06T00:16:45.679Z
Continuing with Tuesday night’s election ….
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Huge news out of Nebraska: Democrat John Ewing just flipped the mayor's office in Omaha, the state's biggest city.
He successfully tied the GOP incumbent to Trump. She responded by claiming Ewing "stands with radicals" on "boys in girls' bathrooms and sports." It didn't work.
Our full writeup -->
— The Downballot (@the-downballot.com) 2025-05-14T02:46:20.334Z
And earlier this month, local elections in the state of Ohio asked voters (in thirteen districts) whether or not to approve library funding requests — ranging from renewals all the way to bond issues — with the Ohio Capital Journal reporting that not only did they pass, but “none of them were close” — ranging from 56% Yes to 85%.
These elections are obviously a way for people to register their displeasure with the Krasnov regime … much better than feeling hopeless.
But is there something more?
An analyst for the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel thinks it may reflect a changing electorate in this era.
The GOP coalition now includes a lot of sporadic voters who turn out only for presidential races. The Democratic coalition includes a growing share of highly engaged, college-educated voters who can be counted on to vote in lower-turnout spring contests. In effect, Democratic voters are behaving in the spring more like they do in the fall. That is less true of Republican voters.
Focusing on the state of Wisconsin, he adds that GOP voting areas:
… now produce smaller point margins in the spring than they do in the fall, which is the opposite of the old pattern. The high-turnout outer suburbs of Milwaukee that used to boost conservative court candidates have gotten less Republican. And rural areas that have gotten much redder in recent years haven’t swung behind conservative court candidates the way they have swung behind Trump.
Looking at the library votes in Ohio: while there are all sorts of right-wing essays claiming that public libraries are no longer needed:
A 2022 poll was conducted by Hart Research Associates and North Star Opinion Research on behalf of the American Library Association. It found that 89% of respondents agreed that “local public libraries play an important role in communities across the country including their own.”
In addition, 75% of Democrats, 70% of Republicans and 56% of independents said they oppose the removal of books from public libraries.
My first job was a work-study job at a public library (while attending a community college). And it was an eye-opener, as we had a wide patron base: with some men that (visually) one might not expect to see in a library ... coming in for the latest Chilton auto repair books, as soon as we received updated versions. So I am not at all surprised.
Whether this will be a long-term trend (even after the Krasnov era) … remains to be seen, as GOP voters are different when he’s not on the ballot.
Still, this is a development I didn’t foresee twenty years ago. If it continues … well, let’s close with this song with lyrics by Johnny Mercer.
Now, on to Top Comments (and some Top Photos):
From inkstainedwretch:
On Ruff Havill's diary (on the actions of ICE and the Border Patrol), ontheleftcoast calls out the lying and hypocrisy common to right wingnut organizations (with a Chef's Kiss to the end of the last sentence in the comment).
Highlighted by Thinking Fella:
Highlighted by ethrid:
And from Ed Tracey, your faithful correspondent this evening ........
In the diary by TheCriticalMind about a MAGA multiple restaurant owner whose Nashville establishments (including one licensed by Kid Rock) had to curtail service due to ICE raids — essmeier succinctly answers a frequently posed question about management responsibility.
And lastly: yesterday's Top Mojo - mega-mojo to the intrepid mik ...... who rescued this feature from oblivion:
