RiceRight wing media outlets were giddy last week after the Field Poll found that, in aggregate, former Secretary of State Condoleeza Rice, now a Stanford professor and fellow at the Hoover Institution, had more support than anyone else who might consider running for the California U.S. Senate seat now held by Democrat Barbara Boxer, who is retiring. Headlines like this in Reuters and other legit sources caused the stir: “Condoleezza Rice Leads Potential 2016 U.S. Senate Hopefuls in California.”
Reuters is, of course, technically correct. Field asked California voters to weigh in on 18 possible candidates to replace Boxer. From the 18 names on the list, 49 percent of respondents chose Rice and 46 percent chose Democrat Kamala Harris, the state Attorney General, who is the only announced candidate so far.
Wow! Rice is winning by 3 points — or at least that’s the way right-wing blogs like Breitbart.com, Tucker Carlson’s Daily Talker and Red Alert Politics spun the poll results. In reality, the suggestion that Condoleeza Rice could win the 2016 Senate race in California is nonsense.
The weather is generally so nice in California that one local wag made a habit of abbreviating his sentiments every morning as he took in the pleasant coolness at daybreak. “A.B.C.D.,” Glen Wilcox, my mother’s husband, would say — shorthand for, “Another Beautiful California Day.”
While the rest of the country reels from the results of an election bought and paid for by right-wing billionaires who spent hundreds of millions of dollars running ads in red states that shifted attention away from the Republicans’ dismal approval ratings and record of obstruction and ran instead against Pres. Obama — here in California, waking on Nov. 5 is just another beautiful day for Democrats.
Upon winning an unprecedented fourth term, Gov. Jerry Brown told reporters, “The world looks pretty troubled out there. The country is facing a lot of uncertainty. But here in California, where they called us a failed state, we’re now showing the way.”
Kamala Harris, Democrat for California Attorney GeneralResults from the latest Los Angeles Times poll suggest that the Democratic base — particularly women, Latinos and liberals — is coming home and ready to elect Jerry Brown governor and reelected Sen. Barbara Boxer.
Los Angeles County Dist. Atty. Steve Cooley, a Republican, holds a narrow lead over Democratic opponent Kamala Harris [@kamalaharris] in the contentious race for California attorney general, aided greatly by voter support on his usually Democratic home turf…
The survey showed that Harris, the San Francisco district attorney, has thus far failed to captivate the Democratic stronghold of Los Angeles County, home to one out of every four registered voters in California and a near must-win for any Democrat running statewide.
Cooley, a veteran prosecutor seen largely as a moderate Republican, has won three D.A. elections in Los Angeles County, where Democrats outnumber Republicans almost two to one.
In the survey, Cooley held a 42 percent-33 percent advantage over Harris among likely voters in the county. Statewide, he had a 40 percent-35 percent edge among likely voters, according to the survey.
The biggest remaining wild card in the race is a large pool of undecided voters; 17 percent of the likely voters still have not made up their minds, the poll found — a common occurrence in the “down ballot” races. In the governor’s race, by comparison, only 4 percent of likely voters were undecided, according to the poll.
What makes this alarming is not so much the fact that Cooley is a Republican as it is the company he keeps:
From Trump’s “stolen election” lies, we can’t get no relief,
He carps on about stolen votes, but he never names the thief.
Somebody needs to tell this guy
Americans aren’t buying his lies,
And that he’s turned us into the United States of Disbelief.
“If you are committing fraud against the American people, all of us in public leadership should be trying to stop it and throw you in prison for enriching yourself off the American taxpayer.”
“We are done, Americans are done with endless conflict in the Middle East, spending trillions of dollars, American lives… this is insane and we have to call it for what it is.”
“The U.S. State Department announced on Monday that it has revoked more than 175,000 visas during President Donald Trump’s administration so far,” Fox News reports.
President Donald Trump is asking for $1,500,000 million for the military for next year. That’s close to $600 billion (adjusted for inflation) more than we were spending on the military in fiscal year 2025, before Trump took office, Alternet reports. This increase is huge by any measure. It comes to around $4,600 per household. It is around 8% of the total budget.
A new Emerson College survey of likely 2026 voters finds the Democrats with an 11-point advantage over the Republicans on the generic congressional ballot, leading 53% to 42%. President Trump holds a 39% job approval rating, consistent with the past two months, whereas his disapproval increased another point, to 57%.
A new American Research Group poll finds just 30% of Americans say they approve of the way Donald Trump is handling his job as president and 67% say they disapprove.
Wall Street Journal: “Around 40% of voters in the 2024 election said the economy was their top issue, far outstripping any other matter. And those voters favored Donald Trump by 60% to 38%. Many say they were moved by his pledges to tame inflation, rebuild U.S. infrastructure, cut red tape and trim government waste. … About a year and a half later, more voters disapprove of Trump’s handling of the economy than approve, 61% to 35%, an average of polls by the Cook Political Report found this month.”
