And the third part is complete. This piece and every other part of this series will also contain seven states. The elections covered will be in Maine, Massachusetts, Michigan, Minnesota, Mississippi, Montana, and Nebraska.

Maine

Similarly to that of Colorado, Maine is a very blue state that has a lone Republican Senator in the middle of a state with a blue trifecta. The Governor is a democrat, both House Reps are Democrats, and the other Senator from Maine is an independent who votes and caucuses with Democrats. Despite this, Susan Collins won with almost 70% of the vote in 2014 and has had four terms. The reason for this is most likely because Collins is one of the most moderate Republicans in the Senate and is pro choice, has consistently voted in favor of LGBT rights, and has condemned Mitch McConnell’s refusal to vote on Merrick Garland. She also has voted with Donald Trump the 2nd least amount of the time out of any current republican senator (the least being Rand Paul).

Susan Collins may seem nice on the outside, and she is admittedly leagues ahead of most of the Republican scumbags in office, but she’s still an inferior choice to any Democrat in Maine and needs to go for a multitude of reasons. Susan Collins most recently drew controversy for the fact that she voted in favor of Brett Kavanaugh’s confirmation. Turns out that voting to confirm a rapist to the Supreme Court for life in a deep blue state is not the best idea. This alone would be enough to justify kicking her to the curb, but even worse is that she cast the deciding vote in his favor.

And this is my overall problem with Susan Collins, she may support civil rights when it comes to votes, but she’s still a conservative who ultimately votes against progress in just about every other area. In addition to voting to confirm Brett Kavanaugh, she also voted to confirm Neil Gorsuch and allowed the Republicans to get away with screwing Merrick Garland out of his seat and packing the Supreme Court with judges who will vote to overturn same sex marriage and abortion rights. She actually said she didn’t think Kavanaugh would vote to overturn Roe Vs Wade, although she was definitely wrong there. If that wasn’t enough, she also endorsed Thomas Farr’s appointment to the North Carolina Eastern District Court despite the fact that Farr hassupported laws that favored voter suppression and were ruled to be discriminatory to black voters.

I can’t help but be reminded of the Desmond Tutu quote “If you are neutral in situations of injustice, you have chosen the side of the oppressor. If an elephant has its foot on the tail of a mouse and you say that you are neutral, the mouse will not appreciate your neutrality.” That is ultimately the problem with Susan Collins, she may not be as scummy as Tom Cotton or Mitch McConnell, but she’s not going to go out of her way to stand against them. To be fair, the same can be said of a lot of liberals but even centrist neoliberals like Doug Jones and Kyrsten Sinema would be better choices than Collins.

Don’t believe me? Well lets take a look at her voting record.

What is noteworthy about this election is just how many people are lining up to run against Collins. That’s how you can tell someone is fucked. Candidates smell blood in the water and come swarming in an attempt to get an easy victory. You can also see that happening in the Democratic Presidential primaries. There are not only a 16 potential Democratic candidates, but there are a few Republicans who are running against her… that I will not cover since I refuse to give them any sort of platform when they don’t have much of a chance anyway, but I will say that they aren’t good.

Of the 16 potential candidates I mentioned, 2 are already confirmed. The first of these is travel agent Michael Bunker who I can’t find any information on. The second is defense attorney Bre Kidman, who is quite the interesting candidate. If elected, Kidman would be the first non-binary/queer senator. They prefer they/them pronouns and put Mx as opposed to Mr or Mrs on the FEC filing and everything. I can just imagine that /pol/ will puke blood with rage if they are elected and be like “NOOOO, this Senator looks like someone straight out of Tumblr! Trump senpai, SAVE US!!!!!!!!”

As part of a running theme, my most preferred political candidates are ones that aren’t “career politicians.” This may mean that they lack experience, but it also means they genuinely care about their citizens and seek to do more than simply maintain the status quo and line their pockets. Bre Kidman’s words really tell you that they’re taking this seriously and are someone you can trust. Just read the following excerpt from their Crowdpac campaign page.

We can all scream at each other on the Internet about whose team did which ridiculous thing this week, but it doesn’t force our legislators to create solutions for the problems we face—or stop them from making laws that make our lives harder. We can read the full-text bills and resolutions our legislators are voting on and call their offices, but at the end of the day career politicians will always vote with an eye toward reelection, more beholden to special interests and their donors than the average voter. I was among those who traveled to Washington, DC in October of last year to meet with Susan Collins on the eve of the Kavanaugh vote. Unable to get an email back about scheduling a meeting or a phone call, I hustled down to Capitol Hill and pressed my ear against her closed door. When I heard footsteps, I banged on that door until someone answered. Begrudgingly, I got a meeting scheduled with a staffer for the next day and turned up with my story, and the policy reasons why Senator Collins should vote against confirmation. When I asked what was factoring into my senator’s decision-making process, her disinterested staffer could not be more specific than “she’s got a lot to consider.” Susan Collins‘ net worth has increased an average of 138% for EVERY YEAR she has been in the Senate and the only answer her constituents can get from her office on major decisions is “she’s got a lot to consider.” You know what I say to that? That is not enough.

But it’s going to be a tough fight for Mx. Kidman considering the amount of other contenders there are. I’d dare say that winning the primary will be easier than winning the general election. Thus far, current speaker of the Maine House of Representatives Sara Gideon, businessman Daniel Kleban, former Maine House speaker Hannah Pingree, 2018 US senate nominee Zak Ringelstein, and activist, former Maine Women’s Lobby direct and 2018 gubernatorial candidate Betsy Sweet have expressed interest in running but have not filed candidacy.

Update: Betsy Sweet, Ross LaJeunesse, and Sara Gideon have now declared candidacy.



On top of those we also have state senator and 2014 US senate nominee Shenna Bellows, Maine representative Seth Berry, Emily’s List executive director and 2014 & 2016 congressional candidate Emily Cain, 2008 congressional candidate and 2018 gubernatorial candidate Adam Cote, US representative Jared Golden, famous horror book author Stephen King (yes, THAT Stephen King), Belfast Mayor Samantha Paradis, US representative Chellie Pingree, former president of Planned Parenthood Cecile Richards, and 2010 gubernatorial candidate Rosa Scarcelli. And it is highly unlikely that all these potential candidates are just going to stay home.

Update: Seth Berry, Jared Golden, Hannah Pingree, Zak Ringelstein, and Stephen King have declined to run.

Also is worth mentioning that there are two independent candidates. Transgender activist Danielle VanHelsing has also declared candidacy as an independent, and 2018 congressional candidate Tiffany Bond is also considering a run. They could also have a chance given the popularity of Angus King and ranked choice voting. Danielle VanHelsing and Bre Kidman are my candidates of choice for obvious reasons, but the important message to take away is that Collins is SCREWED!!!

Assuming that the elections proceed at the same rate as usual, we can expect about 333,149 to vote Democrat and about 245,249 to vote Republican. Considering that Maine uses ranked choice voting it may means even less Republican votes. This rate is consistent with the 2018 gubernatorial election and the 2018 Senatorial election if we count Angus King as a Democrat.

Massachusetts

Massachusetts is a very blue state. Thus far, both Senate seats are blue, every House seat is blue, and the only red seat belongs to Governor Charlie Baker who is far more moderate than most Republicans these days. In 2020, Senator Ed Markey is up for re-election, and he is probably one of the best Senators we have at this time. He has a consistently positive record in women’s rights, LGBT rights, environmentalism, has called to abolish ICE, and helped Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez to draft the Green New Deal. Once again, the only blight on his record is voting in favor of SESTA/FOSTA.

Ed Markey has also voted “no” on 17 of Trump’s 22 cabinet pics and has the the 7th most of “No” votes behind Kirsten Gillibrand (20) Elizabeth Warren (19), Bernie Sanders (19), Cory Booker (18), Kamala Harris (18), and Jeff Merkely (18). Additionally, Ed Markey has voted with Trump only 14.9% of the time, with makes him tied with Cory Booker for 4th least amount of Trump votiness.

It is telling just how blue of a state that Massachusetts is when there are more potential Democratic candidates than Republican candidates. Thankfully most of them seem to be just as progressive as Markey himself, so there isn’t much to worry about with them. I may as well talk about the few Republican hopefuls though.

There is one candidate thus far and that is Dr. Shiva Ayyadurai. He passes himself off as a moderate and actually ran against Elizabeth Warren as an independent in 2018 and obtained about 3% of the vote. Of course you can’t just say dumb shit like “save baby fetus, protect the guns, and build the wall” in a state like Massachusetts, but he IS a Republican so he has to be a monumental douchebag somehow. So that is where he got the idea to take the Jordan Peterson approach, take the most absurd and nonsensical positions possible, and act like that makes you an anti establishment revolutionary who will appeal to all sides! Take this following quote from one of his blog posts for instance.

As an independent thinker and anti-Establishment activist, Dr. Shiva has not been shy about his support for President Donald J. Trump, a disrupter of the current political elite. Similarly, Dr. Shiva supports the disruptive and anti-Establishment passion of AOC.

Why of COURSE!!! Both Trump and AOC must be equally great because they go against the status quo! Clearly that’s all that matters and that their actual policies mean nothing. Jesus fucking Christ on a maxi pad, this is the galaxy brain version of “both sides are equally bad.” It’s good to know that my own campaign for Massachusetts Senate will have his support. I’m VERY against the establishment elite or whatever nonsense that is. Hell I’m so disruptive that I will run against Markey despite not even being from Massachusetts AND being below the legal age to be a US Senator. I’ll also win without having a single person vote for me!

But maybe I’m taking Dr. Ayyadurai out of context. He IS a scientist after all so he must not be too bad. Oh wait, he showed up at a “free speech rally” that included prominent Alt Right members. He also was arrested for beating his girlfriend in 2005. This is ultimately what Shiva Ayyadurai’s campaign comes down to, the usual Republican nonsense buried behind fake progressivism, and on the very slim possibility he gets elected, you can expect him to pander to the exact same conservative bullcrap that allowed Trump to surface. He’s basically the right wing version of Andrew Yang.

The two most commonly cited potential candidates are former State Representative and 2018 Senate candidate Geoff Diehl, and Massachusetts lieutenant Governor Karyn Polito. Both of them are fairly moderate by Republican standards, but the more you look into their records, the more one can see that it’s only for political gain. Geoff Diehl has voted against legal protections for trans people and has answered on the AmericansElect Senate quiz that he believes same sex couples should not be allowed to marry or form any kind of civil union. Diehl also served as the co-chair of Trump’s Massachusetts campaign, supports rapist Brett Kavanaugh, supports Trump’s racist wall, and thinks that only private companies should provide healthcare.

Karyn Polito meanwhile, has a long and established anti LGBT history but suddenly decided that she changed her mind when she realized that she’d lose votes from it, and has voted against universal healthcare. I think you get the idea. The plus side is that if you are from Massachusetts and are reading this, there is a decent chance you’d vote for Markey again anyway. But just in case you aren’t yet me telling you to is somehow enough to convince you otherwise, vote for Markey or whoever else gets the Democratic nomination if that happens.

If things proceed at the rate they normally do then we can expect about 1,275,532 to vote Democrat and about 570,626 to vote Republican. This is a wider margin than Elizabeth Warren’s victory in 2018 and is not consistent with Charlie Baker’s 2018 gubernatorial win, but it will be immensely difficult for Republicans to take Ed Markey’s seat nonetheless.

Michigan

Michigan is a state that is becoming increasingly blue. Both Senate seats are blue, Democratic candidate Gretchen Whitmer has beaten the Republican incumbent Bill Schuette in the 2018 gubernatorial race, and 7 of the 14 House seats are now blue. In 2020, Senator Gary Peters will be running for re-election.

Gary Peters seems like your standard liberal politician. Has a solid record on civil rights, healthcare, the environment, and abortion rights, but won’t take a stance on the Green New Deal and voted in favor of SESTA/FOSTA. Peters has also voted NO on half of Trump’s cabinet nominees and has voted with Trump 29.8% of the time. He’s no Bernie Sanders, but he is better than a standard Republican. It is also worth noting that 2018 gubernatorial candidate Abdul El-Sayed has been cited as a potential candidate, and considering that he has been endorsed by both Bernie Sanders and Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, he looks like he would be a better pick for the position than Peters.

As for our Republican candidates, the only declared candidate is businessman and 1996 Congressional candidate Bob Carr (not to be confused with the former Democratic Congressman from the same state). Given our current President, the words “Republican businessman” should be enough to make anyone with standards convulse with rage, and considering that I can’t find much information on him I’m just going to assume he’s no good.

One of the most common Republican hopefuls is 2018 Senate candidate John James, who I mentioned in my midterm piece is opposed to laws protecting LGBTQ from employment discrimination and is a stronger supporter of Mike Pence, but forgot to mention wants to de-fund Planned Parenthood, thinks abortion should be illegal in cases of rape and incest, wants to repeal ObamaCare, and was endorsed by President Pussygrabber himself.

Update: John James is running.

We also have former Michigan House Speaker and 2018 nominee for Michigan Attorney General Tom Leonard, who wrote to then Attorney General Bill Schuette to reverse LGBT protections, voted to allow adoption agencies to refuse LGBT children for religious reasons, to prevent the Department of Human Services from taking any action against said adoption agencies, and was rated 0% by the Planned Parenthood Advocates of Michigan.

Macomb County Public Works Commissioner and former U.S. Representative Candice Miller is also commonly cited as a potential candidate. While serving as a House Representative, Miller has voted to federally ban same sex marriage, against including LGBT people in anti hate crime legislation, against the repeal of Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell, to prohibit funds from being used to repeal DOMA, against prohibiting federal funds for use of anti-LGBT discrimination, against prohibiting federal funds for use against state level medical marijuana legalization laws, against harsher punishments against those who pay women less then men for the same work, to defund Planned Parenthood… twice, and to strip 32 million people of their health care… also twice.

The last candidate is Sandy Peslar who didn’t even make it past the primaries in 2018 and is ANOTHER FUCKING BUSINESSMAN!!! Do I even need to look up his positions at this point? If it wasn’t obvious, he’s also an old white guy so you know what he’s going to say. The only info I bothered to look up was a recap on his 2018 debate with the aforementioned John James, and they basically just had a dick measuring competition over who was more old, white, Christian, and misogynist despite the fact that they are basically the same candidate (although Peslar has an edge in the “white category” given that James is black).

So we basically have what looks like a race of “typical Democrat vs typical Republican.” Probably the biggest hurdle that Peters has towards re-election is his absurdly low name recognition. The latest Senator ranking poll concluded that 43% of Michigan voters had no clue who the fuck Gary Peters is. Most Senators tend have somewhere from 20 to 30% not know for comparison sake. It is noteworthy that his straight approval rating is tied with that of Bob Menedez for the lowest out of the current senate, but unlike Menendez, his disapproval rating is also in the top 10 lowest. So the overall issue is that about half of his state does not know who the hell he is. This may be an advantage because the most recent poll puts Peters with an 8% lead with a generic Republican, and an earlier poll gives him a 1% lead over John James.

If the 2018 Elections are any indication, we can expect about 2,175,003 to vote Democrat and about 1,894,000 to vote Republican. This is consistent with results of both of Michigan’s statewide elections in 2018. Hopefully it will be consistent with the results in 2020 as well.

Minnesota

The incumbent up for election in 2020 is Democrat Tina Smith. Tina Smith was appointed to take over after Al Franken resigned in 2018 due to allegations of sexual misconduct, and won a special election to serve the remainder of the sex pest’s term in 2018. She will now be running for a full term in 2020. Tina Smith seems to be a fairly standard liberal. She has voted with Trump only 25% of the time so she seems alright.

Tina Smith is likely going to win re-election considering that 2018 saw both her and Amy Klobuchar win their elections, and saw the Democratic candidate for Governor win. It is likely because of this that we have not had any declared Republican candidates yet. There are a few commonly cited contenders though.

One of these contenders is Karin Housley, Tina’s 2018 opponent who voted against legalizing same sex marriage in Minnesota, requiring schools to have an anti bullying policy, equal pay and employee protections for women, and increasing the minimum wage. Another is former US Representative Jason Lewis who compared gay people to rapists and lamented being unable to call women “sluts” anymore. And there is Doug Wardlow who voted to ban same sex marriage and to remove a ban on carbon dioxide emissions. Or there Mike Lindell, another fucking CEO who loves sucking off Trump. It’s no wonder he’s the head of company that sells pillows, because he’s always in bed with the 1%!

Update: Karin Housley and Mike Lindell have declined to run. Jason Lewis and Rob Barret, host of the Youtube channel Cooking for Dads, has announced that he is running as a Republican.



There isn’t much to say here considering that Tina Smith is likely going to win and the Republican nominee is definitely going to be an enormous piece of shit. Assuming things turn out like in 2018, we can expect about 1,009,815 to vote Democrat and 638,570 to vote Republican. Hopefully this trend continues into 2020.

Mississippi

And we are finally back to covering red states run by bigoted scumbags. Mississippi is a blood red state so things are quite stacked against us there. The person up for re-election is Cindy Hyde-Smith. Hyde-Smith won a special election in 2018 to replace Thad Cochran who resigned earlier that year due to poor health and died only a few days ago as of June 2nd 2019.

Cindy Hyde-Smith is most known for a gaffe where she told a supporter that if he invited her to a public hanging then she’d be in the front row. This remark is already quite eerie on its own, but just remember that Mississippi is a state that was among the most known for the lynching of black people, and that her 2018 opponent was a black man. Even if she did not intend that meaning, that is flat out fucked up. It is even worse considering one of the people in the crowd said “then do it!” Kind of a fucked up thing to hear in the state where Emmet Till was murdered.

I recently talked about the upcoming Mississippi Gubernatorial election, and I brought up how both the Democratic and Republican front runners were part of an infamously racist fraternity when they went to college. Well it turns out that Cindy Hyde-Smith has her own fucked up history. She attended a private “whites only” school that was set up in response to the ruling that public schools needed to desegregate. She also sent her own daughter to one of these schools in case you thought it was just her mother that was a racist scumbag. Just take a look at this yearbook photo.

Cindy Hyde-Smith is also known for a remark where sheclaimed that it would be a great idea to make it harder for liberals to vote. Once again, this statement already sound fucked up but gets even worse when one considers that Mississippi’s history of surprising voting rights of black Americans. The most harrowing instance is that of Lamar Smith, a black activist who was murdered in the 50s in broad daylight in full view of a crowd who just sat and watch, including the sheriff. The person accused was found not guilty by an all white jury. The reason he was murdered was because he carried a bag of absentee ballots for black voters, which provided a way for them vote without facing violence from white supremacists.

What makes things even worse is that Cindy Hyde-Smith has been said to have ties to people responsible for the murder. I’ll just quote a Philadelphia Inquirer column for this one.

The soil that harbored that injustice would nurture Hyde-Smith as she grew up in Brookhaven during the tumultuous 1960s and ’70s. The filmmaker Beauchamp told me he’s found loose family ties between Hyde-Smith’s in-laws and key players in the segregation fight — that his research shows husband Michael Smith is related to 1955 arrestee Mack Smith and that Michael Smith’s sister married the grandson of segregationist judge Tom Brady. None of that is surprising, perhaps, in such a close-knit community. The alleged killer Noah Smith died in 1975 and was buried in Macedonia Baptist Church, the same church where Cindy Hyde-Smith has been a Sunday school teacher. What’s harder to explain is one of Hyde-Smith’s first acts during her first term in the Mississippi Legislature in 2002, which was to unsuccessfully push a bill to rename Highway 51 running through Brookhaven as Jefferson Davis Highway, in honor of the slave-owning president of the Confederacy who had no specific tie to Brookhaven. A recent report from the senator’s hometown in Mississippi Today notes that even now — when many communities have removed the hot-button Mississippi state flag with its stars-and-bars Confederate imagery — Brookhaven has “doubled down” by flying the controversial banner every 50 yards or so on the town’s main drag. Beauchamp told me that in his extensive reporting on Mississippi he’s never seen a wall of silence quite like Brookhaven, both among whites not particularly eager to discuss the past and blacks who may remember more than a century of intimidation tactics all too well. It could be easy to dismiss all of this — the flags, the highway renaming, the bizarre words that come from Hyde-Smith’s mouth — as nothing more than cringe-worthy symbolism. But voter suppression in Mississippi — while updated for the 21st century — remains all too real. Just this year, a Northern Illinois University study ranked Mississippi as still the worst in the nation when it comes to making it hard for citizens to vote — citing factors like its early registration cutoff, lack of early voting, and strict voter ID law. Since Southern states were freed by the Roberts Supreme Court from supervision under the 1965 Voting Rights Act, Mississippi has shuttered about 5 percent of its polling places — exactly the kind of thing Hyde-Smith joked about.

This is what happens when you win the civil war but choose to pull the troops out of the south so they can keep being racist for another two centuries. Thanks President Hayes. The fact that Cindy Hyde-Smith still won the election in Mississippi despite all this being revealed is telling how little Republicans in Mississippi has evolved since the 60s. Thankfully I’m not the only one who thinks so. Cindy Hyde-Smith’s overall approval ranking is in the bottom 10 and her disapproval rating has gone up by 15 percentage points since 2018 Q3. Hyde-Smith also struggled much harder than her senate counterpart Roger Wicker did in 2018, so it’s clear that her racism caused her problems even back then.

While her racism is more than enough reason to dismiss Hyde-Smith as a piece of trash, let’s not forget that she’s an incompetent Senator as well. Hyde-Smith has voted against net neutrality and the Green New Deal while also voting in favor of confirming Brett Kavanaugh and Donald Trump’s national emergency to fund his racist wall. Hyde-Smith also thinks Planned Parenthood is “one of the worst things to ever happen to us.” Apparently it’s worse than segregation, voter suppression, and lynching according to her. Also she’s a homophobe.

Despite Hyde-Smith’s low approval ranking, she does not have any declared opponents from either party. She could face a challenge from either her 2018 Primary opponent Chris McDaniel or ANOTHER FUCKING BUSINESSMAN Gerard Gibert, but I have a feeling that Mississippi Republicans won’t care too much about the racism on account of being Republicans and being from Mississippi.



As for her Democratic opponent, there are three commonly cited contenders. The first of these is former United States Secretary of Agriculture Mike Espy. Mike Espy already lost to Hyde-Smith in 2018, but it is possible that her drop in approval may give Espy more of an edge this time around. There is also Mississippi House Rep J.P. Hughes Jr if his bid for Lieutenant Governor doesn’t work out, and Public Service Commissioner Brandon Presley.

Update: Mike Espy is running again, as is teacher and 2018 Senate candidate Jensen Bohren. Jensen Bohren has the more progressive platform so he’s my personal candidate of choice.

Either way, it is notable in that the stars have aligned just enough that Democrats might have a shot in both the 2019 gubernatorial race AND the senatorial one. Granted the odds are still in the Republicans favor, but the best bet is to keep on eye on the gubernatorial race.

If things proceed the same way as in 2018, we can expect about 554,734 voting Republican and 398,770 to vote Democrat. This would be consistent with Roger Wicker’s win in 2018 but not with Cindy Hyde-Smith’s first win. Let’s hope that Cindy Hyde-Smith publicly hangs herself politically in 2020… or non politically. Whichever works.

Montana

Montana seems to be a purple state at this time, so it is a bit hard to gauge how things will turn out in 2020. While their Democratic senator Jon Tester did re-election in 2018, he also has the eighth lowest approval ranking in the US Senate (although that can be partially chalked up due to him being a centrist neoliberal). The fact that there is a Democratic Governor whose approval ranking is pretty solid also gives hope, but the state’s sole Representative at large also won re-election in 2018.

The Senator who is up for re-election in 2020 is Steve Daines. Daines is more on the moderate side compared to most of the Republican Senators up for re-election this year. I’d say that he’s the 2nd to least shitty behind those covered thus far with Susan Collins being in first place. Unfortunately he’s a far cry from Susan Collins, which is a pretty low bar to begin with since it has been established that she’s not really that good to begin with.

Steve Daines has voted with Trump 85.3% of the time, which is lower than most Republican Senators but not low enough to be considered a decent human being, and voted in favor of all of Trump’s cabinet nominees. One of Daines’s decent moments include him voting in favor of the Violence Against Women Act in 2013, which is sad considering that a law to prevent violence against women should be something that’s unanimously supported but whatever. I mention this because one may assume that Daines is in support of women’s rights despite the fact that his voting record says otherwise.

The first sign of this can be seen with how he handled Brett Kavanuagh. In a rare move for Republicans, Daines thought that maybe voting for a rapist to be on the Supreme Court for life would make him look bad. Does that mean he acted like a decent human being and voted against him? Lol nope. He just decided not to vote. He did, however, vote in favor of the cloture to end the debates and move on to the vote, so he likely was just trying to cover his ass and didn’t actually give a shit. And of course,he voted for lobster boy to. His lack of care about women’s rights can also be expanded to his repeated supports of bills to defund Planned Parenthood, voting in favor of SESTA/FOSTA, and voting against an amendment to make it easier to file claims of gender discrimination.

On top of this, Daines has also voted against LGBT rights on multiple occasions, including voting against social security and veteran’s benefits for same sex couples, against protections for LGBT youth to the Runaway and Homeless Youth and Trafficking Prevention Act, against adding protections to LGBT students, and co-sponsored more than one “religious freedom” bill that allows homophobes legally discriminate against LGBT people if they think God said they could.

On the subject of Immigration, he has voted in favor Trump’s national emergency over his monument to white supremacy, and is an ICE apologist. Daines also is a climate change denier, is against net neutrality, and voted to strip 32 million people of their healthcare… twice. In short, Steve Daines is another Republican flunkie who needs to go the fuck away.

That leaves the question of who there is to run against him. The most obvious choice is Governor Steve Bullock since he is term limited. He’s currently running for President so that means we can rely on him to resign early in 2020 and settle for a Senatorial campaign like anyone else who isn’t Bernie Sanders, Elizabeth Warren, Joe Biden, Kamala Harris, or Pete Buttigieg.

Until then, our only declared candidate is Helena Mayor Wilmot Collins. Collins is notable for being a former Liberian refugee and Montana’s first and only black Mayor. Also from what I have seen of him, he sounds like a better choice than Steve Bullock anyway. He somewhat reminds me of Bernie Sanders in how he focuses on the well being of his people and calls out the shit that really shouldn’t be partisan in the first place.

“Health care, climate change, and affordable housing aren’t partisan issues. Those are issues for everybody. And I don’t understand how people try to politicize that. It’s affecting everyone.”

I am inclined to agree that these positions are not partisan issues, or at the very least should not be. Yet you still have the Republican party and the neoliberal branch of the Democratic party that frame anything that would make the US less shitty as a radical leftist idea. Engineer and US Navy veteran John Mues is apparently running as well but I haven’t found much on him. Anyway I am hoping that Wilmot Collins pulls through. Other potential candidates include former U.S. ambassador to the World Trade Organization and The Revenant author Michael Punke and former one term Montana Governor Brian Schweitzer (although both of them may run for Governor as well).

Update: Micheal Punke has declined to run.

Unfortunately I have no lead on how this race will go considering Jon Tester won re-election in 2018 but Republican Greg Gianforte also won re-election to the US House, and they won with roughly the same amount of votes. Whoever wins, let’s hope it’s not Daines.

Nebraska

And for the final state covered in this update, and the first state to not start with an M, we have Nebraska. Nebraska has stubbornly remained red through 2018’s blue wave without any House seats being flipped and the Republican Senatorial and Gubernatorial incumbents winning with 57.7% and 59% of their respective races. Considering that Ben Sasse has a higher approval rating than Deb Fischer, this means that it will likely be even harder to flip his seat.

The up side about Ben Sasse is that he is more moderate than most of his Republican counterparts and didn’t stop criticizing President Pussy Grabber after he got elected. The down side is that he still voted with Trump 85.4% of the time. He voted in favor 21 of Trump’s 22 cabinet nominees and to confirm Neil Gorsuch and Brett Kavanaugh. He voted in favor of Trump bypassing congress with his national emergency temper tantrum, he voted to defund Planned Parenthood, and voted to strip 32 million people of their health care just like every other Republican scumbag in congress.

I mean sure, not denying that orange man bad is good an all but can we maybe get a bit more? Can we get a Republican who isn’t a homophobe for instance? Or one who isn’t a climate change denier? Or who supports net neutrality? Or who doesn’t spout propagandist pandering garbage like “Thanks to ObamaCare, this President has placed the liberal abortion agenda over the religious obligations of millions of Americans.” Can we get a Republican who is a decent human being?

I’m sure we already know the answer to that. Ben Sasse and Donald Trump are just different shades of the same shit. It doesn’t matter if one piece of garbage smells less then another, it doesn’t change the fact that they both need to be cleaned up and put in the trash bin. Unfortunately no one has declared candidacy to drive the truck that takes Ben Sasse to the dump where he can… okay I kinda ran out of ideas for where to take this metaphor so I’ll just stop it here.

One of the more commonly cited contenders to take on Sasse is Lincoln Mayor Chris Beutler. What is noteworthy about Beutler is that prominent Republicans lead a petition drive to establish a three term limit just so they can prevent Beautler from winning another term as Mayor. Just imagine how glorious it would be if Beautler won a Senate seat because they didn’t want him to be Mayor! State Senators Sara Howard, Adam Morfeld, and Steve Lathrop have also been cited as possible contenders.

Update: Mental health advocate Angie Phillips and 2018 Senate candidate Chris Janicek are running. Both of them seem to have progressive platforms so they both have my support.

If 2018 repeats itself, then we will likely see about 432,077 people voting Republican and 264,493 to vote Democrat. It just makes it all the more important that as many Democratic voters show up as possible.

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Anyway that is it for this installment. Getting the last two parts done will likely take longer than these two because I had the parts for Maine, Massachusetts, and part of the Michigan segment already written before I decided to split the piece up into five parts, though I did need to revise them to make them more up to date. Anyway see you next time.

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