Summary
Minnesota Governor Tim Walz, Kamala Harris’s running mate, suffered a personal setback in the 2024 election as he lost his home county, Blue Earth, to President-elect Donald Trump.
Trump won 49.6% of the vote there, while Harris received 48.3%, marking a symbolic defeat for Walz, who built his political career in the area.
Walz, a former teacher and congressman known for his moderate stance, had previously turned a Republican seat Democratic and won Minnesota’s governorship by a large margin in 2018.
His campaign faced challenges, including scrutiny over past statements about military service, which the Trump campaign leveraged as a “Stolen Valor” issue.
We should have just turned the convention into a mini-primary, like Obama wanted. Maybe this was the reason why he was so hesitant to endorse Kamala. He wanted her to earn it because thats how you get people to vote for you.
Jesus christ someone couldn’t have just pushed Biden down some stairs in like, February? Not like a bunch, but maybe 3-4? Just enough for us to have had some kind of testing of the candidates?
It’s mind-blowing how badly the DNC fucked this all up. They learned nothing from history, theirs or their opponent’s. If that party doesn’t actually crumble as a result of this, both from internal and external pressures, I’ll be amazed.
I’m so angry. And scared. All at once. Just miserable really.
Oh the Irony, this is exactly what I thought would happen to the Republicans.
We could hope but the fact is, the right wing in America is organized and the left just isn’t. Evangelical conservatives have been working for this for years, and it’s gotten them results - no Republicans would give up power to voice their actual dissent meaningfully. They bought the ticket, they’re taking the ride.
The Democrats are just a flimsy mishmash of corrupt manipulators. They haven’t had a coherent plan for ages. And now, they’ve got nothing, and a man is about to retake office who’s threatened to use the State against his political opponents.
If I were a top Democrat right now, I’d be thinking real hard about whether the party even has a future, long-term.
If I were a top Democrat, I’d be thinking real hard about whether it is going to be safe to stay in the country.
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I think Pete Butigeg would have been a stronger candidate.
So you think someone who was incompetent in his job in the Biden admin, failed in primaries, only has real experience as a mayor, is gay, and in 2020 was incessantly ridiculed by insecure men as “mayo Pete” and endless permutations of “butt”-xyz due to being gay…would have won.
Lol
Speaking from across the pond, I think Pete would have been brilliant… but then that’s hardly part of the job description any more is it? A breeze block with the ability to talk shit and grift would unfortunately be a far more electable candidate this year.
Plus, if electing a woman was too troublesome for people to handle, what would happen if they fielded one of the gays!!!?!??
It’s a disgrace really. Either Pete or Kamala would have been a safe pair of hands.
I’m also from the UK but from what I could tell at least Pete has some personality. Kamala ran as the establishment manifested in human form, clumsily avoiding questions or policy details in media appearances. She was polling at 4% of popularity amongst democrat voters during the 2020 primaries. I think those factors were more influential than her being a woman,
Absolutely agree with you - I think perhaps Kamala was too safe a pair of hands and didn’t generate enough excitement - but then I’m too old for watching fancy headline grabbers (though Ed Davey’s approach to Lib Dem vote grabbing at the GE this year was highly entertaining) so to me, a boring but competent candidate is good for me.
I suppose I only brough up her gender and his sexuality because they both share an “outlier” characteristic that Republicans in general aren’t too fond of.
Nice to hear from you fellow Brit!
Don’t kill yourself
If you decide to buy a gun, I suggest a 1911, they’re fun to shoot!
Are the non .45 variants just as fun?
I think they’re implying for safety… not for an easy way out.
I did my training on the Beretta M9 and the Mausberg 500.
Neat, the M9 is a good choice, and 9mm is plentiful and cheaper than 12 gauge.
Meh. Its just what I was trained on. I’ve never been an enthusiast.
Hold on, you were trained on a shotgun and a handgun? No rifle? Are you a cop?
No, we trained M16 as well, but spent way more time on M9/ shotgun. My assumption was always that our job was just to be targets in the case something actually happened. I also trained 50 cal.
I’m interested if you can figure out what service I was in based on what I’ve told you so far.
I mean, in the US I’m pretty sure only Navy deals with shotguns, I think to prevent hull penetration? Coasties might for the same reason, but I’ve never hung out with any
Without going into profile history, and assuming American, I’m guessing a land based service, either the Army or Marines. Seeing as the Marines had M16s longer than the Army did. I’m going with Marines.
That said, I have a hunch you might be European somehow. Maybe Germany from how you misspelled Mossberg? You’d have to be NATO, but I’m not super knowledgeable about the German services.
Nope. My secret is safe. I’ll give another hint. Those were the only fire arms we carried underway, and they were mostly considered a joke. Especially the 50cal.
MP
Not even close.
Obama wasn’t hesitate in that way, he wanted to be a neutral arbiter if there was a primary.
So, I hear you, but who do you think would’ve outperformed Harris? And don’t say someone more progressive, because the battleground states would just be that much redder.
So what? Redder than blood red?
Yes. Yes, exactly. Redder than what we just saw. Because all those rural motherfuckers looked at Harris, probably the most progressive candidate we’ve had during my lifetime and I’m getting fucking old, looked at Trump, and they fucking chose Trump.
They. Fucking. Chose. Trump.
I don’t know what those stupid motherfuckers want, but it’s obviously not healthcare or a god damned economy.
My understanding is that Trump did not outperform his 2020 returns and Harris did not outperform Biden’s 2020 returns. We didn’t get more Trump voters than pat elections, we just got fewer Democratic voters. Why was Democratic turnout so bad? Was it really because Harris was too liberal? I haven’t seen any evidence of that. I suspect that it’s because Harris isn’t very charismatic (compared to candidates like Obama or Bill Clinton). I also suspect that turnout was low because Harris was talking more about maintaining the status quo instead of talking about change. If she was more liberal then maybe more of the base would be motivated to turn out? IDK but I’m sure there will be a million think pieces on the topic 😔
They want the demographics they dislike to suffer. That’s it, they don’t give a shit about policy.
I know for lots of them that’s probably true. But it’s not fifty percent of the country.
The rural republican voters were never going to vote for Harris. Her only chance was to motivate the progressives to go out and vote but instead she spit on them at every opporitunity and sprinted to the right to try and court votes she was never going to get anyways.
Just look at the votes. Trumps vote total barely changed. Harris lost more than 10 million votes for the DNC. That says nobody switched from trump to Harris but a lot of people were so disgusted with Harris that they didn’t even bother to show up.
Why??? Gaza? One fucking issue out of fifty that Trump will be ten times worse on anyway? I’m not thrilled about Gaza, but now in their name, even more Gaza’s will die, plus Ukrainians, our own women, trans kids, immune compromised, whomever dies as a result of NATO collapsing, whoever dies because of climate change, refugees.
And every single person who voted for Trump over the economy, I fucking guarantee if Gaza was on fire from one end to the other they wouldn’t piss on it to put it out.
My wife swears up and down that rural and rural-adjacent suburban votes will simply never vote for a woman.
My son, who lives and works in Detroit, says the Muslims would rather ban abortion than pet much any other issue. The news says trump made major inroads with gen z boys.
I don’t know the answer. I’m not sure anyone does. But on every single fucking issue, whatever you care about, there isn’t one single issue on which Trump would be the better pick, unless you just want to fucking burn it all down. Or you’re a multi multi millionaire who just wants to pay less taxes.
I have to go get started on tomorrow’s hangover.