You’ve seen his face everywhere in the past 36 hours as Florida Governor Ron DeSantis begins the process of his 2028 presidential election bid.

In the days leading up to the midterm election, DeSantis was putting himself at the forefront of predictive punditry in preparation for a negative Republican outcome.  Then immediately following the midterm election, DeSantis begins his national rollout using the national midterm election and the Florida outcome contrast as the springboard.

DeSantis has some of the best national Republican political operatives contracted to his administration. The downside to that professional system is that every DeSantis move becomes very predictable.  In his midterm review speech DeSantis uses the passive aggressive pitch in coded messaging to declare MAGA is dead via, “an extinction level event for” a certain kind of Republican. WATCH [the audio is challenging] 

Presidential campaigns are about two things, #1 The Candidate, and #2 The Team around the candidate.

One of the reasons why JD Vance rushed his response to the midterm election was due to his campaign team telling him to get out ahead of the issue and put distance between himself and Trump to mitigate collateral midterm blast damage.  However, the political team around JD Vance are not as good as the political team around Ron DeSantis.

The problem for the very good political team around Ron DeSantis is ‘the candidate’.  However, the candidate problem is also why we see DeSantis boosted by leftist media and political opposition.  CNN’s Jake Tapper also broadcast a DeSantis victory lap interview.

(more…)

Many people are looking at the number of votes Democrat Governor-elect Gina Hinojosa received in Texas and wondering how it is possible.  Hinojosa won more votes than Kamala Harris in ’24 and beat incumbent Governor Greg Abbott by almost a million votes.  How is this possible?

Well, to understand why Texans voted blue, perhaps it is worthwhile listening to the candidate.  I would challenge readers to set aside their expectations and just watch five minutes of a lengthy interview Hinojosa gave.  She sounds like a much better candidate than Greg Abbott.  WATCH – Prompted

She may well believe in some other social stuff that is completely looney, but in her presentation of the “economic populism” message, she is far more eloquent than most of the GOP candidates.

(more…)

President Trump is delivering statements from the White House Ballroom complex following the midterm election results. The livestream is ongoing.

.

(more…)

There are some easily predictable outcomes now evident from the midterm election results.  At a top-level initial review here’s the direction of greatest likelihood.

BASELINE: Democrats, Leftists and DSA want power; Republicans, corporatists and NRSC want money.

WINNERS: Volodymyr Zelenskyy, Mark Carney, EU-NATO, King Charles and Commonwealth, Globalists, Donald Tusk, Brussels, Chairman Xi, Vladimir Putin, Benjamin Netanyahu, Climate Change Inc., and “middle powers”.

LOSERS: President Trump, JD Vance, Karol Nawrocki, Donald Trump Jr., Eric Trump, Tech Bros., Elon Musk, DHS, ICE, DoW, Jensen Huang, Mike Johnson, American middle-class, auto workers and Border Security interests.

OUTCOMES:

(1) Gasoline prices, specifically diesel fuel prices, will likely drop very fast; election objective fulfilled.

(2) For a few months datacenter expansion and approvals will be paused. Datacenters will restart after the federal regulatory sub-agency is created and a series of ‘indulgency fees’ determined. [Similar to Consumer Financial Protection Bureau (CFPB)].  Those impact fees will be very lucrative.

(3) Congress will quickly act on pre-written legislation to slow AI and introduce government regulation; likely a new regulatory agency will be created and taxes assessed on AI investment under the justification of AI economic impact. AI investment fees and federal datacenter impact fees will be distributed to fungible DNC/DSA aligned NGOs (foreign and domestic) to replace missing USAID funds.  Congress will skim funds as normal (indulgences).

(more…)

Vice President JD Vance gives his thoughts and impressions on the midterm election result.

JD VANCE (Via X) – “One of the things the data analysts on our side obsessed over was “composition”—whether the electorate looked close enough to 2024 for Republicans to win. And despite polls that showed a Democrat blowout, the data kept on telling us the same story: in some states turnout was merely OK, in other states it was downright amazing, and in no state was it catastrophic. There was a genuine sense of optimism on our team: our people were showing up.

So, I asked the smartest data guy I know, does that mean we’re going to shock the world? “No,” he told me. “We might do better than the polls suggest. But the data is telling us that a lot of Trump/Vance 2024 voters are pissed and planning to vote for the other guys. Our voters are turning out, but they may not vote for us.”

Well, that looks prophetic now. Our voters did show up. In Florida, for example, the electorate was 9 points more Republican than Democrat, just a couple points worse than 2024. Undoubtedly there were places we could have done better on turnout. But the main problem is not turnout. The main problem is that many people who voted for Trump/Vance in 2024 voted for Democrats in 2026.

There will be a lot of infighting and arguing over what happened and why that is. One of the pollsters I really respect told me that our economic messaging wasn’t sharp enough down the stretch. I’m sure that’s true.

But the real reason we lost is obvious to almost everyone.

Another pollster—one of the smartest people I know in politics, told me yesterday we’d lose the generic ballot by 13 points. I felt negative going into Tuesday, but even I was shocked by this. In his polling, he saw that a lot of Trump 2024 voters were angry and planning to vote for Democrats. He asked those voters who had abandoned us what would cause them to come back on our team.

The top four answers, accounting for nearly all of the responses were:

1) End the war
2) Focus on cost of living/inflation
3) Put America First
4) Change our relationship to Israel

(more…)

In an effort to keep the Daily Open Thread a little more open topic we are going to start a new daily thread for “Presidential Politics”. Please use this thread to post anything relating to the Donald Trump Administration and Presidency.

This thread will refresh daily and appear above the Open Discussion Thread.

(more…)

Our Father, who art in heaven, hallowed be thy Name. Thy kingdom come. THY WILL BE DONE, on earth as it is in heaven. Give us this day our daily bread. And forgive us our trespasses, as we forgive those who trespass against us. And lead us not into temptation, but DELIVER US FROM EVIL.

For Thine is the kingdom and the power and the glory, forever and ever. Amen †

.

(more…)

As the election results continued unfolding, Democrats and DSA candidates took control of the House and the Senate.  With the outcome still being tabulated, around midnight President Trump gave a lengthy interview to Brett Baeir and Fox News.

In the aggregate the MAGA movement, like the Tea Party that preceded it, was neither Democrat nor Republican.  A person only needed to look at the issue(s) of borders, immigration, illegal aliens, H1B’s etc., to notice the outcome was the same with the D or R.  The same was true for American jobs and the insufferable march to a ‘service driven economy.’  The movement that supports Donald Trump was never Democrat or Republican; it was/is a coalition of historically unrepresented voters, essentially a third party.

Trump’s supporters represent a third party in a two-party system.  This was always problematic. Professional Democrats, leftists writ large, hate Donald Trump. The Professionally Republican also dislike him immensely.

(more…)

I will have thoughts, opinions and analysis tomorrow. In the interim, as the election results continue to be tabulated, consider this an open discussion thread.

AP Election Results Link

NYT Election Results SENATE – Results HOUSE

CNN Election Results Link – Fox News Election Results Link

(more…)

While Zelenskyy is in Berlin firming up support from Germany, France the U.K and EU allies around the concept of expanded conflict with Russia, while Canadian Prime Minister Mark Carney shares his support from the sidelines of the Commonwealth in the Caribbean, the Kremlin has announced their representative for upcoming talks in Abu Dhabi.

In a slight change from previous discussions, President Vladimir Putin’s primary aide Vladimir ​Medinsky will serve ⁠as Moscow’s chief negotiator ​at the organized talks in Abu Dhabi Nov. 10-11.

[SOURCE]

There is something different about this round of talks considering the successful 6-day ceasefire in Oleshky, Ukraine, which was led by the outreach of First Lady Melania Trump toward representatives of both Russia and Ukraine.

Additionally, and likely much to the annoyance of those European figures who control the Ukrainian narrative, Melania Trump has announced there will be a meeting at the White House between representatives of both Russia and Ukraine later this week.  Mrs. Trump is going to make public remarks Thursday, November 5th.

WHITE HOUSE – First Lady Melania Trump will personally bring representatives of Russia and Ukraine, two nations actively at war, together at the White House. This event represents an extraordinary moment in American history.

[…] First Lady Melania Trump will deliver remarks on the ceasefire in Oleshky at 11:00 am ET on Thursday, November 5, 2026, at the White House. (source)

(more…)