Liberty or death 🇺🇸 | Frmr @SenJoniErnst & Senator @TomCoburnMD | AZ 🌵| @USC Trojan✌🏼Oxford comma | Amor Fati
Joined December 2009
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Dr. Coburn was the best man I’ve ever met. Knowing and working for him changed my life in ways I can’t articulate. Aside from being a titan as a Senator, a one man road block, he was a genuinely good human, he cared about everyone, even his enemies. TAC @ my desk doing my job:
Courtney retweeted
Thank you Juan and Laura and family for your service. You are a true statesman who has run the race incredibly well. Hope this won’t be the last of you in office. We trust God with these results but we sure don’t like what happened in your race.
Courtney retweeted
The worst-performing Democrats in competitive Senate races were the candidates Bernie endorsed. (link in next tweet, no paywall)
Some good news this week!
Arizona’s drought just got CUT by nearly two thirds in one week. 🤯🌧️
34% ➡️ 12%
Flagstaff, Payson, Globe, Show Low and Tucson are now drought free. The holdout is southwest AZ near Yuma, Gila Bend and Ajo.
Big win for our reservoirs. Winter storms decide if it lasts💧 #azwx
Courtney retweeted
Massive undercovered media story: The number of influencers who are paid to produce content/shape opinion and don't disclose their funding sources.
It produces huge distortion in the news/information marketplace and rewards, often very handsomely, the worst actors.
Courtney retweeted
The governor-elect of Texas, Gina Hinojosa, has explicitly said that all currently permitted datacenters in Texas will be allowed to finish construction. This essentially covers all of the 2027 and likely well into 2028.
She is going to pass laws that ensure that all *newly* permitted datacenters going forward for delivery in 2028/2029 will pay taxes, commit to no increase in power prices for consumers, don’t impact water availability for people, be constructed with union labor and give “Texans a seat at the table.”
Sounds reasonable. She doesn’t want to lose a lot of good blue collar jobs and property taxes for small towns in rural Texas.
Datacenter commentary starts at 6:30 in this interview.
Also attaching her official campaign position from her website in the next post.
Sidenote: After watching a bunch of her speeches and interviews, I do think she is a political talent and probably has a future in national politics.
youtu.be/D-T6H3b8ZeE?is=mEWu…
Amen.
AZGOP needs to move on from Cyber Ninjas era. Stop fielding freaks, geeks & amoral grifters for statewide races. Stop lying about “election fraud.” Focus on real issues. RNC must go from the party for malicious corruption to the party for the middle class m.youtube.com/watch?v=hsJ9Dl…
Courtney retweeted
Kansas last elected a Dem to the US Senate in 1932. What was important about 1932?
Republicans passed the Smoot-Hawley tariff in 1930, and in '32 voters had the 1st chance to respond to its effects. Dems gained 97 House, 12 Senate seats, 11 governorships & the presidency.
Courtney retweeted
Underrated election result in the blue wave: biological sex restrictions in schools are passing with very healthy margins.
Courtney retweeted
Look, Republicans got blown out because of the administration’s miserable handling of every issue, including tariffs. They had a mandate; they had a coalition. What they wanted to do was not just popular, but necessary.
But they couldn’t follow through.
Immigration enforcement is popular, a bunch of cruel performative policies that got people killed are not.
The war in Iran might have been popular, but no one in the administration could decide if they wanted to actually fight it. They renamed the Department of War and then immediately shifted its purpose to dumb meetings about testosterone.
Americans will tolerate higher prices for a while but they expected sympathy, not officials denying rising costs and telling people to eat tortillas and chicken.
Demographic shifts are happening, but most Americans aren’t afraid of their neighbors. The vast majority of Americans think open racism is gross and wrong.
When you get a mandate, you have to maintain your coalition. Instead, they went full reality show. They blew it.
Courtney retweeted
This is a total hoot.
About the only thing it gets correct is that 2024 Trump voters were "pissed." As the polls spell out, very clearly, they were angry about tariffs--a word weirdly not found in this post, but which exit polls showed 65% of voters dislike. There's a straight line between those punishing costs and Senate losses in Kansas, Iowa, Ohio (farm areas) and beyond.
Angry the WH instead spent this past year talking about ballrooms and the Kennedy center. Frustrated by the complete absence of a next-two-year agenda (85% are concerned by healthcare costs. Where is the GOP plan?)
They are also unhappy about the war, though the numbers might be different if the president been clear about an exit strategy. And not sure where the "smartest" (and most anonymous) pollster in the world got the Israel argument. Exit polls show that of the 51% of voters who said our support for Israel was "too strong," only 19% of even that subset of respondents were Republican. The vast majority of GOP voters said our support for Israel was "just right" or "not strong enough."
Amusing to claim the problem here was traditional conservatives, as they were sidelined. Tillis was run out of the party, dooming NC. As was Cornyn. The WH had a pure expression of its second-term Trump/Vance agenda and loyalty in its chosen candidate of Ken Paxton. That would be the smoking carcass sitting on a 12-point loss in. . . Texas of all places. Meanwhile, who exactly is even talking about "asylum"? That's just a smear-y effort to preemptively shut down valid criticism.
The GOP strength has always been in its coalition--free-marketers, defense hawks, cultural conservatives. Trump's first-term success came from largely following that Reagan playbook. The second-term leaned into me-too progressive populism--at the veep's urging--and it ain't working.
The weird thing is that the veep remains more obsessed with remaking the party than with winning. Winning will require a lot better understanding of what happened yesterday than what is on offer in this alternate-universe view.
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
Our voters showed up. And the above four reasons are why many of them voted for Democrats. This is according to a pollster who nailed the results. While many spent Monday attacking Rachel Campos Duffy for calling for a diplomatic resolution to the conflict, it turns out her political advice was sound. (She’s also a great person.)
In the next few months, there's going to be a lot of gaslighting. Expect to hear any number of establishment politicians say the solution to our woes is amnesty. I'm open to the idea that we should change enforcement—by focusing more on businesses that hire illegal labor, for instance. But anyone pushing amnesty is lying to you.
The reason we lost is the war. The president himself said so last night.
If you'd like to argue it was worth it, that losing the Senate for the next 6 years was worth it, then do so. Argue it was a worthwhile cost to pay. Agree or disagree, that's at least honest.
But everyone knows why we lost. And any honest conversation about where we go from here must start there.
I remain hopeful about our country. To the people who are pissed off and want to say, “I told you so”: you’re right, you did tell us so. Take that energy into electing Republicans who share your worldview. To the people who are just pissed at the results, you should be. Let’s take that anger and get back to the work of saving our country.
Courtney retweeted
Q: “Should republicans look to you as some kind of savior going forward?”
A: “There’s no saviors in politics. Elected officials are supposed to be servants.”
Courtney retweeted
Always convincing when a politician cites anonymous pollsters who confirm everything he believes and wants to run for president on.
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
Our voters showed up. And the above four reasons are why many of them voted for Democrats. This is according to a pollster who nailed the results. While many spent Monday attacking Rachel Campos Duffy for calling for a diplomatic resolution to the conflict, it turns out her political advice was sound. (She’s also a great person.)
In the next few months, there's going to be a lot of gaslighting. Expect to hear any number of establishment politicians say the solution to our woes is amnesty. I'm open to the idea that we should change enforcement—by focusing more on businesses that hire illegal labor, for instance. But anyone pushing amnesty is lying to you.
The reason we lost is the war. The president himself said so last night.
If you'd like to argue it was worth it, that losing the Senate for the next 6 years was worth it, then do so. Argue it was a worthwhile cost to pay. Agree or disagree, that's at least honest.
But everyone knows why we lost. And any honest conversation about where we go from here must start there.
I remain hopeful about our country. To the people who are pissed off and want to say, “I told you so”: you’re right, you did tell us so. Take that energy into electing Republicans who share your worldview. To the people who are just pissed at the results, you should be. Let’s take that anger and get back to the work of saving our country.
Courtney retweeted
The people now trying to pin last night's GOP catastrophe solely on Iran are simply wrong - and they're being wrong for the obvious reason: because being right would mean admitting that their preferred policies helped produce an epic, generational political failure.
Made Grok and Claude hash out the exit poll data to get a more complete picture of voter sentiment. Notably, they concluded Iran was an accelerant on issues, but not actually the top issue. Their concurrent conclusions actually mirror a lot of public opinion polling that was showing up in the weeks before the election.
1Cost of living and inflation. 79% say inflation caused their family severe or moderate hardship. 62% blame higher prices more on Trump's policies than on factors beyond his control. 65% say his policies worsened the economy, against 27% who say they improved it. 75% rate the economy poor, 44% say they are worse off than two years ago, and 39% named the economy the top issue. BBC · AP via PBS · NBC
2Tariffs. 64% say tariffs hurt the national economy (D 78–19), and 63% say they hurt their local economy (D 79–18). Only 15% say tariffs helped their area. That is the most lopsided policy verdict in the poll, and voters judged it by their own towns. NBC
3Government corruption. 90% called it a crucial or major factor. About half called it "crucial," a larger share than for immigration, Iran, or AI, and about 6 in 10 say Trump puts his own interests first. About 4 in 10 voters who called it crucial still went Republican. BBC
4The Iran war and fuel costs. 63% say the attack was the wrong decision, against 37% who say it was right. 74% called the war a crucial or major factor, though only about a third called it crucial. 59% are "very concerned" about gas and diesel prices. Gas averaged $4.15, about $1.11 above a year earlier, and diesel averaged $6.29. About a quarter of Republicans say the war was wrong. BBC
5Democracy and checks on Trump. 32% named the state of democracy the top issue, and about 8 in 10 of them voted Democratic. About 7 in 10 say Congress isn't checking the President enough, including about 4 in 10 Republicans. 43% voted to oppose Trump and 16% to support him. His approval stood at 38%. BBC
6Immigration (the GOP's floor). 14% named it the top issue. Republicans kept a small edge on the issue, and it mattered more to Republican voters. Even so, 57% say enforcement has gone too far. BBC
7Healthcare. Democrats held a wide advantage here, but few voters named it the top issue.
8AI and data centers. It ranked below corruption and cost of living, and voters split on which party handles AI better. 61% opposed new data centers near them.
Context: 38% of voters were angry and 37% dissatisfied. By group:
•Women went D 58–40.
•Voters under 45 went roughly two-thirds D.
•Hispanic voters went D 62–35.
•College graduates went D 62–36.
•Non-college voters went R only 51–47.
•White voters went R only 51–48.
Just under half view Democrats favorably, against about 4 in 10 for the GOP.
Courtney retweeted
The 2026 midterms were about punishing Trump. They were not about how much U.S. voters like the Democrats or their policies. The party that is smarter about what to do with this conclusion will win the 2028 presidential election.
Courtney retweeted
It would be naive to ignore the effect of the Iran war on the midterms, but we should not lose sight of the fact that tariffs were brutal for Republicans (via @NBCNews)
Courtney retweeted
Nobody wants to hear this, but this is the best possible outcome for Republicans in 2028.
