Jay Cooper retweeted
I worked for @ossoff for 4 years, and here’s what I learned from him:
Wins aren’t earned in a few months by showing up only during campaign season. They’re earned by showing up every day, year after year, for the people you serve. They’re built through discipline, respect, hard work, and kindness.
This reelection is the product of years of work and dedication from him, his official office, and the teams who worked alongside him.
Georgians recognize that kind of commitment. They recognized it in him because he showed up every day, honored the mandate his constituents gave him, and took seriously the responsibility of representing them. That same sense of responsibility became part of the culture of his office and the people who work/ed there.
He went the extra mile to serve Georgia, and we took that responsibility seriously, too. That’s an ethos I carried with me and one I know many of my former colleagues continue to carry. It’s also why I remain hopeful about the future of Georgia and the South.
At a time when Americans have lost so much trust in government, Senator Ossoff understood the responsibility that came with representing Georgia in the Senate: rebuilding that trust, putting constituents first, and demonstrating through his work that their voices matter. He understood that earning people’s trust isn’t a campaign promise. It’s a responsibility you have to fulfill every single day.
I feel incredibly lucky to have witnessed that work firsthand, to have learned from him, to have served Georgia, and to have worked alongside some of the most wonderful people I’ve ever met. People who cared deeply about the work and, like him, showed up every day.
Jay Cooper retweeted
.@scott_colom quietly ran one of the best campaigns in years, and he did it with raw talent, deep faith, and a lot of heart.
Democrat Scott Colom is suddenly in the spotlight as he stands on the verge of becoming the first African American elected to the Senate from Mississippi since Reconstruction. But he’s been drawing attention from other Democrats behind the scenes for months. wapo.st/4iqelUW
Jay Cooper retweeted
Alaska Dem official on CNN today, about ranked-choice voting: "We treat this process more like sex. Finishing first and early is not the main goal. We prefer to take it slow, kind of do it right. And hopefully at the end everybody involved is satisfied."
Jay Cooper retweeted
Republicans will spend time and treasure, likely years and millions of dollars, for consultants and experts and pundits to find out what went wrong and how this happened. Save your money and don’t waste your time. The answer came 10 years ago by a Senator from South Carolina who didn’t live to see his prophetic words come to pass. “If we nominate Donald Trump we will get destroyed…and we will deserve it.” Republicans blew up their party, their values, their dignity and decency for a man who wasn’t even a Republican. Unilateral tariffs on our allies by executive orders isn’t conservative. Siding with Vladimir Putin’s murderous war in Ukraine isn’t conservative. Accepting a bribe from a foreign country in the form of an airplane that costs hundreds of millions of dollars isn’t conservative. Turning untrained thugs in masks loose in our communities to murder American citizens in cold blood isn’t conservative. Threatening to invade and conquer a sovereign country, an ally, isn’t conservative. Pardoning people who assaulted law enforcement officers isn’t conservative. The list is too long and too exhausting to contemplate. Republican law makers lit themselves on fire for a thrice married, sociopathic, mentally unstable reality tv personality who bragged about acing a test to check for dementia and spoke about the asses of male candidates for the US Senate. There was a time when I believed we should welcome any of them who finally spoke up back into polite society. But that ship has sailed. These people should live in shame for the rest of their days, shunned and repudiated in history books, never to hold a position that requires the public trust ever again.
Jay Cooper retweeted
BREAKING: Far right Republican confesses that voter ID is not only intended to but DID disenfranchise her.
Jay Cooper retweeted
There’s a real irony in Republicans hoping that the late mail votes in Mississippi will rescue Cindy Hyde-Smith — just months after the RNC sued to void Mississippi’s ability to count late-arriving votes and lost at SCOTUS, 5-4.
Y’all can spare me the hand-wringing over Democrats just wanting to do “investigations.”
This Admin tried (and failed) to indict sitting Members of Congress for making an accurate statement of law that is so uncontroversial you can find it on a plaque on a wall at West Point.
Jay Cooper retweeted
It's over. Scott DesJarlais — in Congress since 2011, in a seat redrawn at Trump +24 and priced at 99.9% Republican — has lost to Democrat Victoria Broderick by 280 votes, 95,585 to 95,305, 100% counted. She raised less than $100,000. The shock of the night in Tennessee.
Jay Cooper retweeted
An extraordinary post from the vice president, written as if he has no idea that he's the vice president.
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.
Jay Cooper retweeted
🔥There will be so many beautiful stories like this today
Keisha winning last night was no small thing.
Jay Cooper retweeted
"Well, see, we were going to claim it was rigged like always, and the only thing that stopped us was just how badly the American people beat the living shit out of us."
