Michele Tafoya (R) vs. Peggy Flanagan (D)

I. The Race

Michele Tafoya (Republican) is new to politics after a career as a sports broadcaster and is running on an anti-corruption platform in a state that has that problem in every direction.

Peggy Flanagan (Democrat) is the sitting lieutenant governor of Minnesota, having won alongside Tim Walz in 2018 and 2022, with her second win by a reduced margin of +7.7%. She has worked to conceal Minnesota’s substantial fraud and corruption, participated in anti-ICE chaos, and is not uniformly supported by Democrat factions within the state.

II. State Profile

Minnesota is the GOP’s white whale. It is the state with the longest standing Democrat-voting streak in presidential elections, with 13 consecutive wins stretching back to 1976. Donald Trump almost joined Richard Nixon and his predecessors in the hall of GOP nominees to carry the state in 2016, primarily because of third-party defectors from Hillary Clinton, but missed it by 1.5%. Since then, the state legislature has enacted the standard litany of blue state laws loosening up election rules, laws, and procedures to ensure the Twin Cities can get over the top of what has been an increasingly reddening state for most of two decades.

In 2024, Trump won the 85 counties outside of Hennepin and Ramsey Counties (the two dominant blue counties of the Twin Cities metro) by 12.7%. Unfortunately, he got clobbered in the two that prop Democrats up statewide:

Hennepin and Ramsey produce roughly 30% of all ballots cast in Minnesota’s elections. Without serious gains there, GOP statewide candidates are on the outside looking in. How strongly those two counties tie Flanagan to fraud and corruption, and the degree to which they respond to midterm dynamics, will make or break Tafoya’s campaign.

Demographic Statistics

76.3% White, 6.9% Black, 6.1% Hispanic

III. Market Assessment

Polymarket bettors have Flanagan shares positioned at 89%. This is surprising, since polling (the main driver of trades on the platform) is suggesting a closer-than-normal race. Tafoya shares offer huge returns if she pulls the upset.

IV. History

This is the first Senate race I’ve profiled this year with no incumbent. Tina Smith’s retirement left the seat open, so neither Tafoya nor Flanagan will get the incumbency boost. In Minnesota, it is powerful; here are Amy Klobuchar’s margins for the other seat:

2006 +20.1%
2012 +34.7%
2018 +24.1%
2024 +15.7%

Notably, Klobuchar’s 2018 margin ran 22.6% right of the 2016 presidential result. Walz, running for governor, won by 11.4%; however, the polarizing Keith Ellison only won the Attorney General’s office by 3.9%. Flanagan resembles Ellison far more than she resembles Klobuchar, who is a shoe-in to replace Walz as governor. Minnesota’s U.S. House races were a mixed bag in 2018, with Democrats flipping two suburban seats but losing two rural seats in a full realignment of the suburbs and the state’s Iron Range and southern rural areas. In short, 2018’s elections, from the first Trump midterm, do not suggest automatic Democrat success – although Tina Smith won her special election for the seat Flanagan and Tafoya are after by +10.6%.

The 2022 midterm results, despite comfortable Walz and Flanagan reelections, saw Ellison barely scrape by (+0.8%). If Minnesota voters (Democrat insistence aside) continue to prioritize going after corruption, the U.S. Senate race could be this year’s big sleeper.

V. Analysis of 2026 Primary Results

Tafoya won with a bare majority in a crowded field that included 2024 Senate nominee, Royce White. Unlike the GOP gubernatorial primary, I am not aware of any drama here that will prevent Tafoya from having Republicans behind her campaign.

Democrats, on the other hand, are the ones with the primary problem.

While Flanagan won by plenty (+19.4% margin) over Rep. Angie Craig (MN-2), Craig would have waltzed to a 2026 midterm victory as a low-controversy suburban female Democrat running in a “get Trump” environment. Flanagan, a renowned activist selected to be Walz’s running mate thanks to diversity check boxes, gives the “mushy middle” room to reconsider their past Democrat loyalties. Check out this creepy outfit in a recent campaign video:

VI. Polls

RCP Average: Flanagan +1.6%

In a year marred by terrible polling and in a Democrat state without a Republican U.S. Senator for almost two decades, I would expect to see Flanagan up like Roy Cooper in North Carolina polls. Instead, she’s polling like Ashley Hinson in Iowa, who I will believe will be stronger than her polling indicates. The two-party shares reflect a lot of undecided voters, but given the divisive Democrat primary, some of the missing voters could be Democrats waiting to come home. Either way, Tafoya is within the margin of error in every single poll since the beginning of September.

VII. Media Ratings

Minnesota is emerging on radars as a Senate battleground, but I think these reviewing bodies are overstating Flanagan’s strength.

VIII. Party Registration

Minnesota does not register voters by party. Until very recently, in something only offset by the Democrat primary surge, Iowa had been shifting Republican since the 2024 election. Not much has changed there (a proxy for Minnesota), so the ideological and political environment in Minnesota is likely not much different than it was in 2024.

IX. Election Considerations

This is Flanagan’s great equalizer. Minnesota runs absolutely filthy elections, and I’ve documented that here within these virtual pages for years.

That article reviews recent changes to Minnesota’s election laws, including:

• Allowing 16- and 17-year-olds to pre-register to vote
• Automatic Voter Registration
• Driver’s Licenses for All
• Expanded Early Voting

Opportunities for Election Manipulation

Familiarize yourself with the grading criteria for my election ratings. Here is how Minnesota rates with regard to the most common election demerits and its own unique traits:

• Voter ID – Minnesota requires no proof of identification to cast a ballot.
• Same Day Registration – Minnesota permits same day voter registration.
• Ballot Harvesting – Ballot harvesting is allowed, but according to law, a “designated agent” (ballot harvester) can only return ballots on behalf of three people. I have no idea how this can be monitored, let alone enforced, so it goes without saying that ballot harvesting is clearly taking place in population dense areas as evidenced by the mountainous spike in Democrat ballots in the Twin Cities in the past two elections. Undercover video of ballots being sold in the Somalian parts of Minneapolis serves as hard proof of criminal activity tainting elections in the state.
• Unique Corruption – The fleabag Minnesota legislature, which comprised a Democrat trifecta (House, Senate, Governor) in the past session, passed a ton of new election reforms, none of them good – more early voting, licenses for illegals, Automatic Voter Registration, and allowing 16- and 17-year-olds to pre-register to vote. These were all passed because every Demofrat in the state knows Minnesota would go the way of Iowa and Wisconsin if permitted to trend organically.

With the race no longer hidden from national attention, you can expect Democrats to have the Somali ballot trafficking machine on full blast, and all hands on deck in the Twin Cities to try and steer the race to Flanagan.

X. Summary and Election Estimate

These are the major factors for the U.S. Senate race in Minnesota:

Minnesota is still Minnesota. To overcome the Twin Cities, Tafoya will need to have her messaging down pat and exploit the divide between Democrat factions. Ellison’s 2022 challenger for Attorney General, Jim Schultz, got almost 32 percent in Hennepin County and nearly 30 percent in Ramsey County. In Hennepin, we are talking almost 10 points better than Trump’s losing margin from 2024. Tafoya will need to be aiming for a third of the vote in those two counties to be within striking distance.

If the people are truly upset about Flanagan’s role in the rampant fraud and corruption in Minnesota, all bets are off:

The survey above lists “inflation/cost of living” as the chief concern of Minnesota voters, but the second-most prominent issue pertains to the fraud. ZeroHedge, which posted the survey, had this to say about the issue in their recent article outlining the possible Senate upset:

Federal prosecutors estimate that at least $9 billion billed to 14 state-run Medicaid programs since 2018 may be fraudulent, a figure Walz disputes, on top of separate schemes in which sham nonprofits billed the state for child care, school lunches and other services. According to a House Oversight report, the state’s Democratic leaders knew about the fraud and failed to act.

Most of those charged are of Somali descent, and the House report found state officials ignored the fraud to avoid accusations of racism. Gov. Tim Walz’s net approval has since collapsed from +19 in June 2025 to -14 in August 2026. The damage has spread to Attorney General Keith Ellison, Sen. Amy Klobuchar and the Democratic legislature. Pollsters have yet to publish separate numbers for Flanagan, though a politician who has stood one step behind Walz since 2019 has little room to distance herself from the scandal. Tafoya has built her campaign on that exact point.

Minnesota, having previously elected Jesse Ventura as governor, is fond of political outsiders, which may give Tafoya an anti-establishment edge (now that former grassroots darling Flanagan had has her time in the sun and used it to create problems). Tafoya hasn’t been shy about the fraud issues:

NEW 📺 AD: We teach our kids that bad behavior has consequences, but somehow politicians think the same rules don’t apply to them. Peggy Flanagan ignored warning signs while fraudsters stole our tax dollars. She has spent eight years as lieutenant governor in the Walz …

Michele Tafoya (@Michele_Tafoya), Sep 18, 2026

Here is how the key factors in this race stack up:

Forecast for Minnesota U.S. Senate

Just like Republicans aren’t going to get caught from behind in Texas, Ohio, Alaska, or Iowa without throwing every dollar they can at them, the Democrats are in the same boat in Minnesota. If they have any shot at taking over the Senate, even with a loss of Maine, they can’t drop Minnesota’s Senate race. Had Craig been nominated and the rampant corruption not been such a pressing issue during this cycle, I would probably have this seat rated at 85-15% odds for Democrats instead of 60-40%.

Tafoya is definitely in the game. She will probably produce a results map with as many red counties as Trump does, but how many votes make up how much margin intensity is the key – and it will only matter if she can make a sizable dent in the Twin Cities Democrat machine. Flanagan, thanks to the key factors of the race and codified electoral corruption, maintains a fundamental edge that gives her the advantage for an underwhelming (for Democrat standards) victory.

Do not sleep on this race. Somali gangs have been busy doing all they can to flip public sentiment toward Tafoya.

Seth Keshel, MBA is a Senior Fellow at the Gold Institute for International Strategy and a retired Army Captain. He publishes Captain K’s Corner on Substack.

While Americans argue about which religious minorities belong in our national life, a Hindu of Indian origin captain and Jewish Israeli passengers offered a more consequential answer: They helped keep everyone on board Flydubai Flight FZ1073 alive.

On Sept. 30, Flight FZ1073 from Dubai to Tel Aviv became the scene of an apparent attempt to crash a passenger aircraft. Capt. Smit Machchhar was stabbed by his co-pilot, an Omani national, whose name has not been publicly released. Despite his injuries, he opened the cockpit door, allowing passengers and crew to intervene. Additional pilots subsequently landed the aircraft in Tabuk, Saudi Arabia.

Israeli passenger Yaniv Hayun was among those who rushed forward. He recalled telling the injured captain: “You’re not going to die today.”

An Indian pilot opened the door. Israeli passengers went through it. Their cooperation helped turn a possible catastrophe into a story of survival.

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said the Omani co-pilot had undergone Islamist radical indoctrination, while cautioning that final conclusions had not been reached. The United Arab Emirates is investigating possible terrorist links. The motive remains under investigation.

The rescue already offers a lesson America should absorb.

Last year, I completed a successful speaking tour dedicated to building bridges between the Hindu and Jewish diaspora communities on behalf of HinduACTion. The tour helped educate people about shared threats from radical leftists, radical right-wing white supremacists and Islamists. We spoke in Washington, D.C., Maryland, New York, Ohio, Texas, Palo Alto, and Beverly Hills about confronting shared threats.

To my knowledge, I was the first person to undertake a speaking tour across the United States specifically organized around a Hindu-Jewish alliance against those three threats. My message was straightforward: Communities facing overlapping forms of hatred should build relationships before a crisis forces them to depend on one another.

The cooperation aboard Flight FZ1073 reinforces the importance of that work. Solidarity has consequences far beyond a conference room.

Hindus, Jews, and Christians have compelling reasons to stand together against movements that make religious identity grounds for persecution. Their traditions differ. Their shared interest in protecting life, religious freedom, and peaceful assimilation is substantial.

An alliance requires recognizing a common danger and refusing to leave one another exposed. Sadly, I have seen certain groups who have yet to stand up and confront the dangers within their own diaspora communities.

And yet, parts of the American Right and Left seem determined to turn potential allies into enemies.

Groypers, or radical right-wingers, who treat Jews and Hindus as outsiders, weaken the country they claim to defend. Activists on the Left do the same when they excuse antisemitism as resistance or treat Hindu identity as evidence of political guilt.

Criticizing Israeli policy or Indian politics is legitimate. Holding entire religious communities and nationalities responsible substitutes collective suspicion for judgment.

Christians concerned about religious freedom should defend Jewish and Hindu neighbors. Progressives invoking solidarity should oppose persecution even when the victims challenge their political assumptions.

Islamist expansionism threatens people who refuse its authority, including Muslims themselves. Confronting it requires identifying its doctrines and networks accurately and strengthening cooperation among those resisting it.

The Abraham Accords made the Dubai-Tel Aviv connection possible through UAE-Israel normalization. Saudi Arabia is not a signatory, but the flight’s emergency landing there offered a glimpse of the wider regional cooperation we should want more often: Israelis and their Arab neighbors working together to preserve life.

Washington should demand a thorough investigation and examine cockpit security. At home, Americans should reject efforts to isolate Jewish and Hindu communities whose freedom is bound up with our own.

The people aboard Flight FZ1073 needed courage, competence, and someone willing to act.

America needs those qualities, too.

A Hindu Indian captain opened the door. Jewish Israeli passengers answered. Every American should recognize the strength in that partnership before another emergency forces the lesson upon us.

Susan Collins (R-inc.) vs. Troy Jackson (D)

I. The Race

Susan Collins (Republican) is seeking her sixth term in the U.S. Senate, and is the only Republican in all of Congress from any of the six New England states. She last won reelection in 2020 by 8.6% in a COVID-marred election.

Troy Jackson (Democrat), a former state Senator, began 2026 running for the Democrat gubernatorial nomination. He lost the race, but received the Senate nomination after the Democrats torpedoed the scandal-ridden Graham Platner, whom I have written about often this year.

II. State Profile

Maine was once an impenetrable Republican fortress when it came to presidential preference. The state backed all but three GOP presidential nominees between 1860 and 1988 before flipping into perma-blue status in 1992. It is one of two states (the other being Nebraska) that splits its electoral votes; Donald Trump carried ME-2 (northern Maine) all three times he ran for president, but struggled to compete in ME-1 (southern Maine). Troy Jackson’s brand is “working man from northern Maine,” and it is clear he is looking to peel away as much GOP identity as possible there to ride the partisanship in the southern and coastal portions of the state that Collins has managed to flout.

The state is lily-white, but remains loyal to Democrats because the southern portion of the state votes harder for Democrats than the northern portion votes for Republicans like Trump:

2016 ME-1 Clinton +14.8%; ME-2 Trump +10.3%
2020 ME-1 Biden +23.1%; ME-2 Trump +7.4%
2024 ME-1 Harris +21.6%; ME-2 Trump +9.1%

From my 2024 Leaner Deep Dive of Maine:

Democrat strength is clustered in the far southern end of the state, with Cumberland (23.7%) and York Counties (15.8%) combining for nearly 40% of the statewide ballot count in the 2020 presidential race. The northern part of the state, which falls into ME-2, is much more favorable for Republicans with a working-class agenda but splits its votes (Democrat congressman) and cannot regularly overtake the massive Democrat margin of Cumberland County (metro Portland), which dwarfs the next largest margin for either party by nearly 10%.

Demographic Statistics

94.4% White, 1.5% Hispanic, 1.2% Black

III. Market Assessment

Poll-believing apes are throwing money around for Democrats, but Collins is trading a lot higher than she was earlier this summer as people start to research her past races.

IV. History

The forecast for this race hinges on Collins’ specific history in winning this seat on five different occasions. There is no national comparison, no bellwether, and no proxy state to measure – she is the only member of Congress from the Republican Party representing any New England state, and that is for good reason.

For those of you who hate polling as much as I do, 2020 Maine Senate is a textbook museum display piece:

Not one damn poll had Collins leading. She wound up winning by nearly 9 points, roughly 18 points ahead of Donald Trump on the same ticket. She torpedoed a highly-regarded Democrat up-and-comer; in 2014, she laid the lumber to Shenna Bellows, the crooked Democrat Secretary of State who tried, but failed, to keep Trump off the state’s ballot in 2024. The beating was merciless, with a +37% margin and win of every county for Collins, who was defending in an apocalyptic year for Democrats.

In 2020, with a presidential electorate and modern polarization serving as a test, Collins lost ME-1 by 5 points, but won ME-2 by 24 points, 18 and 17 points ahead of Trump, respectively. Her model has proven simple – limit the damage in ME-1, and blow out ME-2. Jackson is trying to count on polarization in ME-1 and shaving margin in ME-2, but he has a major problem from the not-so-distant past looming over his shoulder.

V. Analysis of 2026 Primary Results

This is where the water gets really choppy. Collins ran unopposed, with enough Republican Mainers having the sense to accept her squishy nature, which I recommended last August.

The Democrats essentially experienced Götterdämmerung after having allowed Graham Platner to make it all the way through the official primary as the nominee. Once it became clear the image-conscious moderate weaklings in southern Maine wouldn’t vote for a literal Nazi who recounts his deployment bowel movements and fantasizes about political violence, they moved onto sexual assault stories and ran him off faster than you can say Joshua Lawrence Chamberlain.

Platner, despite his controversial nature, topped sitting Governor Janet Mills and took 156,084 primary votes. He tried to hang on once the media drumbeat started and the Democrats began to shoo him away, but the threats for more and more dirt to be released persisted. Platner left the race in July. It is a near certainly that a large percentage of his base supporters won’t vote for Jackson, who has eased into his role as nominee and cozied up to the elites he has spent his entire career raging against.

The Platner exile is one of the most impactful events of the 2026 midterm cycle, and one very few are talking about anymore. The Democrats’ presumptive path to a Senate majority arguably runs through Maine. If Collins holds it, the math gets extremely fuzzy for the left.

VI. Polls

RCP Average: Jackson +0.1%

Collins has led/tied in 6 of the last 8 polls released, including a +3 from NYT/Siena last week and a +2 from co/efficient this week. Tossing the two Jackson outliers, Collins has a small but clear polling lead. This is important given how significantly she outperformed her 2020 numbers. Bottom line, this is not where Democrats want to see Jackson heading down the home stretch, when Republican candidates usually tighten the polling up.

VII. Media Ratings

Toss-ups all around. Not enough guts to pick against Collins, but not enough conviction to research her consistent electoral over-performances.

VIII. Party Registration

These figures haven’t been updated by the Secretary of State since spring, but they certainly don’t help Jackson’s case. ME-2 continues to align with Republicans, while southern Maine remains mostly put with Democrats (York County shifting right is a huge deal for Collins, however). Her performance against party registration data is a key component of this assessment.

IX. Election Considerations

Advantage: Jackson.

Maine runs, by far, the worst elections in all of New England.

You name it, Maine has it. Too much mail-in voting, a blind eye to ballot harvesting, Automatic Voter Registration, and the dreadful Ranked Choice Voting, which is constantly gamed and exploited to produce the most troublesome outcomes. If this race winds up in a dead heat, a slow drip of mail-in ballots combined with Ranked Choice Voting tilts the scales heavily in favor of Jackson. Collins need to get her majority in the First Choice round.

X. Summary and Election Estimate

These are the major factors for the U.S. Senate race in Maine:

Collins has a history of vastly outperforming polling and presidential baselines that simply cannot be ignored. Perhaps full polarization will finally set in and her luck will run out this year, but betting against her requires tuning out her past performances. I wrote this in my “But the Polls” piece from June:

Maine ran 2.8% left by registration from 2014 to 2020, but Collins still ran 15.9% right of the voter registration index. Now, voter registration is 3.8% right of the 2020 election. If we throw out the ridiculous 2014 Collins +37.0% margin (Democrat president’s midterm), then Collins has run an average of 22.4% right of voter registration in two separate runs.

She only needs to run 3.6% right of the present voter registration index to beat Graham Platner, or whoever the hell the Democrat machine attempts to parachute in at the last minute in an attempt to mitigate Platner’s liabilities as a candidate. The polls, and by extension the gamblers, do not account for what history tells us, and history tells me that it is extremely unlikely for the incumbent senator from Maine to underperform by 19 points against voter registration from her historical benchmarks and lose to an increasingly radical candidate who will offend the intellectual elites in the exurbs of Boston.

Jackson is far behind Collins in terms of campaign finance. He wasn’t allowed to transfer any gubernatorial funds to his Senate campaign, so Collins had a head start he’s been unable to match. Republican outside spending trumps that of the Democrats by nearly double.

The only doubt for me, as an analyst, manifests when I consider this is the first midterm race in 24 years Collins has faced with a GOP president in office. The 2002 midterm cycle, thanks to the 9/11 dynamic, is one of just three cycles favoring the president’s party in the U.S. House since 1934, and it propped up Collins by a margin of +16.9%.

Jackson may dent Collins’ margins from 2024 in ME-2, and polarization may hurt her in ME-1; however, the Platner effect will undoubtedly favor Collins and deprive Jackson of a major chunk of raw votes he needs in order to topple an incumbent who does one thing very well – survive. If Collins finishes within 20 points in Cumberland County (ME-1), and wins Penobscot County (ME-2), she’s got the race locked up.

Here is how the key factors in this race stack up:

Forecast for Maine U.S. Senate

I expect Collins to win this race, probably inside of her 2020 margin and perhaps by as little as 3-4 points. Like a great artillery officer, she seems to have the range on exactly what she needs to achieve in an otherwise hostile district (ME-1) while leveraging existing support networks in areas of strength within the Trumpy ME-2 district. A Collins win in Maine this year devastates Democrat chances for a Senate majority, even if they hold Georgia and flip North Carolina. They would then be required to prevent any upsets (such as in Michigan, New Hampshire, and Minnesota) and flip two of Ohio, Alaska, Iowa, or Texas to get the math to 50/50.

Seth Keshel, MBA is a Senior Fellow at the Gold Institute for International Strategy and a retired Army Captain. He publishes Captain K’s Corner on Substack.

Recognizing Somaliland would force Washington to weigh territorial integrity against self-determination, stability and strategic access to the Red Sea.

Continue reading

Nuclear weapons and the deterrent strategy accompanying their deployment are sometimes poorly understood. For the general public that is understandable given the complexities of preventing nuclear war. What is most worrisome are those “experts” who widely seek the abolition of nuclear weapons but are often confused about the real American nuclear deterrent necessary to prevent war.

For example, the most misunderstood idea is often referred to as MAD or mutual assured destruction. This is the assumption that U.S. strategy relies on the idea that should the U.S. be attacked with nuclear weapons, our only option would inevitably lead to the exchange of such overwhelming nuclear force as to destroy both our own country and the adversary nation. A second bad assumption is that since MAD if carried out would get us all killed, reductions toward zero nuclear weapons—abolition–should be our highest priority. And since it’s still an all or nothing MAD strategy, prudence would jettison the idea of nuclear deterrence altogether. Including any call for any flexible or limited regional response capability.

Over sixty years ago, President Kennedy warned that having just two unpalatable choices — risk MAD (all-out nuclear war) or surrender — was a prescription for more war. In two nuclear crises of his administration, in Berlin in 1981 and in Cuba in 1962, the U.S. had both force flexibility (new SLBM & ICBM missiles) and just plain luck (Khrushchev wasn’t completely reckless) that brought the crises to an end without war.

In August 1961, for example, Kennedy had previously told the Soviet leader that a threatened Russian attack on the American military garrison in Berlin meant nuclear war. We had significant (3900) battlefield nuclear forces in Germany. But we also had a newly deployed strategic sea-launched long-range missile aboard submarines which Kennedy thought saved the day and which he later would personally thank the Lawrence Livermore team for developing. Thus, Khrushchev knew Kennedy meant business. Although the General Secretary eventually didn’t attack, he went and built the Berlin Wall, an off ramp critical to standing down from nuclear war.

Bu the USSR leader wasn’t done. A year later, October 1962, U.S. intelligence determined the Soviets had placed nuclear armed missiles in Cuba. On that very day, coincidentally, the USAF had just deployed the very first Minuteman ICBMs in Montana. A key to the crisis resolution was a secret deal. Kennedy then knew Minuteman meant the U.S. no longer needed the U.S. medium range missiles in Turkey—close enough to strike key targets in the Soviet Union. The new Minuteman missiles could also reach Moscow. Kennedy later declared that “Minuteman was my ace in the hole” as he secretly traded away the U.S. missiles based in Turkey for the Soviets removing the close-in missiles in Cuba.

In both cases, the U.S. avoided nuclear war. Deterrence held, albeit with some fortuitous help.

But could we continue to rely on just in time new technologies that saved the day or the good sense of our adversaries? How best to continue?

According to nuclear expert Frank Miller, since the very beginning of the Truman administration, it was American strategy to go after key overall Soviet military capabilities. Over time, as missile accuracy improved, U.S. strategy was to go after Soviet military systems themselves such as missile silos. The key reason the U.S. needed such flexible nuclear firepower was that President Eisenhower knew it would have bankrupted the USA to build the conventional force necessary to match the Soviet and Warsaw Pact conventional forces. The Kennedy administration emphasized the targeting of Soviet warmaking assets, despite Secretary of Defense McNamara later shielding the U.S. move toward keeping at risk Soviet military assets by falsely claiming the U.S. still operated under the strategy of MAD.

The U.S. thus from the very early years of the nuclear age had response options other than simple massive retaliatory strikes on urban areas. Eventually the deterrent strategy the U.S. adopted, in place now for decades, held at risk those elements of power of great importance to the leaders of the Soviet Union and China, for example and explicitly took off the table city busting. And after the 1957 Soviet launch of Sputnik, the U.S., in an extraordinary technological feat built both a submarine and a companion sea launched ballistic missile by 1960, and an ICBM silo-based missile called Minuteman by 1962 to carry out just such a strategy as eventually adopted.

Why is this important? Without a U.S. capability to target the military forces of the USSR or China, their war forces would be in a sanctuary from which they could attack the United States or its allies with impunity. Having only the capability to deliver MAD is not a credible deterrent as President Kennedy warned.

As Miller writes, such a flexible strategy has been U.S. policy since at least the Truman administration when U.S. policy was to destroy the capability of the USSR to “wage aggressive war,” and destroy those elements of the Soviet military that would “halt aggression.” Thus, 14 American Presidents from 20 administrations, over 75 years have used such a strategy to avoid direct military conflict between nuclear armed powers.

Now the U.S. unilaterally got rid of over 90% of its theater nuclear weapons in 1991 as the Cold War was over, and as we thought at the time, a Russian led assault on Western Europe was no longer a threat. The U.S. also reduced our strategic nuclear forces from roughly 10,000 to 1550, as we assume Russia did too in three landmark arms deals (START I, the Moscow deal and New START.)

At the time of the 1991 Presidential Nuclear Initiative, (PNI) the Europeans insisted the U.S. have an insurance policy—leave behind, a small extended nuclear force in Western Europe. The U.S. did so with a few hundred gravity bombs in Europe. This was not any plan to start or initiate a nuclear war, contrary to some recent muddled commentary. It was to give the President options other than the threatened all-out use of strategic long range nuclear forces to deter adversaries from attacking the U.S. and Europe in the first place. It has turned out not to be enough.

The Russians in 1991 did not follow suit with a PNI of their own, and the Russians kept at least 2000 and as many as 4000 such “battlefield” nuclear forces.

Then on April 30, 1999, a new nuclear policy was crafted by a small group of top Russian officials. President Yeltsin in a secret meeting of the Politburo called for Russia to develop highly accurate and very low yield nuclear weapons able to be used on the conventional battlefield. Mr. Putin as President put the decree into force. The strategy has variously been described as “escalate to win” or “escalate to de-escalate,” or the use of such battlefield nuclear forces to exercise blackmail, coercion or actual terror, and swiftly change the direction of conventional conflicts toward Russia’s favor.

While the U.S. does have a small number of theater nuclear forces now in Great Britain, the U.S. needs more flexible forces to better hold at risk our adversary’s military capability. Although it is not explicitly known, the lack of sufficient U.S. and allied deterrent choices at the regional/battlefield level may have been a factor in the Russian decision in 2014 and 2012 to invade Ukraine, as well as previous aggression against Georgia and Moldova. Despite declaring that the independence of Ukraine is an existential issue, NATO has not sent its own forces to fight the Russians but only some conventional weapons delivered to Ukraine. To many in Russia, that “inaction” by NATO means NATO is deterred especially as Putin and officials within the Russian Federation routinely threaten the use of such theater nuclear weapons against Ukraine and NATO forces should Ukraine or its allies deploy certain kinds of weapons or attack certain Russian targets.

The Strategic Posture Commission concluded in 2023 that the United States needed additional regional or theater nuclear forces that were survivable, mobile, and prompt to deter Russian from escalating a conventional conflict to the nuclear level. The support was both bipartisan and unanimous. The deployment of a Navy nuclear armed sea-launched cruise missile is an added theater capability that can deliver deterrence and help keep the peace. It is supported by the U.S. Navy and funded by Congress. Such forces give the President options other than ending the world and have nothing to do with “starting” a nuclear war. True, the folks in Moscow and Peking see such theater/battlefield weapons as instruments of war that make aggression possible. But the U.S. and its allies believe nuclear and conventional forces are to deter and prevent war. That is how U.S. nuclear modernization and a flexible response capability will keep the nuclear peace.

Pete Ricketts (R-inc.) vs. Dan Osborn (I)

I. The Race

Pete Ricketts (Republican), the state’s former governor, stepped in to complete Ben Sasse’s second term as Nebraska’s junior senator by winning a special election in 2024. He outran President Trump by 4.7%, and senior senator Deb Fischer, running against Osborn on the same ticket, by 18.5%. His run this year requires a quick campaign turnaround, as it falls into the standard six-year slot for his seat.

Dan Osborn (“Independent”) is the labor union leader and faux Democrat taking his second consecutive crack at the United States Senate after giving Fischer a run for her money in 2024. There are three minor candidates officially in the race, but everyone knows it’s a two-man show between Ricketts and Osborn.

II. State Profile

Nebraska is a presidential carbon copy of Kansas, except further to the right. It hasn’t supported a Democrat for president since 1964’s national landslide for Lyndon B. Johnson; however, it used to play Democrat ball in other races, and as recently in 2006 when it reelected Ben Nelson to the U.S. Senate instead of (ironically) electing Ricketts – whom Nelson stomped. Once Nelson retired, the state’s partisan lean took over and began sending two Republicans to Washington, D.C., to represent Nebraskans in the Senate.

Kamala Harris carried just two counties in 2004 – Douglas (metro Omaha) and Lancaster (metro Lincoln/University of Nebraska). Unfortunately, because the unicameral legislature is run by fools with little desire to win, Nebraska’s 2nd Congressional District is becoming unwinnable for GOP presidential candidates and will probably be won by the Democrats this year in the U.S. House race (to be profiled soon) now that the seat is open. Fischer beat Osborn in 2024 despite running a lazy campaign; the gray-shaded precincts below are the ones Osborn carried:

Other than a few outliers in the northeast, he did his damage in Omaha and Lincoln; however, as shown in the precinct map, the key to a presumptive win in 2026 will be to further erode the margins Republican strongholds, allowing the urban areas to put him over the top. The map in terms of red and gray (blue) will not look much different than the one above and will only vary in terms of intensity one way or the other. Osborn is currently doing all he can to make sure the red shades are deeper in intensity, as I will reiterate later in this piece.

Demographic Statistics

• 75.7% White, 12.0% Latino, 4.8% Black

III. Market Assessment

Despite the relatively close call in 2024, Polymarket bettors consider Ricketts a clear favorite, with even higher odds than Roger Marshall in Kansas.

IV. History

Osborn ran a close race in 2024 by posing as an “independent voice” against Fischer, the weaker of Nebraska’s two Senators (+15.5% margin in 2012, +19.1% margin in 2018). In contrast, Ben Sasse won in 2014 by +32.9%, and then again in 2020 by +38.3%. Sasse’s 2020 performance, even normalized to give all of his opponents’ vote shares to the Democrat alone, ran well ahead of Trump’s large presidential margin.

With Sasse out of the picture, enter Governor Ricketts. His margins for governor land in between Fischer’s for Senate (+17.9% in 2014, +18.0% in 2018), but he carries significant clout. His father, Joe, is a billionaire who founded TD Ameritrade and essentially owns the Chicago Cubs and Wrigley Field. With Osborn having come close in 2024, there is no more “sneaking up,” and Ricketts’ funding will serve as a means of simply turning out the “red” vote.

Nebraska’s days of electing straight-blue politicians to federal office are over. That is why Osborn is running as an “independent” – he knows the history and understands the partisanship.

V. Analysis of 2026 Primary Results

Ricketts faced no real opposition, taking 81.5% in the GOP Senate primary this year. Osborn, running with an “independent” label, didn’t have a primary, but the Democrats did:

One major tell that Osborn is no “independent” is that Burbank won the primary and immediately withdrew. She ran to block any ambitious Democrat, or a Ricketts plant, from winding up on the ballot and splitting Osborn’s share of support. Ricketts should run crazy reminding voters that Osborn is the Democrat that party knows it can’t run with official branding.

VI. Polls

Pollsmax average: Even

RCP isn’t tracking all available polls, so I found the three most recently released on Pollsmax to calculate an “even” polling average. The SurveyUSA poll appears to be a Democrat internal that gives Ricketts just a 42% share of the vote, while having Osborn’s own share lower than the “even” poll or the Ricketts +4 poll. Tossing the SurveyUSA poll gives Ricketts a +2 average, right in line with where polling in Kansas has Marshall.

Market betting information suggests people aren’t putting much faith into these polls.

VII. Media Ratings

None of the major analysis think tanks are buying the Osborn hype – with “Likely Republican” the diagnosis across the board.

VIII. Party Registration

Nebraska, despite some recent Democrat gains in urban areas, is nearly 5,000 net registrations redder than it was in November 2024, when Osborn ran a relatively close race against Fischer alongside a Trump blowout.

IX. Election Considerations

Every state has issues with election administration, but the Great Plains region has low risk for rampant corruption thanks to laws preventing the worst practices, like mass mail-in voting.

X. Summary and Election Estimate

These are the major factors for the U.S. Senate race in Nebraska:

Money, money, money. The Ricketts machine has it, and will spend it all before they lose this seat:

Fischer, running an underprepared campaign relying on GOP party identification advantage, didn’t take Osborn seriously until after Labor Day in 2024. Thanks to the close call, Osborn isn’t sneaking up on anyone. Fischer “spotted the sniper,” just like Ted Cruz spotted Beto O’Rourke – who faded after his 2018 run. President Trump’s Grand Island rally planned for October 5 is proof that the element of surprise is gone for Osborn.

Ricketts is defining Osborn as “Democrat Dan,” and Osborn has been stepping in it frequently, being recorded proclaiming his support for radical positions that he won’t publicly back, and trashing the rural voters he needs to peel from Ricketts:

“Billy Bob in f—— Red Cloud, Nebraska, who lives next door to the f—— Trump store as you pull into town and is waving the Trump flag, all he knows is he’s like on the winning team,” Osborn said in the recording. “It’s really that simple. And Trump, and that is why he’s been so effective. He’s been so effective at taking Billy Bob and his wife Mary Jane or Mary Jo and telling them, ‘Look, we’re winning. You’re on the winning team.’ And that’s all they care about, because their lives probably suck so f—— much.”

Here is how the key factors in this race stack up:

Forecast for Nebraska U.S. Senate

Osborn had his best shot in 2024 against an underwhelming opponent who didn’t take his campaign seriously until the last minute. Ricketts has overwhelming financial backing and is now armed with plenty of evidence portraying Osborn as someone who resents Trump’s rural voting base and who is in line with Democrat priorities. Because of midterm dynamics and the “independent” ruse, Ricketts isn’t likely to win this race by standard Republican margins, but I don’t think it will be uncomfortably close.

Seth Keshel, MBA is a Senior Fellow at the Gold Institute for International Strategy and a retired Army Captain. He publishes Captain K’s Corner on Substack.

Media Fellow Rahim Rashidi on the unification of the Kurdistan Peshmerga and why it marks a historic moment for President Masoud Barzani.

Continue reading

Roger Marshall (R-inc.) vs. Adam Hamilton (D)

I. The Race

Roger Marshall (Republican) is seeking his second term in the U.S. Senate, having won his seat by a +11.4% margin in 2020 – shy of President Trump’s concurrent margin that year of +14.6%. Marshall, a physician, served in the U.S. House for two terms immediately prior to his Senate run.

Adam Hamilton (Democrat) is a woke Methodist megachurch pastor and author seeking to ride the “centrist” label to victory.

II. State Profile

Kansas hasn’t backed a Democrat for President since 1964, and hasn’t elected one to the U.S. Senate since sending George McGill to Washington, D.C., in 1932. It lies in the heart of Trump Country and has only one emerging political trouble spot – Johnson County. The shift in that county, which had been won by every GOP presidential nominee since 1920 until it flipped in 2020, cost the Republicans the KS-3 U.S. House seat in the 2018 suburban realignment (and in every election since). The population of agriculture-heavy western Kansas is heavily Latino, and trending toward the GOP.

Demographic Statistics

• 74.7% White, 12.7% Hispanic, 6.2% Black

III. Market Assessment

Markets consider Marshall the clear favorite, but Hamilton has a notable support base looking for an upset.

IV. History

Kansas notably switches between Republican and Democrat in gubernatorial races, as shown by Democrat Laura Kelly occupying the mansion right now; however, the line stops there. Lyndon Johnson’s national landslide in 1964 marks the last time Kansas sided with Democrats for the presidency, but you’d have to go back 32 years in time from there, as mentioned above, to find the last time they went blue for the Senate.

No race for Marshall’s seat in the past three decades has been closer than +10.6% (2014). Jerry Moran occupies the other seat, once held by Bob Dole. It hasn’t had a race closer than 10.6% since 1974, the year of the Watergate scandal and Nixon resignation. The 2014 Senate race won by Pat Roberts (Marshall’s predecessor) ran 11.1% left of the Romney 2012 presidential margin. Moran’s 2022 reelection ran 8.4% right of Trump’s 2020 margin, suggesting serious strength for incumbents (albeit in a favorable midterm year).

V. Analysis of 2026 Primary Results

No drama for Marshall:

Plenty of drama and coalition struggle ahead for Hamilton. 65.1% of the Democrat primary vote went to other candidates:

This clearly favors the incumbent, who doesn’t have to bandage up his party to defend the seat.

VI. Polls

RCP Average: Marshall +1.5%

Not much to pick from – but we do have a ludicrous Hamilton +2 in the data set with 13% “undecided.” The Hill/Emerson had Moran +12 in September 2022, 11 points short of his final margin. Marshall’s own average polling lead was +2 in 2020, nearly 10 points short of his final margin.

VII. Media Ratings

A couple of these bodies are buying polling and narratives, but Decision Desk and Inside Elections seem to know how Kansas votes in statewide federal races for the past century.

VIII. Party Registration

Up until last month, Republicans had made a net gain in voter registration since the 2024 election. The primary surge for Democrats driven out of Johnson County and metro Kansas City, plus the numerous college towns, shoved the raw margin and percentage margin left of the 2024 numbers. This is not an organic leftward shift that is likely to be sustained over time, as these were not reflected throughout the state.

These numbers do not suggest trouble for Marshall.

IX. Election Considerations

With no 2020 shortcuts present, Kansas makes it difficult for Democrats to cheat or pile up ridiculous margins in urban and suburban areas that overwhelm rural areas.

X. Summary and Election Estimate

These are the major factors for the U.S. Senate race in Kansas:

Kansas does not elect Democrats to the Senate. It hasn’t done so in 94 years, the year Herbert Hoover lost the presidency to FDR.

Trump won the state by over 16 points in 2024. Even giving up as much presidential margin as Pat Roberts did in 2014, Marshall would still win by over 5 points.

Hamilton has the task of uniting the party after a primary contested by ten candidates. With the GOP expected to recapture the governorship, his odds of convincing the ticket to split in a way it hasn’t for a century are overwhelmingly imposing.

As of the latest report, Marshall has Hamilton beat financially. This will close as phony polls boost Hamilton, but the GOP war chest won’t let this one sneak up on anyone.

Here is how the key factors in this race stack up:

Forecast for Kansas U.S. Senate

Hamilton has far too much to overcome not only in terms of present-day problems, but a century’s worth of electoral outcomes. Marshall runs for the first time as an incumbent with a united party, while Hamilton has to piece together a coalition that can win as the state appears poised to flip partisan control of its governorship.

Marshall should continue to trend as the favorite and win this race comfortably.

Seth Keshel, MBA is a Senior Fellow at the Gold Institute for International Strategy and a retired Army Captain. He publishes Captain K’s Corner on Substack.

County math trumps polling every time, and the math ain’t mathin’

In the early stages of the 2024 election cycle, I created a series of pessimistic forecasts for the seven decisive states. I made them to simulate a repeat of the 2020 election, complete with its suburban swings, urban booms (yes, almost everyone knows exactly where that came from), and with the Democrat nominee somehow running ludicrously high ballot counts in rural or “Trump central” mid-sized counties.

I contrasted those concessions with a registration analysis, which turned out to be too bullish in every state but Nevada (and almost right on the money in Arizona), and when blending the two disciplines – produced seven perfect calls, with none of my margins missing by more than two points. Yes, I was more accurate than the most accurate pollsters while completely crapping all over polling. For some reason, the New York Times is no longer interested in interviewing me.

That was then, this is now. Texas is at risk, they’re telling me in the polls. What can we discern about the Lone Star State using a pessimistic model? Lots has changed since Beto O’Rourke gave Ted Cruz all he wanted in the 2018 Senate race in the middle of a suburban reorganization and lingering Trump-Cruz factional drama. Namely, this:

Not just in South Texas, but all over. From the Trans-Pecos region, to the Llano Estacado, to the cities with working-class Hispanics, and everywhere in between. Ken Paxton isn’t defending a Trump +9.0% state full of Bushies who held their nose in 2016. He’s defending a Trump +13.7% that, if we let it stick, crushes the Democrats’ dreams for the future Texas:

How Trump Saved Texas, In One Stunning Image

I could go on and on, but the purpose of this post is to show you my pessimistic math that demonstrates exactly why I think Paxton should win against James Talarico, and additionally, why Talarico is demanding to debate the Texas Attorney General despite polling looking like something out of a dystopian novel.

In the past 10 days, Talarico’s polling average is +3.5%. There is a vast field of difference between a +6 poll (roughly 600,000 margin this year, which is impossible for a Democrat), and a +1-2 poll complete with standard polling problems like response bias, Cornyn-Paxton factional feuding, and straight up incompetence.

But what do the data say?

We need to go back to the 2016-18 timeframe to understand modern Texas. Trump got smoked in the overwhelmingly Hispanic counties of South Texas his first time around, and wore big losing margins in the major metros. No one had seen a Democrat presidential margin in Harris County as large as Clinton’s +12.3% since the old “Solid South” days (1964 and LBJ, to be exact). Still, despite Ted Cruz losing 6.4% of Trump’s 2016 margin in holding off O’Rourke, these counties shifted Republican from the 2016 presidential election to the 2018 Senate election in favor of Cruz:

107 in all, and overwhelmingly Hispanic. 52 counties shifting toward O’Rourke did so by less than 2 points, with many doing so thanks to turnout differentials in midterms or just plain old statistical noise in small counties. O’Rourke’s narrow loss, the closest race in Texas since 1998, was propelled by these shifts:

• Hays County, Trump +0.8% to O’Rourke +15.4%, moving 12,872 margin
• Williamson County, Trump +9.6% to O’Rourke +2.9%, moving 25,705 margin
• Denton County, Trump +20.0% to Cruz +8.2%, moving 35,621 margin
• Travis County, Clinton +38.6% to O’Rourke +49.7%, moving 59,438 margin
• Collin County, Trump +16.6% to Cruz +6.1%, moving 38,601 margin
• Tarrant County, Trump +8.6% to O’Rourke +0.7%, moving 61,825 margin
• Dallas County, Clinton +25.9% to O’Rourke +33.0%, moving 42,118 margin
• Bexar County, Clinton +13.3% to O’Rourke +19.9%, moving 30,167 margin
• Fort Bend County, Clinton +6.6% to O’Rourke +12.1%, moving 13,610 margin

And finally…

• El Paso County, Clinton +42.8% to O’Rourke +49.4%, moving 8,216 margin – this is O’Rourke’s home county and, as you will read, a major obstacle to Talarico’s presumptive pathway to victory

The shifts in Texas from 2018 to 2026 define why Paxton should be expected to win his race for the U.S. Senate.

The model I’m describing today has to determine two things – turnout and margin.

For turnout:

I calculate turnout coefficients as percentage of the previous presidential vote. In Travis County (Austin), there were 468,720 total votes for President and 484,204 for “Betomania” in 2018 (the U.S. Senate race). That means Travis produced 103.3% of its 2016 presidential vote total. In these 15 counties, I have set turnout equal to the 2018 share as described above to give Talarico a strength of turnout he may not have:

Because of the fear of Texas turning blue, “red Texas” turned out in huge numbers, with many counties exceeding 90% of their 2016 presidential vote count. To ensure I don’t overestimate Paxton’s support, in practically every county not shaded in blue, I have averaged the 2018 and 2022 turnout coefficients. For example, using Lamar County (Trump +60.9% on 21,285 total votes), 88.5% of presidential vote in the 2016/18 cycles and 71.6% in the 2020/22 cycles (with no threat of a Democrat winning Texas in 2022) comes out to turnout estimate for this cycle of 80.0% of the 2024 presidential vote.

For margin:

In the blue-shaded counties mapped above, I have given Talarico margins five points stronger than O’Rourke’s in 2018. For instance, O’Rourke won Travis County by 49.67% in 2018. For 2026, I’m letting Talarico take it by 54.67%. That wouldn’t surprise me, but him getting five point margin gains over O’Rourke in all of the counties above would shock me. For Brazoria County, thanks to a Cruz lag in 2024, I’ve given Talarico a margin ten points stronger than Beto’s.

In most of the Trump-won counties, I’m deducting five points from Trump’s 2024 margins. Where he has won Hardin County by 75.8%, now it’s going to be Paxton +70.8%, with the turnout averaged as described above. This undercuts Paxton’s likely margins while amplifying Talarico’s urban and suburban performance potential. In counties in which Cruz lagged behind Trump by a lot, I’ve spotted Paxton’s margin right at Cruz’s from 2024, instead of adjusting off Trump’s.

In the following “Trump special” counties, the overwhelmingly Latino counties, I’ve set Paxton’s margin at Trump’s 2020 presidential margin, which revealed the heavy trend in South Texas and beyond:

Whereas Trump won Cameron County by 5.8% (and Cruz lost by 4.3%), I’m setting Paxton’s margin there back to the 2020 presidential margin, which was Biden +13.1%. Based on the Latino counties shifting for Cruz in 2018, I’m not confident Paxton will lose Cameron County by 13.1%, if he loses it at all. Latino-specific polling is usually wildly wrong, and in some of the ridiculous Talarico polls out there, Paxton is hovering around 40% Latino support anyway.

One county that is going to absolutely kill Talarico is El Paso. Trump lost it by just 15.1% in 2024, after having dropped it to Biden by 35.1%. I’m giving Talarico the margin of 35.1%, which is extremely high and probably not going to happen. Beto O’Rourke blew out his home county by 49.4% over Cruz, taking the margin to +100,545, when it had been just +92,328 in a presidential election two years earlier. Talarico taking 35.1% margin at an average turnout gives him a margin of +68,969, or 31,576 short of Betomania 2018.

He will have to make those up somewhere else to get over the top. Since 2018, the minor red counties people don’t know how to spot on a map – the Woods, Fannins, Wises, Graysons, Rockwalls, and Chamberses of Texas – have grown in population and maintained their ridiculous margins – often over 65% in decent-sized counties. I have these estimates – already short-shotted for Paxton by my model – for ballots gained over 2018 margin:

• Montgomery – +18,490 net gain over 2018
• Parker – +15,587 net gain over 2018
• Comal – +11,095 net gain over 2018
• Grayson – +6,523 net gain over 2018

This list goes on and on.

Affording Talarico’s turnout model and margin gains, here is what he stands to gain in the big four over Beto’s raw 2018 margins:

• Harris – +109,331 net gain over 2018
• Travis – +87,777 net gain over 2018
• Dallas – +66,815 net gain over 2018
• Bexar – +65,166 net gain over 2018

He also makes huge gains in the other key counties I’ve identified above…and is even allowed to flip Collin County and come close in Denton…

Just so he can lose in this model to Ken Paxton by 14,035 votes.

I did not set out in creating this model to make a virtual tie. That is just how it came out with me affording Talarico five point or better gains across the board in all but the “Trump special” Latino counties specified above, with turnout depressed in red counties and pumping at 2018 rates in counties Talarico will need to win.

Now imagine if the red counties don’t lag in margin by five points across the board, and turnout climbs to match 2018 intensity, or even higher now that everyone is warning of the impending doom of a blue Texas. Imagine if most of Trump’s Latino gains do actually stick like they did in 2018.

If the reds turn out and Latinos don’t abandon Trump, Paxton will win this race in the mid-single digits, or better.

PSYCHOLOGY

Talarico isn’t up by 5 or 6 points, despite the two polls in the last week giving us exactly those numbers. I am forecasting 10.251 million votes in the pessimistic model. Therefore, every percentage point of margin is equal to almost exactly 100,000 votes. In order for a Democrat to win Texas by 5 points, a half-million votes, millions of red voters would have to stay home.

If Talarico were up by 5 (or 6) points, he wouldn’t dare ask for a debate. He would be benefitting from a once-in-a-generation electoral fluke and would let sleeping dogs lie.

If he were up by 1 or 2 points, debating Paxton risks exposing his (Talarico’s) ludicrous left-wing positions (anti-Christian, anti-oil, anti-gun, anti-meat, etc.) and forcing Texas Republicans to set aside the Cornyn-Paxton animosity and vote the party line.

You only demand debates in a race like this if your math looks exactly like mine. Flipping a Trump +14 state that just underwent a major Latino realignment is a much taller task than O’Rourke trying to flip a Trump +9 state with suburban slippage.

CONCLUSION

Every football team that steps onto a field has a chance to win. Sometimes that chance goes away after the first drive. Talarico’s pathway requires him to blow past O’Rourke’s margins in the key counties, benefit from 2014 (or worse) turnout in the red counties, and revert the Latino vote back to 2016-18 levels.

The demand for debates is the absolute tell that Talarico himself doesn’t believe the polling.

If Texas Republicans vote, Ken Paxton will be the next Senator from Texas.

Seth Keshel, MBA is a Senior Fellow at the Gold Institute for International Strategy and a retired Army Captain. He publishes Captain K’s Corner on Substack.

Alongside justified concerns about the rise of the AfD, the radical-left parties in Germany also deserve critical attention. Remarkable support from Berlin’s crime clans should worry us too.

The Netherlands has more self-appointed Gaza experts than Germany experts, but it is high time we looked more carefully across our eastern border. Germany is in its greatest political transition since reunification in 1990, albeit in the wrong direction. Alternative für Deutschland (AfD) is polling as the largest party in all of Germany.

The capital, Berlin, has meanwhile degenerated into a hotbed of antisemitism, the worst since the Second World War. Amsterdam’s mayor Halsema would do better to look at Berlin than to sit down amiably with New York mayor Mamdani, who is not free of antisemitism.

When the AfD emerged as the largest party in the German state elections in Saxony-Anhalt and Mecklenburg-Western Pomerania, political Berlin reacted with resignation. It was only East Germany. The AfD seemed like the big bad wolf in a sparsely populated area full of ‘Ossis’. The big surprise, however, came from Berlin, where Die Linke, legal successor to the former East German ruling party SED, became the largest. Led by lead candidate Elif Eralp, Die Linke won 25.7 percent of the vote; the Christian Democratic CDU stalled at 18.8 percent.

The heirs of the GDR could have celebrated a cheerful victory party, had it not been for some mysterious guests who turned up to celebrate with them: the bosses of Arab crime syndicates in Berlin. There was Issa Remmo, leader of the Remmo clan, notorious for drug trafficking, extortion, protection money and money laundering. Method: brute violence. The center of this underworld is the district of Neukölln. In his wake came other gang leaders to celebrate the victory. The leadership of Die Linke did not know what to do with these unexpected gang leaders.

With its 3.9 million inhabitants, Berlin records more criminal offenses than all of Poland, with a population of 37.6 million citizens. After the fall of the Wall in 1989, many expected Berlin to become a shining star in Europe. At first it looked that way, but the city became a magnet for criminals. Crime clans from the Middle East, from Syria and Lebanon, found their way to West Berlin. In the mid-1970s, gang members traveled from Lebanon, ravaged by civil war, to the GDR and then via East Berlin to West Berlin. From there, crime syndicates grew to unmanageable proportions.

Die Linke and the clan leaders were soon on the same political wavelength. Political telepathy. According to Die Linke, the tough approach to the Arab clans was ‘racist’. That was music to the ears of the clan leaders. In Die Linke’s analysis, Berlin’s policing is ‘too harsh’. Hence: ‘less police’ resulting in ‘less crime’. Applause from the gang leaders guaranteed. Fighting clan formation was, according to Die Linke, ‘Islamophobic’. Once again, happy gang leaders.

Then the legal successor of the GDR stepped it up a notch. Israel was the source of all evil in the Middle East and ‘antisemitism’ became a weapon of political propaganda. The Arab clan world could not have put it better. That is what Die Linke propagated, and it ensured that 51% of the Muslim vote went to that party. Jewish citizens in Berlin became a target; the ‘Nie Wieder’ faded. The Berlin bourgeoisie was frightened by Die Linke’s communist demand: the expropriation of home ownership. Economic philosophy: if the rich are expropriated, the poor can live better!

This trend of antisemitism exists in Amsterdam too. Jewish citizens have to be careful in public. Criticism of Israel, which has been fighting for its survival in the Middle East since its founding in 1948, is recycled by the political left in European cities into antisemitism. With ‘students’ smashing everything in the front line and fearful administrators who think they are calming things down but make everything worse. It is a slippery slope toward times that seemed to be behind us.

Should PRO ever organize another Gaza event in Amsterdam: keep an eye on the visitors. You never know who might walk in.