Ratings and victory scenarios explained

Since these elections are held in a midterm, predictability is a difficult thing to come by. Projections online vary widely, ranging from historic Democratic wins (some not seen since the 1930s) to Republicans expanding the Senate majority.

I’m here to give you what I believe is a balanced view free of polling noise and narrative propaganda.

ENTRY POINT

Practically all analysts of all ideological backgrounds agree on the starting point:

44 Republican/43 Democrat

Florida, thanks to the Democrats’ poor candidate, will be a bigger blowout than it would have been against Alexander Vindman.

REPUBLICAN TIER ONE

There is some talk about Senator Darline Graham being vulnerable in South Carolina, but I don’t think it will happen. It’s a strong Republican state with an inelastic white population, and she will receive a sympathy vote that will help carry her to victory despite her weakness as a candidate.

The next two states are Kansas and Nebraska.

Kansas has been the subject of a lot of worry, but Republicans are voting; they just haven’t voted as much as Democrats in the early period, but are outpacing themselves from 2022. Republicans outnumber Democrats by almost 19 percent and there are still over 750,000 votes likely to be cast by tomorrow night. Republicans are leading combined mail and early voting by 2.5%, and no Democrat has won a U.S. Senate seat in Kansas since 1934. They are clearly the underdogs, even if Marshall finishes closer than he would like.

In Nebraska, former Governor Pete Ricketts faces Dan Osborn, the phony independent candidate who has a problem with his big mouth. This is one of the few races that still favors Republicans in the markets (which is a good sign for Kansas). I expect Ricketts to win, but by a modest margin thanks to Osborn running his deceitful campaign.

This should get Republicans up to 47-43, and if it doesn’t, there are some serious problems for the rest of the slate.

DEMOCRAT TIER ONE

Democrats have two states on the East Coast that appear to be theirs to lose. The first is Georgia, which is one of the states I am least optimistic about in the long run (if not the worst-off of any current battleground state). Republicans would need a collapsed black vote in metro Atlanta and a massive rural white turnout surge to unseat Ossoff by a narrow margin. Those things haven’t developed (yet). I have Ossoff as a strong favorite (ranked stronger than anyone in the country). Blame the moderate suburbanites in Atlanta who will split their tickets (Jackson/Ossoff), and the overwhelming GOP votes negated in the corrupt 2020 election.

Republicans are also getting outrun in North Carolina, where their vote totals actually aren’t that bad compared to 2022. The GOP will close the gap on Election Day, but since so much of Trump’s presidential base is made up of rural, low-propensity whites who used to be “blue dog” Democrats (or still are), it’s a tough lift for Michael Whatley against former governor Roy Cooper, who has been a force in statewide politics for decades. I view Cooper and Ossoff as the most sure things Democrats have on the field this year.

REPUBLICAN TIER TWO

Iowa, Ohio, and Texas.

These states vary in terms of perceived difficulty to win, and the levels of stress people are experiencing over them. Fundamentally, they are states Republicans should expect to hold. I have all three favoring the GOP, with Iowa the most favorable.

Democrats in Iowa (Trump +13.2%) did not get the early vote lead they needed to feel good about knocking off Ashley Hinson, who some say is the strongest Republican candidate this year.

In Ohio (Trump +11.2%), as I outlined in my forecast, the cities aren’t showing up. The cities should be front-loading votes. Brown is a known commodity and will have some persuasive power in the Trumpy hinterlands of the state, but will need Cleveland, Columbus, Toledo, and Cincinnati’s volume.

In Texas (Trump +13.7%), the one everyone is sweating, Republicans can rest easy if they get a strong Election Day to stave off the first Democrat statewide win in 32 years. Democrats are certainly going to have a large pile of votes, but if Republicans can clear well into the five-millions range, they have the numbers to run clear.

Netting all three of these states would put Republicans at 50 to 45. Losing one can be made up in states that are fundamentally tougher than these three.

DEMOCRAT TIER TWO

Just as Republicans have the double-digit Trump states above that fundamentally favor them, Democrats have two states, albeit more competitive, that favor them. They have to spend resources defending both, but the odds favor them in New Hampshire and Minnesota.

New Hampshire is most likely the stronger state for them, as it favors the out-party especially when Republicans are in the White House. John Sununu is a household name and former U.S. Senator, so a blowout for Chris Pappas is likely not in the works.

Minnesota, the GOP’s white whale, once again appears on the horizon as a tantalizing opportunity. This time, the results are likely to be close. Lieutenant Governor Peggy Flanagan is tightly associated with the corruption and fraud in the Minnesota government. If Tafoya can crack the code in the Twin Cities (Hennepin and Ramsey Counties, clearing 35% in each), she has a shot given Minnesotans’ propensity for splitting tickets if candidates are perceived as corrupt (see Keith Ellison’s 2018 and 2022 runs). Flanagan is the favorite, but not invincible.

If Democrats hold these two open seats, the math closes to 50/47 Republican.

REPUBLICAN TIER THREE

My forecast favors Republicans in all three of the remaining states, which are ranked in this tier because I consider them fundamentally the toughest states this year. The states are Maine, Michigan, and Alaska.

Maine is unique and stands apart from the rest of the states because Susan Collins has found a groove for three decades even as Maine has remained a blue state in every presidential election since 1992. She consistently outruns the polls, and now she faces a candidate who was not the choice of Democrat primary voters. This could be the year Maine finally decides to nationalize Collins’s seat and give her the boot, but you’d be a fool to bet against her after all of the obstacles she’s overcome.

Michigan is also unique this year. I would have expected Democrats to hold the seat by a few points had they nominated any of Abdul El-Sayed’s primary opponents, and by 8 or more points if Gretchen Whitmer would have run for the open seat. Now we have Haley Stevens, whom El-Sayed narrowly beat in the primary, endorsing Mike Rogers – who nearly (and should have) beat Elissa Slotkin in 2024 until the mail dropped. If El-Sayed wins, I don’t see him having a ceiling or more than 2 points – and that’s being generous. I like Michigan for a Rogers upset.

Alaska is the double-digit Trump defense that gives me the most trouble, and it has everything to do with the corruption of the state’s elections. Too much mail-in voting, weeks to count ballots, Ranked Choice Voting, and Mary Peltola rigging the race with a phony Dan Sullivan. I consider it a true flip of the coin, and have only edged it to Sullivan on a few fundamental points. I’d look for a very tight finish either way.

SUMMARY

As I’ve ranked the races, they come up to 53 Republican, 47 Democrat. I realize this is a midterm and the states don’t have the same level of predictability as they do in presidential elections, nor do they move with one another in the same manner with fuller, more partisan turnouts. Democrats have allowed Michigan to be competitive this year with a poor candidate nomination. Republicans are potentially vulnerable in some red states (at least the polls want you to believe that) over commodity prices, or in some cases, party infighting (Texas).

I suspect Democrats need to take Maine from Susan Collins to see a meaningful pathway to the majority, especially if Michigan is what I think it is for them. Republicans losing North Carolina but taking Michigan evens things out, and gives room for two losses they’d rather not have (like Maine and Alaska or one of the Tier Two states). Democrats, in order to win the Senate, must overcome at least two states Trump won by double digits to get a clear 51-49 majority (if they take Maine).

That is why the Senate favors the GOP.

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.

Ken Paxton (R) vs. James Talarico (D)

I. The Race

Ken Paxton (Republican) is the Attorney General of Texas, and has won three statewide races for that office. He knocked out four-term incumbent John Cornyn in a run-off earlier this year to win the party nomination for the General Election.

James Talarico (Democrat) is the Texas state representative who defeated Jasmine Crockett in the Democrat primary earlier this year to earn the party’s Senate nomination. If elected, he will be the first Democrat since 1994 to win a statewide race.

II. State Profile

From my forecast of the gubernatorial race:

The overwhelming theme of all 2026 analysis of Texas should be the same – if all of that red votes, then Texas will be red. The struggle with all of the work put into that endeavor so far ties directly to the fact that Texas has open primaries and does not register voters by party, whereas Florida closes primaries and does have party registration. We can watch it live as every vote comes in and know definitively in which direction the electorate is headed.

Texas’s presidential baseline is perhaps more imposing to Democrats’ long-term hopes than any before it, even those elections George W. Bush won by more than Trump’s +13.7% margin in 2024. The bedrock of that victory was a historic performance with Latino voters – 55% of them backed Trump:

While some of its urban counties, especially Dallas and Travis, have gone the way of their counterparts in the past 20 years (mega-blue), Harris (which contains Houston) and Bexar (San Antonio) have large working-class populations which have kept the county margins from getting out of control against Republicans. The rural areas of Texas are overwhelmingly Republican, and even more so now that rural South Texas has lurched in the same direction.

Democrats must have low Republican turnout, large swings in a small handful of counties, and overwhelming turnout in four blue bubbles (Harris, Bexar, Travis, Dallas Counties) to win a statewide election in Texas – something they haven’t done since 1994.

2026, thanks to its place on the calendar and in the electoral cycles, gives them their best shot in years to do just that, and they mostly have their eyes set on the Senate race between James Talarico and Ken Paxton, which I will profile after the end of in-person early voting.

Presidential Margins

2016 Trump +9.0%

2020 Trump +5.6%

2024 Trump +13.7%

Key Statistics

• 40.2% Hispanic, 39.3% White, 11.6% Black, 5.1% Asian

III. Market Assessment

Despite most of the bets being on Paxton, whales are betting on Talarico and creating an illusion that has little basis in a historical concept, given no Democrat wins statewide in 32 years.

IV. History

Democrats last had a United States Senator representing Texas in 1993, when Bob Krueger lost a special election to Republican Kay Bailey Hutchison. Krueger had replaced Lloyd Bentsen, Michael Dukakis’s choice for vice president in 1988, who had become Secretary of the Treasury under President Clinton earlier that year.

Hutchison then proceeded to be elected for a full term in 1994, then reelected by massive margins in 2000 and 2006. She had expected to turn the seat over to David Dewhurst, but Ted Cruz got in the way, won the nomination, and has sat in that seat ever since first elected in 2012 and seated in 2013. As a side note, Cruz is perhaps the most annoying senator in the Republican universe, and I hope to see him appointed to the Supreme Court so we can avoid having to listen to him doom on and on about Texas:

Honestly, the vote I regret more than any is Cruz in the 2016 primary.

I had a dozen people tell me they saw him in 2024 doing this routine about losing to Allred right before he won by 9 points. Frisking people for every dollar possible.

Seth Keshel (@RealSKeshel), Nov 1, 2026

Cruz and practically every other shaky Republican appearing on cable news is spooked about this year’s race because of this result from 2018:

The seat Paxton and Talarico are vying for has been in Republican hands since John Tower was elected in 1961 to finish the term begun by none other than Lyndon B. Johnson, who vacated it to become John F. Kennedy’s vice president. Tower made the handoff to Phil Gramm in 1984, and in 2002, John Cornyn was elected to take over. While I’m on the topic of Cornyn, if for some reason Talarico defies the odds and wins this seat, you can blame Cornyn and his endless millions spent on attack ads against Paxton when he should have just retired after giving us this garbage:

Yes, Cornyn had his worst years of voting in the four years of the Trump 45 administration, yet he sits online like a scorned teen wondering why the GOP primary voters rejected him – all while praying Paxton loses.

V. Analysis of 2026 Primary Results

Both sides had damaging primaries, the Republicans more so.

Talarico got past Jasmine Crockett, the big-mouthed U.S. House Representative from Dallas who serves no other purpose than to talk trash about whites, Republicans, and people who believe America has redeeming value. Crockett still refuses to endorse Talarico, and there is reason to believe in analyzing early voting data that the black vote could be soft for the Democrat nominee.

I have used tons of virtual ink describing the ins and outs of the warlike Republican primary, which Paxton won in the run-off with overwhelming force:

Three Texas-Sized Takeways from Paxton’s Dominant Runoff Victory

The risk for this year’s General Election is that we have a huge repeat of butt-hurt Cornyn voters defecting to support Talarico just to send Republicans a message, particularly in places like DFW and Central Texas. I have built these pitfalls into my modeling.

VI. Polls

The RCP average reflects the insane polls that have come out of Texas this cycle:

Strange to me how we have a series of polls giving Talarico leads of 6 or 7 points (600,000 to 700,000 in margin, which is impossible), at the same time Paxton has two showing narrow leads (Quantus and Trafalgar). Someone is right, and someone is wrong.

VII. Media Ratings

It is interesting to me, despite all the polling noise, that none of these reviewing bodies are going with the trend and calling a state that hasn’t elected a Democrat in a statewide race for 32 years for a vegan who has policies completely antithetical to everything Texan. They all choose the safety of “toss-up” until the storm passes over tomorrow night.

VIII. Party Registration

Texas doesn’t have party registration, and it’s a damn shame. If it did, we would have an actual idea of who has voted instead of having to rely on silly models that presume vote selection based on primary participation. If you didn’t know, in the Rio Grande Valley and other Hispanic-dominant areas of South and West Texas (which Trump won in 2024) voters almost exclusively vote in Democrat primaries because it is a certainty Democrats will win the local races.

I keep trying to help people see how futile it is to create a primary model for Texas since there is no party registration. Here’s an example from Hidalgo County in the Rio Grande Valley.

There were over 58,000 Dem primary voters and only 18,500 Rep. That is a D+52 split.…

Seth Keshel (@RealSKeshel), Oct 27, 2026

IX. Election Considerations

Rather than reinvent the wheel, I’m relaying what I wrote in my assessment of the decisive House race, TX-34:

Texas, being such a huge state with an overwhelmingly urban and suburban population, has people rung up on election corruption charges all the time – including in South Texas.

Still, Texas has strong control over what few mail-in ballots are sent out, and the risk for widespread corruption in this race (relative to others I’ve profiled) is low. You can read about Texas’s election integrity picture from my 2024 evaluation:

Texas – 2024 Election Compendium

X. Summary and Election Estimate

A word of caution. I have been warning everyone about midterms for a long time, all the way back to the first days of the Trump 47 administration when everyone was prattling on about red waves. Midterms are the elections in which the miracles can happen. Think of it like a comet passing by every 32 years that we step outside to see as it passes by. Yes, this (or perhaps 2018, depending how this race works out) is the best chance Democrats have had since 1994 to win a statewide race. If it happens, you can blame Cornyn for a lot of the damage.

Ultimately, Texas is a large state in which 90% of the population is urban and suburban. Democrats have 4.8 million presidential votes in the last election; just because they don’t win statewide races doesn’t mean there are no Democrats. Beto O’Rourke exceeded Hillary Clinton’s vote total in 2018, so there is precedent for Democrats in Democrat-favorable years to put down a lot of votes. Fortunately for Cruz, he came up with 91% of Trump’s 2016 vote total and got past by 2.6%.

If Paxton gets 91% of the 6.4 million Trump votes in Texas, he’ll cruise to an easy victory. If he gets 81%, he will almost certainly still win. That is the impact of Texas going to Trump by nearly 14 points. A lot has changed since the Betomania close call of 2018; Trump won the Hispanic vote in 2024, and there is evidence to suggest Abbott, and by extension Paxton will hold a lot of those gains.

NEW: Dem officials are raising alarm bells that Latino men are refusing to turn on President Trump in Texas and have a growing "aversion" to James Talarico.

Democrats on the ground are surprised to find that Latino men they interview are "loyal" to President Trump.

"Mr. …

Collin Rugg (@CollinRugg), Nov 1, 2026

For all the noise about early voting data, Republicans are voting. Early voting became steadily more Republican after Democrat high-propensity voters were spent, and Election Day stands to put practically all GOP-won counties from 2022 over that year’s totals. The simple fact remains that in order for Talarico to win by the slimmest of margins, three things must occur:

• A collapse of the rural and exurban GOP vote, which clearly isn’t happening based on the early voting data.
• Presidential turnouts in the big four urban counties (Harris, Dallas, Travis, and Bexar) with margins trouncing O’Rourke’s; I have factored this into my modeling in favor of Talarico.
• A reversion of the Hispanic vote to 2016-18 levels (check out the Cruz-O’Rourke map).

El Paso County, home of O’Rourke, produced a near-presidential vote count in 2018. O’Rourke won it by 50 points, at roughly 100,000 raw vote margin. That is higher than Clinton’s raw margin in a presidential election just two years earlier. This year, turnout may equal the O’Rourke number, but with it not being Talarico’s home county and Paxton likely to clear 35% (instead of Cruz’s 25%), up to 40,000 of O’Rourke’s margin goes in the trash right away.

My decision matrix shows the potential for a close race:

Now, you’re going to want to know my expectation, right? I don’t like hiding under the safety of a “toss-up.” While this is the best chance for Democrats in a while to win something in Texas, I struggle to see how they can be considered the “favorite” – especially based on polls and modeled primary data. These models are counting on a repeat of 2018 – back when Republicans didn’t have the Hispanic support they do today, and before hundreds of thousands of new Republicans moved to Texas, which they don’t want to see turn blue.

I waited for early voting to conclude and ran a county-by-county model in all 254 Texas counties. Here were some of the guidelines:

• Extrapolate early voting turnout and mesh with 2022 Election Day turnout to create a full turnout model
• Analyzed Paxton 2022, Cruz 2024, and Cruz 2018 victory/defeat margins and generally picked the lowest one in counties I expect Paxton to win (with exceptions for Denton, Collin, and a few others)
• Maximized turnout to near-presidential levels for Talarico in the big four blue counties and gave generous margins of victory in Tarrant and Williamson Counties, and put him within a point of flipping Collin County

And here is what I got…

This gives Talarico these margins:

Travis +277,500 (O’Rourke +240,494)

Dallas +264,000 (O’Rourke +240,269)

El Paso +52,000 (O’Rourke +100,539)

Bexar +140,000 (O’Rourke +109,346)

Harris +210,000 (O’Rourke +201,298)

Fort Bend +35,500 (O’Rourke +30,976)

Williamson +15,125 (O’Rourke +5,993)

Tarrant +29,000 (O’Rourke +4,308)

I have returned most of the counties of the Rio Grande Valley to Democrats, although by margins more closely matching the 2022 Texas statewide map. I have shorted Paxton’s raw margin gains in Republican strongholds like Montgomery, Parker, and Grayson Counties, and even sent him backward in raw margin in overwhelmingly Republican rural counties for sake of favoring Talarico as much as possible.

And I still came up with…

PAXTON +3.5% (+352,237) – right at 80% of President Trump’s 2024 vote total.

Forecast for TX Senate

If Republicans vote and treat Election Day as a referendum on the future of Texas, then Paxton will win. The question is, “How far will he run behind Abbott?” With the way rural turnout is shaping up, Abbott should feel fine. High turnout favors Republicans. Democrats don’t have the numbers to beat Republicans if they turn out. With Trump’s 6.4 million votes, and likely a couple hundred thousand new Texas Republicans settling in the Lone Star State, a loss here would land squarely on the shoulders of those who decided to listen to liars like John Cornyn and cross over or sit out to send a message.

I would be surprised if the polls were right, while at the same time recognizing that there are structural vulnerabilities here giving a small window of opportunity for the party that never wins to break the spell. If you’re a Texan and have a Paxton issue, get over it. Letting Democrats have this seat because you sat out will ensure they flood Texas with resources for the foreseeable future, when in fact it should be running right just like Florida.

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.

Over the past few weeks, large/violent protests have erupted in Paris, Marseille, Lyon, Bordeaux, Nice, Strasbourg (France); Milan, Rome, Turin, Naples, Bologna, Florence, Madrid, Lisbon, Tirana (Albania); plus cities in Belgium and Greece. By overwhelming number of reports, the participants are largely left-wing groups, Islamist groups and migrant groups. Their articulated messaging is a consistent mix of anti-capitalist, anti-Western, pro-communist and pro-Palestine slogans.

But for the scale today, we’ve seen all of this before….and it was neither spontaneous nor uncontrived. There was an architect. Is there an architect today?

A little history – In the mid-80’s, the height of the Cold War, I was a lieutenant stationed near the East German border. Whenever we went to the field, whenever we deployed our units off post, ie out into German villages, towns, farms, countryside, etc (which was at minimum once/month) all squad leaders and above were required to carry live ammunition.

Why? Because the USSR, KGB and East German Stasi worked thru various left-aligned groups in Western Europe to stimulate violent demonstrations, ostensibly anti-NATO, anti-capitalist, anti-nuclear, and anti-USA, and US soldiers were specifically targeted. In fact, two of these groups (Red Army Faction and Action Directe) were responsible for 34 killings in Western Europe…6 of them were American soldiers. Italy’s Red Brigades killed another 50 (including the 1978 kidnapping and murder of former Italian Prime Minister Aldo Moro). And in 1981, the Red Brigades also kidnapped the senior U.S. Army officer at NATO’s Allied Land Forces Southern Europe, US Army BG James Dozier.

The Green Party and other left-aligned, anti-NATO, anti-US, and anti-nuke groups generated huge protests and disrupted civil order, blocked traffic, spit on US soldiers and threw pig-blood on US military vehicles. These “protests” typically included incidents of “spontaneous violence.” The crazy thing is German intelligence had captured documents from within these groups that included, among other things, printed instructions as to how to initiate localized violent incidents and then inflame them into incidents of mass violence

Were these violent “protests” orchestrated and purposed to undermine domestic faith in Western institutions and governments? YES! This point was indisputably proven when the archives of the Stasi, the East German Intelligence, were made public in 1991 after the Wall came down. The documents showed that Eastern Bloc intelligence had recruited operatives from within almost every major Western left-aligned group in Europe and had supported them financially and operationally. The effort was so effective that named members of the German Bundestag, German Army officers (including a named German Army general), and other major politicians across Europe had been “turned” and were active operatives for the Eastern Bloc.

The overall effort acted to:

• Exploit societal grievances and schisms in Western countries
• Deface/destroy/disrupt symbols of Western governance/institutions
• Demonstrate Western inability to maintain peace and domestic order
• All for the purpose of undermining domestic faith in Western institutions and, ultimately, destabilize Western populations.

We now know conclusively that specific, nation-state adversaries benefitted from the violent, leftist demonstrations in Europe during the late Cold War. Surely, there are specific nation-state adversaries who benefit from the violent, leftist demonstrations in Europe today. Answer THAT question and you’ll know who is behind them.

We discussed all of the above and more on our show this week. Joining me is US Army colonel (ret) Myles Caggins…an old friend and the former Director, Strategic Comms at the National Security Council, AND the former Senior Spokesman for the Global Coalition to Defeat ISIS in Iraq and Syria. Fascinating comments. Click on the link to hear our discussion: https://frontlinesoffreedom.com/show-984/

10 House races on the bubble that shouldn’t be overlooked

Note: These quick estimates are for House races rumored to be in play or that may have simply slipped through the cracks over a long stretch of forecasting races.

I have now completed individual assessments for the 24 races I consider decisive in 2024. That is to say they are the most likely seats that will determine the winner of the coming majority. Still, with so many races, 435 in all, upsets can happen. Here is how I see the races in these 10 seats I think are on the bubble:

CO-4

Boebert (R-inc.) vs. Laubacher (D)

• Party registration has slipped left from 2024, but is still R+18.3% in a district covering rural eastern Colorado
• Laubacher is flush with cash and running in a state with Universal Mail-In Voting, which gives her a chance to sneak up

RATING

75/25 Boebert (R) – too rural and too red

FL-14

Beltran (R) vs. Castor (D-inc.)

• GOP leads party registration by more than 9 points in seat redrawn to push Castor out of Congress
• Early voting not as impressive in Florida as hoped for, leaving Castor some optimism as a well-known incumbent

RATING

60/40 Beltran (R) – Florida Republicans have all the momentum, and I feel good about their odds of flipping the toughest seat, FL-25. That means they should get FL-14, too.

FL-22

Askar (R) vs. Dandiya (D)

• FL-22 is redrawn and includes a heavy Republican vote from Collier County and moderate portions of Palm Beach and Broward County; district is more than 8 points in favor of GOP by registration
• Dandiya’s hopes rest on low turnout on Election Day for GOP

RATING

65/35 Askar (R) – Askar has a big financial edge and isn’t facing the incumbent.

IA-2

Mitchell (R) vs. James (D)

• This seat came open due to Ashley Hinson’s run for Senate
• Republicans have added to their voter registration lead in this Trump +10 seat since November 2024

RATING

65/35 Mitchell (R) – I have Democrats favored in IA-1 and IA-3, but IA-2 is a bridge too far as Democrats have collapsed after a fast start in early voting.

NH-1

DiLorenzo (R) vs. Shaheen (D)

• Seat open for new representative thanks to Pappas running for U.S. Senate
• Daughter of Senator Shaheen is Democrat nominee and will benefit from mother’s political network, but DiLorenzo has the funds to make this race interesting

RATING

65/35 Shaheen (D) – New Hampshire likes to favor the out-party, especially when Republicans are in the White House. Shaheen’s name recognition will likely carry her across.

OH-1

Conroy (R) vs. Landsman (D-inc.)

• Ohio legislature didn’t cut deep enough into the new OH-1 boundaries, otherwise they could have guaranteed a flip
• Landsman is a tough incumbent in a district Trump won narrowly; he is not invincible, because urban turnout is terrible in Ohio – including in Cincinnati (the heart of the district)

RATING

60/40 Landsman (D) – Landsman would have a considerably higher rating if Cincinnati turnout wasn’t poor heading into Election Day.

PA-1

Fitzpatrick (R-inc.) vs. Harvie (D)

• Fitzpatrick is one of few Republicans in the House representing a district Trump lost
• Fitzpatrick’s +12.8% margin in 2024 should hold up, given his perception as a moderate in a very suburban district

RATING

70/30 Fitzpatrick (R) – His margin will likely shrink, but Fitzpatrick will work the district like Susan Collins works Maine to get by.

TX-15

De La Cruz (R-inc.) vs. Pulido (D)

• Fundamentally, the race belongs to De La Cruz, who is running in a newly redrawn Trump +17.8% district in far south Texas; however, her opponent is a popular musician who polls well that has everyone worried about the seat
• I suspect Republicans will hold onto a lot of Trump’s Latino gains, and the redness of the district will carry her across; still, if there is a trick shot to be played this year, it’s for Democrats in this seat with their unique candidate

RATING

60/40 De La Cruz (R) – The new boundaries include some seriously red terrain full of Latinos that have been voting Republican for a long time.

TX-28

Cuellar (D-inc.) vs. Tijerina (R)

• After a pardon, Trump probably thought Cuellar would switch parties; Cuellar has been tough on the border (for a Democrat) and is one of the few remaining “blue dogs” in the House after two decades in Congress
• Tijerina is the one who switched parties for this race; the Webb County Judge signed up for the newly redrawn Trump +10.4% district that includes Laredo/Webb County and several other surrounding counties
• Cuellar has the edge here, but if Eric Flores can win TX-34 convincingly, it’s a sign the Latino realignment is still on and that he (Cuellar) could be in for a tight race

RATING

70/30 Cuellar (D) – Tijerina seems like a strong candidate for a more promising (presidential) cycle; this seat was redrawn with a future GOP flip in mind.

VA-1

Wittman (R-inc.) vs. Taylor (D)

• Wittman’s seat fits the mold for a danger seat, given that he significantly outran Trump in 2024 and that Virginia’s electorate is likely to trend bluer relative to the rest of the nation over federal cuts
• Turnout in VA-1 is high, which should favor Wittman, who has nearly two decades of Congressional experience; the negative trends in Virginia of late sour this race, which would have been a no-doubter in most cycles

RATING

60/40 Wittman (R) – High turnout, name recognition, and experience carry Wittman – but narrowly.

On Tuesday morning, my entire House map drops right here on Captain K’s Corner.

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.

Juan Ciscomani (R) vs. JoAnna Mendoza (D)

I. The Race

Juan Ciscomani (Republican) seeks his third term representing AZ-6 in the U.S. House. He won the seat in 2022 in the first election held under its current boundaries after having served as an advisor to former Arizona governor Doug Ducey. Ciscomani is the first naturalized immigrant from Mexico to serve in Congress from Arizona.

JoAnna Mendoza (Democrat) is a Marine Corps veteran who found her way into politics after retirement from the military. She has worked extensively as a lobbyist and ran unsuccessfully for the Arizona Senate in 2020.

The ballot also includes potential spoilers for both candidates – especially Green Party candidate Gary Swing (who would exclusively siphon votes from Mendoza).

II. District Geography

Arizona’s 6th Congressional District (AZ-6) is wedged into the southeast corner of the state and stretches across five counties: all of tiny Greenlee County, and fragments of Cochise, Graham, Pinal, and Pima Counties. The Pima portion includes chunks of northeast Tucson, the sole reason the district is competitive in any way and the portion Mendoza rests her hopes on for unseating Ciscomani.

Mendoza is originally from Eloy in Pinal County, so she will look for extra support in that part of the district while looking to leverage her military service to sandbag Ciscomani’s margins in Cochise County, which is home to Fort Huachuca – the headquarters of the U.S. Army Military Intelligence Corps (where yours truly was twice stationed).

The shift against Trump in northeastern Tucson and its suburbs (which includes my wife’s district, Legislative District 17) dramatically reduced the presidential margins of these boundaries:

As you can clearly see, Trump went from winning these boundaries by 5.7% in 2016 to carrying them by less than a point in 2020 and 2024, running behind Ciscomani in the latter run. Whereas he has continuously improved with Latino voters, he has backtracked with affluent former Republicans of the Flake/McCain variety. It truly takes a skilled political toolset to succeed in this district, and it would be difficult to draw a more complex and competitive district than AZ-6. The winning candidate must have an excellent overall game that includes rural outreach and urban strategy.

Key Statistics

• 63.1% White, 24.7% Hispanic
• 96.8% Urban, 3.2% Rural

III. Market Assessment

Polymarket bettors have their money on the out-party candidate, Mendoza, but have her significantly overvalued against a candidate who has figured out how to thread the needle in the Trump era.

IV. History

The latest redistricting of Arizona drastically altered the composition of the suburban Tucson district. The remainder of Tucson, the urban core and its heavily Hispanic working-class vote in the southern end of the metro, has long been given over to the Grijalva political family, which rules over its subjects with an iron fist.

In 2016, Cochise County and northeastern Pima County made up AZ-2 (AZ-2 is now Eli Crane’s district in northern Arizona). Incumbent Martha McSally won the seat by 14 points, at the same time Trump lost the district by 5. That is one of the biggest red flags possible looking back at the 2018 cycle (Trump massively underperforming the GOP House candidate), and when McSally vacated the seat to run for U.S. Senate, all hell broke loose. Democrats won the seat by 9.5%.

Cochise County, while weaker in margin, wasn’t the problem. It was northeastern Pima County, which is still in Ciscomani’s district today. The middle swung hard to the left and contributed one more to the Democrat count on their way to a strong House majority win. Ann Kirkpatrick, who took the seat, held it by 10.2% against Republican Brandon Martin in 2020’s crooked election.

Arizona redistricted, and with Kirkpatrick retiring, Ciscomani and Kirsten Engel battled for the seat in the 2022 midterms. Despite Arizona elections being a disaster once again, Ciscomani narrowly defeated Engel in what was a surprise to many.

Ciscomani then held the seat in 2024 by a larger margin against the same opponent, with his win being the seat that led media networks to call the House for the GOP:

History suggests to us that an elastic portion of the electorate in Pima County can swing hard in a midterm, but also that Ciscomani has found success in a district that has been resistant to the MAGA agenda.

V. Analysis of 2026 Primary Results

Ciscomani had to fight difficult primaries in 2022 and 2024, but got a break in 2026. Neither he nor Mendoza had primary challengers.

VI. Polls

Polls pulled from The New York Times:

It has been more than four months since any polling has been released, but the last one had Mendoza up by just 2 points (inside the margin of error) and was sponsored by Democrats.

VII. Media Ratings

All major reviewers except for Inside Elections have this race favoring Mendoza. Decision Desk feels strongest about her chances, rating the race as “Likely Democratic.”

VIII. Party Registration

Democrats have made a very modest net gain in voter registration, but only because they have lost fewer registered party members than Republicans have. Both parties have lost members to the growing chunk of non-affiliated voters, just as I profiled in my forecast of AZ-1.

This change affords a slight advantage to Mendoza and suggests a tailwind with independent voters in a hotly contested federal office.

IX. Election Considerations

Here is what I wrote about Arizona’s elections in my forecast for AZ-1:

It will come as absolutely no surprise to anyone who has followed the battle for election integrity in America that Arizona is one of the worst states in the country for transparency, handling of mail-in ballots, long counts, and “bipartisan” cover for these activities. The Maricopa County Board of Supervisors, supposedly four Republicans to one Democrat, have constantly interfered with the efforts of Justin Heap, the new County Recorder, to streamline as much of this process as possible in a short period of time.

If you want to be depressed and less optimistic, read my 2024 overview of the impact of Arizona’s electoral environment:

Arizona – 2024 Election Compendium

Pima County’s recorder, Gabriella Cazares-Kelly, is another real disaster when it comes to running elections. You can review some of her exploits in this piece:

Pima County on the Clock After Mail-Balloting Botch

X. Summary and Election Estimate

This is one of few remaining seats held by the GOP that is far more friendly to House Republicans than President Trump atop the ticket. Most of them were blown over in 2018, and haven’t been taken back. That, as shown by the dramatic shift in the old AZ-2 in 2018, is the biggest risk to Ciscomani, who is running a fine campaign as we speak:

Democrats are up 5.7% in returns, but they’ve been up like this in Ciscomani’s two previous runs. TPUSA efforts are also squeezing low propensity voters to get ballots in. If Ciscomani is going to pull off the hold and see his 2.5% margin from 2024 stand up, he’s going to need to do well in northeastern Tucson:

Ciscomani will dominate the rural vote. MAGA precincts (crimson-shaded) are all over southeastern Pima County, Cochise County, and Graham County. Those purple (solid and striped) and yellow precincts in Pima County will determine if Ciscomani goes back to Congress, or Mendoza takes over. This is how the decision matrix looks:

Despite having no singular advantage in this matrix, I think Ciscomani has a shot. Things aren’t as volatile as they were at the beginning of the Trump era, and the GOP has made gains with important voting blocs, like Latinos (AZ-6 is 24.7% Hispanic). If he can tie Mendoza’s progressive record and obsession with LGBTQ issues to the emergence of the DSA, he may pull off the upset – especially if the Green candidate gets in the way.

Forecast for AZ-6 House

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.

Scott Singer (R) vs. Jared Moskowitz (D)

I. The Race

Scott Singer (Republican) is a south Florida native and attorney who served three terms as the mayor of Boca Raton. He chairs the Mayors’ Council of the America First Policy Institute and is looking to represent the newly redrawn FL-25 in Congress.

Jared Moskowitz (Democrat) was elected to represent the old FL-23 in 2022 and is one of the smartest Democrats in Congress. He was twice appointed to special roles by Governor DeSantis before entering Congress; once he was there, he supported the DOGE push to maximize government efficiency and was part of the bipartisan task force investigating the assassination attempt against President Trump.

II. District Geography

Florida’s 25th Congressional District (FL-25) isn’t even in existence yet; this is the first General Election held under these boundaries following Florida’s 2026 redistricting effort that looks to give Republicans up to four additional U.S. House seats. These efforts upended Moskowitz from his old boundaries and prompted him to file for the race for this new FL-25.

This district looks like a skinny, vertical sliver spanning three counties – Miami-Dade, Broward, and Palm Beach. It avoids the major cities of those counties (Miami, Fort Lauderdale, and West Palm Beach, respectively) and includes cities like Miami Beach, Boca Raton, and other communities situated along the shoreline.

These boundaries create a district that reminds me a lot of the new TX-34, another decisive U.S. House seat that is thought to be competitive because of the major progress President Trump made with Latino voters. The only difference is that in South Florida, you’re talking about Venezuelans, Cubans, and Puerto Ricans more than Mexicans in Texas. On paper, these boundaries went red enough for President Trump that they seem like automatic GOP pickups; a closer look at the trends and down ballot impacts suggests otherwise even though this new district is much whiter (non-Hispanic, anyway) than TX-34 is.

Presidential Margins

In his 1.2% statewide win of then-battleground Florida in 2016, Trump lost these boundaries by 12.3%. Then, with progress made in a 3.4% statewide win in 2020, Trump lost them by 5.7% – narrowly missing out on a flip of Miami-Dade County. Trump’s huge margins in 2024 everywhere in the Sunshine State brought new optimism for another GOP district in South Florida; his +8.9% margin in the new boundaries sits 21.2% to the right of where it was in 2016.

Singer’s challenge, not being named Donald J. Trump or Ron DeSantis himself, will be to hold the Trump coalition together against the Democrat-blowing headwinds of a midterm – especially against a Democrat who notably displays no Trump Derangement Syndrome. Both candidates are Jewish in a 25% Jewish district.

Key Statistics

• 54% White, 28% Hispanic, 18% Black/Other

III. Market Assessment

Despite the major progress made within these new boundaries, Polymarket bettors favor Moskowitz four-to-one.

IV. History

The district as presently drawn for the 2026 election was broken up over other districts in 2018, most notably what was then FL-25 in the north end of the district, and what was then FL-27 in the southern end of the district, extending down into parts of core Miami. Representative Mario Diaz-Balart held his seat in FL-25 by an impressive margin of 21 points, only down a few notches from 2016.

2018’s FL-27 is the portion of the present district (FL-25) that gave Republicans fits. The retirement of GOP Representative Ileana Ros-Lehtinen, who won by 9.8% in 2016, left an open seat for Democrat Donna Shalala and Republican Maria Elvira Salazar (the amnesty queen now representing today’s FL-27) to battle over. Shalala won by six points, representing a 15.8% swing from 2016.

Moskowitz won his current seat (FL-23 before the change) by 4.8% in 2022, then again by the exact same margin in 2024:

Trump only lost those boundaries by 1.9%.

V. Analysis of 2026 Primary Results

Fortunately for Democrats, especially in a state trending as hard to the right as Florida, Moskowitz soundly defeated radical left-winger Oliver Larkin in the Democrat primary.

Singer narrowly prevailed over a crowded field of candidates, winning a plurality with 31.4% of the vote on a 3.9% margin.

The Republicans, as usual, ran a brutal primary. Fortunately, they appear to have come together since the contest wrapped up.

VI. Polls

I found three polls listed by The New York Times:

As usual, polling displays its increasing futility. Two Democrat-sponsored polls show Moskowitz in command of the race, and a GOP-sponsored poll has Singer up by 7 points and near an outright majority.

VII. Media Ratings

Reflecting the likelihood of a tight contest, three of four major reviewers have this leaning for Moskowitz.

VIII. Party Registration

Florida itself is on a massive GOP registration surge, and has moved nearly four full points more Republican than it was when Trump won it by over 13 points in 2024.

Florida’s book closing report gives the registration statistics for the new FL-25 like this:

Republicans 163,894 (35.7%)

Democrats 139,891 (30.4%)

Total 459,448

Advantage R+5.2% (R+24,003)

Reports from spring suggest Republicans have made substantial progress in voter registration in the new district since it was first established by DeSantis’s signature. From Florida Politics:

Moskowitz’s campaign also noted that voters registered without a political party make up a plurality of the constituency in the new CD 25. About 35.9% are independent voters, while 32.9% are Republicans and 31.2% are Democrats.

I don’t have official figures to go on for what the registration splits in these new boundaries would have been if they were notated at the time of the 2024 election, but if Florida Politics is accurate, the district has run another 3.5% right since May by registration.

Notably, Moskowitz won his 4.8% reelection margin in 2024 in the old FL-23 with a district that was D+6.5% by registration. That means the margin ran 1.7% right of registration, which could be a huge red flag for him in a new R+5.2% district that may vote right of registration like South Florida has been trending.

IX. Election Considerations

I summed up Florida’s election picture, highlighting DeSantis’s landmark legislation, in my piece previewing Florida’s Senate and gubernatorial races:

People frequently ask me which states have made the most important reforms to elections since the 2020 quasi election. “Florida” is my hands-down answer. Governor DeSantis signed Senate Bill 524 in 2022, creating the election crimes task force and ensuring that the state would have proper control over mail-in balloting (requiring voters to request a ballot and confirm the address the ballot would be sent to). While it is a large state full of opportunities to attempt fraud, it has done an incredible job at preventing mass fraud. Here is my review of the 2024 election encompassing these changes:

Florida – 2024 Election Compendium

Notably, Florida sets the “gold standard” for counting millions of ballots, nearly the entire statewide count, by the time people wake up the next day. They learned how important public trust in elections is after the 2000 “hanging chads” debacle and have set the standard for the rest of the country.

X. Summary and Election Estimate

All seats with fresh boundaries, especially those merging several districts, make analysis a tall order. I have little doubt no one is winning this race by a wide margin, especially not Moskowitz. While Moskowitz is one of the more rational Democrats and clearly accepted by a heavily Jewish voting base, Singer is an experienced mayor of a major city in the district and also Jewish. No one will have the market cornered on American-Israeli affairs, neutralizing Moskowitz’s bread-and-butter issue. My decision matrix shows a very balanced battle:

Moskowitz has a built-in advantage with his Congressional experience and has managed his public commentary in such as way so as not to ensure his opponents show up in force to ensure he loses. If this election were in a presidential year, all the data suggest Singer is a strong favorite – especially the weight of party registration trends in south Florida. To get a win this year, with a presumptive Democrat tailwind, he will need to keep Trump’s gains with Latino and Jewish voters. Here is a look at my proprietary mapping of the new FL-25:

Many of the red precincts have long been Republican strongholds, especially those shaded in crimson. The purple-shaded precincts (Trump losses, but with more than 30% of the vote and a rightward shift in 2024 if solid purple) are essential for Singer to maintain margin; if they slide too much and turnout lags in strong precincts, Moskowitz can win the race.

Forecast for FL-25 House

I am bullish on Singer because I believe the registration data point to continued Republican success with Latino and Jewish voters, who continued to come around to Trump over his three runs. Moskowitz, given his experience and familiarity with parts of the new district, is absolutely in the running, and may have reason to be hopeful based on weaker-than-expected GOP in-person early voting turnout. I am not worried about this for statewide races, and all signs point to an overwhelmingly red Election Day using a much heavier registration advantage than last time around.

I feel slightly more optimistic for Republicans about this race than I do the very similar TX-34 race, primarily because Cuban and Venezuelan voters are a stronger Republican constituency than those of Mexican ancestry prevalent throughout 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.

Rick Jackson (R) vs. Keisha Lance Bottoms (D)

I. The Race

Rick Jackson (Republican) is a billionaire healthcare executive who came out of nowhere to take the GOP gubernatorial nomination from a crowded field of candidates, including Trump-endorsed Lieutenant Governor Burt Jones. He has a relatable story from growing up in poverty and contributed large sums of his own money to finance his campaign.

Keisha Lance Bottoms (Democrat) was once mayor of Atlanta (2018-2022) and later worked in the Biden administration. Her campaign is very loudly anti-Trump to distract from her lack of meaningful achievement as Atlanta’s mayor; if elected, she would be the first black woman to govern an American state.

II. State Profile

Simply put, Georgia is a looming catastrophe of epic proportions for the Republicans. Perhaps not this year for governor, but almost certainly for U.S. Senator. Without a major change in racial voting patterns, Georgia looks like a blue state to me by 2036 – close enough to get excited about when the first votes drop, but urban and polarized enough to remember better days not so long ago.

President Trump carried Georgia by 5.1% in 2016, and barely had to campaign there despite his lack of political experience. Trump then gained a massive heap of net new votes and ran into Secretary of State Brad Raffensperger’s corrupt elections system and a 634 percent increase in mail-in ballot usage from 2016 to 2020. He managed to keep driving up his vote total in a re-try in 2024, and despite a prodigious performance, carried the Peach State by a measly 2.2%.

Presidential Margins

2016 Trump +5.1%

2020 Biden +0.2%

2024 Trump +2.2%

If you want to get into the weeds and details of the 2020 election in Georgia and other states, read my book, The American War on Election Corruption.

Georgia still has plenty of issues with public confidence in election results, but its political problems remain. The Atlanta metro dominates the rest of the state. Fulton and DeKalb Counties are the two Democrat strongholds making up core Atlanta. They are flanked by Cobb and Gwinnett Counties, two former Republican strongholds of the suburban variety that both flipped in 2016 and gotten bluer and bluer. The graphic below illustrates just how badly President Trump has been smoked in metro Atlanta:

Southern black voters are more loyal to Democrats than black voters anywhere else. In Georgia, from the 1990s until only recently, they were easily outvoted by the extremely conservative white voter base. Unfortunately for Republicans, the turn to Republican populism (“MAGA”) has created a moderate wing of the party that is confined to metro Atlanta that has been instrumental for declining margins not only in northern Fulton County, but also in suburban counties like Forsyth and Cherokee Counties.

The rural counties of Georgia (outside of the “Black Belt” rural counties that support Democrats) are overwhelmingly red. The issue is that they are maxed out and practically incapable of producing notably larger margins in absolute votes. Any major growth in Atlanta without progress with voters there, or further slippage in suburban counties, makes a blue Georgia increasingly likely in coming years.

Key Statistics

• 53.2% White, 32.3% Black, 10.5% Hispanic

III. Market Assessment

Polymarket bettors favor Bottoms, but Jackson is still considered competitive and subject to the same wild swings in these markets impacting all GOP candidates.

IV. History

Georgia’s gubernatorial history closely resembles Texas’s, even if the current chapter started eight years later than the Lone Star State’s. In 2002, Sonny Perdue was elected governor of Georgia, defeating Roy Barnes. In winning that race, Perdue became the first Republican governor of the Peach State since Reconstruction. He served two terms and gave way to Nathan Deal, a former Democrat, who won in 2010 and took over in January 2011.

In 2018, the first electoral test of the state since Trump’s election win, Secretary of State Brian Kemp was the GOP nominee for governor in a race everyone overlooked. It nearly backfired, but Kemp held on by a tiny margin over progressive favorite Stacey Abrams.

Just 54,723 votes, 1.4%, separated Kemp and Abrams, thus preventing the good people of Georgia from having this individual as their governor:

Kemp wound up waffling on his pledge to root out the corruption of the 2020 election and sided with Raffensperger over Trump; this earned Trump’s ire, so he endorsed former Senator David Perdue to primary Kemp in 2022. Kemp throttled Perdue, then wen t on to beat Abrams soundly in a rematch in the General Election (+7.5% margin).

To conclude, the modern history of Georgia suggests the state prefers Republican governors. It should not surprise you that an anti-Trump state rewarded the governor who stuck it to Trump the most, and this is an important thing for understanding how things next week will likely unfold.

V. Analysis of 2026 Primary Results

This is going to highlight a major Republican problem that will be a recurring theme in Georgia.

First, the easy part. Bottoms advanced with a majority in the Democrat primary to become the party nominee. She blitzed past six opponents, including former Republican quisling Geoff Duncan, who was once the state’s Lieutenant Governor. He preached all the “conservative” talking points, went on cable news to bash Trump, and then when he realized his career was dead in the water, changed his views on abortion to become a Democrat and pander around Atlanta. He reminds me very much of the hunchback in the movie 300; he betrayed Leonidas and then the enemy he helped threw him to the side, too.

Now, on to the Republicans. Jones, Trump’s endorsed pick popular with the grassroots wing of the GOP, beat Jackson in the first go-around, but didn’t get to a majority. Jackson won in the June 16 run-off:

Notably, Jackson dominated Jones inside the Atlanta metro:

Tensions have remained escalated with no end in sight. The candidates have traded campaign-related lawsuits, and recently Jones declined to attend a Trump rally because Jackson was going to attend. This can only harm the GOP’s chances in a state they’re already struggling to compete in. The root issue is the rift between the rural grassroots and suburban voters who are needed to chip Atlanta’s margins.

VI. Polls

Jackson leads the average of polls by one single percentage point, according to the RCP file – but hasn’t hit 50% in any of those he leads.

VII. Media Ratings

Everyone is keeping their powder dry regarding this race; they’ve all been stuck at “toss-up” for weeks, possibly due to the bad blood between Jones and Jackson.

VIII. Party Registration

Georgia does not register voters by party; however, new transplants over significantly Democrat:

IX. Election Considerations

Georgia has Automatic Voter Registration, a lot more mail-in voting than it had a decade ago, a dominant Democrat super-center of an urban area, and a Secretary of State (on his way out) very few trust to administer elections after the 2020 debacle.

Fortunately, the legislature has made a few incremental changes to improve things, and the primary method of voting is early in-person voting with Voter ID. You can read more about Georgia’s overrated and vulnerable election system in my 2024 review of the topic:

Georgia – 2024 Election Compendium

X. Summary and Election Estimate

The nominations of both parties for governor and the U.S. Senate offer quite the contrast.

Republicans nominated the uber-conservative grassroots fighter that appeals to rural voters, but not suburban voters, in an attempt to knock off Jon Ossoff that is widely expected to come up short (including by yours truly). Through the run-off, they also nominated Jackson, who lacks bona fide conservative credentials and the pro-Trump background he would have needed to be nominated in a state like Arizona or Texas. While that may not animate the base, the prospect of Keisha Lance Bottoms as governor will.

Bottoms declined to run for reelection as mayor of Atlanta, and for good reason. She was in charge during the COVID-19 crisis and also oversaw a massive uptick in violent crime in her four years. She is widely associated with being a failed leader and didn’t give herself much time out of the spotlight before jumping back in.

The impact of her failure in Atlanta will be exactly what Jackson needs in Cobb and Gwinnett County; Kemp lost both of them in 2022, but cleared 47% in Cobb and 44% in Gwinnett – meaningfully higher shares than Trump was able to secure in 2024. Jackson’s non-MAGA credentials will also play well in north Fulton County, which has a large establishment-oriented voting bloc that will come back to him rather than back Bottoms.

Jackson has a slight edge in my decision matrix:

Forecast for GA Governor

Based on Georgia’s preference for GOP governors, recent retention of two Republican-aligned Supreme Court justices, Jackson’s non-MAGA disposition, and Bottoms’s bad track record as Atlanta mayor, I feel confident this race leans toward Jackson. Without the warring going on between Jackson and Jones, I’d feel extremely confident, especially since Jackson has Bottoms beat about 10-to-1 on finances. Black rural turnout is down, but a bad Election Day from the Republican rurals, tied to the Jackson-Jones rift, is what could derail the GOP train and get Georgia’s misery started ahead of schedule.

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.

Islamism holds ever more sway in the parties of the European left

For some years now it has been evident that totalitarian Islamist forces play an ever larger role in the parties and movements of the left in the West. Muslim candidates are multiplying on the left and, thanks to the left, radical Islamists are winning power, as in the New York mayoralty or in the local governments of dozens of British cities. Muslims are 7% of the population of the United Kingdom, but Muslim mayors govern more than 60% of the British population. And so, every day, they further transform daily life and, above all, cultural policy and police conduct to the benefit of Muslim interests. Islamic penetration of the administration and of local power is constant and immensely effective

In Germany, it is now the turn of the capital, which has been degrading for decades, also thanks to the woke drift of part of the CDU. After two decades of governments led by the Socialists with the Greens and the Communists, a brief CDU government changed almost nothing, and now the Communists stand as the leading force for the first time, thanks to the Muslim vote. Everyone knew that the Muslim vote in the neighborhoods with the most immigration is controlled by Islamist groups that follow the instructions of the Muslim Brotherhood and of the organized crime clans.

But few knew the extent to which radical Islamist groups have control and power within the parties of the German left, and especially within Die Linke, the Communists, heirs of East Germany’s Socialist Unity Party (SED). The mistaken sending of some confidential notes along with the answers to an interview that the Communist leader of Berlin and the city’s next head of government, Elif Eralp, gave to the magazine Der Spiegel has revealed that this Communist politician of Turkish origin lives terrified and under pressure and coercion from agents of Hamas, the Palestinian terrorist organization, and its partners, the Muslim criminal clans of the Arab world, especially Syrian and Lebanese ones.

Die Linke’s election victory party in Berlin, with Elif Eralp as the great winner, turned into a parade of figures linked to Palestinian terrorism and to the Arab organized crime clans omnipresent in the Berlin underworld. The notes mistakenly added to the corrected interview answers revealed the fear that the Communist Eralp, from a Muslim family, has of the party’s Islamic milieu, and made clear that she considers both herself and her family threatened by it. As she stresses, her husband also shares that fear.

Things being as they are, the Social Democrats and the Greens, who call themselves virulent opponents of antisemitism, are going to ally in Berlin with a Communist who lives under the coercion and influence of Islamist and Palestinian terrorism, which has a broad majority of supporters in Berlin’s Muslim community. Through money from the mosques, from the underworld clans and also from abroad, the pro-Hamas movement has achieved great strength and activism in Berlin and other German cities against the State of Israel and also against the increasingly threatened Jewish community.

The three forces of the left in Germany, as is happening in France with Mélenchon and in the United Kingdom with the Labour governments, have intensified their aggressive militancy against Israel, against the Jews and against Western society itself as Muslim candidates and groups have gained relevance, power and presence. The threat that parts of Europe will be governed by a left in the service of Islamism has already come to pass in many corners of the Old Continent. Berlin is next, and certainly very symbolic.

Without X, no one in Europe would have found out what happened in Poland last night. The head of government, Donald Tusk, carried out an attempted coup d’état, taking advantage of the head of state, Karol Nawrocki, being on a trip abroad. He stormed the Constitutional Tribunal with the police and tried to remove the president and vice president of the Constitutional Tribunal using a loyal judge with no authority to do so.

But he did not count on the president, who, once informed, ordered his plane to turn around while it was flying over Spain. He returned to Warsaw, forced his way into the Constitutional Tribunal building ahead of his own escorts despite the cordon of Tusk’s police, and convened all the highest bodies of the Supreme Court and the Constitutional Tribunal to restore constitutional order.

Although the crisis continues, it seems clear that the Tusk government, the puppet of Von der Leyen that would never have carried out this assault without Brussels’ permission, has its days numbered. But remember: public and private media across Europe have been accomplices to the coup by silencing the whole operation. Only social media alerted Poles and Europeans. That is why they want to take control of it.