I come to you today with some delightful news. Sarah Palin has lost to a Democrat in Alaska,
and it is absolutely fantastic, not only insofar as it's yet another humiliation
for Sarah Palin. And she really deserves a little dose of humiliation. But it also
does not look good for Republicans. If the argument you want to be making is they are
inevitably poised to crush Democrats in November. Now, in the next story, we're going to look at the
latest numbers in terms of the forecasts in the House and in the Senate. But one of the things
that some have been arguing is not reflected in those forecasts today is a certain momentum,
a certain undefined and as of now a quantified shift towards Democrats not yet reflected in the
polling. And the Sarah Palin loss in Alaska is a really, really big deal. So let's talk about it.
Democrat Held Tola Beats Palin in Alaska Special Election Upset Reports Politico. Now remember,
Sarah Palin was once the governor of Alaska. Alaska's a red state. Sarah Palin is a Republican
and she is a very well-known Republican in Alaska. And yet, as Joseph Gedeon writes,
Democrat Mary Paul Tola has defeated Republican Sarah Palin in the special election for Alaska's
vacant House seat. A big upset over the former governor in the state's first election under
ranked choice voting. Paul Tola is a former state legislator who will become Alaska's
first indigenous member of Congress, defeated a special election field that included Palin and
another Republican, Nick Begich. The third, the Democrat, finished first in the initial tally and
then won enough second choice votes from Begich's supporters to see off Palin, who was endorsed by
Trump. So this is this is so good in so many different ways. It's a poetic justice of many
types. Number one, Sarah Palin, Republican in a Republican state, loses to a Democrat. That's very
interesting. Number two, Sarah Palin is a known Republican who was the late John McCain's running
mate in 2008 for vice president, sort of started dumb, dumb Republican politics, which, of course,
Trump then blew out of the water like Palin was nothing compared to what Trump ultimately was,
but still was sort of the start of that cartoonish direction for Republicans. And also,
it is another endorsement failure for Donald Trump. Now, you might be saying, David, sir,
are they already calling fraud? And the answer is yes, they are. If you look at truth social,
you will see all sorts of people saying it was obviously fraudulent. It was obviously stolen.
And, of course, there is no evidence of that whatsoever. And Sarah Palin managing
to lose Alaska is one of the funniest and most entertaining political moments that I have seen
in a while. It's really a humiliation, and it is one of these. This is a seat
that Republicans have held for decades in a state that hasn't voted for a Democrat for president
since LBJ. Like that. I know that we have this accurate understanding and story about Alaska,
that Alaska Republicans are a little bit different. And they are. It's sort of like Vermont
Democrats are a little bit different. Vermont Democrats are more in favor of gun ownership,
but. Okay, absolutely fine. But if Vermont voted for Trump, it would still be a really big deal.
And similarly, to see Alaska opt not to vote for their own former governor and vote instead for a
woman who's going to be the first indigenous member of the House from Alaska ever. It's
absolutely fantastic. And we can also point to the importance of ranked choice voting in this race,
the first such election under ranked choice voting in Alaska. Just a lot of really great things going
on here. A couple other notes from the Politico article. The defeat for Palin closes the door on
an immediate political comeback. But remember, she's also on the ballot in November where the
winner will get a full two year term. This is just a special election because of the open seat. Sarah
Palin is still in the fight in November. And that's that's another element to this in the.
Once the ranked choice tallies were applied, Mary Pothole came away with 51 and a half percent of
the vote. Palin had 48 and a half, so that's about a three point margin, which in that race worked
out to about 5700 or so votes if by a 5300 or so votes, if my math serves me. So the big story here
is Democratic overperformance over. Performance. And this article in Politico talks about that
and it is a really important thing. We had the Michigan example, which I told you about last week
again, in which running on the issue of women's rights, abortion rights, family planning,
rights. Call it whatever you want. We saw another Democratic upset. And so this is why
it could be argued and it's a predictive argument. We won't know until November.
It could be argued and some are arguing, and I would to some degree argue this very same thing,
that the official polling numbers right now, particularly for the House,
don't necessarily reflect the momentum and the strength of the Democratic Party and Democratic
enthusiasm now. Tonight, President Joe Biden is going to address the nation from Philadelphia,
sort of riding high, buoyed, as I like to say, by his recent legislative accomplishments and spiking
approval rating. And Joe Biden is going to make the case for voting for Democrats in November.
Now just eight weeks away, I guess we are roughly eight, eight and a half weeks away. That will be
interesting to see. But let's now discuss where the numbers are today in looking at November.