So here we are on election day, after one of the most disgusting campaigns by Republicans in my lifetime, and I am not feeling good about the prospects.

I am not of the same mind as the many people who are predicting a blue wave of sweeping Democratic victories. I hate to be a buzzkill but I have been burned too many times before by high pre-election expectations that have been thwarted because there seems to be a large contingent of right-wing Trump supporters in the electorate who remain undetected by pollsters but show up to vote for Republicans. I am also wary about the supposed drop in Black and Hispanic support for Trump. It may well end up that Democrats gain just enough seats in the House of Representative to barely become the majority but not win the senate.

The only ‘October surprise’ that occurred was a relatively small one in which Haley Stevens, who lost the primary race for the Democratic nomination for the Michigan senate seat, suddenly and at the last minute endorsed Republican Mike Rogers, who is an ardent Trump supporter and thus opposes everything that Steven had claimed to support. While I dearly hope that Abdul El-Sayed wins the senate seat, I fear that the lackluster support that he seems to have among the Black community could sink him.

Natasha Lennard of The Intercept says what needs to be said, that the so-called moderates and centrists within the Democratic party (like Stevens) are the real extremists, willing to thwart the desires of the party’s base for the sake of their own agenda and to protect Israel’s genocidal policies.

MICHIGAN DEMOCRATIC SENATE primary loser Rep. Haley Stevens on Sunday released a video that will place her in an ignominious legacy of establishment Democrats who act against the collective good.

And, like others on the list, she did it for the sake of one thing only: Israel.

In the video — filmed on her phone, in her car, and at an awkward angle — Stevens announced her endorsement of Republican candidate Mike Rogers against the Democratic nominee Abdul El-Sayed. Stevens had previously called Rogers a “rubber stamp for Donald Trump’s dangerous agenda.”
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Stevens’s defection follows a pathetic, Islamophobic, and chaotic effort over the last weeks to suggest that El-Sayed must make greater overtures to Israel supporters.

Stevens now follows in the footsteps of other conservative Democrats who have shown an extreme disregard for the welfare of people in this country and beyond.

We might recall former Sen. Krysten Sinema of Arizona, who left the Democratic Party while still in office and notoriously delivered a dramatic thumbs down and curtsy when voting against a raised minimum-wage provision during the height of the Covid pandemic. Sinema and fellow then-Democrat Sen. Joe Manchin of West Virginia also joined with Republicans to effectively tank major voting rights legislation in 2022.

And, of course, there is the entire Senate career of conservative pro-Israel fanatic, Pennsylvania Sen. John Fetterman, who still remains a nominal Democrat. Fetterman offers a consistent master class in dangerous extremism and should be seen as a profound political liability by his own party.

It is, after all, so-called moderates like Stevens who are the radicals. As writer Eoin Higgins noted, an array of Democrats have revealed themselves more willing to see Republicans win than allow the party’s left-wing flank — or, more to the point, criticism of Israel’s genocide — to gain further ground.
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Meanwhile, left-wing candidates running on popular policies with support networks built from the ground up have again and again been treated as the primary internal enemy by the party establishment.

Stevens had perhaps thought she could rely on this pattern. Numerous powerful Democrats and Israel apologists like Reps. Nancy Pelosi, D-Calif., and Hakeem Jeffries, D-N.Y., were slow to get behind El-Sayed and have continued to pick fights over his policies on Israel.

Stevens’s Rogers endorsement was not, however, met with the tolerance that Democratic rightward lurches have typically enjoyed. In a bellwether moment, another strong supporter of Israel, Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer, D-N.Y., called her endorsement of the Republican candidate “a despicable betrayal.”

The condemnation is the correct response of a party leader to a member taking active steps to thwart a crucial Senate race. It may not mark a shift for Schumer away from his own reliable conservatism and support for Israel’s genocide, but it nonetheless reflects a shifting political landscape when a figure like Schumer sees greater political expediency in standing with a progressive, Israel-critical, Muslim candidate, than with the radical centrist wrecker with whom Schumer is more ideologically aligned.

The Democratic party has long felt that they could win seats in conservative areas only by fielding candidates who were more conservative, rather than trying to change the minds of the electorate by offering them a real alternative. These conservatives were called ‘Blue Dog’ Democrats. These people would oppose progressive policies and their presence gave the party establishment an excuse to not push for such policies, even if they were popular with the base, by claiming that this would cause the Blue Dogs would defect. As time went by, the absurdity of having quasi-Republicans in the party, thus alienating its base, led to the numbers of Blue Dogs being diminished, leaving just ten at present in the self-described Blue Dogs Coalition: Marie Gluesenkamp Perez (WA) , Jared Golden (ME), Mike Thompson (CA), Adam Gray (CA), Vicente Gonzalez (TX), Luis Correa (CA), Sanford Bishop (GA), Jim Costa (CA), Henry Cuellar (TX), and Josh Gottheimer (NJ).

As Ryan Grim writes, some of the Blue Dogs are focusing their efforts on undermining other Democrats rather than trying to gain victories for the party they ostensibly belong to.

The last time that a blue wave powered Democrats to a House majority in 2018, 11 so-called Blue Dogs ousted Republicans, leaving the party in charge with a slim majority. House Speaker Nancy Pelosi would affectionately refer to the Blue Dogs as “majority makers,” explaining that their conservative politics may be out of step with the party’s base, but without them, the party would be nowhere.
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This cycle, instead of taking on Republican incumbents and working to maximize a potential Democratic majority, the Blue Dogs have been spending their scarce resources against other Democrats. 
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With their spending decisions this cycle, critical Democratic colleagues say, the Blue Dogs are forfeiting the argument that while they may be out of step politically with the base of the party on issues like Medicare for All, at least they are important to win a majority.

“Money has to be moved to the races that are in most need, regardless of what flavor of Democrat they are,” a Democratic member of Congress granted anonymity to weigh in, said. “Any group that is advocating for a certain type of Democrat should use their money where it matters first and not dictate to those trying to get a majority as a priority.”

A national Democratic operative concurred. “Instead of spending the final days of the midterms working to grow their caucus and help take back the House—they’re attacking red-to-blue candidates and wasting close to $2 million on a Safe D race,” the operative said. “It’s one of the most idiotic things I’ve ever seen.”

The Democratic Party cannot afford to ignore the rising tide of progressive views within its own supporters and the country at large. There may not be a blue wave today but there is no doubt that mood of the country is shifting away from the old and if the party leadership continues to embrace the politically bankrupt ‘center’ and also clings to its support of the appalling Israeli policies, then its leadership is eventually going to be swept away.

It looks like Schumer at least recognizes this trend while Jeffries does not. If Democrats do win a majority in the House of Representatives, then Jeffries is going to have a difficult time winning the speakership based on Democratic votes alone if he does not modify his stances significantly to accommodate the demands of the progressives. On the other hand, if he seeks Republican votes to become speaker, that would clearly expose how right wing his politics are.

For those who want to follow the results as they come in, here are the times (Pacific Time) when polls close across the country, which is the earliest when the results will start to come in.

3 p.m.: Parts of Kentucky and Indiana
4 p.m.: Georgia, Virginia, South Carolina, most of Florida, the rest of Kentucky and Indiana, Vermont, and parts of New Hampshire
4:30 p.m.: Ohio, North Carolina and West Virginia
5 p.m.: More than a dozen states including Maine and Pennsylvania; most of Texas, Michigan and Kansas; and the rest of Florida
5:30 p.m.: Arkansas
6 p.m.: More than a dozen states, including the rest of Michigan, along with Iowa, Wisconsin, Minnesota, Nebraska, New York and Louisiana
7 p.m.: Montana, Utah, Nevada, most of Idaho and part of Oregon
8 p.m.: California and Washington and the rest of Idaho and Oregon
9 p.m.: Hawaii and most of Alaska
10 p.m.: The rest of Alaska