April 1st Is No Fool's Day
Even though it feels like we're constantly being punk'd.
These past few weeks have been a lot. A. Lot. I’m not going to point to any examples from the news, because we all know what they are. But every day, some new nightmare seems to arise, and for me, anyway, it’s hard to focus on anything beyond the right now. The firehose of awful is intentional, of course; in the words of the ignominious, Nazi-saluting, former federal inmate and current White House advisor Steve Bannon, the Trump administration’s goal is to “flood the zone with shit” so people lose sight of the important matters on the horizon. But I’m trying hard not to fall into that trap, and I’m checking in today to point to three special elections that are coming up on April 1.
I’ll admit it: I have been ambivalent at best about plugging back into political races. There’s still a bitter taste in my mouth about November, and quite truthfully, I am not feeling great about the Democratic party at this moment. (More to come on that at a later date.) But as of today, we are still having elections in this country, and we have a chance to gain seats in the House and to add another seat to the Supreme Court of an important swing state:
On Wisconsin: I wrote about Wisconsin’s electoral importance last summer, and referenced the pivotal 2023 state supreme court election that flipped control back to the Democrats after years of Republican rule. This year, there’s another seat open on the court: Susan Crawford is the Democratic candidate; her opponent is former state AG Brad Schmiel, who is being heavily funded by Elon Musk. If you have the time to volunteer with or have extra $ to send to the WisDems to help get out the vote, I strongly encourage you to do so: WisDems is one of the best organized and most effective party operations in the US, and relatively speaking, Wisconsin fared the best out of the swing states as far as the margins of Republican wins in 2024. And Tammy Baldwin was reelected to the Senate, so yay?
There are many reasons why it’s is important that Dems hang on, but two that are, sadly, evergreen are 1) preventing Wisconsin’s horrible zombie abortion law from 1849 roaring back to life and 2) to keep the state legislature from attempting, again, to implement gerrymandered state electoral maps. Wisconsin’s government is almost perfectly divided: The Democratic Party controls the offices of governor, secretary of state, and attorney general, and Republicans are in charge of both chambers of the state legislature. The GOP is forever attemping to pull off their chicanery, so to be able to stop them here is paramount. This is not to mention the benefit of our side having control of a key swing state’s supreme court when any future election results that favor Democrats will most certainly be challenged.
Florida’s District 1 and District 6: When Trump chose Congressional representatives Michael Waltz to run the National Security Agency and Matt Gaetz to become Attorney General, their empty seats reduced the GOP’s majority advantage in the House to a sliver. Two weeks ago, Dem. Rep. Sylvester Turner of Texas died unexpectedly, and this past Thursday, Arizona Dem. Rep. Raul Grijalva passed away after a long illness. (Both of these seats are viewed to be safely Democratic.) So as of today, Democrats hold 213 seats, and the Republicans 218. Adding to this is the expected exit of Rep. Elise Stefanik of upstate New York, tapped by Trump to be the Ambassador to the UN; the special election to replace her hasn’t been scheduled but in all likelihood it will happen before the fall. All of this makes the two key special elections in Florida that are set to take place on April 1 absolutely crucial for the Democrats to win.
In Florida’s district 6, Democrat Josh Weil is going up against Republican state senator Randy Fine; Democrat Gay Valimont is competing against FL state CFO Jimmy Patronis and five independent candidates in Florida’s 1st district. Both races seem to be very Floridian, in terms of dirty tricks and
mudslinging, and obviously the governor has his thumb permanently on the scale whenever it helps Republicans. But if you can help either Weil or Valimont or both, please try—in an interesting twist that I haven’t seen before, both Weil and Valimont have teamed up to help each other, as far as encouraging their supporters to help the other candidate. Two Dem candidates are better than one, in any scenario!
Between now and April 1, I will be working hard to maintain my restricted media diet and to not lose my mind when the inevitable news flash creeps in. A step to furthering these goals arrived today in the form of the audiobook of Cher’s autobiography and I CANNOT WAIT TO START IT. Meantime, I need to invest in a new pair of boxing gloves and I am not kidding. Stay sane, everyone.
