Senate Candidates
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Outside of Maine, where Chuck Schumer recruited a candidate older than than the state, you do have to give ol’Chuck credit on his candidate recruitment for 2026. Sherrod Brown gives Democrats the best (only) possible chance to win Ohio. Mary Petltola is absolutely capable of winning statewide in Alaska and no one really cares much about Dan Sullivan. Florida might be a shitshow politically, but at least instead of running Charlie Crist to lose for the 32nd consecutive election, Democrats look like they might be running someone who Donald Trump really really hates and which will therefore be a referendum on Donald Trump.
Alexander S. Vindman, a retired Army lieutenant colonel who was a top witness in President Trump’s first impeachment trial, announced on Tuesday that he was running for Senate in Mr. Trump’s adopted home state of Florida.
Mr. Vindman brings fresh star power to the race as he seeks the Democratic nomination to run against Senator Ashley Moody, a Republican who was appointed to replace Marco Rubio after he became secretary of state.
In announcing his bid, Mr. Vindman also became one of the first Democrats to release a campaign video with footage of the recent shooting of Alex Pretti in Minnesota, a nurse who was killed by a federal agent. The kickoff video also includes the shooting of Renee Good earlier in the month by an Immigration and Customs Enforcement agent.
“Today our country is in chaos,” Mr. Vindman says in the video as clips of those shootings play and gunfire rings out. “Thug militias attacking citizens.”
Trump hates Vindman so much. Meanwhile, Trump is also deporting Cubans and Venezuelans, the potential base of an expanding Republican Party. I am not going so far to say that winning Florida is likely. Hell, it might not even be possible. But this does feel to me like exactly the right candidate running with the right kind of message to see what can be done.
Democrats need to win in 4 states to take a Senate majority and really 5 given that John Fetterman will get in the way of anything useful. That’s a very tall order. But Trump and Miller and Noem are creating the conditions where it is at least possible and having strong candidates almost everywhere is the way to make it happen. I have no particular knowledge on the current state of the Florida Democratic Party except that it seems like a complete disaster. So maybe someone can correct me and say this is a bad candidate. It doesn’t seem so to me though.