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Primaries are coming to an end and we all, collectively, are gonna have to get comfortable with voting for people we don’t like very much.

I have one of those. I wrote a whole essay about why one of my candidates is bad news and now I have to vote for her, cause the alternative is a Republican, and that’s not worth the risk right now.

I’m being vague on purpose. If you like your candidate that other people don’t, this isn’t about that seat, it’s about a different one. Which Dem are you not looking forward to voting for? Are you considering leaving blank? This plea is about them.

In legislative races this is the most black and white. We need majorities. As many of them as we can get, at the local level, the state level and federally.

That means a warm body in the seat that caucuses with the Democrats is more important than that warm body actually having Democratic values. And remember, we’re choosing between a Democrat and a Republican.

And before you say you’re voting third party, consider if they have a chance to win. If they do, if you’re in Oklahoma or Nebraska, then maybe this is a different conversation.

But in the vast majority of races across the country, they don’t. A vote for a third party is a vote that helps the Republican get elected.

So the choice is between a Democrat and a Republican.

Even the worst Democrat, like Joe Manchin or Kristen Sinema in the Senate, were still instrumental in us passing the Chips and Science Act, the PACT ACT, the Bipartisan Infrastructure Act, and the Inflation Reduction Act.

Would more Democrats have been better? Absolutely and that’s what this post is all about, getting large majorities. But without them we wouldn’t have had the majority at all, and that would have been worse.

If you are more moderate, it’s probably gonna be harder to vote for a DSA candidate. If you are more of a Democratic Socialist, it’s gonna be harder to vote for a Blue Dog Democrat.

But once we get past the primaries, that’s what’s necessary.

Get Democrats elected so Republicans can’t do more damage.

And this matters in every single election. Take Colorado Governor Jared Polis. He’s done a lot of awful things. But, he’s also signed a whole lot of legislation that will make the state better. Especially when it comes to the working class and queer rights.

A Republican would not have signed those bills into law.

Unless you live in a state with a jungle primary, and the choice is between two Dems, or a state like OK or NE where we do want the third party candidate, the choice is a Democrat who may piss you off sometimes or a Republican who will do the wrong thing most if not all the time.

The general election begins in a little over two months. So now is the best time to start coming to terms with this reality.

In the primary, if you don’t have a jungle primary, vote your heart, but we have one shot to begin reversing Republican control around the country. In every single race from Senate to school board and everything in between we have to make it count.

We can’t blow it.