#ted budd

Andrew Mangan at Daily Kos:

In this year’s Senate elections, Democrats won over 2 million more votes than Republicans but still lost their majority. So much for democracy.  The Senate is famously biased toward the GOP, and with less ticket-splitting these days, that leaves Democrats with quite the hole to climb out of. But there is a ladder back to the majority, even if it’s a tall one. Democrats have performed well in the past two midterm elections, riding a blue wave to a net gain of 40 House seats in 2018 and flipping one Senate seat in 2022, a midterm they were expected to lose decisively. In 2018, Democrats lost four Senate seats while gaining two, but all the losses were in red states, like North Dakota (!) and Indiana (!!). In 2024, though, they saw their 51-seat majority slashed to 47 as the GOP claimed the chamber. But the 2026 midterms alone almost certainly won’t put them back in the Senate majority. There are only two good shots at pickups that year: Maine and North Carolina. 

[...] Nevertheless, holding all their seats and flipping four across these two elections would put Democrats back into the majority. But flip the White House in 2028 and they need only three.

Dear Senator Tillis,

I am writing to express my deep disappointment with the response I received from your office regarding the ongoing crisis in immigration enforcement. Of all the communications I’ve received from you over the years, this one was by far the most disconnected from reality and the most morally evasive.

You sent a form letter about “border security” and “merit-based reform.” You spoke of economic priorities and worker programs. Not once did your letter acknowledge what I—and many others—have contacted you about: the ongoing abductions and deportations of legal residents and asylum seekers without due process, and their transfer to inhumane detention facilities like El Salvador’s CECOT prison.

What I received was a talking points memo. What I expected—and what the moment demands—is a real response from a public official willing to look this crisis in the face.

Senator, I know you are not a cartoon villain. I know you believe in the Constitution. I know you’ve spoken about law, liberty, and the dignity of the individual. But this is a moment that calls for moral clarity—and your office is offering political fog instead.

Let me tell you plainly what your response ignored:

Legal residents like Kilmar Abrego Garcia are being deported in direct defiance of court orders.

Green card–holding students like Mahmoud Khalil are being arrested and detained without charges.

Over 130 Venezuelans—many with no criminal record—have been deported to CECOT, a prison where people are caged for 23.5 hours a day, denied sunlight and basic hygiene, and in some cases, never heard from again.

International students from Tufts, Stanford, and elsewhere are being surveilled, blacklisted, and quietly disappeared—without hearings, lawyers, or charges.

These are not “immigration cases.” These are due process violations. These are state-sponsored disappearances. And every time your office sends a generic letter about “fixing the system,” you’re refusing to acknowledge that the system is being dismantled from within.

President Trump has now said he wants to send American citizens to El Salvador’s CECOT prison. That’s not just a bad idea—it’s a statement of intent to end constitutional protections altogether.

You should be shouting from the rooftops. Instead, your office sends pre-written paragraphs as if we’re debating marginal tax rates.

I am not writing for platitudes. I am writing to ask—to demand—that you make a real, substantive public statement:

Condemn the deportation and detention of people without due process.

Condemn the use of CECOT or any torture facility as a destination for deportees.

Affirm that no person—citizen or not—should be punished by the government without a hearing, without representation, without a chance to be heard.

If you cannot say those things, then be honest: say that the Constitution doesn’t matter to you anymore. Say that government power is more important than individual rights. Say that the people we disappear don’t deserve a voice.

But don’t insult your constituents by sending out empty statements while people are being taken, silenced, and sent to die.

We deserve better. I deserve better. And I believe, deep down, you know that.

Lara Trump leading in North Carolina race for GOP nomination for US Senate seat.

I’m not the poll bunny that many political junkies are. But a Cardinal Point Analytics Poll just published by The North State Journal got my attention. It shows Donald Trump’s daughter-in-law, Lara Trump, slightly ahead of former Gov. Pat McCrory for the 2022 GOP nomination for an open US Senate seat in North Carolina.

The thing is, Lara Trump hasn’t even announced whether she would be running for that seat.

Pat McCrory is a one-term governor whose administration was most famous for getting a transphobic bathroom bill rushed through the legislature. The bathroom bill sparked a national boycott of North Carolina. McCrory was so unpopular that he lost his bid for re-election in 2016 when Donald Trump carried North Carolina.

So a race between Lara and Pat would be a classic 2020s GOP food fight.

Rep. Ted Budd (R-NC-13) is considering a run for the Senate seat and former Rep. Mark Walker has already declared his intention to run. Their combined poll results currently put them behind Undecided.

Dear Senator Tillis,

Right now — as you read this — Kilmar Abrego Garcia, a legal U.S. resident and father to a disabled American child, is trapped inside one of the world’s most violent prisons because of your government’s unlawful actions. He is there because the Trump administration illegally deported him, in knowing violation of a U.S. court order protecting him. And now, your administration’s response is to shrug and say, "There’s nothing we can do."

That is not just false — it is cowardice.

The U.S. government grabbed this man off the street, disappeared him from his family, and knowingly sent him to a foreign prison where torture and death are routine. You don’t get to claim helplessness after you’re the one who pushed him off the cliff.

And let’s be clear: this was no accident. Government filings confirm that ICE knew of Mr. Garcia’s protected legal status when they deported him. They moved him up the deportation list because they could — because no one like you had the courage to stop them.

Now, your cowardice is killing him. And you are still doing nothing.

You are not powerless. You are afraid. Afraid of standing up to your party. Afraid of confronting the lawlessness you’ve tolerated. Afraid of risking your career to do the bare minimum: stop an innocent man from dying because of our government's misconduct.

I demand that you stop hiding and act — right now:

Publicly demand Kilmar Abrego Garcia’s immediate return.

Reject the obscene claim that the U.S. can deport someone illegally and then pretend there’s nothing to be done.

Cut off all U.S. payments to the Salvadoran government until he is returned.

Demand an immediate investigation into who allowed this atrocity.

Put your position, your career, your political future on the line to stop this — because a man’s life is worth more than your job.

If you are still waiting for the right time to find your backbone — it is now. If you fail to act today, you will not be remembered as a leader, but as a coward who let an innocent man rot in a foreign prison because you were too afraid to confront your own party’s abuses.