Candidate News: Congress

We have built up quite a backlog of news about people running for various offices. We intended to do state-level offices today, and Congress later in the week, but the biggest political news of the day yesterday was in the latter category, so we're going to flip the order. Oh well, you know what they say about the best laid plans of mice and men.

Anyhow, here's a rundown of the various congressional candidate news from the last couple of weeks:

• U.S. Senate, Georgia: This is the aforementioned biggest news of the day yesterday, as Gov. Brian Kemp (R-GA) announced he will take a pass on challenging Sen. Jon Ossoff (D-GA) in 2026. This is presumably an indication that Kemp is keeping his powder dry for a presidential run in 2028. That said, it's not so easy to go from being the guy in charge to being one of a hundred voices in a chorus. Also, Kemp probably took a look at the headwinds that Donald Trump's trade war will create, and at the fact that Trump's approval rating is in a tailspin, and at the fact that midterms tend to go against the incumbent's party, and realized that he was at serious risk of spending a tough year and a half campaigning and fundraising for a coin-flip chance (or worse) at a U.S. Senate seat.
  
  In any case, Ossoff, the DSCC, and anyone who hopes the Democrats will retake the upper chamber in 2026 or 2028 should now get down on their knees and praise the deity of their choice. In hypothetical polling, Kemp had a slight edge on Ossoff (though usually within the margin of error). For example, in a poll commissioned and published by the Atlanta Journal-Constitution a couple of weeks ago, Kemp was at 49% and Ossoff at 46%, with a 3.1% MoE. Against all other hypothetical GOP challengers polled, Ossoff has a comfortable lead, usually between 6 and 10 points. That includes state Secretary of State Brad Raffensperger, Georgia Insurance and Safety Fire Commissioner John F. King and Reps. Buddy Carter, Mike Collins and Rich McCormick.
  
  The hypothetical matchup in which Ossoff does best, however, is up against Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene. The three times Ossoff vs. Greene has been polled this year, he's led her by 11, 16 and 12 points. And while lesser-known Republicans like King and McCormick might have room to grow their support, Greene is already one of the best-known politicians in Georgia. Despite the fact that the numbers are not good (and she also trails EVERYONE in "what Republican would you like to see as the nominee" polls of Georgia Republican voters), she's been making much noise lately about throwing her hood hat into the ring, bragging that she can beat any Republican contender, save one (presumably she meant Kemp, though she did not give a name).
  
  Greene's budding Senate aspirations might just explain why she posted that odd, semi-literate, critical-of-Trump message to eX-Twitter over the weekend—it's her version of hewing to the center. Though yesterday, she explained that when she declared that Trump was losing the base, she actually meant that... voters are angry with Congress. So, it would seem she hewed a bit too much, and decided to hew back toward the lunatic fringe a bit.
  
  If Greene somehow does enter the race and claim the nomination—and you never know; primary voters tend to be more extreme than general election voters—Ossoff, the DSCC, and anyone who hopes the Democrats will retake the upper chamber in 2026 or 2028 will need to get down on their knees and thank their deity of choice again. Not only is she a godawful candidate, and certainly the weakest opponent Ossoff could reasonably hope to draw, but Georgia law forbids running for two offices at the same time. So, she'd have to give up her House seat to run, meaning that there's a decent chance that Congress would be rid of her entirely by January 3, 2027.
  
  Whatever happens, the Democrats' chances of holding this seat just got much, much better.
  
  
• U.S. Senate, Maine: Sen. Susan Collins (R-ME) officially has something to be concerned about, as the first Democrat has entered that party's primary with an eye toward unseating her. It's Jordan Wood, who is the son of a pastor and a teacher, is an anti-Citizens United activist, and has worked as chief-of-staff to former representative Katie Porter. That means Wood now has extensive experience in what not to do when running a U.S. Senate campaign. Wood is gay, by the way, and would be angling to be the first LGBTQ person to represent Maine in the U.S. Senate (former representative Mike Michaud already broke that particular glass ceiling for Mainers in the House).
  
  If Gov. Janet Mills (D-ME) jumps in, she would clear the field and Wood would be kindling. But Mills is 77, and might not be keen on starting a new career, so there's a pretty good chance she stays out. If so, it could be a real slugfest on the Democratic side, as there are half-a-dozen or so contenders signaling a run, all of them of roughly equal stature. That said, Wood is the only one to take the plunge so far.
  
  
• U.S. Senate, New Hampshire: While things could get complicated for the Democrats in Maine, it looks like they will be pretty simple in next-door New Hampshire. Rep. Maggie Goodlander (D-NH) announced that she's not going to mount a bid for the seat being vacated by Sen. Jeanne Shaheen (D-NH), which leaves Rep. Chris Pappas (D-NH) as the only man standing on that side of the aisle. And the blue team's bench pretty much consisted of the two representatives, so with Goodlander out, Pappas might well go unchallenged. Meanwhile, all the strong Republican candidates (e.g., Chris Sununu) are already out, while much weaker candidates like Scott Brown and Corey Lewandowski are hemming and hawing. So, you have to like the Democrats' chances for a hold here, despite the open seat.
  
  
• U.S. Senate, Michigan: Guess we'll remain in states that are often cold and/or snowy for a while longer. This is another seat that will be left open by the retirement of a Democrat, namely Sen. Gary Peters (D-MI). And the primary field on that side of the aisle just grew by one, as Rep. Haley Stevens has declared. She's an excellent fundraiser who knows how to run on kitchen-table issues. That said, her main competition right now is state Sen. Mallory McMorrow, who is something of a rock star to Democratic politics-watchers, thanks to several viral speeches she's made. Abdul El-Sayed, who has held municipal office, and who is something of a perennial candidate for statewide office, is also in.
  
  Thus far, the best the Republicans have come up with for this race is former representative Mike Rogers. There's a long list of GOPers who might join him, but while some of them have name recognition (e.g., Ronna McDaniel), none of them strike terror into the hearts of Democrats. It's yet another seat that's looking pretty good for the blue team, assuming that the winner of the Democratic primary isn't too bloody once it's over.
  
  
• U.S. Senate, Minnesota: One more cold and snowy state (unless you count Maine when it shows up again), and one more gay candidate. In the Gopher State, the aspiring LGBTQ senator is Rep. Angie Craig (DFL), who announced last week that she aspires to the seat being vacated by Sen. Tina Smith (DFL). Craig is the first gay person to represent Minnesota in the lower chamber, and she hopes to repeat that feat in the upper chamber. She would also be the second out lesbian elected to the Senate (after Tammy Baldwin) and the third to serve (after Baldwin and Laphonza Butler, who was appointed).
  
  Craig has a compelling personal story, going from growing up in a mobile home park to running a multimillion dollar business, and she's also won election to the House four times in a swing district. She's got some serious competition for the nomination from Lt. Gov. Peggy Flanagan (DFL), and some less serious competition from a few lesser-known candidates. Thus far, the Republicans have former Navy SEAL Adam Schwarze and former NBA player Royce White, who have both underwhelmed. The Democrats are not thrilled to have open seats in three different swingy states, but if it had to happen, well, the ducks look like they are lining up pretty well. First, the Republicans are generally attracting mediocre candidates and second, as we note above, midterms are not only generally bad for the party that holds the White House, but the current president is heading toward historically poor approval ratings. The poor GOP candidate quality and the likely poor environment for the GOP might just be related.
  
  
• U.S. Senate, Kentucky: And for our last Senate seat of the day, a Republican-held seat that is also going to be open, and that is also not going to change hands. Mitch McConnell (R-KY) is retiring at the end of his current term, and the only Democrat who might plausibly win the seat is Gov. Andy Beshear, who already passed. You might think there would be a feeding frenzy on the GOP side, but not so far. That said, after one flawed candidate (former Kentucky AG and failed gubernatorial candidate Daniel Cameron) got in, the GOP now has a heavier hitter, as Rep. Andy Barr has declared. Like McConnell, Barr is a wild-eyed, raving, woke leftist. We write that because that is how the anti-tax Club for Growth portrays them both, by virtue of their votes to lift the debt ceiling and not cause the U.S. to default on its national debt. We are hardly experts in Kentucky politics, but we do know that McConnell won election seven times, so maybe the opinion of the Club for Growth doesn't carry much weight.
  
  
• U.S. House, ME-O2: Rep. Jared Golden (D-ME) is the blue doggiest Democrat in the House, reflecting the fact that his district is R+4. That makes him a juicy target, but Republicans have tried to knock him off, and have failed each time. But guess who is back from the dead? In an attempt to resurrect his seemingly expired political career, former governor Paul LePage, who calls himself "Donald Trump before Donald Trump," has decided he wants to take a shot at it.
  
  LePage has an above-average amount of baggage from his time as governor. There was a long list of scandals while he was in office, and he also dabbled in racism and antisemitism. He's been living in Florida since his term ended in 2019, which gives him a vaguely carpetbagger-esque vibe. Also, as Susan Collins has demonstrated, ultra-Trumpy does not play too well in Maine. These comeback bids rarely work out, and we see no particular reason to think this one will buck the trend.
  
  
• U.S. House, AZ-05: Rep. Andy Biggs (R-AZ) is running for governor, so his R+10 seat is up for grabs. And the first contender has declared; it's Jay Feely, a very Trumpy fellow who played in the NFL for a dozen years. Feely plans to run on a pro-tariff, pro-harsh-border-policy platform, because those things are doing such wonders for Trump's approval rating these days.
  
  We're not so sure we understand this whole former-athlete-turned-Republican-politician thing, but we wonder if the electoral success of Tommy Tuberville has put wrongheaded ideas into Republicans' minds. Yes, the former coach won his election, but that was in football-obsessed Alabama, and since then the former sports figures haven't done so well (see Walker, Herschel, et al.). And Feely was a kicker, which means he was only barely a football player. He also played for the Jets, the Cardinals, the Bears and the Giants, so he's got vast experience in losing, in all kinds of different ways. In the end, this seat is going to stay in Republican hands, so it's really up to voters in AZ-05 if they want to be represented by a super-Trumpy guy whose main qualification is that he can make field goals.
  
  
• U.S. House, Oversight Chair: Most of the elections we address here are pretty far in the future. Not this one. With Rep. Gerry Connolly (D-VA) stepping down immediately from his position as ranking member of the powerful House Oversight Committee, there was some speculation that Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (D-NY) might try for the gig, having lost the very same job to Connolly at the start of this term.
  
  Yesterday, AOC said she is not interested, and she'll keep her seat on the House Committee on Energy and Commerce. Officially, her reason is that she does not think this bid would be any more successful than the first one was. That may be the truth; the Democratic caucus does have a taste for older members, particularly when it comes to leadership of one of the very most important committees. Plus, because AOC left Oversight for Energy and Commerce, she'd first have to win a vote for a special waiver to return to the committee.
  
  All of this said, with the Representative's successful rally tour, and with her pretty clearly taking over as the heir to Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-VT), there is much speculation that her lack of interest is because she has bigger fish to fry (like, say, laying the groundwork for a U.S. Senate or a presidential campaign).

And there you have the latest on congressional elections. You can see why we decided to hold the state-level elections until later this week. (Z)

Another Day, Another Half-Baked Policy Idea

This is a pretty cool little map that (Z) shows in his lecture on the history of Hollywood:

Have we shared this before? We don't think so. In any event, this was made by Paramount (as you can see) in 1927. Those were the golden days, when virtually all Hollywood films were filmed in California, because going anywhere else was highly impractical. The filmmaking equipment of that era was big and bulky and rather delicate, and long-distance passenger aviation was not yet a thing. It's a good thing that a filmmaker could do a passable Nile by heading up to the Bay Area, because the real Nile was so far out of reach, it might as well have been on the moon.

Those days are long gone, of course. Now, it is plausible to film pretty much anywhere in the world, and filmmakers are often highly motivated to do so. First, because there are certainly vistas that simply cannot be had (or acceptably faked) in the United States. Second, because many nations have established generous incentives for filmmakers to come shoot films in their countries. Third, because a lot of the labor needed to make a film, particularly the non-union labor, is way cheaper outside the United States than within.

And so, the U.S. in general, and California in particular, is losing movie jobs and production money, as more and more moviemaking goes abroad. This is a real concern, and it's one being worked on by politicians, including every prominent political leader in The Golden State. Over the weekend, right-wing actor and Donald Trump-appointed "ambassador to Hollywood" Jon Voight apparently brought the problem to the President's attention. And in yet another demonstration of the fact that Trump thinks that tariffs are a magic pill that solves all problems, he promptly announced that he was imposing a 100% tariff on films not made in the United States.

The first problem here is presumably fairly obvious to anyone whose name does not rhyme with "Crump." Imagine you have a film that is financed by people and corporations in six different nations, is written and directed by a Canadian, stars an American and a Brit as the leads, is filmed in the U.S./Mexico/Canada/the Middle of the Atlantic, has FX, editing and other post-production done in Los Angeles, and grosses $600 million in the U.S. and $1.6 billion outside the U.S. How much is the tariff? And this is not a made-up example; we imagine at least some readers recognized this as a description of the 1997 film Titanic.

A related question is exactly when and how the tariffs are collected. It's not like a movie arrives in the country on a massive container ship, where it can be evaluated by a tariff inspector. It's either a bunch of canisters of unedited film or, more likely, a bunch of hard drives with data. Most of the films that are presumably in question here don't become films until well after the raw materials enter the United States. Oh, and also note that the whole justification for the tariffs—both these and the others—is that there is a national security threat that allows Trump to create a state of emergency. Such claims already stretch credulity when we're talking about hats from China or avocados from Mexico. But they go beyond the breaking point when arguing that filming part of the next Avengers movie in Turkey represents a grave threat to mom, apple pie and Uncle Sam. Oh, and if Trump's claim of an emergency in this case is spurious, that becomes evidence that maybe ALL of his claims are spurious.

All of this said, there is one slightly interesting dynamic here, in the very unlikely event that this tariff idea sticks. Movie tickets, like sports tickets, are not linked to the cost of the product being made. That is to say, if you are going to buy a pair of shoes, and every pair of shoes uses $5 in materials, plus $20 in labor to put together, then those shoes are going to cost at least $25. With a movie, by contrast, the studios' cost is basically the same whether they sell 1 ticket or 100 million tickets. So, the price for movie tickets (again, as with sports tickets) tends to be "as much as we think we can get." They have not spent the last 10 years charging $15 for a ticket, but knowing they could really get $25 if they asked.

So, if tariffs added $5 or $10 or $15 to the cost of every movie ticket, the studios would either end up making it very clear how much of the ticket cost is tariff (even if they don't advertise it explicitly, people would figure out why that $15 ticket is now $27), or they would have to cut money out of the budgets of films, or they would have to take a probably unsustainable hit to profits. None of these things seems to achieve the goals Trump claims he wants to achieve, since he insisted the tariffs are meant to "save" the movie business.

Note that Trump also had another nutty idea that he decided to share with the world yesterday: He claims he would like to re-open the notorious Alcatraz Prison, in the San Francisco Bay.

This is yet another notion that simply does not make sense. Alcatraz was shut down in the early 1960s because the facility had degraded precipitously, and the costs of operating it and of maintaining it had become impossible to justify. It did not help that everything needed for the facility had to be transported from land. And, of course, the prison has spent more than 60 years deteriorating since it was deemed way too expensive to be worthwhile. It's certainly not going to be any cheaper, and throwing a few billion dollars at it is hardly consistent with Trump's campaign of government austerity.

So, why are we including this item in a piece that is primarily about Hollywood? Because a few sleuths tried to figure out how Trump got this idea in his mind, and they figured out that 6 hours before Trump made the announcement, the 1979 movie Escape from Alcatraz aired in the broadcast area that includes Mar-a-Lago. If that's really the source of Trump's "inspiration" then... wow. They better make sure not to show Star Wars in Florida anytime in the next 4 years. Actually, looks like it may be too late, based on this posting to Trump's Instagram on Star Wars Day on Sunday:

Regrettably for the White House, they do not understand the pop culture they are plundering well enough to know that in the Star Wars universe, a red lightsaber is the dead giveaway that the possessor is evil. (Z)

Legal News, Part I: Perkins Coie 1, Trump Administration 0

"...In purpose and effect, this action draws from a playbook as old as Shakespeare, who penned the phrase: 'The first thing we do, let's kill all the lawyers.'" So begins Judge Beryl Howell's 102-page opinion striking down Donald Trump's executive order targeting the law firm of Perkins Coie, an order that purported to deny its lawyers access to all federal buildings, including courthouses, remove all security clearances and prohibit government contractors from doing business with the firm. Perkins Coie is one of four big law firms to fight back against these retaliatory XO's and this decision is the first out of the gate to permanently enjoin enforcement, but it is surely not the last. Howell notes that "eliminating lawyers as the guardians of the rule of law removes a major impediment to the path to more power." Indeed, she holds that these XO's are particularly insidious because instead of killing all the lawyers, "[Executive Order] 14230 takes the approach of 'Let's kill the lawyers I don't like,' sending the clear message: Lawyers must stick to the party line, or else."

Other law firms that Trump targeted, such as Paul Weiss, chose to cave to his bullying and intimidation tactics by agreeing to "stick to the party line" with some vague deal, the terms of which are apparently very fluid, to provide pro bono legal work to clients and causes that suit Trump at any given moment. ("The government, when asked, was unable to fill in basic details, for example, about whether the deal terms were written down or otherwise memorialized, the duration of the deals, or how recipients of the promised free legal work would be identified.") In her opinion, Howell had some choice words for those lawyers: "Some clients may harbor reservations about the implications of such deals for the vigorous and zealous representation to which they are entitled from ethically responsible counsel, since at least the publicized deal terms appear only to forestall, rather than eliminate, the threat of being targeted in an Executive Order... Only when lawyers make the choice to challenge rather than back down when confronted with government action raising non-trivial constitutional issues can a case be brought to court for judicial review of the legal merits, as was done in this case by plaintiff Perkins Coie LLP, plaintiff's counsel Williams & Connolly, and the lawyers, firms, organizations, and individuals who submitted amicus briefs in this case."

Howell granted summary judgment for the plaintiffs and found that the XO violates the First, Fifth and Sixth Amendments in that it is retaliatory, discriminatory based on viewpoint, denies equal protection of the law, due process and the right to counsel, and is unconstitutionally vague. The XO did not mince words about its purpose or the reasons for targeting this particular firm: (1) the firm's representation of Hillary Clinton during the 2016 presidential election; (2) lawsuits filed against the Trump administration that are described as "partisan lawsuits against the United States;" (3) lawsuits related to election law, including work with George Soros; and (4) DEI practices and supportive statements about diversity.

In finding that the purpose of the XO is retaliatory, Howell recounts Trump's constant attacks on the firm on social media and a lawsuit Trump filed against the firm for representing the Clinton campaign. The suit was dismissed as frivolous and Trump and his attorneys were ordered to pay $900,000 in legal fees for filing a meritless lawsuit. The XO is payback, but it's also unconstitutional: "This prohibition also extends to retaliation against individuals for the specific viewpoint expressed by their First Amendment protected activities, since the government may not 'use the power of the State to punish or suppress disfavored expression,' nor use threats of 'legal sanctions and other means of coercion... to achieve the suppression' of disfavored speech.'"

The XO also violates Perkins Coie's free speech rights generally, including its statements in support of a diverse workforce. The opinion holds that "public statements supporting diversity, standing alone, as they do here, provide not even a scintilla of evidence of impropriety, let alone illegality. A fair reading of the record, and taking the government at its word, requires finding that the justification for Executive Order 14230 stemming from plaintiff's purported 'racial discrimination' was motivated only by plaintiff's First Amendment protected speech in support of diversity." This is an important finding because we're seeing a slow creep in the media coverage of this topic that somehow support of DEI is, by itself, suspect, and that advocating for diversity in employment and hiring practices is somehow wrong. This opinion makes clear that efforts to increase diversity are consistent with constitutional principles.

Throughout the opinion, Howell stresses the importance of independent and ethical lawyers to a functioning democracy. She cites John Adams' defense of eight British soldiers charged with murder in the Boston Massacre. Despite losing half his practice as a result of that representation, Adams said, "I had no hesitation. Council ought to be the very last thing that an accused Person should want in a free Country," and "the Bar ought... to be independent and impartial at all Times And in every Circumstance." She also quoted Alexis de Tocqueville, who remarked that "the authority... intrusted to members of the legal profession... is the most powerful existing security against the excesses of democracy."

No doubt this decision will be appealed, but if these basic rights are not affirmed, this will be a major guardrail gone. If no one is willing to challenge Trump's actions, he won't have to worry about violating a court order since there won't be any to violate. (L)

Legal News, Part II: The End of the Road for Jefferson Griffin?

As of yesterday, it may be that the 2024 election in North Carolina, which saw ballots cast a mere 183 days ago, is finally over. Chief Judge of the United States District Court for the Eastern District of North Carolina Richard E. Myers ruled that Jefferson Griffin's desperate attempts to snatch victory from the jaws of electoral defeat must end, and that the results of the North Carolina state Supreme Court election must be certified, making Democratic-backed candidate Allison Riggs (who already took her seat, by the way) the winner.

Although the ruling was 68 pages, primarily because legal professionals take 4 pages just to clear their throats, the finding was a simple and obvious one: If North Carolina voters were allowed to submit invalid registrations, and those registrations were processed, that is the fault of government employees, and is not justification for invaliding the voters' ballots. If North Carolina WERE to invalidate the ballots, that would violate the voters' due process rights.

Griffin has 7 days to appeal, and since he's apparently a desperate man, willing to throw any Hail Mary pass, he will presumably avail himself of that opportunity. However, he is burdened by two problems: (1) a lousy legal argument, and (2) an increasingly short list of courts to which he could possibly appeal. We would guess that he won't have much success at the United States Court of Appeals for the Fourth Circuit, and that will be that. We'll know, one way or another, within the week. (Z)

One of these Commonwealth Countries... Is Not Like the Others.

Regular correspondent A.B. in Lichfield, England, UK sent in a report on the recent local elections in the U.K., which we wanted to pass along. The floor is yours, A.B.:

While the recent election results in Canada and Australia appear to strengthen the belief that there's mileage to be had in openly opposing Donald Trump's worldview and MAGA policies in English-speaking (with apologies to my Quebecois friends) democracies, the recent May 1 local elections here in the U.K. perhaps give some pause for thought.

Local elections in the U.K. are staggered, so there are local elections most years, sometimes taking place alongside elections for the Scottish and Welsh Parliaments and the Northern Ireland assembly, sometimes not. This year's elections took place in England only, and contested 1,641 council seats across 24 local authorities, alongside elections to choose six regional mayors (note that in England 'mayor' doesn't just apply to the elected leader of a city, but rather to any elected leader of a local government with a directly elected executive, urban or rural).

These local elections were the first major electoral test in this country since the 2024 general election that brought Sir Keir Starmer's government to power. They took place in a political climate where the Conservative Party that led the country for 14 years until last year is still deeply unpopular after the disasters of Boris Johnson and Liz Truss, but where the Labour Party government elected last year is increasingly considered a disappointment. Meanwhile, the populist right-wing Trump-supporting and MAGA-embracing ReformUK party led by Nigel Farage (and which won just 5 seats in last year's national election) was surging in the polls, the traditional centrist Liberal Democrats—the party most openly running on an anti-Trump platform—were continuing to make modest polling gains, and the Greens were hopeful of doing well by their historical standards, meaning that at least five parties were likely to win at least 10% of the vote.

The last elections for this tranche of local government seats took place in 2021, when Boris Johnson was still popular, and was still given broad credit for the success of the national vaccination program—before it was discovered that 10 Downing Street had been ignoring lockdown rules that it had imposed on the rest of the country. It's been all downhill for the Tories since then, so the Conservative Party was expected to do badly last week. No one, however, really expected the final outcome:

• ReformUK: 677 seats won on 30% of the vote; +677 compared to 2021
• Liberal Democrats: 370 seats won on 17% of the vote; +163
• Conservatives: 317 seats won on 15% of the vote; -676
• Labour: 98 seats won on 20% of the vote; - 186
• Greens: 80 seats won on 11% of the vote; +45

(Note: The above figures don't include independents or small regional parties, so don't add up to 1,641.)

It was a disastrous night for the Conservatives, who lost all 16 local councils they had previously controlled, and came fourth in vote share. It was a poor night for Labour, which lost a significant number of seats, though at least had the comfort of narrowly clinging on to two of the three mayoralities they were defending, and winning a third. The Greens are moderately pleased with their gains. The Liberal Democrats are thrilled at coming second in seat totals, third in vote share, and taking control of three councils. But ReformUK are ecstatic at winning nearly 700 seats, taking control of 10 councils, and winning two brand-new mayoralities.

The upshot is that the party that unambiguously won the election is the most pro-MAGA party, an insurgent populist political party led by one of the strongest proponents of Brexit, someone who hugs Trump as closely as possible, while the party that came second in number of seats is the most overtly anti-Trump of the national parties. Meanwhile, the two traditional main parties came third and fourth in terms of seats won, and won a combined total of 35% of the vote.

ReformUK and party leader Nigel Farage are going all-in for MAGA in the wake of the elections. Farage is calling for instituting "local DOGE" in the councils they now control, and has declared that any employees involved in climate or DEI initiatives in one of those councils should start looking for new jobs. The newly elected mayor of Greater Lincolnshire, Dame Andrea Jenkyns (previously a cabinet minister under Boris Johnson before jumping ship to Reform) has openly stated that a vote for Reform is a vote to "reset Britain to its glorious past"—presumably this doesn't mean invading India and Pakistan, but who knows.

It's likely the LibDems will meanwhile feel encouraged to continue their direct opposition to Trump, but the momentum is clearly with ReformUK.

We suddenly find ourselves in a five-party system in England—and a six-party system in Scotland and Wales, where the nationalist SNP and Plaid Cymru parties are strong (Northern Ireland, as always, exists in its own unique party political system that can't be easily compared to the rest of the UK). British politics is simply not set up for this. Like Canada and most of the U.S. (but unlike the Australian House of Representatives, which uses ranked-choice voting), the U.K. uses first-past-the-post winner-takes-all voting. This worked fairly well when we were a two-party dominant system, but is increasingly throwing up distorted results as our political system fragments. In the last national election, Labour won over 60% of the seats in Parliament on a 33.7% vote share. And then there's this result from Cornwall in last week's elections:

Truro Moresk & Trehaverne:

• LDM: 18.9%
• RFM: 17.4%
• CON: 17.0%
• GRN: 14.1%
• IND: 13.3%
• LAB: 11.4%
• IND: 7.9%

That's right, the Liberal Democrat won with less than 20% of the vote, despite being opposed by more than 80% of the local electorate, and six candidates won at least 10% of the vote. I vote LibDem, and I'm happy to concede that this is insane.

It would be easy to overplay ReformUK's success last week. They did only win 30% of the vote. Because our local elections are staggered, they now have 805 councillors compared to 6,132 for Labour, 4,358 for the Conservatives, and 3,179 for the LibDems. All the same, it's hard to avoid the conclusion that MAGA-like policies work with nearly a third of the English electorate (Scotland and Wales may be harder nuts to crack), and that ReformUK are well-placed to exploit a landscape where Labour are struggling and the Conservatives seem hell-bent on committing political suicide. The LibDems are making some headway, yes, but remain distrusted with some sectors of the voting public for their decision to enter a coalition with the Conservatives, as the junior partner, from 2010-2015.

Nigel Farage is now openly talking about destroying the Conservative Party and replacing them on the right. There is precedent for this in the U.K., but we have to stretch back just over 100 years to the period 1918-1923, when a combination of universal male suffrage, partial female suffrage, post-war instability, and disastrous splits in the Liberal Party led to the Labour Party replacing the Liberals as the main party on the left of U.K. politics (the much-reduced Liberals would eventually merge with another party to form the modern Liberal Democrats). That was a long time ago, but it's a useful reminder that nothing is permanent in politics, and that no party has the right to assume a perpetual place on the political landscape. It's also very clearly the precedent Farage has in mind.

In any case, whatever successes the Liberal Party of Canada and the Australian Labor Party might have had in winning elections in large part in opposition to Trumpian politics and a conservative opposition discomforted by Trump, the U.K. local elections serve as a counterpoint. Yes, 70% of voters who took part in the local elections last week voted against ReformUK; but 30% of the vote was also enough to unambiguously emerge as the winners in a five-party system distorted by first-past-the-post. Whether hugging Trump so closely will prove a viable long-term strategy for Reform, especially when the next U.K. election isn't due until after Trump leaves office (assuming he doesn't circumvent the Twenty-Second Amendment) is anyone's guess.

And as long as we are on the foreign affairs beat, allow us to pass along this, from reader K.J in Melbourne, VIC, Australia:

There is some nuance that I want to add to the comments from K.W. in Sydney. What we tend to call the Liberal Party is actually a coalition between the Liberal Party, the National Party, and the Liberal National Party. In previous elections, the Liberal Party had a strong urban base while the National Party and Liberal National Party captured the rural and regional areas. This partnership dates back to 1946.

By convention, the leader of the Liberal Party serves as the overall leader, serving as Prime Minister when the Coalition is in government, while the leader of the National Party becomes the Deputy Prime Minister during periods of Coalition government.

What is notable, is the results for each over the last two elections:

2025
Liberal Party (urban): 14 seats
Liberal National Party (rural & regional): 15 seats
National Party (rural & regional): 9 seats

2022
Liberal Party (urban): 27 seats
Liberal National party (rural & regional): 21 seats
National Party (rural & regional): 10 seats

There has been a massive swing against the Liberal Party in urban areas, which means that the parties representing the rural and regional areas will suddenly have a lot more power within the coalition. It also means that the Liberal Party is going to have to take a long hard look at its policies and whom it represents. It is no longer the party of the urbanites.

In addition, the Greens Party has lost seats at this election and at this point in time, it is not clear whether the party leader will retain his seat.

I am not a political analyst, I am a social researcher and don't feel comfortable positing causal or correlational relationships. However, if someone asked me to sum the results, I would say that global uncertainty, Trump, and Peter Dutton parroting MAGA values led to "regression to the mean."

Thanks, A.B. and K.J.! (Z)

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---The Votemaster and Zenger