THE WHOLE FANDOM IS USING “GORGEOUS” TO DESCRIBE EVERYTHING AND ITS SO GORGEOUS
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Can you believe taylor swift invented the word gorgeous
reblog if you’re grateful to have taylor swift in your life.
*reblogs 42674275285385383685385 times*
*breaks the reblog button*
taylor swift was publicly humiliated and widely disliked for years for no real reason other than blatant sexism and she could be real bitter but no she’s an actual ray of sunshine and is instead doing all she can to change perceptions about women in music and that hopefully this means that eventually no young female singer will have to go through what she did again
wow so apparently i made this tumblr four years ago happy tumblrversary to me
so the rep era really is over huh
Late Friday Night: The Comprehensive Guide to EVERY Toss-Up House of Representatives Race
This is Late Friday Night, a weekly essay series by actor and political enthusiast Joshua Rush. Every week I’m writing an essay about important subjects in the modern political zeitgeist. In the two weeks leading up to the midterms, I’m covering the absolute closest races, so why not come along for the ride?
18 days.
That’s how close we are from the midterms. Give or take, we’re about 420 hours away from the first results in the midterms. So now might be a good time to talk about what the midterms are going to look like, by taking a look at the most important races in each house. This week, the House and next week, the Senate.
Every seat in the House is up for grabs, but in reality of the 435 voting members in the House, 70 are competitive, and only about two dozen are true toss-ups. Each toss-up has its own wrinkles, though. Let’s look at each one.
How to Read This Article
XX-00 City (This is the state’s two-letter postal code and the district number within the state. For clarity I’ve included some larger cities within the district as well.)
Incumbent: John Doe (I) (This is the current person who holds this seat in Congress and their party. For some of these, it will be an empty seat, and in those cases I mention who previously held the seat.)
Opponent: Jane Doe (I) (The person who is challenging the incumbent for the seat. If the incumbent is vacant, I will instead describe who from each major party is running.)
Beyond the “Keep Reading,” you’ll learn about each and every one of these races. Let’s get into it.
CA-10 Modesto
Incumbent: Denham ®
Opponent: Harder (D)
Notes: Rep. Jeff Denham seeks his fourth term in this California Central Valley district, with venture capitalist Josh Harder seeking to replace him. A September UC Berkeley poll puts Harder in the lead by a tight margin of 5 points, and with a Republican who won in 2016 by only 3% in a district where Clinton won by 3%, Republicans are facing a changing tide against them that might be able to propel Denham to a victory.
CA-25 Santa Clarita/Palmdale
Incumbent: Knight ®
Opponent: Hill (D)
Notes: This race between incumbent Steve Knight, veteran and former police officer, and challenger Katie Hill, a homeless services nonprofit executive, looks incredibly tight. Being just north of LA, CA-25 is one of the Democrats’ biggest targets. Clinton won the district in 2016, is 40% Hispanic, and has more registered Democrats than Republicans, and yet a Republican has represented the district since 1993. Hill has outraised Knight by about $700,000, but Cook Political Report rates the race as a tossup because it went +6 for Knight in 2016.
CA-39 Yorba Linda/Fullerton
Incumbent: Vacant, Formerly Royce ®
Republican: Kim
Democrat: Cisneros
Notes: The longtime representative of this district, Ed Royce, is retiring, leaving a large power vacuum. Gil Cisneros, a political newcomer, seeks to fill that void. He was originally a Republican but switched in 2008 over feeling that the GOP was too ideological. In 2010 he won the Mega Millions lottery and became involved with arts, education, and veterans philanthropic efforts. He has raised $10,000,000, with 8 million of that coming from his own money. Young Kim, the Republican challenger, was endorsed by Ed Royce and Kim once worked in his office. She supports increased border security but compassion for children brought to the US without documentation. The race is a true toss-up but appears to lean about +3 towards Cisneros.
CA-45_ Irvine/Tustin/Mission Viejo_
Incumbent: Walters ®
Opponent: Porter (D)
Notes: Mimi Walters, former investment banker, and current representative faces Katie Porter, a consumer protection lawyer and professor. This often-redrawn district in Orange County, once a pillar of the Reagan-era Republican Party, has experienced an influx of Asian-American and Latino voters. Although some suburban voters may be uneasy with President Trump, the district is not exactly liberal. Rep. Walters supports Trump on repealing Obamacare and passing. Tax overhaul. Even though Clinton carried her district, she handily was re-elected in 2016. Her opponent, Porter, was backed by Sen. Elizabeth Warren and has endorsed single-payer healthcare. In 2012 this district went +12 for Romney, so clearly the district has changed a lot, but has it changed enough for the Democrats to pull ahead?
CA-48 Huntington Beach/Newport Beach
Incumbent: Dana Rohrabacher ®
Opponent: Harley Rouda (D)
Notes: The New York Times shows this race as a dead heat, 45% to 45%, between real estate businessman Harley Rouda and Incumbent Dana Rohrabacher. Rohrabacher is best known as a supporter of Russian President Vladimir Putin. He was a member of the opposition when the House voted 399-19 to offer aid to Ukraine and impose sanctions on Russia after their (widely regarded as) illegal invasion of Crimea. He’s held his post for 13 terms. His opponent was endorsed by both Our Revolution, a progressive group, and the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee, in the primaries. Other than NYT, UC Berkeley puts the race even, and FiveThirtyEight gives Rouda a 2/3 chance of winning his race.
FL-26 South Miami Heights/Key West
Incumbent: Carlos Curbelo ®
Opponent: Debbie Mucarsel-Powell (D)
Notes: Another incredibly contested race comes up as we leave California for Florida. FiveThirtyEight projects this race with each candidate having about a 50/50 chance of winning, and the Cook Political Report agrees. This district went +16 for Clinton, and +12 for Obama in 2012, but still, Incumbent Carlos Curbelo, a Cuban-American who voted to repeal the Affordable Care Act, won his race by 12% in 2016. Challenger Debbie Mucarsel-Powell is an Ecuadorian immigrant who came to the US as a teenager and is endorsed by the Progressive Caucus and Women’s March.
FL-27 Miami Beach/Westchester/Coral Gables
Incumbent: Vacant, Formerly Ros-Lehtinen ®
Democrat: Shalala (D)
Republican: Salazar ®
Notes: It might seem like this race isn’t close, and it’s certainly not as close as some of the other races we’ve discussed on this list. But it is within the margin of error. The polling shows 44% for the Democrat, Donna Shalala, and 37% for the Republican, Maria Elvira Salazar, with a 5% margin of error. This district had a well-loved Republican incumbent, Ileana Ros-Lehtinen, a Cuban-American who won by 10 points in 2016, even as her district went +20 for Clinton and +7 for Obama. The candidates challenging for District 27 are Democrat Donna Shalala was the Health and Human Services Secretary under Pres. Clinton, a former president of the University of Miami, and president of the Clinton Foundation. Republican Elvira Salazar is a former broadcast journalist and a first-time candidate. She is Cuban-American and Hispanic along with 72.7% of the electorate she is seeking to vote for her. She speaks Spanish, and Shalala doesn’t, so expect to see that, among other vulnerabilities like her service to the Clinton Foundation, attacked in this race as Republicans begin to worry about the loss of a key district in the Floridian delegation.
IL-12 East St. Louis/Belleville/Carbondale
Incumbent: Bost ®
Opponent: Kelly (D)
Notes: Most polls show this as a close win for incumbent Mike Bost, a former Marine, firefighter, and businessman. His congressional voting record includes voting for the tax reform bill and for repeal and replace of the Affordable Care Act. His opponent, Democrat Brendan Kelly, is the state’s attorney for St. Clair County (which comprises most of East St. Louis), and a former naval officer. This district used to be a reliable Democratic district but recently has swung harder right. In 2012 it only went +2 for Obama, and in 2016 it voted +15 for Trump. As a result, Cook Political Report places this race as a Republican-leaning district, as does Inside Elections and FiveThirtyEight. The Center for Politics is currently the only major political rating organization that considers IL-12 a tossup. This general consideration of the race as one that is going to go for the Republican comes as a surprise (Kelly is considered an incredibly strong Dem recruit), but this mostly White, working-class district holds many of the old manufacturing towns outside of St. Louis, Illinois, as well as the southern Illinois coal mining towns and farms, which is probably a good explanation for why it has swung towards Trump and Republicans.
IL-14 Gurnee/McHenry/Saint Charles/Oswego/Plainfield
Incumbent: Hultgren ®
Opponent: Underwood (D)
Notes: Randy Hultgren seeks a fifth term and is expected to get it, in this suburban Chicago district. Lauren Underwood, a nurse and former senior adviser at the Dept. of Health and Human Services under Obama seeks to unseat him. This district has long skewed further right than the blue Chicago districts just next door, and former Republican Speaker of the House Dennis Hastert served from IL-14. Underwood, an African-American candidate in an 85% White district, stated: “This is my home, and the idea that I might not be a good fit is an idea I never gave a lot of consideration to.” Her key issue, which comes from her service as a nurse and in HHS, is healthcare. Both candidates are not well known, and neither is rated particularly favorable, according to the New York Times. They both have a 31% favorability rating, with Hultgren holding a higher unfavorability rating of 27%. The incumbent is expected to keep his seat for a fifth term according to the Center for Politics, Inside Elections, and FiveThirtyEight.
IA-03 Des Moines/Council Bluffs/Southwest Iowa
Incumbent: Young ®
Opponent: Axne (D)
Notes: A turn from the two incumbent-leaning races above, the Democratic challenger is expected to take this race. Cindy Axne, a small business owner and 10-year veteran of the state government, from Des Moines, seeks to turn this district, which went +4 for Trump and +14 for Incumbent David Young in 2016 into a Democratic district. The biggest thing standing in her way? David Young, a career politician who worked as a Senate aide before seeking office himself. His congressional voting history is either going to be his greatest asset or detriment: he’s supported nearly all of President Trump’s agenda, without much of the inflammatory statements of fellow Iowa delegation member Steve King. Most major organizations show this race as a true tossup, and that is backed up by the polls: DCCC Targeting Team and Anzalone Grove Research polls show Axne up by 3 or 4 points respectively, whereas an Emerson College poll with 260 participants shows incumbent Young up 16%. The incumbent’s greatest vulnerability is trade, and David Young’s stances on trade could be his greatest issue in a place where global trade is so important.
KS-02 Topeka/Leavenworth/Lawrence/Ottawa/Pittsburg
Incumbent: Vacant, Formerly Jenkins ®
Democrat: Davis (D)
Republican: Watkins ®
Notes: In deeply red Kansas, we’re seeing a textbook tossup district. Let me set the scene: a fairly well-liked Republican with a 52% approval rating leaves a district that voted for the 2018 Democratic House challenger for governor. The departing congresswoman leaves no clear successor, and from a crowded Republican field emerges a newcomer to politics, who spent most of his adult life outside the district at West Point and as an Army Ranger, with his biggest support coming from a PAC funded by his father. That’s what we have in Kansas’ District 2. And it has resulted in a 50/50 chance for each candidate, a surprise for a district that voted +28 for its incumbent in 2016, +13 for Romney in 2012, and +18 for Trump. Let me make it clear: Republicans shouldn’t be worried about this red district. It’s 19% more Republican than the country overall. And yet, they are.
KY-06 Lexington/Richmond/Georgetown/Frankfort
Incumbent: Barr ®
Opponent: McGrath (D)
Notes: Kentucky’s 6th district is another one of these true toss-up districts, and it’s been called the district that will decide whether or not the Democrats take back the house in 2018. Incumbent Andy Barr, a former lawyer, is banking on his track record of supporting conservative agendas, like the tax reform bill and repealing the Affordable Care Act, to win him this Republican district. KY-06 went +15 for Trump and +14 for Romney. His challenger, Lt. Colonel (Ret.) Amy McGrath is a former Marine, and the first female Marine to pilot an F/A-18 in combat. Her stirring biographical ad, “Told Me,” about how her congressman and others told her she couldn’t fly in combat, helped her raise millions towards the start of the race, and she’s hoping that her detailed policy can help her beat out a career politician in her home state.
ME-02 Bangor/Lewiston/Northern Maine
Incumbent: Poliquin ®
Opponent: Golden (D)
Notes: In Maine, Democrats are seeking to take back a district that went for Obama and then flipped to +10 Trump. This one is another true toss-up with Siena College rating it even with a sample size of 501, and NYT Live Polling putting it 47-42 for Poliquin with a sample size of 506. So it’s clearly a toss-up. Poliquin is the incumbent, the only Republican from New England, and the former state treasurer. Jared Golden is a State House member and a former Marine. He also has a history of working with Republicans, he was an aide to current Maine Senator Susan Collins. This one is more likely to go towards the incumbent for another reason: since 1916 an incumbent has never lost. Let’s see if Democrats can turn the tide of time.
MI-08 Lansing/Holt/Rochester Hills
Incumbent: Bishop ®
Opponent: Slotkin (D)
Notes: Oh man do I love a race like this. Those in power are worried about it, and it’s a surprise. Michigan’s 8th is a gerrymandered district for Republicans, with a Republican incumbent, yet that incumbent is facing an intense challenge from a female progressive. Who is this challenger giving a Trump/Romney district a run for its money? Elissa Slotkin, a former intelligence analyst for the Defense Department during the Iraq War. She faces career politician Mike Bishop, who formerly made laws for Michigan at the state level. Democrats do have an x-factor in this district: it’s not gerrymandered enough. It contains Michigan State University, a fairly liberal campus, and the Democratic-leaning areas near the state capitol. Most of its red votes come from the Detroit suburbs it stretches its way in to. But if Democrats can win this one, it’s a bad sign for Republicans.
MN-01 Rochester/Mankato/Winona/Owatonna
Incumbent: Vacant, Formerly Walz (D)
Democrat: Feehan (D)
Republican: Hagedorn ®
Notes: In Minnesota’s 1st Congressional District, former Obama administration official Dan Feehan and former U.S. Treasury official Jim Hagedorn will duke it out after reliable Democrat and Army veteran Tim Walz (SGM, Ret.) decided not to seek re-election. After backing Barack Obama in the 2012 presidential election by 2 percentage points, this district swung red for Donald Trump in 2016, giving him a 15-point margin of victory. And Hagedorn is no stranger to running in this district—he’s been the nominee twice before, losing by 6% in 2014, and by less than 1% in 2016. This race appears to be another close race, with FiveThirtyEight putting Democrat Dan Freehan only 1% over him.
NJ-03 Toms River/Browns Mills/Marlton
Incumbent: MacArthur ®
Opponent: Kim (D)
Notes: An architect of the Republican health law is on shaky ground in NJ-03, as his seat is challenged by Andy Kim, a former White House national security official. Tom MacArthur’s district voted for Obama twice, but flipped for Trump in 2016, but has been held by a Republican for a near continuous two decades. The district has no clear identity, since it holds everything from farms, to beach towns, to Philadelphia suburbs, but one clear opinion of many of the residents is that Donald Trump is unpopular. That’s made Kim, who has raised more than $2 million from all over the country, have a far easier job. Most political reports rate this district as a full toss-up.
NM-02 Albuquerque/Roswell/Alamogordo/Las Cruces/Southern New Mexico
Incumbent: Vacant, Formerly Pearce ®
Democrat: Small (D)
Republican: Herrell ®
Notes: This district has gone for Donald Trump, Mitt Romney, and John McCain, but Democrats still see it as a potential pick-up and have dropped $1.5 million into southern New Mexico to try and flip this seat blue. Xochitl Torres Small is a water rights lawyer and former Senate aide, and she faces Yvette Herrell, a state representative with a real estate background. Both candidates are women so the winner will be the first woman to represent the district since its creation in 1969. The candidates differ largely, with Small campaigning on expanding access to healthcare, increasing public school funding. Her opponent’s key messages include defunding Planned Parenthood, enforcing immigration laws, and shrinking the size and scope of government. Herrell has won the endorsement of the NRA and was named “most conservative member” of the New Mexico House of Representatives.
NY-19 Columbia/Delaware/Greene/Otsego
Incumbent: Faso ®
Opponent: Delgado (D)
Notes: This race is literally within 0.8 of a percentage point, according to FiveThirtyEight, and in a district that both the Wall Street Journal and CNBC have called a solid pickup opportunity for Democrats. The northernmost parts of the NYC metropolitan area fall in the 19th, and though it is by and large Republican, Monmouth University and the DCCC Targeting Team have both found that it could go by up to 5 points to Delgado. The incumbent, John Faso, is a Georgetown Law graduate who served in the state legislature for 15 years, was a member of the Buffalo Fiscal Stability Authority, and worked in private practice as an attorney. He is challenged by attorney Antonio Delgado, whose platform focuses on his working-class upbringing, while his policy focuses heavily on health care and trade.
NY-22 Utica/Binghamton/Rome/New Hartford
Incumbent: Tenney ®
Opponent: Brindisi (D)
Notes: In upstate New York, a 2016 battleground, a skilled state Assemblyman running on a broad-tent, pro-business platform faces a classic Republican incumbent, whose key policy issues are defunding Obamacare, securing the border, lowering taxes, and rolling back common core. I, of course, am talking about the 2018 NY-22 race between Incumbent Claudia Tenney and Anthony Brindisi. It looks like Brindisi’s broad-tent platform is working: he leads the Republican by two points according to a Siena College poll and has outraised her by $700,000. But whether or not that money will be enough to flip a 90% White, 23% college-educated district? November 6th knows, but I do not.
NC-09 Charlotte/Fayetteville/Indian Trail/Matthews/Monroe
Incumbent: Vacant, Formerly Pittenger ®
Democrat: Dan McCready (D)
Republican: Mark Harris ®
Notes: Pastor Mark Harris seeks to remind America of the power of the religious right in America, and so far it’s working. He defeated incumbent Robert Pittenger in the state’s Republican primary and has held this race tightly by relying on a strong base of Christian conservatives and a policy of congressional term limits. He is opposed by businessman Dan McCready, a former Marine, Harvard Business School graduate, and alum of consulting firm McKinsey. His key platform points include bipartisanship, protecting Social Security and Medicare, and “serving a higher power,” based on his Christian faith found while serving in the military.
PA-01 Montgomeryville/Levittown/Philadelphia Suburbs
Incumbent: Fitzpatrick ®
Opponent: Wallace (D)
Notes: I’m tossed-up about including PA-01 in this list (pun intended). It’s a race that, for a long time, was not on my radar as a political geek, but recently has fallen into fashion. Let me break it down: Incumbent Brian Fitzpatrick was elected just in 2014, but his district was redrawn in February, switching it from a Trump district to a Clinton one. Just barely. He’s won the endorsement of powerful organizations, like the Pennsylvania AFL-CIO, and gun control advocate Gabrielle Giffords. He voted for the Republican tax overhaul but against the effort to repeal the Affordable Care Act. Republicans also have a good claim against challenger Scott Wallace, a wealthy philanthropist whose family has been involved in politics since the Roosevelt administration, because he moved to the district only last year, leading Republicans to call him a carpetbagger (adj., one who panders to voters in many areas to gain wider political power). Wallace has embraced progressive positions and attacked his opponent for his corporate donors. If this district’s anti-gerrymandering redistricting worked, it could turn in to an exciting new world for Democrats. But it’s still so close that I’m cautious.
TX-07 Southwest Houston/Bellaire/West University/Southside Place
Incumbent: Culberson ®
Opponent: Fletcher (D)
Notes: I grew up in Houston, and what I think of when I look at the map of TX-07 is wealth, and this wealthy, well-educated district is the exact dream district for Democrats to flip. No battleground district (outside of Utah) swung harder from Romney to Clinton (from +21 Romney to +1 Clinton). Incumbent John Culberson was first elected to this district in 2000, and voted for the repeal and replace of Obamacare. He’s challenged by Lizzie Pannill Fletcher, a corporate litigator who is betting that distaste for Trump can win her this difficult Republican district, rated a tossup by most major political ratings organizations.
UT-04 South Salt Lake/Millcreek/South Jordan/Lehi
Incumbent: Love ®
Opponent: McAdams (D)
Notes: I have been waiting for 22 districts to talk about this one. I live in UT-04 while I live in Salt Lake, and my dad is registered to vote within this district. Mia Love, the first black female Republican elected to Congress, and her anti-abortion, pro-immigration stances have won over adherents to the Latter-day Saints Church (Mormons). She is opposed by Salt Lake Country Mayor Ben McAdams, who currently represents 85% of the district. He’s been focusing on attracting Republicans, and passing centrist bipartisan issues, like infrastructure bills and expanding healthcare access. His main championing issue as mayor has been homelessness, and he spent three days in the Salt Lake homeless shelter system to find out where the problems were and how he could fix them. Love has attacked him by calling him a “professional politician” and a “tax and spend Democrat.” A University of Utah poll was the first to put them even, and a Mellman Group poll put McAdams in the lead by only 1 point.
WA-08 Bellevue/Auburn/Sammamish/Redmond/Suburban Seattle
Incumbent: Vacant, Formerly Reichert ®
Democrat: Schrier (D)
Republican: Rossi ®
Notes: Parting is such sweet sorrow, but we’ve reached Washington, the end of the line for any list of interesting political races (Wyoming is a pretty consistent Republican state). Washington’s 8th district is going to be a tough one. It’s never sent a Democrat to the House, but it has regularly voted for Democrats for President. The Democrat, Kim Schrier, is a pediatrician and first-time candidate. Dino Rossi is considered one of, if not the, premier Republican recruit for 2018. He is quite possibly single-handedly the reason this race is still a toss-up. He has raised nearly $3 million. Rossi is well liked and has strong name recognition from two gubernatorial races and a US Senate race. Every time he has run, he has won this district. Kim Schrier is focusing on winning the affluent high-tech Seattle suburbs which make up a large portion of this district, and she’s focusing on healthcare (she’s a pediatrician), and trade (this business-centric district has been hit hard by Trump tariffs) but if she wins, she’ll need to get those affluent suburbs to really show up. Any less than that, and she’ll lose to Rossi’s powerful name recognition.
Live in one of these districts? Want to see your candidate win? Then you’ve got to vote. Visit votingabsentee.org to find out how to vote absentee, and rockthevote.org to find out how to register to vote (because in some states it’s not too late!)
Joshua Rush is an actor on Disney Channel’s “Andi Mack,” and a teenager who has been obsessed with politics for years. He hosts “News in a Rush,” a one-minute social media newsflash on Instagram (link) weekly, and a weekly essay series called “Late Friday Night” on Tumblr.
Request corrections to Late Friday Night by sending a Tumblr ask to @newsinarush. (link)
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