Tia Yang

blog.fiftyplusone.newsProgressives won a lot of primaries this year. Can they win in November?Our original dataset tracks Democratic endorsements across every congressional and gubernatorial race in the 2026 primaries.

Progressives’ big year in primaries, by the numbers: nearly 8 in 10 candidates backed by a major progressive group won their primaries, and more than 25 new progressives are favored to win seats in Congress next month 🧵Full analysis at @fiftyplusone.news blog.fiftyplusone.news/p/progressiv...

Mid-year fundraising snapshot: Progressive-backed nominees in competitive seats trailed their GOP opponents (many of them incumbents) by an average of $690,000. They'll be looking to raise a lot more or attract outside spending down the stretch.

Read the full analysis: blog.fiftyplusone.news/p/progressiv... and explore our complete Democratic primary endorsements dataset: github.com/FiftyPlusOne... GOP data coming soon too!

Progressives aren’t a monolith: 12 non-incumbents in our dataset were also backed by pro-Israel group J Street. Several races saw 2+ progressives run in different lanes. Some found broad coalitions, like Bob Brooks (PA) and Rebecca Cooke (WI), each endorsed by Sanders, the Blue Dogs, and the DCCC.

So, will they win in November? Unsurprisingly, half of progressive primary winners are in safely Democratic seats — those 18 are all but certain to win in November. 6 more are in likely-D seats, while 6 are running in more competitive lean or toss-up races.

Among progressive endorsers in congressional/governor primaries, AOC had the highest win rate, and the Working Families Party backed the most winning nominees. Overall, 38 of 68 non-incumbent endorsees won (56%). Plus, a third of those who lost fell to other progressive endorsees.

Latest at @fiftyplusone.news: We built a dataset tracking every primary endorsement from Trump, progressive groups, party committees, women’s groups, and pro-Israel groups. Halfway through the season, here's who's winning. 🧵 blog.fiftyplusone.news/p/primary-pr...

Pro-Israel groups: Candidates’ stances on Israel were a huge flashpoint in Democratic primaries. Groups like AIPAC and DMFI played offense and defense, spending big money to defend against progressive challengers and weigh in on crowded open races, with mixed results. 7/x

blog.fiftyplusone.newsWe tracked every candidate in the 2026 primaries. Here's who voters are nominating.Our original dataset tracks endorsements across every congressional and gubernatorial race to reveal how party leaders and ideological groups are faring.

Read the analysis here: blog.fiftyplusone.news/p/primary-pr... We'll be back with full recaps and data on all these groups at the end of the primary season! Stay tuned. 8/8

GOP Committees: The NRCC rebranded Young Guns as “MAGA Majority,” promising critical backing in swing districts to Trump-aligned candidates. The NRSC lost two incumbents (Cassidy and Cornyn) to Trump-backed challengers. Elsewhere, both endorsed in close alignment with Trump. 5/x

Women: Continuing the trends that @meredithconroy_ has been tracking for years, women make up nearly half of Democratic primary winners, but less than 2 in 10 among Republicans. In the most competitive districts, 54% of Dem nominees so far are women, vs 15% of GOP nominees. 6/x

Dem Committees: The DCCC got flak for high-profile losses in CA-22, ME-02, and AZ-01. These were actually their *only* endorsement losses so far. The DSCC hasn’t formally endorsed, but Schumer's 0 for 1 backing Janet Mills in Maine (Coming up, he's also backed Haley Stevens). 3/x

Trump: He’s continuing to endorse a ton of candidates. Even among non-incumbents in contested races, his endorsement record is 41 for 45, or 91%. Republicans are looking to the president, not party committees, for signals of who to rally behind. 4/x

Progressives: More than half in our dataset won their races, including some upsets of progressive-aligned incumbents in safe blue seats. More progressives have already *won* in the first half of this cycle than the number that ran last cycle. 2/x

Tia Yang reposted

FiftyPlusOne.news

@fiftyplusone.news

50+1 is very happy to publish this analysis of 2026 primary candidates from @meredithconroy.bsky.social @tsyang27.bsky.social & Cooper Burton, following the tradition of similar projects from FiveThirtyEight. What types of candidates are winning 2026 primaries? blog.fiftyplusone.news/p/primary-pr...

blog.fiftyplusone.newsHouse members keep losing their bids for higher officeThis year’s primary features an unusually high percentage of competitive House members running for other offices, and their track record is not very good

18 June

Latest in House exodus from @fiftyplusone.news: A record number of sitting House members are running for other offices — and losing in the primaries. Many chose to enter crowded primary fields, and a dozen have already failed to secure their party's nomination. open.substack.com/pub/fiftyplu...

Tia Yang reposted

FiftyPlusOne.news

@fiftyplusone.news

18 June

New: House members are losing their bids for higher office at a historically high rate. What's going on? We dive in, with data going back over 30 years. blog.fiftyplusone.news/p/house-memb...

Hello! I've been lurking on Bluesky for years but finally decided to make it official. Posts before this one are migrated from my X account, with varying levels of success.

Excited to carry on the Trump Score name with @VoteHub! I gathered Trump's positions on 282 floor votes in 2025 to calculate how often each member of Congress agreed with the president, and dug into what issues and dynamics have dominated floor action in Trump's second term. 🧵

votehub.comRepublicans in Congress voted in lockstep with Trump in 2025Analyzing floor votes in the U.S. House and Senate, this project examines how often lawmakers voted with or against President Trump’s stated positions in 2025, what kinds of issues dominated floor…

Check out the full analysis here! 7/ votehub.com/2026/02/04/r...

votehub.comIs Your Member of Congress Aligned With Trump?A record showing how frequently each member of the House and Senate voted in alignment with, or in opposition to, the president in 2025.

And dig into the data to see how your lawmaker voted in 2025 using the full interactive (by @lukewines and Lauren Kim) here: votehub.com/trump-score /8

On the other side of the aisle, the redder their district, the more likely Democrats were to vote with Trump. The median Democrat sided with him on just 10 percent of votes, but one (Cuellar) did so slightly more often than the most moderate Republican (Fitzpatrick) 5/

High party unity has increasingly been a norm and a necessity this era of slim majorities and high polarization. But the cracks are already starting to show in 2026, as lawmakers navigate Trump's controversial foreign policies, government funding, and electoral pressures. 6/

The Senate agenda was dominated by nominations, but most GOP defections came on legislation. Of 53 non-nomination votes in this analysis, 39 responded to executive action, like 3 votes to rebuke Trump's tariff policies that drew enough GOP support to pass the Senate. 3/

GOP alignment was similar in the House, where 182 of 219 Republicans backed Trump on every vote, as leadership worked overtime to keep intraparty squabbles (like on those tariff policies) off the floor. Every House vote in this study went Trump's way. 4/

In the Senate, all but 8 Republicans agreed with Trump 100% of the time. Paul, Murkowski, Collins, and McConnell broke most often from the President. Democrats were largely aligned against Trump, though Fetterman voted most often with him. 2/

27 Jan

In a new analysis for @VoteHub, @marywitha4 and I dug into county-level turnout in VA, PA, and NJ to explore off-year turnout trends, and how electorates changed after the 2016 election. (Spoiler: suburban voters love to vote.)

28 Jan

@msquared517 Hi Matt, thanks for reading! So that we could consistently compare turnout results to historical elections where complete turnout results by county are not available, turnout was calculated as the total votes for the ballot item(s) at the top of the ticket. (1/2)

28 Jan

@msquared517 In Pennsylvania, this was calculated as the total votes cast in the 3 Supreme Court retention elections, divided by 3. (2/2)

27 Jan

27 Jan

Check it out here: https://votehub.com/2026/01/27/off-year-turnout-hit-a-20-year-high-in-2025/ And thanks to @lukewines for helping bring these beautiful visuals to life!

5 Aug 2025

Things that were not on my bingo card today lol https://twitter.com/baseballot/status/1952837234891301218

15 May 2025

Reunited with my first chart love, the Congress scatterplot! Excited to share that I've been contributing to the Hunter Index, a nonprofit covering politicians' finances. Check out my data viz for our new series: https://huntrjay.substack.com/p/exclusive-how-politicians-wealth

5 Mar 2025

Along with the rest of my incredible colleagues at 538, I was laid off today. Everyone on this team taught me so much, and made me a better writer, editor, and coworker every day. I can't believe it's only been a year and a half, but it's been a great one.

19 Feb 2025

Do... Do Trump's employees have serial numbers? (Severance-coded) https://www.whitehouse.gov/remarks/2025/01/remarks-by-president-trump-at-executive-order-signing/ h/t @holly_fuong

3 Jan 2025

With full attendance and Massie voting against him, Johnson can only afford 1 GOP present vote. 2+ present = no majority. 5+ would give Jeffries the majority. In comparison, McCarthy won in 2023 with 6 GOP present votes, Pelosi in 2021 with 3 Dems present, 2 Dems against.

25 July 2024

In 538's latest, Mary Radcliffe and Cooper Burton took a deep dive into the polling, politics and pros and cons of some of the leading Harris VP candidates. Read the full story here! https://abcnews.go.com/538/8-potential-kamala-harris-vp-picks-bring-table/story?id=112280594

23 Apr 2024

Happy primary day, Pennsylvania! Polls close at 8pm Eastern, and the 538 election night live blog is up and running: https://abcnews.go.com/538/live-updates/pennsylvania-primaries-2024/?id=109523463

5 Apr 2024

This is certainly a new dynamic reflecting the majority's unprecedented fragility and how hardline conservatives may have overplayed their hand in this Congress. Read the full story here! https://abcnews.go.com/538/feels-government-shut/story?id=108891202

5 Apr 2024

We also heard a lot about Johnson relying on Democratic votes. That's not unprecedented (see Ryan, Boehner), but there WAS something unusual this year – it's the only annual funding bill in at least 25 years to violate the Hastert rule, with a majority of the majority opposing.

20 Mar 2024

It's primary night in Ohio and Illinois (and more!) -- our live blog is in full swing with live results and analysis. https://abcnews.go.com/538/live-updates/illinois-ohio-primaries-2024/?id=108246857

18 Mar 2024

Were your student loans forgiven under the Biden administration? @MonicaBPotts is looking for folks to interview for a story. Drop your info here: https://abcnews.go.com/538/student-loans-forgiven-hear/story?id=108063401

7 Mar 2024

Nikki Haley's campaign exposed cracks in Trump's GOP ... but could also help keep the party together. @meredithconroy_ tackled this, and what Haley's run has to tell us about women in politics. https://abcnews.go.com/538/haleys-campaign-exposed-cracks-trumps-gop/story?id=107876073

22 Feb 2024

A month after New Hampshire, Trump is poised to take another step toward the nomination in South Carolina on Saturday. @geoffreyvs's race preview digs into why Haley's home state looks like it's Trump's to lose. https://t.co/vuKYUXfyo6

9 Feb 2024

We rounded up recent polls on the news of the week to see what Americans think about extreme weather, Israel aid, the congressional border deal, the Super Bowl and Valentine's Day. Check out the latest #pollapalooza here: https://abcnews.go.com/538/americans-climate-change-love/story?id=107027932

2 Feb 2024

We took a look at the latest Senate (and presidential) campaign finance reports to see who's doing well, who's struggling and who might not be running at all. Check out the latest 538 politics chat here! https://abcnews.go.com/538/senate-candidates-winning-money-race/story?id=106898364

30 Jan 2024

Check out the full story (and data) from me and Cooper Burton here! https://trib.al/wItoTkM 6/6