Why wait? Pre-election post-election analysis

Happy Saturday, and Happy Halloween. Boo, etc. 

Thankfully the election will be over soon. 

It’s not entirely clear how much electoral carnage Trump’s catastrophic presidency will inflict on Republican candidates in Nevada and the nation Tuesday. But one thing is certain: Democrats will not have the 60 votes in the U.S. Senate to overcome a filibuster, let alone the 66 to override a presidential veto.

But at the very least they’ll have a majority in the House, and very possibly a simple majority in the Senate as well. 

There is an expectation, or assumption, that whether in control of one or both houses of Congress, Democrats are going to have to present a clear legislative agenda that directly hits home with voters who are getting pummeled by the affordability crisis.

Some congressional Democrats will try to provide such an agenda.

Which brings us to another thing that’s certain: Congressional Democratic centrists will “fight” (as they love to say) to thwart ambitious proposals and confine their party’s legislative agenda to the same industry-accommodating policies that have done so very much to get us where we are today.

Please indulge me while I share some passages from a column that was published on Christmas Eve, 2025, in which I was looking ahead at this election year.

…the Democratic campaign playbook in 2026 will be much the same as it’s been for the last decade: try not to offend anyone (including of course donors), play it safe, and let their Republican opponents sink under the weight of Trump’s endorsements.

In other words, Nevada Democrats, and many of their fellow Democrats running for Congress nationwide, might win an election about the economy in 2026 while saying nothing particularly significant about the economy except that Trump blew it. 

By letting the electorate’s dissatisfaction with Trump do their work for them, Democrats would yet again be absolving themselves of confronting a warped marketplace and K-shaped economy that, over decades and thanks in very large part to all that aforementioned bipartisanship, has grown more unapologetically harsh and unforgivingly predatory.

…Trump may sink Republican congressional candidates in Nevada yet again in 2026. But in addition to pointing at something obvious for voters to be against, Democrats have an opportunity, even an obligation, to articulate meaningful systemic change that voters can be for.

If past performance is any indication of future results, they’ll take a pass.

Two days before the 2026 election, I suggest that’s held up pretty well.

Over the roughly ten months since that column was published the intensity of the affordability crisis and the harms to working households’ well-being have only intensified. 

Wednesday will mark the official unofficial kickoff of Nevada Democratic U.S. Sen. Catherine Cortez Masto’s 2028 reelection campaign, which promises to be a magisterially funded celebration of Republican-adjacent incrementalism. 

There’s reason to believe, or hope, the rest of Nevada’s congressional Democrats, at least to a lesser or greater degree, will be more receptive to an ambitious policy agenda of the sort demanded by our enshittified times. Alas, there’s also ample reason to believe they won’t be, and that given the opportunity, once again, they’ll take a pass.

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Here is some of the news and commentary we published in the Current this week we wouldn’t want you to miss:

Jen — Voters urged to use drop boxes as recommended mail-in deadline passes and Microplastics found in freshly fallen snow in Sierra Nevada

Dana — Ponder ‘a prolific sexual predator’ says prosecutor as judge lowers bail and Clark County home price drop among biggest in nation, report says

April — Lawmakers mulling cannabis tax revisions

Michael — Democrats, Culinary call on Station Casinos to heed Supreme Court ruling, negotiate a contract

My column — So how malevolent will Trump get in Nevada this time?

Good luck