2026-election

A New Candidate, Crosswell’s Pile of Money, and Bob “Crooksy” Brooks’ Shady Finances Highlight the PA-7 Race

/ Rich Wilkins / Leave a comment
Crosswell raising a pile of money in a DC Bar.

It’s 2026 now. The race for the Democratic nomination to face Ryan Mackenzie will begin to heat up now, and it appears to be expanding. According to Bernie O’Hare, we have two new candidates in the race- Independent Michael Ramon Granados Jr. and Democrat Aiden Alexander Gonzales are entering the fray. Bernie writes of Gonzales:

Gonzalez already has a website that sticks to bread-and-butter issues like jobs, the economy, housing and healthcare. He supports the American Health Act, which places all US citizens in a single-payer system. He also wants to incentivize real estate development (can you say tax breaks) and make it more difficult for foreign buyers to purchase real estate. 

I don’t have word yet that he is running on David Hogg’s Super Pac’s slate, but that is a rumor. He is running on “Medicare for All,” a currently unfinanced plan to put all Americans on a single health care plan together. So that’s possible. As for Granados, the word is that he’s a Republican hatched Trojan horse to crack the Latino vote in the Lehigh Valley even more than it already is. That’s also just a rumor for now.

What’s more than a rumor is Republican Ryan Crosswell’s Q4 fundraising numbers- he reportedly raised $440k in the fourth quarter. That will put him at $1.1 million plus raised to date, an impressive number. Crosswell had been spending almost 40% of his money though, so figure he spent around $160,000 in Q4 and should have around $610k on hand after this. That’s going to be the most money in the field. Is that enough to protect him from Crooksy’s oncoming attacks on Crosswell for being from out of the area and being a Republican? Maybe. Maybe not. Crosswell might be a Republican, a union buster, and- oh just forget it.

Then there’s Bob “Crooksy” Brooks. I have no idea what he raised yet, but he’s going to be substantially behind Crosswell in cash on hand is my bet. Bob’s not very good with money, especially other people’s money. He may not be very good with his own either. Bernie O’Hare reports on his very shady financial disclosure report, and boy, it fits the pattern-

Robert Brooks. –  reports assets and unearned income of at least $963,000. This includes a residential rental property valued at between $250,000 and $500,000 and the stocks in multiple mutual funds.  He reports salaries of $20,000 from Bethlehem and $50,000 from the Pa Professional Firefighter’s Ass’n, as well as business income of $15,000 from his lawn care business. 

He reports debt of between $380,000 and $850,000 based on a residential mortgage, an investment property mortgage, and outstanding debt to Darrell and Linda Crook. He failed to list a $130,000 judgment owed to Carol Wiley, his former mother-in-law, since 2022. 

A title search of Northampton County records reveal that Brooks owns no real estate under his own name, nor is there any recorded mortgage in which he is listed. 

Something is very fishy about Brooks’ disclosure.

Ok, so the guy who stiffed his mother-in-law out of $55,000 owns no real estate and has no mortgage, but he reports both a mortgage and a residential rental property in his report. He also doesn’t list the court ordered debt that he still hasn’t paid back to his former mother-in-law, but you know, that’s just a divorce gone bad, right? There’s always an excuse…

This guy is a ticking time bomb. If Democrats nominate him, Mackenzie and the NRCC will crack his entire life open and leave all of the worst parts out in the open for the public to see, with tens of millions of dollars of spending to make sure you see them. This would be an epic “own goal” of political malpractice.

The race continues…

Socialism Failed. Why Do Some Keep Bringing It Up?

/ Rich Wilkins / Leave a comment

We just passed the 34th anniversary of one of the greatest days in the post-World War II world- the death of the Soviet Union. A bunch of hyper-ambitious morons decided to create a government on a theory and a myth, and ended up creating a failed shit hole of a state, an authoritarian, corrupt, awful nightmare of a state. As with most Socialist nations in our world, it turned into a cult of personality towards it’s leaders, complete with rampant corruption and “black markets,” poverty, and all kinds of human rights violations. The world is better off for not having the Soviet Union around today, whatever you think of the governments in the republics that replaced it.

Sure, there are Russians and others from the old empire that miss the power they had at that time. Even so, they’re not desperate to return to the system of government they had. Meanwhile, socialism has failed pretty much everywhere else- North Korea is a hellhole, China basically abandoned the system, Cuba is on the verge of collapse, Venezuela has literal pirates off their coast, Yugoslavia collapsed into a state of war and ethnic cleansing, the rest of Eastern Europe threw out their dictators, East Germany had to build a wall to keep people from leaving, and Bolivia’s economy is now in ruins. Socialism just doesn’t work anywhere. Even countries that didn’t end up in violent chaos ended up turning away from the failed system.

So why do progressives in the Western World, who are actually just old European Social Democrats (a very generous government “safety net.”) want to brand themselves as far leftist nuts? To be clear, Bernie Sanders, AOC, Graham Platner, Bob Brooks, and others are not calling for the government to “seize the means of production.” They don’t want a “First National Energy Company,” and even their “Medicare for All” is just covering everyone under Medicare- which is generally administered by private companies. Why are they associating the policies of a full social safety net with a failed economic and political system that allowed Joseph Stalin to kill millions and millions of his own people? How is this good politics?

Americans are generally smart enough to know that these people are idiots, which is why they don’t win elections outside of comfortably Democratic jurisdictions where primaries decide the winners. It’s one thing to want a generous Social Security program or a higher minimum wage, it’s another altogether to brand yourself a part of a murderous, failed political system. Somehow, a lot of Democrats want to turn to these people to turn their 2024 fate around. It’s a foolish strategy.

Crooksy’s Crooked Poll

/ Rich Wilkins / Leave a comment

You knew this was coming. Crooksy’s allies released polling, and well, it was garbage. Change Research did the poll entirely online, and juiced it up as far as they could for Crooksy. It was much lower quality than earlier polling that showed Crooksy going nowhere. This garbage push poll omits Mark Pinsley, the race’s real far left-winger altogether, puts Crooksy first in their order, and waters down the other candidates bios about as far as they could. It’s almost like they wanted a result that matched their narrative?

Here’s what Crooksy’s poll said about each candidate:

Bob Brooks was a Bethlehem firefighter for twenty years and is the current president of the Pennsylvania Firefighters Association. As a former dishwasher, bartender, warehouse worker, and now a voice for Pennsylvania’s firefighters, Bob Brooks knows what it takes to fight for working people concerned about rising costs. He wants to make the rich pay their fair share of taxes and tackle rising prices. His broad appeal has won him the endorsement of Governor Josh Shapiro and Bernie Sanders. 

Ryan Crosswell is the son of a special education teacher and small business owner who became a Marine and federal prosecutor. At the Justice Department’s public integrity unit, he investigated corruption in government and had a long track record of prosecutions. When Donal Trump became president, he resigned on principle. He is running for Congress to be a voice in Washington for Pennsylvania families. 

Carol Orbando-Derstine was born in Columbia and immigrated to the US when she was three. After graduating from Penn State, she worked in a Head Start program and became the executive director of two Lehigh Valley non profits. She also worked as a regional manager for U.S. Senator Bob Casey. As the first Latina running in the 7th Congressional District, Carol understands local families’ challenges, and she has the experience to deliver real solutions. 

Lamont McClure is a lawyer and longtime member of the Northampton County Council. He is the current Northampton County Executive and is known for his work to protect workers and address the fentanyl crisis. McClure stopped the sale of the county’s nursing home to a for-profit company and prevented warehouses from destroying hundreds of acres of open space. He has won praise for improving county services.

Now, here’s what the PPP Poll back in the Summer said about all five candidates:

  1. Carol Obando-Derstine, is an engineer who has dedicated her life to her community. Immigrating from Colombia at three, she overcame financial and language barriers and now holds two master’s degrees. She worked in a Head Start program and became executive director of SkillsUSA Council and the Children’s Coalition of the Lehigh Valley and has taught at Northampton Community College. Carol spent nearly a decade working on energy issues at PPL Electric Utilities helping people and companies lower their utility bills. Do you find this a very convincing, somewhat convincing, or not a convincing reason to vote for Carol Obando-Derstine?
  2. Here’s the next one: Ryan Crosswell  is the proud son of a special education teacher and small business owner. After 9/11 he joined the United States Marine Corps, and he still serves as a Lt. Col. in the Marine Corps Reserve. After the Marines, Ryan became a federal prosecutor, serving in the U.S. Attorney’s Office in Baton Rouge, San Diego, and Washington, D.C., prosecuting fraudsters, violent criminals, and drug traffickers. Most recently, Ryan served in the Department of Justice’s Public Integrity Section but resigned rather than following politically motivated orders. Do you find this a very convincing, somewhat convincing, or not a convincing reason to vote for Ryan Crosswell?
  3. Here’s the next one: Mark Pinsley is the Lehigh County Controller and a local small business owner. He put himself through college by enlisting in the Army Reserves and working for his grandfather’s business, then raised money to start his own company after graduation. Prior to becoming Controller, he served as a South Whitehall Township Commissioner. As Lehigh County Controller, he has investigated Children and Youth Services to help parents who had their kids taken away without cause, and he has saved the county millions in healthcare spending. Do you find this a very convincing, somewhat convincing, or not a convincing reason to vote for Mark Pinsley?
  4. Here’s the next one: Lamont McClure is the current County Executive in Northampton County and is endorsed by many labor unions. Raised in Carbon County, McClure earned his law degree and fought in court to hold large corporations accountable, including working on behalf of former steelworkers who were poisoned by asbestos for 17 years and getting opioid manufacturers to pay for the damage they caused. As county executive, he led the effort to get 25 million for small businesses in the county to help them survive during the pandemic, he fought for working people, passed seven budgets without a tax increase and cutting property taxes, protected Gracedale nursing home from being sold to a for-profit corporation which would put our seniors at risk, and preserved over 3,800 acres of farmland.  Do you find this a very convincing, somewhat convincing, or not a convincing reason to vote for Lamont McClure?
  5. Here’s the next one: Bob Brooks is president of the Pennsylvania Professional Fire Fighters Association and a small business owner. He served more than 20 years as a firefighter and EMT for the city of Bethlehem before retiring in March. He has taken on many public safety leadership positions locally and statewide, including on Gov. Josh Shapiro’s transition committee on emergency management as a member of the Pennsylvania State Fire Advisory Board. He has coached many levels of baseball in the community, most recently at Nazareth Area High School.

So, I’m going to give you a bit of truth- removing Pinsley really makes this new poll absolute garbage. Mark isn’t dropping out, he has told the minions from Harrisburg as much. He’s also the candidate who would represent the biggest challenge to the Bernie Sanders endorsement of Crooksy. I guess if you removed that guy, put Crooksy first, give him the only bio even close to what any of them are going to say about themselves, and put the initial front-runner last, while leading off by calling him a lawyer and a politician, sure, maybe Crooksy does well. But if you’re going to do that, why not lead by calling Crooksy a deadbeat and Crosswell a Republican. About the only common ground in the two polls is Carol’s bio being similar, and she polls decently well in both.

Look, I think it’s fairly obvious that Crooksy’s team had this poll done, and McClure’s team was behind the first one. It doesn’t take a rocket scientist to figure either out. Neither really tested negatives on each other, and this poll doesn’t include anything about negatives on Crosswell. At least the PPP Poll didn’t try to put McClure first and dumb down anybody’s bio though. This poll isn’t worth the paper it’s printed on.

None of this really matters, because even the best message still relies on money. You have to have enough money to tell someone your story before you even can hope they’ll believe it. You also have to hope no one else has enough money to tell people the down side of your story. In other words, will anyone have the money to tell the story I’ve told you about Crooksy? If the answer is no, then all of this is irrelevant. I guess you know my view of the guy, and again, if no one puts the money behind that, what does that matter? If McClure can cobble together a half-million dollars to tell his good bio, sure, I still think he wins this. That is, unless someone else has a 4:1 spending advantage on him. So basically, what I’m telling you is, unless independent expenditures and super pacs come into this primary, I doubt anyone actually spends enough money on their own to move this race.

Crooksy’s Hero Bernie to Kids With Cancer- Go To Hell!

/ Rich Wilkins / Leave a comment

There are useless people, and there’s Bernie Sanders. This man has single-handedly turned me from a liberal Obama supporter into a very certain left-of-center moderate that despises the DSA as much as MAGA. How? Well, our latest installment is Bernie killing a bill to fight pediatric cancer:

Pediatric cancer advocates scrambled to get to the Senate to watch the moment. Reporters who had covered the issue, including this one, were given the heads-up about its imminent passage. At least three kids who are bereaved siblings of cancer victims and one pediatric cancer survivor sat in the Senate gallery.

And then, it failed. A single senator stood in the way. It was Bernie Sanders.

In a dramatic, heated exchange on the Senate floor—caught by the C-SPAN cameras but largely missed by the news-consuming public—Sanders announcedhis opposition to quick passage for the bill. He did so not because he disagreed with its objective—which is to give the FDA the authority to push pharmaceutical companies to study combination drug therapies—but because he worried that extraneous provisions attached to it would make it harder to achieve other priorities. He argued that the Senate ought to be passing similarly important, bipartisan-supported health care measures along with it. His staff insisted to me that they would revisit the bill soon, and they seemed confident it would all get done in the new year.

I mean look, I say a lot of mean things about far lefties, and some of them are probably a bit hyperbolic. Not in this case. This ass hole literally killed a bill to help kids with cancer because the bill didn’t deal with other things he wants done. Like, really. Kids with cancer dude? The week before Christmas, he killed a bill to help kids with cancer. I knew he was a piece of shit before, but this is the kind of low that I did not think was possible.

We often have the argument over which side is worse. Both sides in politics claim the high ground. I think we are reaching the point where both parties literally have extremists so far out on the horseshoe that they’re just both assholes who need to go home. Bernie isn’t the only person who has played football with this bill, amazingly. Take his right-wing mirror, Rand Paul, for example:

The bill was on the doorstep of passage through the Republican-controlled House when Elon Musk suddenly decided to take it upon himself to kill it. In a series of caustic tweets, he called for GOP lawmakers to scrap every element of the legislation that wasn’t a simple continuation of the current government policy. The health care components that had been negotiated were scrapped.

And then, for a brief moment, they looked like they might be revived.

In the hours after Congress passed that pared-down December 2024 funding bill, lawmakers revisited three pediatric cancer provisions. One of them, which would provide money for pediatric cancer research, passed the Senate with unanimous consent. The Give Kids a Chance Act failed. This time it was Sen. Rand Paul (R-Ky.) who objected.

Ok, so the socialist left-wing nut and the libertarian right-wing nut have taken turns blocking care for kids with cancer. Shocking? Not at all. What is this a fight over, you ask? What could possibly cause these two men to take turns sticking it to children with cancer? Trust me, it’s as dumb as you can imagine.

For example, Rand Paul had come around to support a unanimous consent request on the Give Kids a Chance Act in part because lawmakers had added to it a provision he wanted: one that would give the FDA authority to share information about innovator (i.e., brand-name) drugs to prospective applicants. That specific provision is projected to save roughly $1.2 billion over the ten-year budgetary window (according to Hill aides), which would go into a Medicare account. Why does that matter, you ask? Because Sanders wanted the savings to be used to fund community health centers instead. And once money goes into Medicare, it’s hard to take it out for use elsewhere. No politician wants to be attacked for raiding a social safety net program.

That was just one problem that Sanders had with the bill. He also wanted all of the provisions that Musk scrapped back in December 2024 to be passed as well, not just the Give Kids a Chance Act. Among them: mandatory funding for the national health service corps and mandatory funding for the teaching health center program. Were they not important, too, he asked on the Senate floor.

“We must revive that bipartisan agreement that was worked on month after month after month by Democrats and Republicans,” Sanders said.

Efforts were made to try and push through. Sen. Bill Cassidy, who took over the chairmanship of the Senate Health, Education, Labor, and Pensions Committee from Sanders in 2025, tried holding out carrots, making what appeared to be a commitment to his colleague to help get community health care funding passed. Sen. Markwayne Mullin, a major proponent of the Give Kids a Chance Act, tried wielding a stick instead.

“He is literally killing kids in front of us because of his political movement,” he said of Sanders on the Senate floor. “It is ridiculous.”

Jesus f’ing Christ, Markwayne Mullin sounds like the f***ing adult in the room here! Does anyone know how ridiculous that is? Markwayne Mullin. From Oklahoma. The sane adult in the room. Are you for real?!?

Look, one can and should argue that this is Chuck Schumer and 8 Democrats who voted to reopen the government’s fault- they didn’t take easy victories like this and put it in their demands to vote to end the shutdown, let alone the health care subsidies for millions of Americans. Even so, this is not a bill that really should need to be in a negotiation. It’s not like money going into the Medicare fund is a bad thing, especially for the socialist that says he wants to put literally everyone on Medicare. But fine. This bill may be incremental progress on health care, but it’s progress no less, and lawmakers should vote for progress for their constituents any time they have a chance to. Moving legislation is hard.

Lawmakers like Bernie Sanders make it harder, doing stupid stunts like this on bills that no one wants them to fight over. There’s a reason this guy hasn’t passed very many bills in his 30 plus years in Congress. He’s the last person you should take advice from on who to elect to Congress to make American life better.

Just a reminder that Bernie Sanders endorsed Bob “Crooksy” Brooks for Pennsylvania’s 7th Congressional District on the day Bob announced. Yes, that Bob Brooks. And that Bob Brooks. And that Bob Brooks. Yep, still that Bob Brooks. He also supported Graham Platner in Maine, the guy who rocked a Nazi tattoo for a decade. He also helped give us lying grifter and Director of National Intelligence Tulsi Gabbard with his praise, and the guy who killed ACA subsidies for millions, John Fetterman as our Senator.

Can’t Bernie go home and knit or something and stop hurting America?

The Governor’s Endorsement of Crooksy is all About 2028 Politics

/ Rich Wilkins / 1 Comment
Josh Shapiro endorsed Bob “Crooksy” Brooks for Congress yesterday. The comments on the article’s Facebook page were brutal. I announced this a while back, I guess the Governor just wanted to put it out there at a time of year when less people were paying attention. I wonder why, why, why, why, why, and why he would want to do that?

If Bob Brooks is the nominee of the Democratic Party in PA-7, Republicans will swamp him with negative ads defining him as a deadbeat who took money from his mother-in-law and expresses racist beliefs on social media. In any normal time, I’d say that’s disqualifying, but there are a lot of people who would vote for O.J. Simpson if he ran on their party’s ticket right now. Even so, Crooksy is really the only candidate with a strong general election negative to run against, and Republicans are open that they feel most confident they can beat him. They’ll use his personal baggage, his endorsement from Bernie Sanders and other radical left wingers, and even negatives from his career that they have waiting to use. Democrats can’t afford that. Ryan Crosswell is completely unacceptable, but probably can win a general election, if you’re willing to vote for a Republican. There are three Democrats actually from the Lehigh Valley who are Democrats running in this race. We never needed the DCCC to mess this race up with this guy, but sure enough, it happened.

There’s absolutely no evidence that Crooksy brings anything to the table as a candidate, but that’s not what this is about. He raised $300k last quarter? So did like everyone across the river in NJ-7. Any candidate that gets nominated will raise plenty in the general election, and have PACs you’ve never heard of spending on their behalf. All that any of these folks endorsing him cares about is, he is the President of the IAFF’s Pennsylvania organization and the IAFF is really damn good at politics. When the IAFF backs a candidate for President, that candidate usually wins the Democratic nomination, at a minimum. The Governor wants the IAFF to support him in future campaigns, such as for Governor in 2026 and for President in 2028, and let’s be honest, one is more critical right now than the other. It’s very clear this is why this endorsement is happening, and anyone saying otherwise is a liar. Let’s be honest here, otherwise there’s no other reason to step into a competitive primary. Months ago, everyone claimed they would stay out. Plenty of people have appealed to the Governor directly and his insiders, pleading with them to not endorse this guy. None of that mattered, because this isn’t about this race. It’s about 2028.

I know this is an inconvenient truth to publish, but it’s a truth nonetheless. If I was worried about backlash for saying it, I wouldn’t have started in on Crooksy. I knew this from the start and made the decision on my own to write it. I’ve brought the receipts since day one. Frankly, I haven’t wrote the worst stuff, and probably won’t. Unions and elected officials are being pressured from the good ole’ boys club in Harrisburg to fall in line, to crush a primary here. I’m not invested enough in anyone’s success to play that game.

Jasmine Crockett, Voter Persuasion, and Reality

/ Rich Wilkins / Leave a comment

I’m under no illusions- I do not think any Democratic candidate can win the state of Texas for Senator or Governor in 2026, and probably not in 2030 either. Texas is a red state, more red than the nation as a whole, because Texas Republicans have been more competitive with Latino voters than their national party has been overall. Yes, Democrats could very well do better in 2026 because of actions Trump has decided to take, but what does that mean? Kamala Harris lost the state by nearly 14%. Joe Biden lost it by 5.5%. Hillary Clinton lost it by 9%. So I guess we’re just debating how bad the loss will be. Beto got kind of, sort of close in 2018 against Ted Cruz, but still lost by a margin well beyond a recount. I’m giving you the reality up front- Texas is red, and it’s not going to change very soon.

I have no strong opinion about Jasmine Crockett as a candidate. She will raise money and motivate the Democratic base, probably more impressively than her primary opponent, James Talarico. Does it really matter though? One may argue that she’ll maximize turnout and therefore be closer. Another might say a Democrat can’t possibly win Texas without persuading some Republicans, and Talarico may be better to do that. In the end, I think they both lose. You would need to be prime Bill Clinton to even have a chance to do both strategies at once, and even then you probably lose Texas.

So I’m not losing sleep over Jasmine Crockett supposedly saying something about persuading Trump voters. To be clear, she said the following:

Q: How will you win over Trump supporters? Crockett: “I don’t know that we’ll necessarily convert all of Trump’s supporters. That’s not our goal.” Q: “Do you need to?” Crockett: “No, we don’t. We don’t need to.”

Let’s start by saying she’s factually correct. You don’t need to convince all of the other side in almost any election. Most Republicans are going to vote Republican. She doesn’t need them all. All true. Now, she was asked how she is going to win them over though, and she did dodge that question. She also doesn’t really need an answer in December of 2025. The election is 11 months away. She may be running against a very corrupt Ken Paxton. She also may not. There’s a lot of variables here.

The problem with Crockett’s answer is that largely after 2012 the Democratic position became to not do persuasion, and to instead focus on base turnout. That worked fine for President Obama, but he still did persuasion. The electorate has grown considerably since 2012, and the truth is that the lowest propensity voters don’t vote Democratic anymore, or at least it’s a lot more murky than it used to be (Biden’s super high 2020 number confuses things, but he was a persuader). Trump’s share of the vote grew with each election he ran. I think what a lot of people want to hear is that a candidate is thinking about why the Clinton or Harris campaigns didn’t work, and is going to try something different, and well, she didn’t say that. “Demographics are destiny” was an entirely failed approach, and we have to get back in the game of winning the hearts and minds of the impressionable voters out there. Ignoring them is a losing strategy.

Voter persuasion is expensive and hard. Yes, racial and gender bias can make the road even harder. It’s not impossible to do, it just probably requires a lot of luck in this case that is probably not going to happen. Math is math. For a state like Texas to flip, there has to be some societal level movement against the Republican Party, and I know you want to believe that’s going to happen, but it’s probably not. America is simply not offended enough by him to become a clearly center-left to liberal nation like it was before the 1960’s. They simply don’t like Democrats enough, when push comes to shove in an actual election. Some argue we need to move left, or pick more white guy candidates to fix that, but those things are not going to work. Republicans hate white Democrats plenty, and you’ll lose some of your base chasing them.

Look, what I’m saying is that people are going to get up in their feels about this primary. They shouldn’t. If Democrats have a chance at Texas, they’re probably already spending heavily in Ohio and Iowa, maybe even Florida, and just won’t have the resources to go into Texas. If we win this race, it won’t be because of which candidate wins the primary. At that point, it’s an act of God.

The Democrats Who Need to be Defeated in 2026

/ Rich Wilkins / Leave a comment

Donald Trump has destroyed Washington. He has harmed our government permanently and left his successor a mess to clean up. Eventually some alternative is going to have to put functional government back together. That someone is probably the Democratic Party. The Democrats are at a crossroads- do they want to be a leftist party or a center-left/social liberal party. It’s very simple and very straight forward. For me, becoming a party that plays footsie with socialism, embraces isolationism, abandons Civil Rights, embraces guns, opposes the existence of Israel, opposes defending our allies in Europe, throws Obamacare away, and flirts with extremists, whether they have Nazi tattoos or embrace “the Intifada,” is a hard no. Our voters have rejected Bernie Sanders soundly at the ballot box twice. His politics should not be the future of our party, unless we want to never win elections again. Sure, there are some shared, common goals and aims. I embrace Democrats who actually have got things done.

For that reason, I have put together a list of Democrats who need to be defeated in 2026. Some are bad because of ideology, others because they are personally reprehensible, and in a few cases both. I did not put every “progressive” candidate in the country on the list, and that’s for a reason- they are not all bad. I oppose grifters, deadbeats, crackpots, and generally offensive people. Some of them are even moderates. These are generally people I have no interest I supporting in 2026.

  1. Graham Platner- Maine Senate- The Nazi tattoo guy from Maine, I’ve written about him a bit here and here. And more here. This guy is an embarrassment, and yet some folks defend him, because vibes or something. Whether you want to talk about his racism and homophobic slurs on the internet, or his Nazi tattoo, we don’t need to nominate this complete novice, who is paying his wife on his campaign. He’s a nightmare candidate in the making.
  2. Katie Porter- California Governor- I never liked the whole “whiteboard” shtick, and neither did 2024 California Primary voters. That was before she started making a fool of herself in interviews with the press. There are a lot of good candidates for Governor in California. She’s not one of them.
  3. Saikat Chakrabarti- CA-11- Look, just read this. Sure, it was before Nancy Pelosi retired, but nothing about him has changed. He founded the Justice Democrats. He worked for AOC. He wants to remove Hakeem Jeffries as leader. He basically is running against the Democratic Party.
  4. Brad Lander- NY-10- The outgoing New York City Comptroller is primarying Daniel Goldman in NY-10, because getting his ass kicked in the New York City Mayoral primary wasn’t enough for him. He’s attacking Goldman on AIPAC, and raising a lot of money, and… I guess, because he’s not pro-Mamdani? Basically he thinks Lower Manhattan and part of Brooklyn will hate Goldman because he’s not “outspoken” enough? I’m not sure. Goldman was pretty outspoken as the Majority Counsel for Trump’s first impeachment hearings, but Lander would like you to believe him getting arrested at protests is real action. This is maybe the dumbest primary in the country.
  5. Bob “Crooksy” Brooks- PA-7- I’ve wrote about this guy too much. Read this. And this. And this. And this. And this. And this. And this. Look, you can’t trust this guy, and that’s a major hurdle for anyone to get over. He’s another John Fetterman. Right down to the hoodie.
  6. Abdul El-Sayed- MI Senate- All you need to really know about this guy is that he had to apologize for a fundraising email he sent out on October 7th. Yes, he’s that antisemitic. He also had to scrub his social media posts for talking about “Defund the Police” and other looney tunes things. He’s been called the “bro whisperer.” Honestly, how does anybody think this guy can win a general election in Michigan? He’s endorsed by Rashida Tlaib.
  7. Kat Abughazaleh- IL-9- Kat began her race as a barely eligible upstart challenger. Today she’s still running, against a very progressive opponent, and trying to shoot out to his left flank. Her campaign is largely about defunding Israel, but also touches on some other pet projects of leftists. She was indicted recently for a showdown with ICE, which can be commendable, but isn’t really part of the job of a Congressman. She’s also an advocate for the “Green New Deal,” a cool slogan that ended up kind of being slop legislation. She’s just not a serious person. Daniel Biss is endorsed by Elizabeth Warren of all people, and well, he’s a serious person.
  8. Chi Osse- NY-8- I guess I can take him off of this list, but it’s still worth noting the guy said he voted for Bernie Sanders in 2016, but actually didn’t vote. I’ll leave him on, in case someone encourages him to change his mind.
  9. Ryan Crosswell- PA-7- Again, I’ve wrote about this guy too much. Read this. And this. And this. And this. And this. Look, the guy has no ties to the Lehigh Valley, even for work, and will be gone if he loses this race, like Dr. Oz. He’s a lifelong Republican, re-registering as a Republican in several states, and voting in Trump primaries. His story about quitting the DOJ because Trump dropped the Eric Adams case, and being so enraged that he had to run for Congress, is just false. He bought his websites a while before that. This whole campaign is based on fraudulent storytelling. The guy worked at a damn union busting law firm.
  10. Cameron Kasky- NY-12- At all of 25, Kasky knows it all. He’s going to end ICE. And Israel, I guess. As he puts it, “you can’t be a tame politician” right now. He basically wants to go to Capitol Hill to be a protestor. There’s no serious substance here, just a wishlist.
  11. Cori Bush- MO-1- The former Congresswoman was kicked out last cycle in her primary, and just won’t go away. She’s for “defund the police,” but gets caught being hypocritical by the GOP. She slammed other Democrats over Gaza. She spent her time in Congress attacking her fellow Democrats, rather than Republicans. It’s utterly stupid to do that.
  12. Henry Cuellar- TX-28- Trump pardoned him for corruption. His colleagues don’t even like him. By the way, accepting a pardon is an admission of guilt, legally. No thanks.
  13. Abbas Alawieh-MI State Senate 2- He founded the “Uncommitted” Vote last year, which has only lead to more Palestinians dying under Trump. What a gigantic mistake.

I will continue to add to this list and update as more happens.

Are You Talkin’ to Me? The Good Ole’ Boys and Girls in Harrisburg Don’t Want the Voters to Choose in PA-7

/ Rich Wilkins / Leave a comment

Last week I met Crooksy in the flesh. I have before, but I know I was not as interested in it then. His campaign manager walked up with him at an event, outside of the actual event, and said to him “this is Rich Wilkins, the guy who writes mean things about you.” You know what, that’s sort of accurate (I write accurate things about him), and it’s actually pretty funny. I said “how do you do,” and moved along. It was cold, but cordial. That’s really all it needed to be. I have said the guy would be inappropriate as a nominee, let alone a Congressman. I stand by that.

Later on in the event, a labor “personality” from a union that backs Crooksy decided to let me know they were unhappy with my coverage of their endorsement. After questioning why I didn’t ask them first if I was right (someone involved told me, why would I?) quite aggressively, I asked a pretty straight forward question- was what I wrote wrong? Their answer- “it didn’t go down the way you wrote it.” I don’t know, if I was going to confront someone like that, I’d probably be able to just say “yes, you were wrong” when asked that. Hey though, I guess sometimes the truth is a problem for some.

Look, I have the least skin in the game of anyone in this whole shenanigan- I don’t work for anyone involved in the race. I’m not going to work for anyone in the race. While I have a preference in the race, there are several candidates I could accept if they won. It has been said to friends of mine that I’m “harming my ability to work” by being so vocal about Crooksy. Huh? I haven’t worked for an actual candidate since before my health scare, almost two years, and I’m not really trying to. I charged my last candidate gas money basically for a couple months of work, because I grew up looking up to them and just wanted to help them through. These people want to blacklist me from a job I don’t want or have? Allegedly I won’t be able to work anymore judicial races, at least at the state level. You wouldn’t believe how badly that has me torn up, I might not be able to go on here (I shouldn’t have to tell you to read that with sarcasm, but yeah.). I didn’t have people attempting to blacklist me from work I don’t do on my 2025 bingo card, but I think this is supposed to scare me or something. Listen, I was almost dead once, you’re going to have to do better than that to scare me now. At least threaten to kneecap my good leg or something, I might blink. I’ve never really socialized with my co-workers much, the ones I am friends with know we’re friends. The rest? Honestly, maybe we’re acquaintances. I find myself more and more at odds with the world a lot of these people are trying to build. My attachment level is pretty low at this point.

These folks are hellbent to make sure people don’t have choices in this primary and don’t hear information about the people they want to thrust onto the voters. They had emissaries up here trying to clear the field and rally support. It didn’t work. They think if voters hear about the candidates, they won’t pick their guy. They’re probably right. What I don’t think they want to realize is, the 9-1-1 calls are coming from inside of their own house. Most of what I write is coming from people they tell it to. You think I found this stuff on my own? I dug up social media posts? I mean, this stuff is fair game, but it was given to me. It came from multiple sources. There’s more of it not yet written. The stuff I knew about the guy is stuff that quite frankly I can’t write, it lacks sources willing to talk about it. At least right now. Look, the total readership of this blog isn’t going to move this primary. I mostly put it out hoping the right reader will see it. I have no grand illusions here. If you want to spend all day mad about it, go right on ahead.

I don’t think I’ll be asking the good ole’ boys and girls out on the Susquehanna for a green light on anything. I mean, God bless, but they just don’t really matter to me. If they did, I’d be writing about them. God knows normal people would cringe if they read that kind of stuff.

LOL, Graham Platner. Please Go Away.

/ Rich Wilkins / 2 Comments

It wasn’t bad enough that he had a Nazi tattoo. Or that he posted horrific stuff on the internet. Or that his campaign pays his wife. No. To quote Tom Petty, he won’t back down. He’s still running.

Now we find out that he probably had a few girlfriends at a time until fairly recently. Now look, I have friends who have been on both sides of these pages, and this can get touchy- I really don’t care if he ghosted someone, men and women do that all the time today- but that’s not all it looks like here. The NRSC is practically just trolling the guy, because they can. They know that will drive some primary voters towards him, and they’d love to run against him, because the general electorate will hate this guy. It’s a joke that this guy is still running.

The damage is done at this point. There’s a portion of Democrats who won’t vote for this guy, especially once they’re reminded about him, and he can’t overcome that. Unfortunately, thanks to Comrade Bernie, there are movement leftists dug in to only vote for this guy now, so we’ll probably lose either way. His team will get paid though. I guess somebody wins here. Just not America.

Crooksy’s Hired Nerds Will Save Us, Right?

/ Rich Wilkins / 1 Comment

They gave you an underperforming antisemite. They gave you Senator Shrek. Now you should trust that they are ready to deliver you a House Majority. Just check out their puff article.

After successfully propelling Zohran Mamdani to the mayor’s office in New York City, the campaign firm Fight Agency is moving on to its next targets – defeating Pennsylvania Reps. Ryan Mackenzie (R-07) and Rob Bresnahan (R-08).

The six-person firm consists of Rebecca Katz, Tommy McDonald, Julian Mulvey, Morris Katz, Eric Stern, and Lynnette Jackson. Fight Agency’s website reads that it has assisted over 300 winning elections in 40 states and has won over 100 awards, including 2022 Campaign of the Year.

Katz was the lead strategist for Sen. John Fetterman’s winning campaign in 2022, while McDonald was his key admaker. Mulvey was a key member of Sen. Bernie Sanders’ (I-Vt.) braintrust, and Katz was the firm’s lead on the Mamdani campaign. 

Stern was deputy campaign manager for Fetterman, while Jackson heads operations.

The group’s website says that it is “looking to help American originals” who are “ready to fight the toughest battles in politics.”

“And we’re here to help you with sharp messaging and the next great iconic ad.  So, if you’re looking for something different, you might have just found it.”

So their new iconic original is a pro-gun militant, who hates Kaepernick for supporting BLM (as opposed to telling people to not vote in 2016), and stiffed his mother-in-law. An American original? I mean, you can find deadbeats all over the place right, like maybe Trump Tower? Or is this whatever day Northampton County has hearings for people who stiff their family? I’m unsure. Bob “Crooksy” Brooks is certainly unoriginal though. I’ve see plenty of people who aren’t even honest when it comes to their family.

Yes, these folks got Zohran elected in a gigantic blue city. Good job. Unless they’re going to flat out lie to people and get away with it like they did with John “Shrek” Fetterman, that doesn’t usually work though. Look, Mamdani will be the latest leftist who promised the world and under delivers. John Fetterman somehow went from a Bernie socialist to a Republican before he finished three years in the Senate. These same folks want you to think it’s okay to have a Nazi tattoo, so much so that you should be elected Senator in Maine. Yes, he’s really their guy. These folks brag about electing like 300 socialists, but they probably lost more Presidential primaries with just Bernie Sanders alone than Eugene Debs did in his career. Most Americans don’t want to be Democratic Socialists.

The movement they are selling is simply awful. It’s morally bankrupt. We have seen what their kind of candidates give us. They give us Trump’s National Intelligence Director, Tulsi Gabbard. They give us deadbeat Senator, Bernie Sanders. They give us completely con-artist Senators, like John Fetterman. That’s a road to the future version of MAGA. We don’t need this kind of garbage.