RationalWiki:What is going on with the elections?/2023
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This is an archive page, last updated 3 May 2024. Please do not make edits to this page.
December 2023[edit]
   | 12 |   Lauren Boebert runs for re-election in a different district that's much redder than the one she narrowly won in 2022. |
| 22 |  Maine’s top election official has removed Donald Trump from the state’s 2024 ballot. |
| 27 |  Wisconsin Supreme Court strikes down the state's gerrymandered legislative maps. |
| 6 |  Nikki Haley gets a polling surge in GOP's New Hampshire presidential primary. Update: Another poll also has her up in NH, this time just four points behind Trump. So there's your new challenger to throne; last one to get this close was DeSantis. |
| -23 |  Joe Manchin again flirts with running for President, denies he'd be a "spoiler" candidate. He plans to launch a speaking tour around the country. |
| 31 | Colorado Supreme Court rules that Donald Trump is ineligible to appear on the 2024 ballot. |
| 9 |  Conservative MP Peter Bone loses his seat after a successful recall petition by his constituents. Bone had previously been suspended from the Conservative Party and Parliament for 6 weeks after allegations of bullying and sexual misconduct. By-election to come early next year. |
| -3 |  Aleksandar Vučić wins the Serbian election, again. |
| 27 |  Chile rejects the Constitution written by the conservatives and the far right. |
| 21 | A national survey of Jewish voters found that while overall Jewish voters overwhelmingly support Biden, there is a marked age gap in support for Biden's unconditional support of the Israeli war effort among Jewish voters, with younger Jewish voters more likely to oppose Biden's actions and unconditional support than older voters. |
| 18 | RFK Jr. went on CNN to claim he's not anti-vax. They instantly played a clip of him saying there are no safe and effective vaccines. |
| 14 |  Casey DeSantis encourages non-Iowans who support her husband to come "descend upon the state of Iowa to be a part of the caucus". She now adds: she didn't mean illegal voting, but just showing "support". |
| 33 |  Liberal-Conservative Donald Tusk has been elected as Poland's new prime minister. |
| 14 | There will be no more RNC-approved GOP presidential primary debates for 2024. |
| 16 | Apparently no longer considering him a useful idiot, Fox News grills RFK Jr. about whether he was on Jeffrey Epstein's jet (apparently, he was). |
| 24 |  The "Guayana Esequiba" referendum seems to have backfired on Maduro due to very low voter turn-out indicating heavy disapproval (despite a 95% "Yes" vote which is believed to have been a rigged result) among the population. Guyana seems relieved at the moment with how unpopular it is. |
| 8 |  Doug Burgum dropped out of the 2024 Republican presidential primary. |
| 6 |  Alternative presidential candidates not allowed to appear on Florida Democrats' primary ballots. This is an especially bizarre move since Biden was at little current risk of losing the primary anyway. |
November 2023[edit]
| 17 | Biden's polling worsens further. The one with a trendline that looks better for him is from Rasmussen Reports... take that how you will. |
| 1 | Some Tories already seem to be thinking ahead of a prospective election loss in 2024 or 2025. Government minister Kemi Badenoch may end up as Rishi Sunak's successor in party leadership, as she's apparently a favorite of the Jordan Peterson-cofounded Alliance for Responsible Citizenship, whose conference she spoke at last month. Badenoch is favored by very-conservative activists as a successor to Sunak since she is viewed as more ideological — so much so that she was endorsed by Britain First last year. |
| 8 | The former British prime minister, the lettuce called Liz Truss has written an op-ed in the Wall Street Journal endorsing Trump for president in 2024. |
| 25 | In a great sign for Ron DeSantis's campaign, his top strategists are literally on the verge of fist fights with each other. |
| -18 |  Geert Wilders' PVV party has won the largest share of seats in the Dutch Parliament. |
| -8 | Netherlands votes for a new government & new prime minister. Based on the polls, the winner could be Conservative Liberal party VVD again (the new leader, Dilan Yeşilgöz-Zegerius, isn't ruling out working with PVV, despite stating that there are too many differences between them), Dutch Trump & his cronies, Frans Timmermans, former EU Commissioner for Climate Change, who leads the progressive coalition PVDA-GL, & Pieter Omtzigt, a hardcore Christian who's been pretty vague on what he wants if he gets elected as Prime Minister, besides making it clear that he doesn't want to rule with Wilders or tinfoiler Baudet. |
| 5 |  Joseph Boakai is elected President of Liberia in the run-off, defeating incumbent George Weah. |
| 10 | Joe Manchin and daughter fundraising through some sort of dark-money non-profit. Appears to be either a way to launch a bid for president, or a way to make donors think that's what it is before running out the back door with the money. Hard to tell at this stage. |
| -35 |  Javier Milei wins the Argentina election. (English-language source.) |
| 19 |  Pedro Sánchez is re-elected as the Prime Minister of Spain, after extending amnesty to Catalan separatists. |
| 26 |  Genius analysis by a random GOP representative from Virginia says the Republicans lost the recent elections because they weren't anti-abortion enough. |
| 18 |  Representative George Santos/Anthony Devolder/whatever his real name is won't run for reelection after a scathing House Ethics report. |
| 5 | Joe Manchin says he would "absolutely" consider running for President. He is one of the country's most unpopular Senators. |
| -6 | RFK Jr. somehow polls better than both Trump and Biden among young voters in some key battleground states. We could be looking at a kookier Ross Perot over here. |
| 17 |  Tim Scott drops out. |
| 7 |  Jake Angeli, the QAnon Shaman is running as a Libertarian in Arizona’s 8th district for Congress. |
| -12 | Trump has said that he'd consider Tucker Carlson as his vice president pick. |
| -16 | Vivek Ramaswamy proposes building a border wall to keep the Canadians out. |
| 23 |  The reason Kentucky's Democratic governor won reelection: relatively low turnout among Trump voters (53% turnout) compared to Biden voters (79%). |
| 14 | Taylor Swift's first concert in Argentina is unexpectedly political with an upcoming run-off election (taking place on the nineteenth): one fan poster near the event location read, "A Swiftie Doesn't Vote Milei". Fans referenced Swift's endorsement of Biden in 2020. |
| 11 | DINO extraordinaire, Joe Manchin is retiring from the Senate in 2025. The race seems to guarantee a spot for a Republican to step in. |
| -11 |  Jill fucking Stein is now running for President. As a Green, obviously. |
| 22 | 
Danica Roem has been elected as Virginia’s first openly transgender senator. |
| -8 |  Republican Tate Reeves wins reelection for governor in Mississippi, albeit by a narrower margin than Republicans were hoping for. |
| 8 | What could go wrong? Democrat Susanna Gibson is narrowly trailing her Republican rival in a Virginia House of Delegates contest, after the Republicans revealed that she performed sex acts online for "tips" |
| 12 |  Democrat Dan McCaffery wins election to an open seat on the Pennsylvania Supreme Court, giving Democrats a 5–2 majority. |
| 23 | Democrats flip Virginia's state House while retaining the Senate, thwarting Republicans' attempts to gain a trifecta. |
| 17 | Kentucky's Democratic governor Andy Beshear wins re-election. |
| 30 |  Ohio voters vote to enshrine abortion rights in the state consitution and also to legalize recreational cannabis, becoming the 24th state to do so. |
| 7 | Trump ahead of Biden in multiple key states. Rather than an increase in support for Trump, it seems to mainly be a collapse in support for Biden, especially among young voters and black voters. Although his stance on Israel is suggested as a likely cause, these shifts began prior to the war (see e.g. here). |
| 14 | RFK Jr. promises to make the National Institutes of Health stop studying infectious diseases for eight years if elected president. He has previously said: "I do not believe that infectious disease is an enormous threat to human health." |
| 6 | Ohio and Virginia purged tens of thousands of voters off their registries right before their respective elections. |
October 2023[edit]
| 19 |  Mike Pence has officially dropped out of the presidential race. |
| 16 |  Kanye West has come out of the woodwork to dispel what his lawyer said, and say that he is "100%" still running for President. |
| 9 |  Larry Elder has dropped out of the Presidential race. |
| 6 |  Minnesota Rep. Dean Phillips has announced his bid for Democratic President against Biden. |
| -11 |  North Carolina has approved its new GOP-favouring gerrymandered maps. |
| 10 | Bad news for Sunak, as another possible by-election is on the horizon due to the suspension of Peter Bone, due to sexual misconduct allegations. |
| 19 | Argentina votes for president and national congress. There's an actual chance they could elect anarcho-capitalist Javier Milei as president. Argentinian polling (which AP calls "notoriously unreliable"), though, indicates a run-off in November is likely. Update: results indicate a run-off election. |
| 20 | Kanye West has dropped out of the 2024 Presidential race. |
| 8 |  Perry Johnson drops out of the 2024 race for Republican nomination. |
| 6 | Harlan Crow gives maximum campaign donation to Cornel West. UPDATE: West has returned the money. |
| 18 | Yet another poll indicates that RFK Jr. could end up helping Biden beat Trump, in true Frankenstein fashion. That is, assuming he has ballot access. |
| 16 | Two parliamentary by-elections take place, with Labour winning both seats that were previously Conservative strongholds. |
| 41 | Ballot count makes it official: right-wing PiS government loses its parliamentary majority in Poland to a coalition of centre-right, liberal, and leftist parties. |
| 3 |  Daniel Noboa, from the centrist National Democratic Action, narrowly defeats the Correist Luisa González. At 35, he is the youngest president in Ecuador's history. |
| 33 | Right-wing PiS party appears to have just lost their majority in parliament to the three main opposition parties, based on exit polling. Rest in PiSS. |
| -6 |  Republican Jeff Landry has won the Louisiana governor's race, making Louisiana's Governor a Republican again for the first time in eight years. |
| 1 |  The centre-right National Party defeats the incumbent Labour Party in the New Zealand general election. Combined with ACT, they will have a very slim majority in parliament, making it unclear whether they require the support of NZ First. Former businessman Christopher Luxon will be the new PM, and he promises tax cuts for middle-income earners and a crackdown on crime. |
| 0 |  Corey Stapleton drops out of the 2024 race for Republican nomination. |
| -11 | Cenk Uygur is officially running for the Democratic nomination, apparently, despite being ineligible to run. |
| -2 |  East Kilbride MP Lisa Cameron has defected from the SNP to the Conservatives, over allegations of “toxic and bullying” treatment towards her. |
| 8 |  Will Hurd drops out of the 2024 Presidential race. |
| 17 | Robert F. Kennedy Jr. is switching from the Democratic Party to an independent. |
| 9 |  Steve Laffey, the former mayor of Cranston, Rhode Island, drops out of the race for the Republican nominee for President. |
| 16 | Team Trump prepares attacks against RFK Jr. after reports that he will run as an independent, and that he could take slightly more votes from Trump than Biden. |
| 20 |  Federal judges redrew Alabama's Congressional map to undo its racial gerrymander, turning AL-02 and AL-07 into Black-majority districts that will likely vote Democratic next year. |
| 13 | Labour wins the Rutherglen and Hamilton West parliamentary by-election off of the Scottish National Party. The previous SNP MP, Margaret Ferrier, had been ousted by her own constituents for breaking Covid restrictions in 2020. |
| 0 | Cornel West is switching from the Green Party to an independent. |
| -3 | The mayor of the West Midlands region, the Conservative Andy Street has threatened to leave the party over the government's plan over to shrink the building of a HS2 high-speed rail line to just a London-to-Birmingham service, and not further towards Manchester. Update: He has stated he will not quit and instead praised the Conservative Party. |
| -2 | Right-wing opposition in New Zealand poised to form a coalition government, according to a poll ten days before the election. Depending how the chips fall, that may require the National and ACT parties to team up with New Zealand First. |
| 17 | RFK Jr. is expected to announce on October 9 that he will switch his run for president from one as a Democrat to one as an independent. |
September 2023[edit]
| -25 |  Left wing populist and pro-Putin Robert Fico and his party win the parliamentary elections in Slovakia |
| -4 | Cenk Uygur of The Young Turks reportedly "staffing up" for a 2024 presidential run as a Democrat. Of course, it's unclear if he is even constitutionally eligible to run. Update: He is running. |
| 6 | The People's Party's Feijoo's prime minister career dies before it even starts, failing to reach simple majority on the second vote. The king has set the 2nd and 3rd of October for a second round of talks with the political parties, with the second candidate being very likely to be current prime minister Pedro Sanchez. |
| -22 | Terrisa Bukovinac, founder of Pro-Life San Francisco and Progressive Anti-Abortion Uprising (PAAU), is running for president as a Democrat. |
| 8 | Kari Lake to run for US Senate after losing election for Arizona governor. She is a massive Trump sycophant, so expect his endorsement. |
| 19 | Democrats retake razor-thin majority in Pennsylvania state House, after a special election. |
| 5 |  Evika Siliņa has taken office as Latvia's Prime Minister. |
| 35 | Federal court rejects Alabama's congressional map and will draw new districts to boost Black voting power. |
| 40 | Florida judge strikes DeSantis' gerrymandered map, siding with Black voters |
| -27 | Nancy Pelosi announces she will run for reelection, refuting speculation that the former Speaker of the House would be retiring. |
| 9 |  Tharman Shanmugaratnam has been elected as the next President of Singapore. |
August 2023[edit]
| 20 | Miami mayor Francis X. Suarez becomes the first U.S. presidential candidate to drop out of the race. |
| -4 |  Terry Gou, founder of multinational electronics company Foxconn, has announced his candidacy for the 2024 elections. |
| 22 |  Progressive business tycoon Srettha Thavisin has been elected as Thailand's new Prime Minister. |
| -5 |  Hun Manet has been sworn in as Cambodia's new Prime Minister. |
| 10 | Self-described conspiracy theorist Lt. Gov. Mark Robinson, who believes the moon landing was faked and that there's a secret class of reptilians controlling the world, is running for Governor of North Carolina. |
| 39 | On the same day, Ecuadorians voted on a referendum and decided against oil drilling in one protected part of the Amazon Rainforest. |
| 24 | Leftist Luisa González and businessman Daniel Noboa will battle for Ecuador's presidency in an October run-off. |
| 22 |  Progressive candidate Bernardo Alévaro wins runoff. Be on high alert for any coup attempts. |
| 22 | Chris Christie takes second place in New Hampshire GOP presidential primary polling, now slightly ahead of Ron DeSantis. Though neither candidate is likely to defeat Trump's powerful cult of personality. |
| 1 | Far-right Trump-wannabe takes shocking lead in the primaries for the Argentinian presidential election. He is a self-described anarcho-capitalist and supports a "free market in body organs". He also wants to abolish Argentina's central bank and currency, moving to the US dollar. |
| 9 | Ecuadorian presidential candidate Fernando Villavivencio has been assassinated at a campaign event |
| 34 | Ohio voters reject the GOP-backed Issue 1, which proposed that a 60% majority would be required for any future ballot issues that would amend the state constitution. This was part of a larger attempt to sabotage future ballot issues regarding abortion. |
| 34 | Democrats have overperformed in 2023's special elections so far. |
| 31 | Ron DeSantis's biggest donor threatens to cut off funds if he doesn't become more moderate. Mere hours later, DeSantis states that claims the 2020 election was stolen are "unsubstantiated". |
July 2023[edit]
| 17 | in Spanish PNV (Basque Nationalist Party), whose support is key for PP's Feijóo to become Prime Minister, refuses to even consider supporting PP because of their relationship with Vox. PP is currently betting on a at the very least unlikely socialist abstention, saying that the Socialist Worker's party should assume they've "lost" the election and asking them to not block Feijóo |
| -37 | Cambodia's ruling party overwhelmingly wins election, after banning their biggest opposition party from running. |
| 23 | Spain's elections end in a hung parliament. The right-wing People's Party won a plurality, but the center-left "Socialists" will likely have an easier path to a coalition, even if it will mean negotiating with regional parties to do so. |
| 13 | The ruling Conservative Party loses two parliament by-elections and wins one. Rishi Sunak plans to focus on migrants, crime and transgender rights after this result. |
| 13 | Surprising few, RFK Jr.'s campaign is receiving a lot of money from donors who typically give to the GOP. At least two billionaires and several current or former corporate & banking executives stand behind him. |
| -12 | Thailand's military junta with a hold on the senate has blocked the popular progressive candidate who had emerged as the clear winner of the election. Parliament will now have to vote again. |
| 7 | A top Guatemalan party has been barred by the courts, throwing the presidential election and Guatemala's democracy status into the unknown. |
June 2023[edit]
| 4 |  Julius Maada Bio sworn in as opposition cries foul. |
| 2 |  The far right AFD wins their first local governing post, in the Thuringian district of Sonneberg. The Thuringian AFD and its leader |
| 3 | Francis X. Suarez has become the third Floridian to run for president in 2024. |
| 3 |  Chris Christie enters the 2024 race |
| 43 | SCOTUS rules that Alabama's congressional map is an illegal racial gerrymander. |
| 15 | The 2024 Republican Party presidential primaries DLC characters keep on comin': Governor of North Dakota Doug Burgum is running for President. |
| -18 | Cornel West has announced he's running for president in 2024... for the People's Party. The People's Party is an insane, bigoted, pro-Russia third party. Its only achievements currently are: 1) giving Bernie Sanders a petition to join the party, which he ignored, 2) announcing that they'd run "a dozen or more" candidates in the 2022 midterm elections, then ran zero, and 3) have their leader be credibly accused of sexual harassment, who then purged board members who sided with accuser. Curiously, West is also sat on the board of a pro-DeSantis company that supports and benefits from DeSantis' policies, alongside Christopher Rufo and the president of the Heritage Foundation. |
| -4 | Mike Pence is officially running in the 2024 presidential race. |
May 2023[edit]
| 37 | 
Edgars Rinkēvičs is elected as president of Latvia, making him the first openly-gay president of a post-Soviet country. |
| 10 | Spain’s conservative opposition trounces Socialists in key local and regional elections. Spanish Prime Minister Pedro Sánchez has announced general elections will be held on July 23, 2023 |
| -58 |  Recep Erdoğan wins re-election as Turkey’s President. |
| 9 | Pastor charged with four counts of child cruelty announces bid for Louisiana House. |
| -5 | Ron DeSantis announces his bid to run for President of the United States in 2024. |
| 10 |  Greece's center-right wins biggest election victory in half a century |
| 1 | Turkey election heads to a runoff between Erdoğan and Kemal Kılıçdaroğlu. |
| 27 |   The far-right BJP loses its majority in the Indian state of Karnataka. |
| 50 | Thailand opposition crushes military parties in election rout |
| -27 | Chile’s far-right party wins most seats on constitutional rewrite committee |
| 34 | Biden's current plan to get re-elected: oppose GOP book bans, support abortion rights, and defend Social Security. The fact that these stances poll very well seems to be the main reason why they were selected as a primary focus. Those who have watched voter priorities polling should know that he will need a broader economic message too, however. |
| 5 | Turkey's elections take place on May 14. Erdoğan and crew remain in political danger, so they've decided they need to get more homophobic. |
| 22 |  Conservatives trounced by Labour, LibDems and Greens in England's local elections. UKIP lost every seat it held. BBC source. |
| 16 |  Conservative Santiago Peña, from the Colorado Party, elected in Paraguay. The Colorado Party, which has ruled the country for all but five of the last 75 years (including the dictatorship under Alfredo Stroessner), and right-wing party candidates were also performing strongly in congressional elections and governorships, with some provinces recording a historic Colorado majority over opposition rivals. |
April 2023[edit]
| -35 | North Carolina's supreme court overturns its previous anti-gerrymandering decision. Get prepared for North Carolina to become the new Wisconsin. |
| 1 |  Bernie Sanders says he won’t run for the Democratic nomination in 2024, endorses Biden instead. |
| 14 | Poll: GOP presidential primary voters say that fighting 'woke' ideology is more important than stopping cuts to Social Security (and Medicare!). |
| 0 |  Joe Biden announces he’s running for re-election in 2024. |
| -6 | Larry Elder enters 2024 presidential race. |
| 22 | DeSantis "isn't running" yet. But his support is collapsing. Trump holds a polling advantage. One DeSantis megadonor is literally dead. Others are getting cold feet. Another has pulled funding, citing his social extremism. Meantime, team Ron plan to copy Rudy Giuliani's 2008 "strategy". All in all, the GOP's most likely shot at a non-Trump nominee is not looking so likely. (But don't count him out yet?) |
| 14 | Democratic presidential primary candidate Marianne Williamson gains a following with young people, including on TikTok. The Intercept calls her a fusion of "Bernie Sanders and (early) Jordan Peterson". They also report: "A recent poll found Williamson hovering above 20 percent with voters under 30". |
| 5 | Joe Exotic, who is currently serving time in prison for attempting to hire an assassin to kill a woman who started a non-profit, and who is also running for president, has switched parties from Libertarian to Democrat. He's now running as a Democrat. Yay. |
| 10 |  The liberal coalition, led by Prime Minister Xavier Espot, has won the absolute majority of seats in the General Council in the 2023 Andorra parliamentary election. |
| -3 | King of the anti-vaxxers, Robert F. Kennedy Jr., files paperwork to run for president as a Democrat. Update: he was apparently drafted by Steve Bannon. |
| 9 |  Asa Hutchinson enters the 2024 Presidential race, competing with Republicans Donald Trump, Nikki Haley, and Vivek Ramaswamy (real name), and Democrat Marianne Williamson. |
| 10 |  Jakov Milatović defeats Milo Đukanović in the Montenegro election. Milatović says: “Within the next five years, we will lead Montenegro into the European Union”. |
| 9 |  Progressive Brandon Johnson wins the Chicago mayoral election, defeating police union-backed DINO Paul Vallas. |
| 24 | Liberal Janet Protasiewicz wins election to the Wisconsin Supreme Court, giving liberals their first majority there in 15 years. |
| 18 |  Finland's center-right party claims win amid tight election |
March 2023[edit]
| 10 |  Kazakhstan's ruling party Amanat wins the legislative election by 54%. |
| 38 | Recep Tayyip Erdoğan trails the opposition by more than 10 points ahead of an election in Turkey in May. |
| 12 |  Xi Jinping "reelected" for a third term. |
| 21 |  In the Estonian parliamentary election, the Reform Party, led by Kaja Kallas, has won the most seats in the Riigikogu. |
| 15 |  Bola Tinubu of the ruling APC wins a disputed election. The opposing PPD and Labour Party have claimed the votes were doctored, and the election was marred with violence and technical issues. |
February 2023[edit]
| 23 | Lori Lightfoot is ousted as the mayor of Chicago. A run-off election will occur between Paul Vallas and Brandon Johnson. |
| 22 | Republican presidential primary candidates must agree to a "loyalty pledge" promising to support whoever wins the nomination in order to debate, the party's National Committee chair says. Can anyone guess who this is aimed at? |
| 18 | Liberal Janet Protasiewicz and conservative election denier Daniel Kelly advance in the primary for an open seat in the Wisconsin Supreme Court. This election will decide which side has a majority in the chamber, which will have huge implications on issues such as gerrymandering and abortion rights. |
| 27 | California |
| 18 | Nikki Haley announces she's running for President, making her the first Republican challenger to Trump. |
| 27 | The PA State House has now officially flipped blue, after Democrats win three special elections in safe-blue Pittsburgh-area seats in order to replace Representative Summer Lee, Lt. Governor Austin Davis, and the late Tony DeLuca. Previously, there had been a bit of drama to get a speaker, as the three vacancies meant neither side had a majority. |
January 2023[edit]
| 21 |  Former army general and independent politician Petr Pavel has won the Czech presidential election against his rival, populist former prime minister Andrej Babiš. He will replace the current president Miloš Zeman in March, who has been criticised for pandering to dictators like Putin, and politicking the largely ceremonial role. |
| 21 | Popular Democratic Arizona representative Ruben Gallego will challenge Independent Kyrsten Sinema for her US Senate seat. |
| 21 | Democrat Aaron Rouse flips a Virginia State Senate seat in Virginia Beach during a special election, expanding Democrats' Senate majority in the state to 22-18. This comes as Virginia governor Glenn Youngkin is trying to pass a 15-week abortion ban. |
| 18 | South Carolina's House map ruled an unconstitutional racial gerrymander by a federal court. This is because of how black voters from Charleston were packed into the 6th district in order to make the 1st district safe for Republicans (comparison of both maps here). Of course, the result is likely to be appealed to the Supreme Court. |
| 38 | The GOP-controlled House is off to a great start as Kevin McCarthy has failed fourteen votes for Speaker, leaving the legislature in limbo. Here's why 21 Republicans are refusing to support him. For those wondering, the last time the House failed to elect a Speaker was in 1923, almost exactly 100 years ago. Update: McCarthy has officially been elected as Speaker of the House on the 15th vote. |