Tuesday was a very good day for Democrats. For a change. At ballot boxes in both Wisconsin and Florida, and in the U.S. Senate. We enjoy while we can on today's BradCast, while trying to make sense of everything else we have time for in the bargain. [Audio link to full show follows below this summary.]

Republicans won both U.S. House Special Elections for vacant seats in Florida's 1st and 6th Congressional Districts on Tuesday. You'd think the GOP would be celebrating today, but not so much. Last November, in each of those very "red" Districts, their candidates won by more than 30 points. On Tuesday, however, GOPers were still victorious, but the vote swung some 15 points or more toward the Democratic candidates in both contests. If that were to happen across the country during next year's mid-term elections it would become an absolute wipe-out for the Republican Party in the House.

In Wisconsin, even worse news for Republicans, Donald Trump, and his co-President Elon Musk. The state went to Trump just over five months ago by less than a point. But on Tuesday, the Democratic-backed candidate for WI's state Supreme Court, Susan Crawford, appears to have crushed GOP-backed MAGA candidate Brad Schimel by ten points. That's virtually unheard of in modern times in the notoriously narrowly-divided Badger State. That, after Musk dumped more than $25 million of his own money into the race --- even giving away million dollar checks to voters (unlawfully) in the bargain --- in what became the most expensive state court election in U.S. history. Liberals will now retain majority control of WI's high court for at least the next three years. Their majority could grow larger still as rightwing Justices face re-election bids over those years. Key issues likely to be decided by the high court during that time include abortion, voting and collective bargaining rights and challenges to GOP gerrymandering of Congressional districts. All of that is why Musk was so happy to set so many millions of his own dollars on fire, to no avail.

All of that happened on Tuesday, as New Jersey's Democratic U.S. Senator Cory Booker was wrapping up his marathon, record-breaking, 25-hour and 6-minute, non-stop "good trouble" speech on the floor of the U.S. Senate, injecting a bit of hope into a few moribund Democrats across the nation and in the halls of Congress after ten long weeks of Trump and Musk's brutal destruction of the federal government and Constitutional order. It doesn't hurt that Booker, an African-American, also smashed the long-held Senate filibuster record set in 1957 by notorious segregationist Strom Thurmond, during his then successful blockade of civil rights legislation.

We're joined today to discuss all of that and much more by two of our longtime O.G. blogger friends, HEATHER DIGBY PARTON, award-winning columnist at Salon and proprietor of Digby's Hullabaloo blog, and the notorious 'DRIFTGLASS', eponymous blogger and co-host of the weekly Professional Left Podcast.

In addition to Tuesday's elections and what they may portend for Trump and Musk, as well as Booker's Senate 'filibuster' and what it may --- or should --- portend for Democratic leadership in Congress, we also discuss Trump's economy- and job-crushing new tariffs, his ill-considered and ever-increasing DOGE slashing of the federal government, and much more!

"He can bully everybody. He can't bully reality," observes Driftglass today, regarding Trump and one or more of the topics mentioned above. Says Digby about Republicans: "I think that they are seeing the writing on the wall, that there is a very, very large backlash."

Tune in for a very lively "Liberation Day" edition of The BradCast! Cheers!...

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Article Categories: Florida, BRAD BLOG Media Appearance, Rights And Freedoms, Wisconsin, Photo ID Laws, Accountability, U.S. House, U.S. Senate, Democrats, Republicans, Chuck Schumer, Economy, KPFK, WI Supreme Court Election, Donald Trump, BradCast, Cory Booker, Gerrymandering/Redistricting, Hakeem Jeffries, Elon Musk, Election 2025