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Despite being desperate to put Biden behind them, Democrats can’t do it. Both Kamala Harris and Pete Buttigieg are routinely topping Democratic primary polling, and both are defined by Biden. Last Thursday, May 28, two Democratic 2028 presidential polls came out. In a Big Data Poll (taken May 24-27), Kamala Harris led by 13 percentage points. In Emerson College Polling (taken May 23-25), Pete Buttigieg led by 2 percentage points. Let the irony of these results sink in. These people lost to Biden among Democrats in 2020, and then Democrats pushed out Biden in 2024. (RELATED: Let’s Remember the Democrats’ Lies) The DNC’s recent botched release of its ultimately disavowed report on Democrats’ 2024 roadkill of a campaign served to inflame the entire party. However, there was one point of unifying agreement: The party needs to put 2024 behind them. This is understandable; 2024 saw them outspend Republicans by almost $1 billion and lose the popular vote for the first time in 20 years. Skip back to last Thursday’s poll results, and the two highest political qualifications of the people topping each poll were having served in the failed Biden administration. This is where they are turning for their 2028 front-runners? This is not a partisan verdict, but the American people’s opinion from November 2024. Reelection campaigns are always a referendum on the party holding power. Democrats held the presidency in 2024. Democrats lost the referendum on their time in the White House by over 2 million popular votes, 86 electoral votes, and in every swing state. This is also the verdict of the DNC. You don’t have an autopsy unless someone died. And in 2024, what died was Kamala Harris and the Democrats’ campaign. And it is the verdict of Democrat leaders as well: former Rep. Barney Frank (D-MA), Sen. John Fetterman (D-PA), strategist James Carville, and many more. The Biden administration and November 2024 were unmitigated disasters for Democrats, yet now, coming on two years after the fact, this is where they are turning for their 2028 front-runners? Democrats want 2028 to be all about Donald Trump, even though he will not be on the ballot. Yet, these two early polls show that Democrats are considering putting Biden — or at least his surrogates — on the ballot. To take the irony a step further, consider what qualified both Harris and Buttigieg for their selection for the Biden administration. They both lost to Biden. Badly. Kamala Harris has been a national disaster for Democrats since throwing her hat into the 2020 Democratic primary chase: seeking the 2020 Democratic nomination, sharing the 2020 ticket, in the Biden–Harris administration for four years, as the 2024 Democratic nominee, and since leaving office. (RELATED: Kamala Harris’ Dangerous Brainstorm) Harris dropped out of the 2020 primary contest in 2019. Her campaign was derided. Once in office, she was again labeled as a failure as vice president. Only after Biden was forced out was she finagled in at the last minute — without primaries, without winning delegates, and with no chance that she would fail within her own party. Again. Pete Buttigieg was almost equally inept. He flamed out in 2020. He won a grand total of 21 delegates in the Democratic primaries, finishing fifth behind Biden, Sanders, Warren, and Bloomberg. Buttigieg was made secretary of the Department of Transportation for his efforts, hardly a top assignment. He held the position throughout the administration. Now: Name one thing he did. For that matter, name one former DOT secretary… of any administration. Buttigieg was a nonentity in a failed administration after having lost badly to Biden in the primaries: That’s his national resume. (RELATED: Pete Buttigieg: America’s Second Gay President?) Only Democrats could see such resumes as strengths. They want — and desperately need — to get past 2024 to win in 2028. Yet among their 2028 frontrunners are two architects of 2024. And what qualified them for their past administration service and their current 2028 aspirations? Losing to Biden. Just to make the chain of failure unmistakably clear: Democrats rejected Harris and Buttigieg in 2020, choosing Biden instead; both Harris and Buttigieg received places in a Biden administration, which the American people deemed to be a resounding failure; then, Democrats pushed Biden off their ticket in 2024. It’s like a nesting doll of failure, each enclosed within the next. The next presidential election is not until November 2028. Two and a half years is a long time. However, Democrats’ fascination with Harris and Buttigieg shows they have an even longer way to go. And that they have no clue as to how to get there. READ MORE from J.T. Young: The Left Don’t Love Leo (They Simply Hate Trump) May Day or Mayday in Chicago? America’s Might Is on Display in Iran J.T. Young is the author of the book Unprecedented Assault: How Big Government Unleashed America’s Socialist Left, from RealClear Publishing. Follow him on Substack.  

Following the declaration of the COVID national emergency in March 2020, blue states rapidly embraced the new command-and-control authority granted them under the pandemic’s “emergency powers.” Their unrelenting lockdowns, mask mandates, and suppression of personal and economic freedom propelled the start of a great national migration. My growing neighborhood in a Tennessee suburb was flooded with blue-state refugees in 2021 and 2022, with very heavy representation from Illinois, but also some from California, New England, and other blue areas. The migration slowed by 2024 and 2025, but a very simple observation indicates to me that the blue state exodus is firing up again. Quite simply, there is once again an abundance of cars with blue-state license plates cruising around my suburban town. (RELATED: Blue States Are Moving Legislation Forward to Restrict How Much You Can Drive) As writers such as Salena Zito and David Marcus have demonstrated, there are cultural trends that reveal themselves not by sitting in a newsroom or talking to politicians, but by meeting and observing real people in the real world. I’m once again observing a lot of those people from blue states slowly driving around the streets of my Tennessee town, looking left and right as they drive, presumably pondering its suitability as a place to relocate. (RELATED: Go South, Young Man, Go South) At the peak of the previous invasion of blue-state refugees, if I were in my garage or doing some yard work, I could tell just by the sound when someone was house-hunting in the neighborhood. A car slowly driving at 10 mph while its occupants peruse the neighborhood has a different sound than that of a resident driving through at 25 mph. I’ve even had several out-of-state house hunters stop when they see me to ask about local taxes and utilities. Almost uniformly, they reveal that they are seeking a lower cost of living and a better culture, barely concealing the fact that they are conservative political refugees. My neighborhood is full of flag-waving patriots, and I’ve also noticed that one of the first things newcomers from out of state do after moving in is to put out an American flag. I take this as them announcing, “Ignore my license plate, we’re on your team.” (RELATED: Blue States’ High Tax State-of-Mind) It’s easy to notice out-of-state license plates, because there are no front plates on cars registered in Tennessee. A car with a front license plate that is driving through my suburb is going to be from out of state, and I know the blue-state license plates by sight now. States like Tennessee are clearly a land of hope and opportunity for regular Americans beaten down by blue-state governance. In recent months, I have started seeing a flood of Illinois plates again, as well as a great many California and New York plates. Unlike the previous great wave, this time there are a lot of Virginia plates too. While Virginia may border Tennessee, my community is about 240 miles from the Virginia state line, and over 550 miles from Richmond and the D.C. suburbs. Virginians driving through my neighborhood aren’t on a Sunday drive. The election of Abigail Spanberger as Virginia’s governor and her efforts to virtually eliminate Republican elected officials in the Old Dominion state may be compelling an exodus of conservative Virginians. (RELATED: The Abigail Spanberger Bait-and-Switch) I’ve also noticed a growing number of vehicles throughout the greater metro area that I would compassionately call “Reverse Okies.” They have license plates from places like California, Washington, Oregon, and New York on their weathered vehicles. A demographic observation of the drivers indicates that they are the “deplorables” or “bitter clingers” that are so despised by prominent Democrats. While we in Tennessee are justifiably worried about our culture being upended by woke Californians, the couple from Modesto in a 12-year old Chrysler minivan, and seeking a new start for their family, is not going to be sending a cross-dressing child to school. States like Tennessee are clearly a land of hope and opportunity for regular Americans beaten down by blue-state governance. (RELATED: Y’all Street Is Eating Wall Street’s Lunch) Amidst this re-shuffling of the American population, there is an important trend regarding blue-state refugees moving to red states — they are voting overwhelmingly Republican. While there is legitimate concern that corporate relocations will bring leftist employees with them, those fleeing blue states of their own volition are making red states redder. An analysis in December 2023 by Fox News showed that of the roughly 20,000 new Idahoans who relocated from the state of Washington, 62 percent of the newcomers registered as Republicans versus just 12 percent as Democrats. For all Idaho newcomers, including a great many from California and Oregon, fully 65 percent registered as Republican versus just 12 percent as Democrat. Back in Tennessee, a study by the Chattanooga Times Free Press in August 2024 looked at the primary ballot preference of first-time voters in Hamilton County (Chattanooga) whose previous address was in California, with a study start date of Jan. 1, 2023. It found that more than 75 percent of the California-to-Chattanooga transplants chose a Republican primary ballot — 83 Republicans to just 26 Democrats. For Illinois-to-Chattanooga transplants, the ratio of Republican to Democrat primary ballots was approximately the same — overwhelmingly Republican. If another great wave of refugees fleeing blue states is ramping up again, as my informal survey of license plates indicates, there will soon be actual data to corroborate my observations. Whether it is a wave or a trickle moving to red states, I am confident that the voting habits of those voluntarily relocating from blue states will be solidly Republican. In fact, those who have escaped the oppression of one-party Democrat states tend to better understand the risk of Democrat rule than many apathetic voters in the states to which they move. READ MORE from Buck Throckmorton: There’s No Reason to Fear an Invasion of Chinese Electric Vehicles Price Gouging, Now Personalized Thanks to Surveillance Pricing and Collusion Under the Radar of the ‘Doomcasting’ Media, There Is Massive Industrial Investment Occurring in the U.S.

“Riding Into Town on a Rainbow Stagecoach,” editorial cartoon by Yogi Love for The American Spectator on Jun 2, 2026.

PITTSBURGH — On April 19, 1926, an above-the-fold story in the Pittsburgh Gazette Times detailed the Pittsburgh Catholic Diocese’s Bishop Hugh Boyle officiating at the dedication of a new church and school in the city’s upper-north-side neighborhood off Perrysville Avenue. “The services, which began shortly after 10:30 a.m. consisted of a procession from the old church to the new building and a solemn dedication Mass.” An oversized photo of the Nativity of Our Lord Catholic Church, with hundreds of people standing outside the unique church building, accompanied the story. The building was designed to look like a stable, and inside were steep, angled wooden beams and an altar that had a beautiful hand-painted depiction of the birth of Jesus, done by a painter who immigrated from Germany and a local artist who was also a member of the parish. The new church in the booming neighborhood, filled with thousands of working-class immigrants of German, Irish, Polish, and Italian families, also had classrooms underneath the chapel. All were “modernly equipped” to educate the students from these families, and the chapel itself was equipped to hold 500 people, not including the 100 or so who could fit in the chapel choir loft. For the next 50 years, Nativity grew with the neighborhood. Along the four blocks of Perrysville Avenue, below the church, were scores of businesses: a five-and-dime, four hair salons, a bustling grocery store, a barber shop, a hardware store, a furniture store, several bakeries, two gas stations, two banks, a gun store, and a plumber. In the early ‘50s, the church grew so much that a brand-new building to house the students was built across the street. A massive priory was also built below the church, and it was not an easy feat. The church was literally carved into a hill with very little real estate around it. Nonetheless, these two buildings, along with narrow parking lots beside the school, as well as the priory, emerged. This was where my father was baptized in 1936. It was where my parents were married. It was where I was baptized in 1959. It was where my mother converted from Lutheran to Roman Catholic in 1974. It was where I was married in 1984, along with my sisters. It was where my children were baptized, along with their cousins and my cousins. It was where I went to school and formed some of my most enduring memories and friendships that still hold today. None of it was perfect, but it was our place — our connective tissue, and not just for the children but for the parents too. There was the men’s guild and the women’s guild. There was also the sewing club and weekly bingo. It was our home. Nativity had both junior varsity and varsity football and basketball teams. Girls were able to play junior varsity and varsity, as well as cheerlead. There were monthly school dances that had the janitor, Mr. Claus, turn our massive cafeteria into a dance floor. It also turned into a basketball court for when we played the other Catholic schools in the city. At the end of the year, we always had our sports banquet at the Islam Grotto, which was located right next to the brand-new Three Rivers Stadium. Someone in our parish must have known someone at the Steelers, because we had Terry Bradshaw one year and Franco Harris the next speaking at our banquet. Nativity was never meant to be a commuter parish. It was meant to be a place to walk to, celebrate your faith, and form a community. Which we did until we didn’t anymore. By the 1990s, things in the neighborhood began to change. Manufacturing had declined, and a lot of families had to leave. The stately homes that housed families with five or six children now became multiple apartments. As the families moved away, one by one, the businesses started to shutter, going from scores of small businesses to a mere handful. Going “up the avenue,” as we would say about walking up to shop there — it was a mile-long hike uphill — instead became jumping in the car and going out to McKnight Road, the Breezewood of Pittsburgh. The suburban families who navigated the parking lots started opting for churches in the outer suburbs with sprawling parking lots. They took their faith and their children’s education with them. By the late 1990s, the school closed, but not without a fight from those who were left. But after a while, they knew that the end was near. The name changed from Nativity to Incarnation as it was merged, merged again, and then merged again with other parishes until all that was left was an early-morning Mass. This was a stark difference from the 7:30 a.m., 9 a.m., 11 a.m., 12:45 p.m., and 4 p.m. offerings that the community grew up with. Last week, days shy of its 100-year anniversary, a day that was celebrated with so much fanfare, anticipation, and aspiration, Nativity held its last official Mass. The last time that I went to Mass there was not that long ago with my parents. They had been Eucharistic ministers there since I had been a teenager. Going there made them sad. They missed the choir, the noisiness of the children, both theirs and their grandchildren. The inevitability of knowing it was at an end was too much for them. I felt the same way. Looking at those beautiful wooden beams and pews, I saw myself fidgeting during weekly rosary service, how excited I was to receive my First Holy Communion, how nervous I was getting ready to walk down the aisle with my father at my wedding, and equally nervous holding my newborn for her baptism. There were the funerals of my grandparents, and those of aunts and uncles and friends, where I shed tears. Nativity was more than a building — it was a place. And for 100 years, it was the place for thousands of other people. Their sense of community held us all together for a very long time. On the same Sunday that Nativity said goodbye, I was attending Mass at my new parish 40 miles away. My granddaughter was serving, and my daughter, son-in-law, and three younger grandchildren were all in the pews, with the youngest having no problem yelling “Grandma!” for all to hear when I walked in late. This parish is on the opposite spectrum of Nativity. While it is just a little country church, because of its rural location, the parking lots are generous. But even still, all four of them were packed on Sunday, so much so that people were parking along the grass and the main street because of the overflow. As I was walking in, late as always, a man briskly walked past me to get into church. I moved out of his path and said a faint “sorry.” He mumbled something about his frustration about the parking situation, as our parish had nearly tripled in size over the past few months. I looked at him and said, “This is a good problem to have.” I’m not sure if he heard me, but I will say this: The people who went to Nativity for a very long time would have loved to have this problem. READ MORE from Salena Zito: Pennsylvania Primary Results Unpacked: Democrats Go Far Left, While GOP Centers America’s Love Affair With the Road Endures Experts Miss Trump’s Enduring Presence in American Politics in Indiana Races Salena Zito is a staff reporter and columnist for the Washington Examiner. She reaches the Everyman and Everywoman through shoe-leather journalism, traveling from Main Street to the beltway and all places in between. To find out more about Salena and read her past columns, please visit the Creators Syndicate webpage at www.creators.com. COPYRIGHT 2026 CREATORS.COM