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this post was submitted on 27 Oct 2026
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politics
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This is, as a matter of political science, incorrect.
Currently, almost every election in the United States ultimately boils down to a binary choice, see: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Duverger's_law
You can certainly disagree with the candidates, the platforms and the messaging all you want, but the truth is that (in almost every first-past-the-post, winner-takes-all election in the United States) one of two people (usually a Democrat or a Republican) will ultimately win--and to the winner go all of the spoils. That's the system we currently have, and as someone who agrees that it sucks, I highly recommend advocating for state and local reforms to make elections laws more democratic.
What does candidate A represent? How does it compare to candidate B? Fundamentally, the question absolutely boils down to "which one of these two people do I want to win, and which one of the two do I want to lose?" And that is the basic question by which the informed and politically-aware voter ultimately ought to make a strategic decision. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Strategic_voting
Vote with your heart AND with your brain.
I might be incorrect, but I think they are trying to suggest that no election is a standalone choice where the only downstream effect is that one candidate wins over the other. Each election outcome effects the elections that come after it. If a moderate republican won last time they might try to run a more conservative one next time to test the waters. If a progressive dem lost the dems are likely to use that as a reason to not run a progressive next time.
They may be suggesting that voting for an anti trans dem now opens the door for more anti trans or anti-XYZ dems in the future. Do we want to get to a place where the Democratic Party is comfortable running anti choice candidates or anti public school candidates? Basically the idea is to signal to the party that they will not ever win with this message, even against fascists. Along the same line of thinking, but as a rebuttal to what I'm assuming is their conclusion, an R in office might change policies or do harm that a dem may not be able to reverse, regardless of if they win next or not.
I'm not suggesting people not vote for him, and I'm not suggesting vote blue no matter who, I'm just adding some context for how I interpreted the comment. I personally am a vote blue no matter who person so far. Maybe it makes me a coward, maybe it makes me pragmatic, maybe both. I do think I understand trans people withholding their vote if this is their candidate though. I won't blame them for standing up for themselves, since the rest of us seem willing to throw them under the bus.
That very well may be so, but even still I would argue that the primaries are really the time to hash out policy and candidate positions.
I'm not from Iowa, luckily, but Turek beat his main primary opponent by more than 25%, which suggests he is more tapped into Iowa political leanings than the average online commentator. I'm from Oregon, so I wouldn't be surprised to learn that whoever Iowa elects is going to be much more "moderate" than the people who represent me and my state.
Regardless, the choice right now (and it very much is a binary one) is whether Iowa wants to send a Democrat, Turek, or a Republican, Hinton, to the Senate. Come January, it'll either be Turek or Hinton--a de facto binary outcome. And that singular choice may mean the difference between a slim Democratic majority or a slim Republican one.
What will a Democratic Senate mean for the next two years? It's hard to be sure, since Trump can be more than a little bit unpredictable. But at the very least it means Democratic control of Senate committees, which will go a long way towards holding the Trump admin at least a little bit accountable for their words and actions. Speaking personally, I would always rather have the Democrats in power than the Republicans, easily.
So again, people should vote with their hearts, without a doubt, but they should also understand the strategies at play and vote with their brains, too.
To be honest, whether it's FPTP elections or the power dynamics in Washington DC, it is a little bit exhausting to have to explain this stuff every 2 years... But people should be informed about how the system works and vote accordingly.