Three Wins Today: Sept 29, 2025

Jungle Primaries suck

After yesterday and the comments I got about Rep Marie Glusenkamp Perez, I realized two things.

1. A lot of people in my comment sections really just don’t care about the majority, they want to vote as if it’s a performance art, not the difference between life and death.

2. Washington has a jungle primary, so not only was I right, I was REALLY right.

If you don’t live in a state with a jungle primary, you probably don’t know what one is, and if you do, you’re probably groaning right about now.

Jungle primaries are, just about, the least fair type of primary.

All candidates from all parties are mushed together and the top two (or four, but that’s one state and much more fair) candidates go to the general election.

Meaning if two Republicans get more votes than any Dem, there will be no Dem in the general. It makes it nearly impossible to flip a seat, because if two Dems are running, the votes are split and neither Dem moves on.

In jungle primaries, you can’t vote for the best candidate, you have to vote collectively for the same candidate, if the area is purple or red. If you’re wondering why Dems haven’t been over performing in California’s state legislative races this year, unlike the rest of the country, this is why.

This is also why Sen Adam Schiff ran ads against Steve Garvey instead of Katie Porter, both of whom he was running against in the primary. He didn’t want an ugly campaign against Porter, so he ran against Garvey instead. Porter could have done the exact same thing, and she might have won, instead she chose to berate Sen Schiff for not wanting to run an ugly campaign and then accused him of rigging the election.

He wasn’t bypassing the primary, California just has a really horrific style of primary.

And yes, this was a voter approved decision, it was called prop 14, and it passed in 2010, but I don’t think anyone knew, at the time, what it actually meant.

So, back to Washington. Rep Perez Glusenkamp was not just in a primary with Dems, all the Republicans, Independents etc were in the primary as well.

If you look at her Ballotpedia, you can see that the only reason we HAD a Dem in the ‘22 general was because there weren’t other Dems running, so the vote wasn’t split. If another Dem had ran, we might not even have had a Dem in the general.

There’s more to this, like how she is so focused on her district and really fights for and supports them. But that it is a whole different intro for another day.

The point is, every district is different, the requirements for that district are different. And in the case of jungle primaries, which occur in: every single election in California, Washington, Alaska (which is a little different cause the top 4 go to the general and then it’s rank choice for the general), Louisiana till 2026, and special elections in Texas, primaries unfortunately hold a different purpose.

Rep Glusenkamp-Perez ONLY won because she was the only Dem who ran a real campaign.

That is just the reality of the jungle primary system. It sucks, but that doesn’t mean it’s not reality.

You cannot create a blueprint for how a progressive can win an election and just make a ton of copies. In some districts, it’s just not possible, and in others the blueprint has to be altered.

Remember, the most important thing is getting the majority. We need enough Dems in office that those who only vote with us 70% of the time don’t matter as much, we can’t gamble on their seat by getting them out of office.

Now, wins!

Los Angeles, CA

Wed, Sept 17 - Two Metro bus drivers will be reinstated after they were fired in August for protecting their riders from ICE and speaking to the press.

They will be reinstated for two reasons. The first is because Metro board of director’s member and LA supervisor, Janice Hahn wrote a letter, where she said:

Our immigrant communities-who represent a large and important part of our ridership- are experiencing unprecedented hardship, fear, and uncertainty. While I understand that these issues are fraught and that Metro has clear policies around public communication for its employees, it’s my view that Seán was not acting out of defiance, but out of a deep sense of duty. His actions, though technically in violation of your policies, demonstrate a sincere concern for the riders he serves; that’s precisely the kind of operator we want piloting our system.

And secondly, a call to action from Democratic Socialists of America, Los Angeles to email Metro.

Combined, they worked. The two bus drivers, Sean Broadbent and Jamie C will be reinstated after a 60 day probation, which should be up in the next week or so.

Jamie and Sean are working with their union, International Association of Sheet Metal, Air, Rail and Transportation Workers (SMART), to get the probation expunged from their record and get “full back pay. And Thursday a group rallied outside LA Metro headquarters to demand exactly that.

This isn’t a full win, yet, but it is another example of our power. And the importance of the County Board of Supervisors elections.

Northeast

Thurs, Sept 18 - The Northeastern Public Health Collaborative became official. According to the press release, they have been working together, in this capacity since early 2025, and they held their first in person meeting in Rhode Island in August. They are focusing on pooling together their resources to protect public health:

The Collaborative’s shared purpose is to work together in new ways – optimizing the use of shared resources, innovating and reimagining core services – to ensure trust in public health, respond to public health threats, advance community health and strengthen confidence in vaccines and science-based medicine. The group’s shared goal is to protect the health, safety and well-being of all residents by providing information based on science, data, and evidence, while working to ensure equitable access to vaccines, medications and services.

The collective is made up of CT, ME, MA, NJ, NY, PA, RI and NYC is represented as its own entity as well.

Robbie Goldstein MD PhD is the Massachusetts Commissioner of Public Health:

When our states speak in concert, our voice carries farther, and our impact deepens. Those who work in public health are entrusted with a profound responsibility – a promise – to protect the health and safety of those in our states, to advance equity, and to ground every decision in data and evidence. Strong public health must stand high above ideology. Our region understands this, and we are moving forward, resolute, united, and guided by science.

It’s the power of collective action. Also a reminder that just cause you don’t hear about it, doesn’t mean something isn’t happening behind closed doors.

AEW

Sat, Sept 20 - Wrestler Brody King has been incredibly outspoken about political issues including ICE. He wore a shirt that said “abolish ICE” in the ring, and then sold it as merch, giving the money to the Long Beach Local Hearts Foundation. (If you read every Three Wins, you know this already).

At the press conference after the event Saturday, he was asked about AEW and president Tony Khan allowing him to “speak freely” about these issues:

I think it’s really important to be able to express your voice with whatever platform you have, in life, really, and to have a boss that kind of, lets that happen…I think everything that people like myself or Hangman, or like, others that have said something in the past have done is all for the betterment of humanity in general. It is amazing to be part of this company and thank you Tony for letting us be the way that we are.

We constantly talk about companies that are bowing down and silencing their clients and employees, so it’s really important to talk about the ones that aren’t.

Especially in wrestling, where the biggest promoter is WWE and very much in Trump’s pocket.

The fact that not only are those on the AEW roster able to speak out for what they believe in, but AEW doesn’t distance themselves from that at all, is huge, and worth highlighting every single time it happens.

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So those are some of today’s wins! I hope they inspire you to resist today!

Our voices are our superpower, but only when we use them!