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After five days of early voting in the special election for Georgias 6th congressional district, Democratic voter turnout has significantly outpaced that of Republicans.

That is a good sign for Democrats hoping that the surge in liberal enthusiasm after the election of President Donald Trump will be enough to elect 30-year-old candidate Jon Ossoff. The seat opened up when Trump named former Rep. Tom Price to be his Secretary of Health and Human Services.

Of the more than 8,100 people who have voted so far in the suburban Atlanta district, 44 percent were Democrats and 23 percent were Republicans, according to an analysis by Michael McDonald, a political science professor and election specialist at the University of Florida.

McDonald identified Democrats and Republicans based on the last primary each early voter participated in, information that can be found in state voter files. The remaining voters roughly one-third of the total so far have no record of primary voting in Georgia.

Although voters preferences can change from primary to primary, making that data imperfect, it is the most reliable indicator of partisanship in a state with nonpartisan voter registration.

McDonalds end-of-week estimates are consistent with the findings of New York Times election expert Nate Cohn for the first day of early voting. Using a slightly different methodology, Cohn found that Democrats constituted 60 percent of voters of those who voted on Monday, compared with 28 percent of Republicans.

It is important to note of course that early voting is not a rock-solid indicator of final election outcomes. Early general-election voting patterns in North Carolina and Florida, for example, appeared to favor Hillary Clinton, but she ended up losing both states in November.

And early voting in Georgias 6th district continues until April 14. Election Day itself is April 18.

In Georgias jungle primary system, Ossoff faces many Democratic and Republican challengers. A candidate can win outright in the first round by capturing 50 percent of the vote. Short of that, the top two contenders proceed to a runoff election on June 20.

Democrats across the country have seized on the race as an early opportunity to inflict damage on Republicans after Trumps election. Ossoffs candidacy has attracted millions of dollars in donations, including $1 million alone from the readers of liberal news site Daily Kos.

Television star Alyssa Milano has done her part to pitch in for Ossoff, offering early voters rides to the polls.

Ossoff is campaigning on standard mainstream Democratic priorities. On his campaign website, he declares his commitment to containing health insurance premiums, increasing the minimum wage, and fighting gender and racial discrimination in pay.

Although the 6th district has voted Republican consistently in the past, it is home to a more educated, wealthier type of Republican voter that has typically been more averse to Trumps populist style. While Tom Price cruised to reelection by a 23-point margin in November, Trump defeated Clinton in the district by a mere percentage point.

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The First Week Of Early Voting Bodes Well For Democrat Jon Ossoff - Huffington Post

The top Democrat on the Senate Intelligence Committee, Sen. Mark Warner of Virginia, said he and panel Chairman Sen. Richard Burr, R-N.C., are "not ready" to give former national security adviser Mike Flynn immunity from prosecution if he testifies.

Flynn has reportedly indicated he would testify in exchange for immunity. "But we are not ready to consider that," Warner said on John Catsimatidis radio show on Sunday out of New York, The Hill reported.

"We are not even publicly acknowledging that he contacted us," Warner said. "We just started reviewing the raw intelligence."

Flynn's lawyers said last week that he would be willing to testify if he was provided with immunity from prosecution. Flynn was fired from his job as national security adviser at the White House after it was found he had misled Vice President Mike Pence about his meeting with the Russian ambassador during the presidential transition period after the election.

Warner also said that the House Intelligence Committee's Republican Chairman Devin Nunes' behavior was "bizarre" at best. Nunes reviewed intelligence at the White House and then later returned to meet with President Trump about it.

"Obviously we should review these materials. It needs to be done in a secure location in the Congress," Warner said.

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Top Intelligence Committee Democrat 'not ready' to consider Flynn's immunity request - Washington Examiner

Anti-corruption protests swept across nearly 100 Russian towns and cities last week, from the Russian exclave of Kaliningrad in the West to Vladivostok in the Far East. They were the biggest demonstrations in Russia since the 2011-12 protests against alleged election fraud.

Police arrested hundreds of protesters and activists, among them Alexey Navalny, an opposition figure and anti-corruption campaigner. Navalny had sparked the protests by releasing a report claiming that Russian Prime Minister Dmitry Medvedev has built himself an empire of mansions, estates, yachts and palaces.

Navalnys anti-corruption messaging is hitting home and for good reason. Corruption, while certainly not as ubiquitous as it used to be, is still rife in Russia. A man I met in Vladivostok last year, while we were walking through the city, pointed at a half-built church and jokingly told me the reason they had chosen this particular location to construct it was so that city and regional officials could look out their windows and ask Gods forgiveness for their corruption.

The fact that Navalny is a vocal Kremlin critic and ardent opponent of Vladimir Putin has ensured that he has become somewhat of a media darling in the West. He is sometimes hailed as a hero in Western coverage. Time magazine once called him Russias Erin Brockovich.

What is reported less often about Navalny are his nationalist leanings, ties to neo-Nazi groups, xenophobic comments and extreme anti-immigrant views. References to Navalnys nationalism in the West are usually buried or brushed off, while the headlines sing his praises. While we seem somewhat better able to appreciate the complexities of politics and political figures in our own nation, we tend to regard Russia in very simplified terms; theres a bad guy in power and we must therefore support the valiant and oppressed good guy. Many people hear Russian opposition leader and immediately assume this is the person with whom their sympathies should lie.

Ill spare you Winston Churchills Russia is a riddle quote and just say that its never that simple. Russian politics is not a clear-cut case of dictator vs. democrat and Navalny provides a good example of just why we should be careful to avoid oversimplifying events we dont fully understand.

Many Navalny supporters are extremely anti-immigrant, particularly when it comes to newcomers from the Caucasus and Central Asia. Many see Putin as playing a part in the destruction of the traditional fabric of Russia. Navalny himself has played a role in skinhead marches in Moscow and earned the sympathies of extremists. In other words, if he were an American, liberals would hate Navalny far more than they hate Trump or Steve Bannon and yet he is glorified and exalted as Russias last, best hope.

Navalny has been a co-organizer of the Russian March an annual parade that uses slogans like Russia for the Russians andStop feeding the Caucasus. He was expelled from one of the countrys liberal parties (Yabloko) for essentially damaging their brand. One of his former colleagues in that party has claimed that Navalny repeatedly used racial slurs.

In a bizarre video, Navalny appeared to compare people from the Caucasus to cockroaches that need to be exterminated. While cockroaches can be killed with a slipper, he says, for humans he recommends a pistol. Navalny supporters claim its all just a joke. As with most things Russia-related, conspiracy theories also surround Navalny. Many of his supporters in Russia and the West believe the Kremlin has tried to smear him as a dangerous nationalist and to lock him up on trumped-up charges (he has been convicted of fraud and embezzlement). Others believe Navalny himself is a Kremlin plant, working for Putin as controlled opposition. The latter would seem laughable, but if you were to believe everything you read these days, theres very few people left out there that arent somehow working for Putin,

We should not blindly lend our support to opposition figures like Navalny without actually understanding what it is were supporting. A Russia under Navalny would not be one many liberals would admire, despite their professed love for him now.

Ironically, one area where Navalny and Putin do converge is on the issue of Crimea. Navalny has said he would not return the Crimean peninsula to Ukraine. This is also conveniently left out of Western reporting on Navalny as an anti-Putin hero.

Russias current system under Putin is a corrupt and authoritarian one, to be sure though it also displays at least some features of democracy. In an excellent piece for the Guardian on Putins presidency, Dmitri Trenin, director of the Carnegie Moscow Center, calls the Russian leader an autocrat with the consent of the governed.

Our skewed interpretation of Putin as omnipotent ruler controlling every city, town and village with an iron fist is wrong. Whats more, this false interpretation has dangerously spilled into Western discourse about domestic politics in the U.S. and Europe. There appear to now be people out there who think they see Putin on their toast every morning.

It always surprises people to hear that there is a faction of Russian society and political life that actually believes Putin is too pro-Western. Such people feel he has placated the West too much and should do more to stand up for Russia. This flies in the face of everything one would assume through reading only Western headlines, but its one more piece of the complicated reality; another reminder that the alternatives to Putin would not necessarily look favorably on the West, and might even be more hostile to it.

Rarely can we gain a full understanding of another country by relying on our own distanced interpretations of events and figures. This is particularly the case if that country is regarded as an adversary, because we see little reason to challenge our preconceived ideas and established narratives. The case of the two Navalnys the one in the Western headlines and the more complex figure that Russians know reminds us that theres nearly always more to any story than meets the eye.

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Dictator vs. democrat? Not quite: Russian opposition leader Alexey Navalny is no progressive hero - Salon

Another potential Democratic swing vote announced Friday that she will vote against Judge Neil Gorsuch, President Trumps nominee for the U.S. Supreme Court.

Sen. Claire McCaskill, D-Mo., admitted it was a really difficult decision for me but that she will vote against Gorsuch when his nomination comes up for a vote in the Senate next week and will support a Democratic filibuster of him.

In an explanation posted on Medium, McCaskill acknowledged that she and 10 other Democrats have been facing intense political pressure to back Trumps choice for the court.

While I have come to the conclusion that I cant support Neil Gorsuch for the Supreme Court and will vote no on the procedural vote and his confirmation I remain very worried about our polarized politics and what the future will bring, since Im certain we will have a Senate rule change that will usher in more extreme judges in the future, McCaskill wrote.

McCaskill said she is against Gorsuch because of his rulings on the 10th Circuit Court of Appeals against a truck driver in an employment case; his refusal during his confirmation hearing to answer specific questions about Supreme Court precedent or potential issues; and because, in her words, Gorsuch believes that corporations have the same rights as people.

Only two Democrats Heidi Heitkamp, N.D., and Joe Manchin III, W. Va., have said they plan to vote for Gorsuch. They and a handful of others are the subject of a $10 million television ad campaign backing Gorsuch and trying to pressure Democrats to support him. The Judicial Crisis Network, spending the bulk of the money, on Friday said it is spending $1 million in Montana and three other states: The group hopes to win over Sen. Jon Tester, D-Mont.

Tester, McCaskill, Manchin, Heitkamp and Sen. Joe Donnelly, D-Ind., are the most imperiled Democrats in next years elections, each representing states that Trump won handily.

On Friday, Sens. Richard Blumenthal, D-Conn., and Brian Schatz, D-Hawaii, also announced theyre opposed to Gorsuch, meaning that at least 35 Democrats will vote against him and back a filibuster. Forty-one senators would be needed to sustain the filibuster and force Republicans to either withdraw Gorsuch or use their majority powers to change Senate procedure and allow him and future high court nominees to be confirmed by a simple majority vote.

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Another Democrat to oppose Gorsuch, support filibuster - Press Herald

"I'd like nothing more for the establishment to count us out," O'Rourke told CNN in a phone interview from El Paso.

The 44-year-old third-term House Democrat isn't hiring pollsters or campaign consultants and is sticking with a pledge he made during his first run for the House to refuse any corporate money or donations from political action committees. He pointed to his party's dismal record in the last 30 years trying to win a Senate seat in Texas, saying Democrats spent close to a billion dollars on "consultants, polls, wizards and experts, and we really came up short."

O'Rourke insisted that his retail strategy to travel the state is "not complicated" and made it clear he doesn't think much of targeted data-driven campaigns, saying, "I'm going back to the basics." He said he could try the same playbook that other Democratic statewide candidates like former state Sen. Wendy Davis tried, or "I can run an honest campaign about Texas, driven by Texas."

Cruz didn't respond directly to O'Rourke's argument that the senator has been too focused on national politics, but said in a written statement to CNN that he "will continue to work every day to earn and keep the trust of Texans across our great state. I'm confident that Texans want a senator who will lead the fight for freedom -- defending the Constitution, getting government off our backs, and allowing small businesses to create jobs and opportunity."

The National Republican Senatorial Campaign Committee was more direct about O'Rourke, saying he's out of step with the state.

"Beto O'Rourke would be a shoo-in for the United States Senate if he was running in Massachusetts or California -- his voting record is perfect for those states," committee spokeswoman Katie Martin told CNN in a written statement.

O'Rourke, who once traveled the country in a punk rock band, now represents the far-western corner of the state along the southwest border. He officially announced his campaign in his hometown of El Paso on Friday, saying, the state needs "a senator who is not using this position of responsibility and power to serve his own interests, to run for president, to shut down the government."

Cruz was among those Republicans arguing that a must-pass spending bill in 2013 strip funding for Obamacare, and the standoff with the White House over the issue triggered a 16-day shutdown when federal agencies didn't have funding.

When told that the other Texas Republican senator, John Cornyn, told Politico earlier this week that his campaign amounted to a "suicide mission," O'Rourke seemed unfazed by the description, saying he has "a tremendous amount of respect" for Cornyn and they've worked on some issues together.

O'Rourke said on a personal level Cruz is a "nice guy," although he doesn't know him well. He noted that the GOP senator doesn't have an office in his district near the border, and said he approached Cruz during the 2013 fight over federal funding that resulted in a shutdown to appeal to him to back down because border agents and other federal employees were affected by the shutdown.

Before O'Rourke can train his focus on Cruz, however, he might need to clear a primary fight. Rep. Joaquin Castro, whom O'Rourke phoned to tell him he was announcing his bid, is also considering the Senate race. O'Rourke said his colleague would make "a great candidate, and I'm a fan of his, a friend of his," but when asked how he could prevail over him in a potential matchup, O'Rourke replied: "I don't know."

The Democratic Senatorial Campaign Committee so far isn't weighing in, instead deciding to focus on protecting incumbent senators in states Trump won in 2016, such as North Dakota, Missouri, and Indiana. The party faces tough odds of retaking the chamber; although the GOP holds a narrow, 52-48 majority, Democrats will have to defend 25 of the 33 contests in the 2018 midterms, including the two independents who caucus with the party, Maine's Angus King and Vermont's Bernie Sanders.

But aides at the Senate Democrats' campaign arm tell CNN they are monitoring the Texas race.

Both O'Rourke and Castro speak highly of each other, but cut different profiles in the House Democratic caucus. O'Rourke noted he voted against House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi and said he is "fiercely independent," while Castro helps the leadership team corral votes and has been given a coveted seat on the House intelligence committee.

Castro told CNN earlier this week that O'Rourke's move doesn't change his plans to continue looking at the race, and he's sticking with a timeline to make his decision sometime in April.

Meanwhile, the dynamic that Democrats want to highlight is Cruz's own split with the President during the contentious GOP presidential primary.

"Here are some words we almost never say: Donald Trump was right -- about 'Lyin Ted,'" David Bergstein, spokesman for the Democratic Senatorial Campaign Committee, told CNN. "Texans know Ted Cruz is a self-serving politician, and this campaign will spotlight the many ways in which he's only ever looking out for himself,"

In El Paso on Friday, O'Rourke said that even those he meets across the state who voted for Trump say they want someone in the Congress who will be willing to break through partisan sniping and get things done.

But O'Rourke acknowledged that people are saying the same things now that they said about his first run for his congressional seat.

"I know a lot of people feel this is impossible," he said, but he dubbed El Paso, where he began a tour around the state, "an underdog city."

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House Democrat calls bid to unseat Cruz key to flipping Senate - CNN