So I'm kind of depressed about the election. I actually think the GOP will get the Senate in the run-off (I think we win Nevada), but the whole election was a disaster. What's worse, too many people are learning the wrong lessons. That said, some aren't. Either way, here are some good things and bad things.
1. The election was a disaster. Let's be honest. In this environment and being a midterm, we should have crushed the Democrats. Inflation at 40 year worst. Recession. Job losses starting. Real wages in the toilet (worst in over 40 years). Housing market falling. Threat of nuclear war. Pandemics everywhere and the Democratic mishandling of the pandemics becoming obvious. And the Democrats were way off message, pushing stuff that turned people off. And yet... we lost. We lost tons of very winnable seats. That is a disaster.
2. So why did we lose? Hmm. Could it be that the candidates who lost largely had something in common? People like the Trump-backed election denier General in New Hampshire, the Trump-backed election denier news anchor in Arizona, the Trump-backed election denier Governor candidate in Pennsylvania, the Trump-backed veteran in Ohio who lied about serving in Afghanistan and who attended the January 6 jerk off festival, the Trump-backed hardcore MAGA candidates for Governor in Massachusetts and Maryland, the Trump-backed quack doctor in Pennsylvania, the Trump-backed election denying candidate for Governor in Wisconsin. Gosh, I feel like there must be some common thread, but I just can't quite put my finger on it.
Will history repeat in 2024? There are a lot of GOP people and news organizations pushing hard to dump Trump and switch to DeSantis, but the Trumpees I've talked to already think the problem was not enough Trump. Of course.
3. Colorado is lost. The numbers are shocking. We've gone from a slight Republican lead to a 200,000 statewide advantage for the Democrats. It's the millions of Californians who moved in. They are terrible people and they're highly destructive, and they vote Democrat. Colorado is as blue as California now.
As an aside, they voted to allow magic mushrooms because Californians do like their drugs. They also apparently like homelessness, petty crime and DUIs. Who knew that Portland was a good model for Colorado to follow?
4. I think Hispanics are actually shifting. Without that, Texas would be much bluer, Nevada would not be competitive, and Florida would not have been such a blowout. That is good.
5. DeSantis really proved his abilities yesterday. He built an incredible coalition. He makes me hopeful.
6. I think abortion played at the edges of this election, but wasn't what hurt the GOP. That was candidates and the big orange narcissist who would not shut up throughout the race. That said, please note that wherever it went before the people, the pro-abortion side won clearly. Even in Kentucky.
7. I suspect Walker will win the runoff. It never should have been that close though. That issue aside, the win by (anti-Trump) Kemp makes me happier about Georgia's future. It seemed to be slipping to blue, much like Virginia, as transplants flood Atlanta. But last night was a good sign that it could still be red.
8. Now the bad news. There is a lot of bad news coming in terms of jobs and inflation and housing. Now that the GOP will be taking the House (and maybe the Senate) they become the easy target for blame for that. They need to do their best to at least look proactive and like the responsible adults. I don't know if that's possible given the number of lunatics they still have to placate, but we'll see.
Thoughts?
1. The election was a disaster. Let's be honest. In this environment and being a midterm, we should have crushed the Democrats. Inflation at 40 year worst. Recession. Job losses starting. Real wages in the toilet (worst in over 40 years). Housing market falling. Threat of nuclear war. Pandemics everywhere and the Democratic mishandling of the pandemics becoming obvious. And the Democrats were way off message, pushing stuff that turned people off. And yet... we lost. We lost tons of very winnable seats. That is a disaster.
2. So why did we lose? Hmm. Could it be that the candidates who lost largely had something in common? People like the Trump-backed election denier General in New Hampshire, the Trump-backed election denier news anchor in Arizona, the Trump-backed election denier Governor candidate in Pennsylvania, the Trump-backed veteran in Ohio who lied about serving in Afghanistan and who attended the January 6 jerk off festival, the Trump-backed hardcore MAGA candidates for Governor in Massachusetts and Maryland, the Trump-backed quack doctor in Pennsylvania, the Trump-backed election denying candidate for Governor in Wisconsin. Gosh, I feel like there must be some common thread, but I just can't quite put my finger on it.
Will history repeat in 2024? There are a lot of GOP people and news organizations pushing hard to dump Trump and switch to DeSantis, but the Trumpees I've talked to already think the problem was not enough Trump. Of course.
3. Colorado is lost. The numbers are shocking. We've gone from a slight Republican lead to a 200,000 statewide advantage for the Democrats. It's the millions of Californians who moved in. They are terrible people and they're highly destructive, and they vote Democrat. Colorado is as blue as California now.
As an aside, they voted to allow magic mushrooms because Californians do like their drugs. They also apparently like homelessness, petty crime and DUIs. Who knew that Portland was a good model for Colorado to follow?
4. I think Hispanics are actually shifting. Without that, Texas would be much bluer, Nevada would not be competitive, and Florida would not have been such a blowout. That is good.
5. DeSantis really proved his abilities yesterday. He built an incredible coalition. He makes me hopeful.
6. I think abortion played at the edges of this election, but wasn't what hurt the GOP. That was candidates and the big orange narcissist who would not shut up throughout the race. That said, please note that wherever it went before the people, the pro-abortion side won clearly. Even in Kentucky.
7. I suspect Walker will win the runoff. It never should have been that close though. That issue aside, the win by (anti-Trump) Kemp makes me happier about Georgia's future. It seemed to be slipping to blue, much like Virginia, as transplants flood Atlanta. But last night was a good sign that it could still be red.
8. Now the bad news. There is a lot of bad news coming in terms of jobs and inflation and housing. Now that the GOP will be taking the House (and maybe the Senate) they become the easy target for blame for that. They need to do their best to at least look proactive and like the responsible adults. I don't know if that's possible given the number of lunatics they still have to placate, but we'll see.
Thoughts?
11 comments:
I do think Trump backing hurt in a lot of places, but not here in Westmoreland Co., PA. The Republican candidates swept every office. I agree that DeSantis' win is exciting. I don't hate Trump, but we'll get a lot further in 2024 with DeSantis and maybe he can keep his fingers off of social media.
I agree. So disgusted with Trump. He lost Pennsylvania by endorsing a weak carpet bagger. Also, I think abortion probably hurt in some states - Jed
Andrew - Jed again. I know Anne Coulter is a little crazy, but did you read her article on the mid-terms? Quite good. As far as taking control of both houses, or even his HR. if we can get better leadership, what you do is propose budget cuts to some of his green new deal, opening up drilling. It will be vetoed by Biden. As much as Biden deserves to be investigated for his getting money from the Chicoms, justice demands it, but if he lives out his term, Biden would most likely be an easy target for DeSantis. On the other hand, they really do not have any strong candidates
Hi Stacy, Sorry for the delay in responding. Long week. There are three problems with Trump. The first is that he really does hurt Republican candidates. He has so turned off people who would otherwise vote Republican that he has become a lifeline for Democrats. The things he does and says are at best a distraction, to put it kindly. He inspires the other side and gets people on his own side to turn against him.
Secondly, the people he backs are lunatics. He picks nuts and butt-kissers and the result is a slate of candidates that no rational party would run. You see the effect of this in that the people he backed not only largely lost, but underperformed other Republicans statewide in the 3-5% range in their states. That's huge.
Third, he's a complete narcissist who does not care about ideology or party but cares about self-aggrandizement. He's spent far more time attacking Republicans than he has attacking Democrats, and when he does, there's zero ideology behind it except "me first." That's basically the behavior of a saboteur. And as long as he has any sway, he is guaranteeing a relentless march left at a time when the left has become truly dangerous.
DeSantis has none of the baggage, does none of the harm, is a great deal smarter, and has solid genuinely conservative ideas. As do a dozen other governors, Senators and Congressmen.
Hi Jed,
Agreed on Trump. On abortion, I don't yet see any evidence to say that it had an effect. Excluding Trump people, the GOP won in the places they should have won. Right now at least, I don't see that abortion hurt any of them. The only exception I see at the moment is possibly Wisconsin, where it looks (caution: early impression) like more women voters turned out in Madison, a college town to vote against the Republicans. To know for sure, we'd have to see if voting was up among young women and/or in college towns generally. Right now, I can't say that it was.
Right now, the only things I see that suggest a pattern of any sort was the public voting hard against Trump people. I don't see any other issue that swung people, apart from continued growth among Hispanics and what DeSantis did in Florida.
As an aside, Marijuana lost in several states. Smart move. Colorado claims there have been no negative effects of legalization here, but there absolutely have. Lots of homeless addicts roaming the streets near the pot shops. Plus, it seems to have become a magnet for out-of-state pot head, petty criminals. We're not Portland yet, but we're working on it.
One more thought. Lauren Boebert is an interesting case on this. She's a rep from Colorado. Incumbent. She represents the part of the state where Democrats do not tread -- guns, gas and farms. This is a district the former Republican won by 6-10% routinely.
She got elected in 2020 by 6%. At the time, she roundly denied believing in QAnon or any conspiracy theories (her campaign manager did, which is where the issue came up).
After the election she jumped on election denial and January 6. It looks like she will be re-elected (too close to call still) but if so, by only a couple hundred votes out of 320,000. She lost 6% of support because she embraced that garbage.
Marjorie Green similarly went from 74% in 2020 to 65% this time.
The QAnon crap is embarrassing to say the least. I posted most of my thoughts about the midterms in your last article... This article pretty much sums up how I feel for the most part.
The numbers speak for themselves. Nobody wants loony representatives, whether its coming from Republicans or Democrats.
-Kyle
Just an example of the mentality we're up against...in one PA district the DEAD Democrat got 82% of the vote.
Hey Andrew, I have some thoughts on Trump’s speech that aired last night:
His speech was fairly good, and he made a surprisingly good impression in that he came off as if he has grown as a person. His speech came off as calm and relaxed, basically he came off as fairly presidential. He did exactly what he needed to do: he compared the failures of the Biden admin with the successes of the Trump admin. He said all this while not flinging insults at Biden & his opposition.
The real surprise was that he was able to control himself, and he didn't talk about 2020 and his previously lost election. He instead simply stuck to his future 2024 presidential bid and how his policies will bring Americans wealth & security (something he has proven to be true with his previous admin).
If he stays the course then he has a much better chance than I initially anticipated, he may be able to pull a Grover Cleveland type of re-election. He needs to remain calm and not ramble about 2020. Unless it is brought up by the Democrats, he needs to just drop 2020… as it will only cause him harm.
I’ve also had a few mild changes on my views in regards to the mid terms. Initially I assumed the loss was mostly due to Trump’s endorsements that caused the candidates to be un-electable by the general public. However, while many of the Trump endorsed candidates lost; a sizable portion won. Also most of the races that were lost came out fairly close; with Dems only winning by a small margin.
Another point: New York of all places had a fairly close race. Republicans normally get hammered in New York, however this election was much more close than I ever anticipated.
While I still believe Trump did take a toll on some independent voters, I believe a large portion of the blame can be placed on the GOP’s establishment leaders. There was a significant money gap from the RNC funding that trended towards not financing several key Senate races. They spent millions on a Republican vs Republican race in Alaska; while withholding significant funds to go towards Kari Lake & Blake Masters (among many others).
With all that said, Trump’s baggage will still forever haunt him. Trump could have also stepped up the funding for his endorsed candidates as well. Most importantly, Trump did endorse some crap candidates: Oz and Mastriano (aka Q-Anon moron) come to mind.
Kari Lake is alright by me, and I’m hoping Herschel Walker wins despite his flaws. Funny story in regards to Herschel Walker; I met him once over 15 years ago at a book signing in Denton Texas. He is in person a very charming down to earth man.
A silver lining of the Republicans not taking back the senate is that the Dems are going to have a hard time passing Biden's economic failures onto Republicans.
Another point: the GOP won the popular vote by over 5 million votes, turnout was significantly higher for the GOP.
I could be totally miss-reading all this. However keep in mind I’m not a Trumper, and I’m simply going off of what I have seen. As long as Trump stays fairly restrained from here on out, and if he dumps every Q-Anon knuckle head that he has surrounded himself with; then he could potentially win.
-Kyle
The dopers came out of their mom's basement to vote here in Missouri. I noticed some of the Green Party candidates and some Democrats actually had slightly higher numbers, mainly due to the dopers voting. BTW, there was not a single Democrat on the ballot in my county. There are things I like about Trump, there are things I don't like. He's not a politician, that's a plus,,,OTOH, him not being a politician made it hard for him to get the GOP to do anything for him. I am absolutely confused how the Democrat's elected that senile old fool...but the list of their candidates was pretty thin..I still think Obama is pulling the strings now...the Clintons are out in right field where the dandelions grow. It made my heart smile when Robert O'Rourke got beat,
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