RE last week’s discussion about Democrats’ overreliance on “losers”, does Abrams’ repeated failure to win statewide seal her fate in the party? What can she do to recover her career? It’s obvious that she’s been aiming too high.
I was more confident about Tim Ryan than I should have been. Meanwhile, the Bulwark has been consistently praising his style over those of Fetterman, Barnes, and Hobbs, all three of whom outperformed Ryan despite wildly diverging from his and each other’s styles.
Does Ryan’s defeat mean that his “average Joe” politics are basically dead in the Rust Belt short of engaging in Fetterman-like trolling tactics?
Relatedly, Hobbs was criticized for barely showing up. And Lake looked like she was a lock to win. Arizona still has the most votes left to be counted, but the early returns — which were supposed to favor Lake — are good for Hobbs. What’s going on here? How do we explain what looked like a complete collapse turning into what might be a solid win?
Early exit polls show that White women broke red again. Analysis since 2016 has shown that the fabled “White women stabbed other women in the back” myth was actually completely mistaken, but the myth persists to this day. Might this finally prove the myth right, or will it evaporate again?
I, too, lived in NYS at that time and was skeptical. The thing is though, she stayed in NYS and made it her home. Oz has homes overseas and in NJ. Will he really stay in PA?
So I would caution against making to many assumptions off of a few races. In PA, Fetterman beat OZ by 3.7% at last look, but Shapiro beat mastriano by 13%. So we’ve got almost 10% of voters who were Shapiro/OZ, what’s does that say about senate vs governors races? Is it specific to PA or the larger political environment?
I mean, Senate and governors are the most idiosyncratic races. So I think it does speak to there still being a hope of split ticket voting. But it's also confusing. Mastriano was a Trumper, but so was Oz. Shapiro may have ran as a social moderate, but the only thing that could possibly explain why people voted for Oz but not Mastriano would be that they wanted to make sure the governor could keep abortion legal in PA.
That’s a solid point about abortion access. I think that was an element about this race the pundits missed. The sorry was that after dobbs there was all this righteous anger about roe being overturned. Then by the fall the anger has flattened and wasn’t everyone’s big first issue. In reality I think that once people got I’ve the shock, they knew that their vote was the way to impact the abortion question. And that’s what happened, all states that had abortion specific ballot issues voted in a pro choice way.
people want governors to actually get shit done, some of us seem ok with congresspeople posturing on social media and rally stages, but those state leaders have actual responsibility and usually tend to be more rational actors (one large glaring exception is Ronnie D in Florida).
To many republicans Ronnie D has all the positives and few negatives compared to trump. He seems to be a true believer in the own the libs/ culture war mentality that continues to tear our nation apart. Ronnie can also stay on message and is much more consistent than trump. The only real mark against him is that he doesn’t have the Everyman appeal that trump has with many. He’s a “classy” Harvard grad, does that appeal to the MAGA base?
Basically if no political figure can take the majority of trumps base in the next election cycle (assuming trump doesn’t run) or in 2028, and the MAGAs fracture I feel much more confident about the political landscape. If desantis does manage to take the maga base with him then I’m worried.
Sure, but *why* are you worried? There is a reason that DeSantis won reelection with such an impressive margin: He governed well. Not perfectly, to be sure, and there are a number of things he has done that I did not support. But generally he did an admirable job, much of the time under difficult conditions.
David, came to check on you after your bet-induced ban :) I took at look at the numbers and Ryan did about 1.5 pts better than Biden in OH, Fetterman doing about 2.2 pts better that Biden in PA. I'm not sure there's clear evidence that the Fetterman approach is better so much as PA is bluer. But, here in Ohio, I'd say Tim Ryan came across as "normal politician," which is good to folks like me but pretty unremarkable to most. It wasn't enough to get independents all that excited. But that's my read of the vibes. In my purple suburb, I saw maybe 4 Vance signs and 2 Ryan ones when there were easily 10-20x as many signs in 2020. It was a big meh.
Thanks! I'm doing OK. I always like these fun little bets. Better than losing money.
FWIW, I'm also in the middle of "No Meat November".
I'm not a fan of comparing performance to past presidential numbers. Senate races are only the second most idiosyncratic after governor races, so if we're comparing them to other statewide numbers, we should also look at the direction of statewide House numbers between the current and previous cycle, not just the previous cycle's presidential ones.
Only comparing to presidential numbers misses out on thermostatic and other effects that have been playing out over the first half of the term. For instance, it's actually interesting that Fetterman and Ryan didn't wildly diverge from Biden, because it indicates that neither state has actually moved much since 2020.
I do wonder if Ryan fell victim to the "not distinguishable enough from a Republican to be worth not voting for the real thing" problem that the hard left complains about. I used to buy that complaint, but I've soured on it as not really accurate or informative. And yet, it seemed like Ryan was doing *all the right things* to *not* seem like "basically a Republican". He distanced himself from the national party, made parochialist appeals, hammered the economic message, refused to push unpopular leftist social positions.
The only reason left to explain why he lost is... rank partisanship. But that's not a very satisfying or informative answer. And it doesn't point to anything that can be done to fix it.
Talk about a lack of red wave, in your native missouri dave the democrats picked up 6 state house seats and held in the senate. It was almost 7 but my local rep lost by only 179 votes in a previously ruby red district.
Comparing Fetterman vs. Oz with Ryan vs. Vance doesn't work. Fetterman has lived in PA for a long time, tried to clean up Braddock, eschewed the Lt. Governor's mansion and is brash. He looks like an every man sort of person.
Oz, on the other hand, has dual citizenship with Turkey and New Jersey (well sort of for New Jersey😉). He is a late-comer to PA and appears to have moved only to run for office. That speaks more to wanting personal power than to caring about his own constituents. While some people may love him, he sold crap to people knowing that it either didn't work or that there was no good basis for believing that it would work. The puppy killer thing was icing on the cake, for Fetterman.
Recently, newscasters have been talking about PA as being truly "purple" and that the reason for it is that voters choose by candidate, not party. I am not sure about that. It seems more likely that there are some deep red voters, some deep blue voters and enough independents who might go either way to paint the state purple. [In the Oz race, there may have been an anti-New Jersey angle that played out.]
Ryan seems to be the type of Democrat that Republicans shouldn't hate, except, we are in the Trump era. J.D. Vance is a full-throated Trump supporter. Both Ryan and Vance are native sons of Ohio, so no carpetbagging charges can be leveled against either one. Too many Republicans have listened for too long about the 2020 election being rigged. It has played over and over on various TV and radio broadcasts. I think this has played into that particular race, along with the demonization of Democrats as a whole. There are probably economic and societal reasons working in Ohio, too, about which I can't speak.
As for campaign style? We are in the age of tech. It allows us to be rude and stupid without immediate consequence. With the online availability of "information", being louder or more rude garners more attention. The squeaky wheel gets the grease is apropos today. Instead of checking to see if it is damaged, it gets greased.
"He is a late-comer to PA and appears to have moved only to run for office. That speaks more to wanting personal power than to caring about his own constituents."
Swap the relevant pronouns & state, and that's precisely how I felt about Hillary Clinton when I lived in NY.
I, too, lived in NYS at that time and was skeptical. The thing is though, she stayed in NYS and made it her home. Oz has homes overseas and in NJ. Will he really stay in PA?
"I was more confident about Tim Ryan than I should have been."
Fabulous.
So I would caution against making to many assumptions off of a few races. In PA, Fetterman beat OZ by 3.7% at last look, but Shapiro beat mastriano by 13%. So we’ve got almost 10% of voters who were Shapiro/OZ, what’s does that say about senate vs governors races? Is it specific to PA or the larger political environment?
I mean, Senate and governors are the most idiosyncratic races. So I think it does speak to there still being a hope of split ticket voting. But it's also confusing. Mastriano was a Trumper, but so was Oz. Shapiro may have ran as a social moderate, but the only thing that could possibly explain why people voted for Oz but not Mastriano would be that they wanted to make sure the governor could keep abortion legal in PA.
That’s a solid point about abortion access. I think that was an element about this race the pundits missed. The sorry was that after dobbs there was all this righteous anger about roe being overturned. Then by the fall the anger has flattened and wasn’t everyone’s big first issue. In reality I think that once people got I’ve the shock, they knew that their vote was the way to impact the abortion question. And that’s what happened, all states that had abortion specific ballot issues voted in a pro choice way.
people want governors to actually get shit done, some of us seem ok with congresspeople posturing on social media and rally stages, but those state leaders have actual responsibility and usually tend to be more rational actors (one large glaring exception is Ronnie D in Florida).
Gotta ask: What vexes you about “Ronnie D”?
To many republicans Ronnie D has all the positives and few negatives compared to trump. He seems to be a true believer in the own the libs/ culture war mentality that continues to tear our nation apart. Ronnie can also stay on message and is much more consistent than trump. The only real mark against him is that he doesn’t have the Everyman appeal that trump has with many. He’s a “classy” Harvard grad, does that appeal to the MAGA base?
Basically if no political figure can take the majority of trumps base in the next election cycle (assuming trump doesn’t run) or in 2028, and the MAGAs fracture I feel much more confident about the political landscape. If desantis does manage to take the maga base with him then I’m worried.
Sure, but *why* are you worried? There is a reason that DeSantis won reelection with such an impressive margin: He governed well. Not perfectly, to be sure, and there are a number of things he has done that I did not support. But generally he did an admirable job, much of the time under difficult conditions.
I think there’s a stark difference between governing “well” and governing “competently but demagogically”.
David, came to check on you after your bet-induced ban :) I took at look at the numbers and Ryan did about 1.5 pts better than Biden in OH, Fetterman doing about 2.2 pts better that Biden in PA. I'm not sure there's clear evidence that the Fetterman approach is better so much as PA is bluer. But, here in Ohio, I'd say Tim Ryan came across as "normal politician," which is good to folks like me but pretty unremarkable to most. It wasn't enough to get independents all that excited. But that's my read of the vibes. In my purple suburb, I saw maybe 4 Vance signs and 2 Ryan ones when there were easily 10-20x as many signs in 2020. It was a big meh.
Thanks! I'm doing OK. I always like these fun little bets. Better than losing money.
FWIW, I'm also in the middle of "No Meat November".
I'm not a fan of comparing performance to past presidential numbers. Senate races are only the second most idiosyncratic after governor races, so if we're comparing them to other statewide numbers, we should also look at the direction of statewide House numbers between the current and previous cycle, not just the previous cycle's presidential ones.
Only comparing to presidential numbers misses out on thermostatic and other effects that have been playing out over the first half of the term. For instance, it's actually interesting that Fetterman and Ryan didn't wildly diverge from Biden, because it indicates that neither state has actually moved much since 2020.
I do wonder if Ryan fell victim to the "not distinguishable enough from a Republican to be worth not voting for the real thing" problem that the hard left complains about. I used to buy that complaint, but I've soured on it as not really accurate or informative. And yet, it seemed like Ryan was doing *all the right things* to *not* seem like "basically a Republican". He distanced himself from the national party, made parochialist appeals, hammered the economic message, refused to push unpopular leftist social positions.
The only reason left to explain why he lost is... rank partisanship. But that's not a very satisfying or informative answer. And it doesn't point to anything that can be done to fix it.
Talk about a lack of red wave, in your native missouri dave the democrats picked up 6 state house seats and held in the senate. It was almost 7 but my local rep lost by only 179 votes in a previously ruby red district.
Comparing Fetterman vs. Oz with Ryan vs. Vance doesn't work. Fetterman has lived in PA for a long time, tried to clean up Braddock, eschewed the Lt. Governor's mansion and is brash. He looks like an every man sort of person.
Oz, on the other hand, has dual citizenship with Turkey and New Jersey (well sort of for New Jersey😉). He is a late-comer to PA and appears to have moved only to run for office. That speaks more to wanting personal power than to caring about his own constituents. While some people may love him, he sold crap to people knowing that it either didn't work or that there was no good basis for believing that it would work. The puppy killer thing was icing on the cake, for Fetterman.
Recently, newscasters have been talking about PA as being truly "purple" and that the reason for it is that voters choose by candidate, not party. I am not sure about that. It seems more likely that there are some deep red voters, some deep blue voters and enough independents who might go either way to paint the state purple. [In the Oz race, there may have been an anti-New Jersey angle that played out.]
Ryan seems to be the type of Democrat that Republicans shouldn't hate, except, we are in the Trump era. J.D. Vance is a full-throated Trump supporter. Both Ryan and Vance are native sons of Ohio, so no carpetbagging charges can be leveled against either one. Too many Republicans have listened for too long about the 2020 election being rigged. It has played over and over on various TV and radio broadcasts. I think this has played into that particular race, along with the demonization of Democrats as a whole. There are probably economic and societal reasons working in Ohio, too, about which I can't speak.
As for campaign style? We are in the age of tech. It allows us to be rude and stupid without immediate consequence. With the online availability of "information", being louder or more rude garners more attention. The squeaky wheel gets the grease is apropos today. Instead of checking to see if it is damaged, it gets greased.
"He is a late-comer to PA and appears to have moved only to run for office. That speaks more to wanting personal power than to caring about his own constituents."
Swap the relevant pronouns & state, and that's precisely how I felt about Hillary Clinton when I lived in NY.