Canada2017 said:
Forest Bueller said:
4th and Inches said:
OZ is about 40k back and gaining..
Might still be there
The Philadelphia machine will ward of any Oz momentum.
Walker and Warnock in a runoff. Not sure what is going on in AZ. I thought we were told Lake and others have all the momentum.
Outside of Florida and DeSantis…..the red wave was a bust .
The message is clear …..it's DeSantis for president in 2024.
That will be the Establishment take, and there's a lot to commend it. DeSantis was already the heir apparent BEFORE the vote totals came rolling in. But.......
There is a parallel here with 2012. The Romney campaign leaned heavily on the Tea Party NOT to try to recreate the magic of 2010 with energetic grassroots campaining, rallies, block walking, etc.... It's a different dynamic, they said. It's going to be counterproductive, they said. It'll turn off independents and fire up the Dem base, they said. Voters like the incumbent personally, they said. We can't treat him like y'all did Dems in 2010. Trust us, they said. We know what we're doing, they said. We got this, they said. And then....whomp, whomp, whomp.....
Who didn't show up yesterday? Independents and MAGA base.
Remember all the times I said that negative campaigning turns off independents?
Remember when I said the goal of a troubled incumbent is to get independents NOT to vote?
The goal is to make the election a referendum not on you, but your challenger....to make him/her look worse.
The Dems DID turn out their base.
Better than we did.
What could we have done a better job firing up OUR base?
(see below)
Q: Where did the GOP do best?
A: Where the hard-charging, MAGA-created Governor stood on the victory stage and said "Florida is where Woke comes to die." No punches pulled in FL. No worries about inflaming sensibilities there. It was a knock teeth in campaign. (which had a good record to run on ).
Trump made a huge mistake.
He respected the wishes of the HRCC and SRCC. He stayed on the sidelines.
Did not campaign with a single candidate.
Did not do anything to fire up the MAGA base by declaring for reelection.
Is it a surprise we saw a 2018 turnout more (when he was not on the ticket) rather than 2016/2020 when he was?
And how did Dems turn out their base? (by calling the GOP win "the end of democracy").
Meanwhile, ours stayed home....so as not to inflame theirs....or scare independents who stayed home anyway.
Independents did not come roaring out to save the economy or the schools.
Democrats came out to save their agenda.
A campaigning Trump would not have negatively impacted either of those two demographics.
He would have brought out the MAGA base.
Democrats called out their unpopular leaders to campaign with their embattled Senators and Governors, and they got their base out & got their problem candidates across the finish line. (you can forgive me if I harrumph about comments on "candidate quality." Dems got strong showings from deeply flawed (Barnes, Fetterman, Warnock) and nearly opaque (Hassan, Hobbs) candidates in tight races (each of which the GOP should have won).
The Tx data I posted leading up to the election was, in hindsight, instructive. The record turnout we needed to win did not happen.
The silver lining: DeSantis showed me something I've consistently pointed out he lacked - a viable coalition of his own. No, it's not exactly MAGA. It's a different coalition. Can it be a model to take nationwide? Maybe. We'll see.
Take home lesson yesterday is one we have to come to grips with: In a nearly evenly divided election, quit making election plans to woo independent voters with milquetoast campaigns. All that does is make your own base stay home. Until we have a nationwide result resembling Reagan in 1984, every election is a base election.