RMF5630 said:

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whiterock said:

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Canada2017 said:

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Forest Bueller said:

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4th and Inches said:

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OZ is about 40k back and gaining..

Might still be there

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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.

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Outside of Florida and DeSantis…..the red wave was a bust .

The message is clear …..it's DeSantis for president in 2024.

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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.

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Whiterock, I am calling BS on the MAGA created DeSantis. Trump backed DeSantis in his original run for Governor, true. But who was he running against? Gilliam was being investigated by the FBI, was a junkie and as left as they get. Of course he backed DeSantis.

As for DeSantis today, he is made by his actions and getting things done. Not Trump. I live and work in Florida in the infrastructure field. I met DeSantis and get to work with State Officials. Trump is a non-entity in the day to day lives. DeSantis handled COVID great, he handled Ian great, he handled education great, he handled the economy. That is what made DeSantis, NOT MAGA in anyway.

You are hanging out with too many Trumpites, he is really a non-player here. DeSantis has supplanted him and Scott as the face of Florida.

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I hang out with a pretty broad spectrum, to include close friends who are politically active liberal and libertarian types. I've also been at this game for a while and am pretty good at history of prior cycles. DeSantis was a House backbencher who joined the Freedom Caucus and never missed a chance to pose as a staunch conservative on Fox News, Hannity, etc…. And when he jumped into a crowded primary field of FL Gov contenders, one of whom was a sitting state elected with a bunch of endorsements, it was a Trump endorsement that helped lift him to the top of the heap (just as it did a lot of other candidates in this and other prior cycles). (The House is not a traditionally strong springboard into state elected office, and the larger the state, the more that tends to be true. Only in states so small that a house district is all or most of the state, rendering a house seat a near-equivalent if statewide office, do we see candidates floating from Congress to Statehouse very often. FL is effectively Tx in that regard…..almost never happens.)
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/2018_Florida_gubernatorial_election

So, yeah, it's pretty well known history: Desantis rises squarely out of the MAGA tradition. In all respects.

That is not to say he hasn't done a whole lotta stuff on his own to put him where he is today. He's earned the right to be his own man. But it's just plain history that he is MAGA 2.0 heir apparent. That's why Trump will be accusing him of ingratitude, backstabbing, etc…..because in a narrow sense it's a fair jab to throw. Probably won't draw a lot of blood, but it will stiffen the Trump base a bit.

Politics is a tough game. What makes the looming Trump - Desantis fight so alluring is that we have two guys who don't mind drinking beer with busted lips. Don't get mad that they're gonna be throwing haymakers. Evaluate which one is doing the best job.

Bestweekeverr said:

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Mothra said:

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Bestweekeverr said:

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Mothra said:

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Bestweekeverr said:

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Mothra said:

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In other nuttiness, California, a state that legalized recreational marijuana use, has banned the sale of flavored tobacco products. So California voters and politicians are cool with a recreational drug that lowers the IQ, increases the risk of depression, psychosis and suicide, and generally has an ill effect on mental health, but a product that causes lip cancer is beyond the pale. SMH.

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Are you really saying that weed is worse for your health than tobacco products? These flavored tobacco products (Juul) were proven to be advertising their products to kids and high schoolers so that they become addicted and will be customers for life.

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No. I am saying they both have very bad health implications, and it's ironic that a state would vote in favor of one bad health implication while banning another.

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One has much worse health outcomes than the other, and is targeting kids. How is it ironic that a state would ban that and not the other?

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One doesn't have much worse health outcomes than the other. Marijuana is likewise carcinogenic. Smoke from marijuana combustion has been shown to contain many of the same toxins, irritants and carcinogens as tobacco smoke. Research has also shown smoking marijuana has many of the exact same damaging effects on the lungs as tobacco. It also makes the lungs much more susceptible to respiratory illness and disease. And that of course does not even account for the effect it has on the brain, unlike tobacco use.

As someone with libertarian leanings, legalization of marijuana is something I don't get too worked up about. But let's not pretend that marijuana is much safer than tobacco. The data says its not, which is why CA's banning of chewing tobacco is so ironic.

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Yes, smoking anything is going to be bad for you. The difference is that tobacco products contain nicotine that is highly physiologically addictive so when people do tobacco products they do them at a much higher rate, which compounds the negative health effects. Sure weed can be addicting in a lifestyle way like videogames, but it's not a physiological addiction so people are not smoking nearly as much weed as they are cigarettes/vapes. Look at the difference in cancer rates between lifetime cigarette smokers and lifetime weed smokers.

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I don't disagree that some of the side effects of tobacco are worse than weed. But it doesn't make weed all that much better, if at all. While you point to the addictive elements of tobacco and carcinogens, one could likewise point to the following ill effects that arguably make weed worse than tobacco on a person's health: 1) inebriation or incapacity that makes driving under the influence and automobile accidents more likely: 2) higher incidence of school failure and dropout rate among marijuana users; 3) psychosis resulting from a high; 4) kills brain cells; and 5) much higher incidence of depression, suicide and mental incapacity.

In short, both drugs have bad health outcomes which, again, makes the distinction that CA is trying to draw between the two quite ironic.

whiterock said:

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RMF5630 said:

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whiterock said:

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Canada2017 said:

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Forest Bueller said:

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4th and Inches said:

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OZ is about 40k back and gaining..

Might still be there

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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.

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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.

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Whiterock, I am calling BS on the MAGA created DeSantis. Trump backed DeSantis in his original run for Governor, true. But who was he running against? Gilliam was being investigated by the FBI, was a junkie and as left as they get. Of course he backed DeSantis.

As for DeSantis today, he is made by his actions and getting things done. Not Trump. I live and work in Florida in the infrastructure field. I met DeSantis and get to work with State Officials. Trump is a non-entity in the day to day lives. DeSantis handled COVID great, he handled Ian great, he handled education great, he handled the economy. That is what made DeSantis, NOT MAGA in anyway.

You are hanging out with too many Trumpites, he is really a non-player here. DeSantis has supplanted him and Scott as the face of Florida.

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I hang out with a pretty broad spectrum, to include close friends who are politically active liberal and libertarian types. I've also been at this game for a while and am pretty good at history of prior cycles. DeSantis was a House backbencher who joined the Freedom Caucus and never missed a chance to pose as a staunch conservative on Fox News, Hannity, etc…. And when he jumped into a crowded primary field of FL Gov contenders, one of whom was a sitting state elected with a bunch of endorsements, it was a Trump endorsement that helped lift him to the top of the heap (just as it did a lot of other candidates in this and other prior cycles). (The House is not a traditionally strong springboard into state elected office, and the larger the state, the more that tends to be true. Only in states so small that a house district is all or most of the state, rendering a house seat a near-equivalent if statewide office, do we see candidates floating from Congress to Statehouse very often. FL is effectively Tx in that regard…..almost never happens.)
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/2018_Florida_gubernatorial_election

So, yeah, it's pretty well known history: Desantis rises squarely out of the MAGA tradition. In all respects.

That is not to say he hasn't done a whole lotta stuff on his own to put him where he is today. He's earned the right to be his own man. But it's just plain history that he is MAGA 2.0 heir apparent. That's why Trump will be accusing him of ingratitude, backstabbing, etc…..because in a narrow sense it's a fair jab to throw. Probably won't draw a lot of blood, but it will stiffen the Trump base a bit.

Politics is a tough game. What makes the looming Trump - Desantis fight so alluring is that we have two guys who don't mind drinking beer with busted lips. Don't get mad that they're gonna be throwing haymakers. Evaluate which one is doing the best job.

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Kind of ridiculous to throw around the ungrateful or backstabbing moniker merely because DeSantis refuses to bend his knee to Trump by propagating a lie regarding the 2020 election. Add to the absurdity the fact that the dumb@ss lost the 2020 election by around 8 million votes and has done nothing to improve his popularity since that time.

DeSantis doesn't owe Trump a damn thing. Trump is a loser, and we shouldn't be re-running a loser the next election cycle while expecting different results.

whiterock said:

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ATL Bear said:

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whiterock said:

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JXL said:

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whiterock said:

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EX: Exit polling is clear that Threat To Democracy and Abortion were huge issues with thoe who voted.

Are those key issues with voters at large? Was all the polling about inflation and economy wrong?

no.

Remember what I said many times: a pollster has to poll the people who actually vote.

A majority of voters think inflation and the economy ARE the big issues.
but those voters didn't show up and vote.

A smaller number of voters think abortion and threats to democracy are the big issues.
but those voters are who showed up and voted.


Every election is a base election.
If you do not turn out your own base, the independents don't matter a damned bit.

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You can't win elections with just your base. Nominating Trump might fire up his base of support, but he would be unlikely to pull enough support from outside of his base to win.

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The results from last night directly refute that conclusion.

SOME elections are choice elections, where wooing independents is the key.
SOME elections are base elections, where there isn't much middle ground and victory lies in turning out your base.

As long as we remain an evenly divided electorate, building a strategy of chasing 3% of the voting public least likely to vote is the road to oblivion. If you cannot fire up your own base to come boiling out to vote, you are not going to inspire independents to come boiling out to vote either.

Democrats campaigned solely within their base. They spoke primarily to the J6 faithful and the abortion on demand faithful....and they got a bigger turnout of their base than Republicans did.

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You couldn't be more wrong. The Kemp/Walker break is a classic showing of how independents will actually vote multi party, and can be wooed to candidates. It also shows that even semi-partisans will split tickets. Look at the ratio breaks in districts of Republican pick ups in the House. Run better candidates. Don't drag them down with political baggage like Trump.

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Moderate Republicans are fickle, too. Oso and Sam will throw their vote away 3rd party on principle then blame others when it lets Dems win. But if we attend to their concerns, we lose more votes in our own base than we gain in the middle. That's a dynamic proven over and over again. Oz is an example - the kind of moderate that's supposed to win purple states. Only he didn't. You win purple states like Perry and DeSantis did - by defeating liberal ideas and turning the date RED.

And before we cite "Trump baggage" as responsible for last night, it must be noted that the single best outcome of the night came from a candidate plucked from obscurity by a Trump endorsement, a candidate who by any measure was the most Trump-esque of them all. He's not the "anti-Trump" that your argument implicitly presumes. He's Trump 2.0, an apparently more formidable variant of the original strain.

And while we're on GA, they have almost as bad a "arrogant moderate" dynamic as AZ. It's not like Perdue or Loeffler were great big throbbing MAGA-maniacs. Quite a bit of spin going on to blame deficiencies in the GA GOP on Trump. I spent a number of hours around a campfire with a GA businessman donor in aftermath off the 2020 GA Senate debacle. Wonderful thoughtful fellow who like many of the type think the secret to success is stifling the GOP base. That is not what DeDantis did. Quite the opposite - poking Disney in the eye, reliving woke prosecutors of their duties, etc…..

The argument for Desantis is that he's simply better at Trumpism than Trump.

It's a hard argument to refute.

---

Which candidate are you referring to? Vance? Because he got his butt pulled out of the fire by McConnell's PAC.

Regarding Georgia, Loeffler never should have been the Senate candidate, and Trump is owed some blame (as well as Kemp) for not choosing Doug Collins. Perdue and Loeffler were Trump ring kissers, and Perdue leaned in with MAGA in his primary attempt against Kemp. But Trump went hard after the GA GOP post 2020 election, irrationally, yet Kemp is arguably the second strongest Republican governor behind Desantis. He's buried the Democrat darling with massive out of state money behind her twice now. Raffensburger won by an even larger margin than Kemp, all the cast of characters he was dragging through the mud just two years ago. The Trump blame comes from promoting bad candidates, and the "eat our own" approach he employs.

But I will agree that Desantis does "Trumpism" (if that's a thing) much more effectively than Trump. All the more reason to move aside and let the thoroughbred run his race.

You can't use Total vote as a comparison for the 2020 Presidential election. CA along shifts that total...do you want CA making decisions for you...?

Redbrickbear said:

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The Republican Party is the party of the married and…

Increasingly unmarried men.

The Democratic Party is the party of unmarried women.

This gender*marriage story will rise in importance as share of unmarrieds climbs. pic.twitter.com/7e4WSs8gaa

— Brad Wilcox (@BradWilcoxIFS) November 9, 2022

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The abortion factor?

ATL Bear said:

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Redbrickbear said:

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The Republican Party is the party of the married and…

Increasingly unmarried men.

The Democratic Party is the party of unmarried women.

This gender*marriage story will rise in importance as share of unmarrieds climbs. pic.twitter.com/7e4WSs8gaa

— Brad Wilcox (@BradWilcoxIFS) November 9, 2022

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The abortion factor?

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Deeper cultural issues than just that one thing.

Its happening in lots of developed countries (this split between males/females)

Both of these articles deal with the issue from bog standard liberal perceptive but gives you some idea what is going on.

https://www.cfr.org/blog/south-korean-elections-gender-conflict-and-future-women-voters

https://time.com/6156537/south-korea-president-yoon-suk-yeol-sexism/
[How South Korea's Yoon Suk-yeol Capitalized on Anti-Feminist Backlash to Win the Presidency]

Mothra said:

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Bestweekeverr said:

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Mothra said:

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Bestweekeverr said:

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Mothra said:

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Bestweekeverr said:

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Mothra said:

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In other nuttiness, California, a state that legalized recreational marijuana use, has banned the sale of flavored tobacco products. So California voters and politicians are cool with a recreational drug that lowers the IQ, increases the risk of depression, psychosis and suicide, and generally has an ill effect on mental health, but a product that causes lip cancer is beyond the pale. SMH.

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Are you really saying that weed is worse for your health than tobacco products? These flavored tobacco products (Juul) were proven to be advertising their products to kids and high schoolers so that they become addicted and will be customers for life.

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No. I am saying they both have very bad health implications, and it's ironic that a state would vote in favor of one bad health implication while banning another.

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One has much worse health outcomes than the other, and is targeting kids. How is it ironic that a state would ban that and not the other?

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One doesn't have much worse health outcomes than the other. Marijuana is likewise carcinogenic. Smoke from marijuana combustion has been shown to contain many of the same toxins, irritants and carcinogens as tobacco smoke. Research has also shown smoking marijuana has many of the exact same damaging effects on the lungs as tobacco. It also makes the lungs much more susceptible to respiratory illness and disease. And that of course does not even account for the effect it has on the brain, unlike tobacco use.

As someone with libertarian leanings, legalization of marijuana is something I don't get too worked up about. But let's not pretend that marijuana is much safer than tobacco. The data says its not, which is why CA's banning of chewing tobacco is so ironic.

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Yes, smoking anything is going to be bad for you. The difference is that tobacco products contain nicotine that is highly physiologically addictive so when people do tobacco products they do them at a much higher rate, which compounds the negative health effects. Sure weed can be addicting in a lifestyle way like videogames, but it's not a physiological addiction so people are not smoking nearly as much weed as they are cigarettes/vapes. Look at the difference in cancer rates between lifetime cigarette smokers and lifetime weed smokers.

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I don't disagree that some of the side effects of tobacco are worse than weed. But it doesn't make weed all that much better, if at all. While you point to the addictive elements of tobacco and carcinogens, one could likewise point to the following ill effects that arguably make weed worse than tobacco on a person's health: 1) inebriation or incapacity that makes driving under the influence and automobile accidents more likely: 2) higher incidence of school failure and dropout rate among marijuana users; 3) psychosis resulting from a high; 4) kills brain cells; and 5) much higher incidence of depression, suicide and mental incapacity.

In short, both drugs have bad health outcomes which, again, makes the distinction that CA is trying to draw between the two quite ironic.

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See, this is the rub - they can't be for drugs that'll kill future dem voters. It's better that they stay alive their whole adult life addicted and cerebrally impaired. That way they'll be dem voters forever so as to keep it legal, and too dumbed down and "high" to realize how bad things get due to dem policies. The perfect controllable voter base.

We raised an entire generation that obeys leftist messaging because old school Dems went off the rails with media and created a monster. Your so called centrist Dems don't stand up to this bull**** and we've passed the rubicon.

We're going to have major problems in the future. They're going to vote for unaffordable policies and take out the middle class.

The 18-29 woke indoctrinated mob turned this election
From a #RedWave to a ripple

They are zealots fighting for a cause
Poorly but very deeply "informed"

They can't be polled & that let a false momentum build
This is a long term GOP problem https://t.co/EpraBpj1kQ

— Jim Hanson (@JimHansonDC) November 9, 2022

Mothra said:

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Forest Bueller_bf said:

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Mothra said:

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Booray said:

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In the same way, the Democratic Party needed a wake-up call it did not get last night. The results increase the chance that Joe Biden will lead the ticket against Ron Desantis. If that happens you will get your red wave two years late.

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Perhaps, but I fear that both parties are so entrenched in their ideology, nobody has learned anything from last night. I hope I am wrong, but I fully expect Trump to be the nominee if he runs. It would be great if the Trump sycophants realized they are backing a self aggrandizing narcissist who only cares about himself.

Likewise it would be nice if Democrats realize that woke policies are very bad for the country. But of course the Democrats are calling scoreboard after last night, with the White House declaring it a resounding Democrat victory. I'm sure this will further emboldened Democrats to continue on their woke path.

Hope I'm wrong.

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I've tried since 2016 to keep Trump from getting the nomination, voting against him in the primaries, but heck I would have never voted Hillary or Biden, I just didn't want Trump to be the nominee. Years later he is still biting Republicans in the ass.

They really need Desantis as the nominee. He would give the R's back a strong national vision, instead of the ramblings of a narcissistic idiot in Trump.

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Same with me. I would still vote for the bozo over the Democrat alternative, but would have to hold my nose.

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Yep+

ATL Bear said:

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whiterock said:

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ATL Bear said:

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whiterock said:

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JXL said:

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whiterock said:

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EX: Exit polling is clear that Threat To Democracy and Abortion were huge issues with thoe who voted.

Are those key issues with voters at large? Was all the polling about inflation and economy wrong?

no.

Remember what I said many times: a pollster has to poll the people who actually vote.

A majority of voters think inflation and the economy ARE the big issues.
but those voters didn't show up and vote.

A smaller number of voters think abortion and threats to democracy are the big issues.
but those voters are who showed up and voted.


Every election is a base election.
If you do not turn out your own base, the independents don't matter a damned bit.

---

You can't win elections with just your base. Nominating Trump might fire up his base of support, but he would be unlikely to pull enough support from outside of his base to win.

---

The results from last night directly refute that conclusion.

SOME elections are choice elections, where wooing independents is the key.
SOME elections are base elections, where there isn't much middle ground and victory lies in turning out your base.

As long as we remain an evenly divided electorate, building a strategy of chasing 3% of the voting public least likely to vote is the road to oblivion. If you cannot fire up your own base to come boiling out to vote, you are not going to inspire independents to come boiling out to vote either.

Democrats campaigned solely within their base. They spoke primarily to the J6 faithful and the abortion on demand faithful....and they got a bigger turnout of their base than Republicans did.

---

You couldn't be more wrong. The Kemp/Walker break is a classic showing of how independents will actually vote multi party, and can be wooed to candidates. It also shows that even semi-partisans will split tickets. Look at the ratio breaks in districts of Republican pick ups in the House. Run better candidates. Don't drag them down with political baggage like Trump.

---

Moderate Republicans are fickle, too. Oso and Sam will throw their vote away 3rd party on principle then blame others when it lets Dems win. But if we attend to their concerns, we lose more votes in our own base than we gain in the middle. That's a dynamic proven over and over again. Oz is an example - the kind of moderate that's supposed to win purple states. Only he didn't. You win purple states like Perry and DeSantis did - by defeating liberal ideas and turning the date RED.

And before we cite "Trump baggage" as responsible for last night, it must be noted that the single best outcome of the night came from a candidate plucked from obscurity by a Trump endorsement, a candidate who by any measure was the most Trump-esque of them all. He's not the "anti-Trump" that your argument implicitly presumes. He's Trump 2.0, an apparently more formidable variant of the original strain.

And while we're on GA, they have almost as bad a "arrogant moderate" dynamic as AZ. It's not like Perdue or Loeffler were great big throbbing MAGA-maniacs. Quite a bit of spin going on to blame deficiencies in the GA GOP on Trump. I spent a number of hours around a campfire with a GA businessman donor in aftermath off the 2020 GA Senate debacle. Wonderful thoughtful fellow who like many of the type think the secret to success is stifling the GOP base. That is not what DeDantis did. Quite the opposite - poking Disney in the eye, reliving woke prosecutors of their duties, etc…..

The argument for Desantis is that he's simply better at Trumpism than Trump.

It's a hard argument to refute.

---

Which candidate are you referring to? Vance? Because he got his butt pulled out of the fire by McConnell's PAC.

Regarding Georgia, Loeffler never should have been the Senate candidate, and Trump is owed some blame (as well as Kemp) for not choosing Doug Collins. Perdue and Loeffler were Trump ring kissers, and Perdue leaned in with MAGA in his primary attempt against Kemp. But Trump went hard after the GA GOP post 2020 election, irrationally, yet Kemp is arguably the second strongest Republican governor behind Desantis. He's buried the Democrat darling with massive out of state money behind her twice now. Raffensburger won by an even larger margin than Kemp, all the cast of characters he was dragging through the mud just two years ago. The Trump blame comes from promoting bad candidates, and the "eat our own" approach he employs.

But I will agree that Desantis does "Trumpism" (if that's a thing) much more effectively than Trump. All the more reason to move aside and let the thoroughbred run his race.

---

The point is, Trump didn't promote Loeffler. Kemp did....... And Perdue predated both of them. So the idea that Trumpism created 2 Democrat Senators from GA is....ahem.....political spin. GA GOP is weak and has is still laboring under illusions that centrism is the way to turn states the right political color. If that were true. Neither Ossoff nor Warnock (particularly) would be US Senators, as neither are anywhere remotely portrayable as centrists.

Yes, Kemp has been successful. But he hasn't done for GA what DeSantis did for FL......

The candidate I referred to is Desantis. He might not have made it out of the primary without Trump's endorsement:
https://www.politico.com/states/florida/story/2018/06/22/trailing-in-polls-desantis-scores-trumps-full-endorsement-on-twitter-483475

For that matter, Trump has hardly been ham handed with his endorsements over the fullness of time. He was particularly influential in HELPING DeSantis turn FL red.
https://pjmedia.com/election/tyler-o-neil/2018/11/07/did-trumps-endorsements-work-in-the-2018-midterms-n43017

Look, guys. I see what you see. But Trump is not uniformly radioactive. He's a mixed bag. He's been a positive influence on a party struggling to find an identity after Obama. OZ is an example of a bad choice....a centrist choice.......that hamstrung efforts to fire of the GOP base in PA. IF you cannot fire up your own base, you are not going to inspire moderates...... And, I say again, we just cannot ignore the most obvious fact of all: The most successful outcome of last night came from the most MAGA-esque candidate. TO presume from that that we must roll back Trumpism and reach out to the center is......well.....chaotic thinking.

Doc Holliday said:

---

We raised an entire generation that obeys leftist messaging because old school Dems went off the rails with media and created a monster. Your so called centrist Dems don't stand up to this bull**** and we've passed the rubicon.

We're going to have major problems in the future. They're going to vote for unaffordable policies and take out the middle class.

The 18-29 woke indoctrinated mob turned this election
From a #RedWave to a ripple

They are zealots fighting for a cause
Poorly but very deeply "informed"

They can't be polled & that let a false momentum build
This is a long term GOP problem https://t.co/EpraBpj1kQ

— Jim Hanson (@JimHansonDC) November 9, 2022

---

or maybe don't try and deny an election and stage a coup. Start there, worry about weener woke hipsters later.

History says to expect the next vote result drop in Arizona in 1.5 hours and Nevada in 2.5 hours.

Dropping a load at lunchtime……cue the jokes.

whiterock said:

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ATL Bear said:

---

whiterock said:

---

ATL Bear said:

---

whiterock said:

---

JXL said:

---

whiterock said:

---

EX: Exit polling is clear that Threat To Democracy and Abortion were huge issues with thoe who voted.

Are those key issues with voters at large? Was all the polling about inflation and economy wrong?

no.

Remember what I said many times: a pollster has to poll the people who actually vote.

A majority of voters think inflation and the economy ARE the big issues.
but those voters didn't show up and vote.

A smaller number of voters think abortion and threats to democracy are the big issues.
but those voters are who showed up and voted.


Every election is a base election.
If you do not turn out your own base, the independents don't matter a damned bit.

---

You can't win elections with just your base. Nominating Trump might fire up his base of support, but he would be unlikely to pull enough support from outside of his base to win.

---

The results from last night directly refute that conclusion.

SOME elections are choice elections, where wooing independents is the key.
SOME elections are base elections, where there isn't much middle ground and victory lies in turning out your base.

As long as we remain an evenly divided electorate, building a strategy of chasing 3% of the voting public least likely to vote is the road to oblivion. If you cannot fire up your own base to come boiling out to vote, you are not going to inspire independents to come boiling out to vote either.

Democrats campaigned solely within their base. They spoke primarily to the J6 faithful and the abortion on demand faithful....and they got a bigger turnout of their base than Republicans did.

---

You couldn't be more wrong. The Kemp/Walker break is a classic showing of how independents will actually vote multi party, and can be wooed to candidates. It also shows that even semi-partisans will split tickets. Look at the ratio breaks in districts of Republican pick ups in the House. Run better candidates. Don't drag them down with political baggage like Trump.

---

Moderate Republicans are fickle, too. Oso and Sam will throw their vote away 3rd party on principle then blame others when it lets Dems win. But if we attend to their concerns, we lose more votes in our own base than we gain in the middle. That's a dynamic proven over and over again. Oz is an example - the kind of moderate that's supposed to win purple states. Only he didn't. You win purple states like Perry and DeSantis did - by defeating liberal ideas and turning the date RED.

And before we cite "Trump baggage" as responsible for last night, it must be noted that the single best outcome of the night came from a candidate plucked from obscurity by a Trump endorsement, a candidate who by any measure was the most Trump-esque of them all. He's not the "anti-Trump" that your argument implicitly presumes. He's Trump 2.0, an apparently more formidable variant of the original strain.

And while we're on GA, they have almost as bad a "arrogant moderate" dynamic as AZ. It's not like Perdue or Loeffler were great big throbbing MAGA-maniacs. Quite a bit of spin going on to blame deficiencies in the GA GOP on Trump. I spent a number of hours around a campfire with a GA businessman donor in aftermath off the 2020 GA Senate debacle. Wonderful thoughtful fellow who like many of the type think the secret to success is stifling the GOP base. That is not what DeDantis did. Quite the opposite - poking Disney in the eye, reliving woke prosecutors of their duties, etc…..

The argument for Desantis is that he's simply better at Trumpism than Trump.

It's a hard argument to refute.

---

Which candidate are you referring to? Vance? Because he got his butt pulled out of the fire by McConnell's PAC.

Regarding Georgia, Loeffler never should have been the Senate candidate, and Trump is owed some blame (as well as Kemp) for not choosing Doug Collins. Perdue and Loeffler were Trump ring kissers, and Perdue leaned in with MAGA in his primary attempt against Kemp. But Trump went hard after the GA GOP post 2020 election, irrationally, yet Kemp is arguably the second strongest Republican governor behind Desantis. He's buried the Democrat darling with massive out of state money behind her twice now. Raffensburger won by an even larger margin than Kemp, all the cast of characters he was dragging through the mud just two years ago. The Trump blame comes from promoting bad candidates, and the "eat our own" approach he employs.

But I will agree that Desantis does "Trumpism" (if that's a thing) much more effectively than Trump. All the more reason to move aside and let the thoroughbred run his race.

---

The point is, Trump didn't promote Loeffler. Kemp did....... And Perdue predated both of them. So the idea that Trumpism created 2 Democrat Senators from GA is....ahem.....political spin. GA GOP is weak and has is still laboring under illusions that centrism is the way to turn states the right political color. If that were true. Neither Ossoff nor Warnock (particularly) would be US Senators, as neither are anywhere remotely portrayable as centrists.

Yes, Kemp has been successful. But he hasn't done for GA what DeSantis did for FL......

The candidate I referred to is Desantis. He might not have made it out of the primary without Trump's endorsement:
https://www.politico.com/states/florida/story/2018/06/22/trailing-in-polls-desantis-scores-trumps-full-endorsement-on-twitter-483475

For that matter, Trump has hardly been ham handed with his endorsements over the fullness of time. He was particularly influential in HELPING DeSantis turn FL red.
https://pjmedia.com/election/tyler-o-neil/2018/11/07/did-trumps-endorsements-work-in-the-2018-midterms-n43017

Look, guys. I see what you see. But Trump is not uniformly radioactive. He's a mixed bag. He's been a positive influence on a party struggling to find an identity after Obama. OZ is an example of a bad choice....a centrist choice.......that hamstrung efforts to fire of the GOP base in PA. IF you cannot fire up your own base, you are not going to inspire moderates...... And, I say again, we just cannot ignore the most obvious fact of all: The most successful outcome of last night came from the most MAGA-esque candidate. TO presume from that that we must roll back Trumpism and reach out to the center is......well.....chaotic thinking.

---

I am not suggesting that Republicans need to become more moderate as much as they need to roll back propagating bull**** conspiracy theories that allow the other side to paint them as extremists who want to destroy democracy. How about we moderate on election denial just a bit, so we don't give the other side cannon fodder?

Trump did some good things, but he is now toxic and cannot win another general election because of that toxicity. It's high time we realized that.

whiterock said:

---

RMF5630 said:

---

whiterock said:

---

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.

---

Whiterock, I am calling BS on the MAGA created DeSantis. Trump backed DeSantis in his original run for Governor, true. But who was he running against? Gilliam was being investigated by the FBI, was a junkie and as left as they get. Of course he backed DeSantis.

As for DeSantis today, he is made by his actions and getting things done. Not Trump. I live and work in Florida in the infrastructure field. I met DeSantis and get to work with State Officials. Trump is a non-entity in the day to day lives. DeSantis handled COVID great, he handled Ian great, he handled education great, he handled the economy. That is what made DeSantis, NOT MAGA in anyway.

You are hanging out with too many Trumpites, he is really a non-player here. DeSantis has supplanted him and Scott as the face of Florida.

---

I hang out with a pretty broad spectrum, to include close friends who are politically active liberal and libertarian types. I've also been at this game for a while and am pretty good at history of prior cycles. DeSantis was a House backbencher who joined the Freedom Caucus and never missed a chance to pose as a staunch conservative on Fox News, Hannity, etc…. And when he jumped into a crowded primary field of FL Gov contenders, one of whom was a sitting state elected with a bunch of endorsements, it was a Trump endorsement that helped lift him to the top of the heap (just as it did a lot of other candidates in this and other prior cycles). (The House is not a traditionally strong springboard into state elected office, and the larger the state, the more that tends to be true. Only in states so small that a house district is all or most of the state, rendering a house seat a near-equivalent if statewide office, do we see candidates floating from Congress to Statehouse very often. FL is effectively Tx in that regard…..almost never happens.)
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/2018_Florida_gubernatorial_election

So, yeah, it's pretty well known history: Desantis rises squarely out of the MAGA tradition. In all respects.

That is not to say he hasn't done a whole lotta stuff on his own to put him where he is today. He's earned the right to be his own man. But it's just plain history that he is MAGA 2.0 heir apparent. That's why Trump will be accusing him of ingratitude, backstabbing, etc…..because in a narrow sense it's a fair jab to throw. Probably won't draw a lot of blood, but it will stiffen the Trump base a bit.

Politics is a tough game. What makes the looming Trump - Desantis fight so alluring is that we have two guys who don't mind drinking beer with busted lips. Don't get mad that they're gonna be throwing haymakers. Evaluate which one is doing the best job.

---

I think you give Trump too much credit at that time. Sure, his endorsement helped. But Putnam was self-destructing, he called himself an "NRA Sellout" just before Parkland Shooting, the Dept of Ag (his Dept) failed to run thousands of background checks for weapons sales, and his management of concealed weapons permits caused issues. So, yeah a Presidential endorsement helped DeSantis, but he did not face a real threat. Putnam was the most challenging person he beat. Gilliam was a junkie under investigation. DeSantis got the endorsement and never looked back. Sort of hard to give Trump credit for his four years of success.

LateSteak69 said:

---

man, the lightening quick distancing from trump is awesome to see.

People have had it with the election denier bull****, along with all of his other crap. He is a con man, always has been, always will be. Hopefully the R's can move on and i can start straight ticketing again.

---

Lightning quick?

I've been against Trump from the start of his announcing as a candidate. I voted in the 2016 primary just to cast a vote against him.

The best advise I heard from a Republican polster for R's running in the next election cycle, "run as an individual and not as a member of a "tribe", completely distance yourself from Donald Trump, he is the past." "Be relatable to what the average Major city voter is looking for in a candidate."

Cortez Masto camp opining that the remaining Clark County votes get them even, Washoe County votes put them over the top.


My question: what about the impact of the remaining votes in the other 15 counties in which Laxalt is winning handily? The early mail in ballot tranches in those counties are not D friendly.
That said, D's might pick up 25-40K in Clark & Washoe. 25K likely isn't enough. 40K is.

Nevada remains a mystery through the weekend.

And an additional ~ 125k absentees mailed in Saturday to Tuesday. Again, we expect to pick up votes from all these batches.

— Harmeet K. Dhillon (@pnjaban) November 9, 2022

Jack Bauer said:

---

Latest House count is:

GOP: 201 (6 net pickups), need 218 for majority
Dems: 182

52 races left to call

---

GOP: 203 (7 net pickups), need 218 for majority
Dems: 187

45 races left to call

Adriacus Peratuun said:

---

Cortez Masto camp opining that the remaining Clark County votes get them even, Washoe County votes put them over the top.


My question: what about the impact of the remaining votes in the other 15 counties in which Laxalt is winning handily? The early mail in ballot tranches in those counties are not D friendly.
That said, D's might pick up 25-40K in Clark & Washoe. 25K likely isn't enough. 40K is.

Nevada remains a mystery through the weekend.

---

If the number of percentage outstanding holds true and votes come in with the same ratio as they have been, he should be plus 11K to 12K in those counties combined.

Jack Bauer said:

---

And an additional ~ 125k absentees mailed in Saturday to Tuesday. Again, we expect to pick up votes from all these batches.

— Harmeet K. Dhillon (@pnjaban) November 9, 2022

---

Safe to say that neither party has a good handle on voting habit changes post-COVID.

But drop-offs are likely to favor Rs…….although distrust of USPS should be nonpartisan.

Governor races:
GOP won 16 races on Election Day
Dems won 15 races (2 pickups in MA and MD)

Count:
24 GOP Governors
22 Dem Governors

4 Left:
AK - assuredly GOP, just determining if a runoff is necessary
AZ - 12k votes apart, 69% counted
NV - GOP up 40k with 80% counted
OR - Dems up 30k with 78% counted

RMF5630 said:

---

whiterock said:

---

RMF5630 said:

---

whiterock said:

---

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.

---

Whiterock, I am calling BS on the MAGA created DeSantis. Trump backed DeSantis in his original run for Governor, true. But who was he running against? Gilliam was being investigated by the FBI, was a junkie and as left as they get. Of course he backed DeSantis.

As for DeSantis today, he is made by his actions and getting things done. Not Trump. I live and work in Florida in the infrastructure field. I met DeSantis and get to work with State Officials. Trump is a non-entity in the day to day lives. DeSantis handled COVID great, he handled Ian great, he handled education great, he handled the economy. That is what made DeSantis, NOT MAGA in anyway.

You are hanging out with too many Trumpites, he is really a non-player here. DeSantis has supplanted him and Scott as the face of Florida.

---

I hang out with a pretty broad spectrum, to include close friends who are politically active liberal and libertarian types. I've also been at this game for a while and am pretty good at history of prior cycles. DeSantis was a House backbencher who joined the Freedom Caucus and never missed a chance to pose as a staunch conservative on Fox News, Hannity, etc…. And when he jumped into a crowded primary field of FL Gov contenders, one of whom was a sitting state elected with a bunch of endorsements, it was a Trump endorsement that helped lift him to the top of the heap (just as it did a lot of other candidates in this and other prior cycles). (The House is not a traditionally strong springboard into state elected office, and the larger the state, the more that tends to be true. Only in states so small that a house district is all or most of the state, rendering a house seat a near-equivalent if statewide office, do we see candidates floating from Congress to Statehouse very often. FL is effectively Tx in that regard…..almost never happens.)
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/2018_Florida_gubernatorial_election

So, yeah, it's pretty well known history: Desantis rises squarely out of the MAGA tradition. In all respects.

That is not to say he hasn't done a whole lotta stuff on his own to put him where he is today. He's earned the right to be his own man. But it's just plain history that he is MAGA 2.0 heir apparent. That's why Trump will be accusing him of ingratitude, backstabbing, etc…..because in a narrow sense it's a fair jab to throw. Probably won't draw a lot of blood, but it will stiffen the Trump base a bit.

Politics is a tough game. What makes the looming Trump - Desantis fight so alluring is that we have two guys who don't mind drinking beer with busted lips. Don't get mad that they're gonna be throwing haymakers. Evaluate which one is doing the best job.

---

I think you give Trump too much credit at that time. Sure, his endorsement helped. But Putnam was self-destructing, he called himself an "NRA Sellout" just before Parkland Shooting, the Dept of Ag (his Dept) failed to run thousands of background checks for weapons sales, and his management of concealed weapons permits caused issues. So, yeah a Presidential endorsement helped DeSantis, but he did not face a real threat. Putnam was the most challenging person he beat. Gilliam was a junkie under investigation. DeSantis got the endorsement and never looked back. Sort of hard to give Trump credit for his four years of success.

---

I'm not. I was very clear that I was merely noting that Trump, then the sitting POTUS, was instrumental in getting Desantis launched. Politics is about addition and not subtraction. If you get the reputation for forgetting who helped you, life can get tougher. Desantis cannot just blow that off. It is completely fair for Trump to point out his role in launching Desantis. And I haven't looked, but I bet Trump has helped Desantis raise money each cycle. So there is some symbiosis going on. And reminding the MAGA base about all that will help Trump keep it together. So it's not gratuitous.

It's also fair for Desantis to talk about what he's done on his own and compare/contrast. It is impressive.

Will be a fun contest to watch.

whiterock said:

---

RMF5630 said:

---

whiterock said:

---

RMF5630 said:

---

whiterock said:

---

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.

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Whiterock, I am calling BS on the MAGA created DeSantis. Trump backed DeSantis in his original run for Governor, true. But who was he running against? Gilliam was being investigated by the FBI, was a junkie and as left as they get. Of course he backed DeSantis.

As for DeSantis today, he is made by his actions and getting things done. Not Trump. I live and work in Florida in the infrastructure field. I met DeSantis and get to work with State Officials. Trump is a non-entity in the day to day lives. DeSantis handled COVID great, he handled Ian great, he handled education great, he handled the economy. That is what made DeSantis, NOT MAGA in anyway.

You are hanging out with too many Trumpites, he is really a non-player here. DeSantis has supplanted him and Scott as the face of Florida.

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I hang out with a pretty broad spectrum, to include close friends who are politically active liberal and libertarian types. I've also been at this game for a while and am pretty good at history of prior cycles. DeSantis was a House backbencher who joined the Freedom Caucus and never missed a chance to pose as a staunch conservative on Fox News, Hannity, etc…. And when he jumped into a crowded primary field of FL Gov contenders, one of whom was a sitting state elected with a bunch of endorsements, it was a Trump endorsement that helped lift him to the top of the heap (just as it did a lot of other candidates in this and other prior cycles). (The House is not a traditionally strong springboard into state elected office, and the larger the state, the more that tends to be true. Only in states so small that a house district is all or most of the state, rendering a house seat a near-equivalent if statewide office, do we see candidates floating from Congress to Statehouse very often. FL is effectively Tx in that regard…..almost never happens.)
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/2018_Florida_gubernatorial_election

So, yeah, it's pretty well known history: Desantis rises squarely out of the MAGA tradition. In all respects.

That is not to say he hasn't done a whole lotta stuff on his own to put him where he is today. He's earned the right to be his own man. But it's just plain history that he is MAGA 2.0 heir apparent. That's why Trump will be accusing him of ingratitude, backstabbing, etc…..because in a narrow sense it's a fair jab to throw. Probably won't draw a lot of blood, but it will stiffen the Trump base a bit.

Politics is a tough game. What makes the looming Trump - Desantis fight so alluring is that we have two guys who don't mind drinking beer with busted lips. Don't get mad that they're gonna be throwing haymakers. Evaluate which one is doing the best job.

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I think you give Trump too much credit at that time. Sure, his endorsement helped. But Putnam was self-destructing, he called himself an "NRA Sellout" just before Parkland Shooting, the Dept of Ag (his Dept) failed to run thousands of background checks for weapons sales, and his management of concealed weapons permits caused issues. So, yeah a Presidential endorsement helped DeSantis, but he did not face a real threat. Putnam was the most challenging person he beat. Gilliam was a junkie under investigation. DeSantis got the endorsement and never looked back. Sort of hard to give Trump credit for his four years of success.

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Will be a fun contest to watch.

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Only for Democrats.