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atomheartbevo

atomheartbevo 89783

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Since the old thread didn’t come over. Here’s and interesting start. 

https://www.cnn.com/2018/04/04/politics/wisconsin-supreme-court-democrats-win/index.html

Quote

The Democratic-backed candidate won a seat Tuesday on Wisconsin's Supreme Court, another warning signal for the GOP that led Republican Gov. Scott Walker to tweet that the party is "at risk of a #BlueWave" in November. 

Liberal Rebecca Dallet trounced conservative Michael Screnock in the race for a 10-year term on the state's high court. Screnock conceded the race, and results continued to trickle in late Tuesday showing Dallet with a double-digit lead. 
 
The candidates did not run with party affiliations. The state Democratic Party machinery worked to help Dallet win and reveled in her victory. It was the first time a liberal candidate who wasn't an incumbent had won a seat on the seven-member court in 23 years. 
 
On the heels of a major swing in Democrats' favor in a state Senate race in Wisconsin earlier this year, it's the latest indication that the political ground has shifted since President Donald Trump and Republican Sen. Ron Johnson won there in 2016. 
 
Walker, who is up for re-election to a third term next fall, tweeted that the resultswere another sign that the GOP is in trouble. 
 
"Tonight's results show we are at risk of a #BlueWave in WI. The Far Left is driven by anger & hatred -- we must counter it with optimism & organization. Let's share our positive story with voters & win in November," he tweeted. 
 
In another tweet, Walker added, "Big government special interests flooded Wisconsin with distorted facts & misinformation. Next, they'll target me and work to undo our bold reforms. We need to keep moving #WIForward & make sure a #BlueWave of outside special interest money doesn't take us backward."

Yeah, I don’t think the big government special interests were driving this one.  

But anger is driving it. Perhaps Walker should figure out the source of that anger. 

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Bozo_Casanova
Bozo_Casanova

You said it in the only way that matters: you voted for it. 

Gatorubet
Gatorubet

I told my friends at work today to get ready for some excuse destroying reality.   We are no longer going to be able to excuse the behavior of voters in this election as 'being foolish', 'hoping Trump

Brisketexan
Brisketexan

Fire protection. Police protection. Local road construction and maintenance. Interstate highway construction and maintenance. Airport operation, air traffic control, airline safety

cactusflinthead

cactusflinthead 27601

Posted
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This idea that politicians win by sharing “our positive story with voters” is a common part of our collective mythology about how campaigns work. But it’s utterly, completely wrong.

I’m pretty sure nobody understands that fact better than Walker. Because there may be no governor in the United States who has worked harder to rig the game in his party’s favor than he has. As soon as he got elected, Walker began a long war on unions in the state, knowing they are one of the cornerstones of Democratic power. He signed a voter ID law that successfully disenfranchised thousands of voters. He rewrote the state’s campaign finance laws to decrease transparency and enhance corporate influence. And he presided over one of the most aggressive gerrymanders of state legislative districts anywhere in the country, which has allowed Republicans to retain large majorities in the legislature even when they get fewer votes than Democrats.

 

The Republicans’ panic about their big Wisconsin loss is revealing

 

 

Edited by cactusflinthead
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GopherRock

GopherRock 1765

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No, it wasn't. The elections Walker tried to quash were for two seats in the Wisconsin Legislature. Tuesday's election was for a seat on the Wisconsin Supreme Court.

Aside from the margin of victory, a more telling sign of voter enthusiasm is that despite a snowstorm across most of the state, over 1 million ballots were cast. The last three spring elections averaged less than 800K.

Sent from my SM-G960U using Tapatalk

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Ghost of LL

Ghost of LL 15539

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Wisconsin is going to be really interesting.  It goes Democratic in almost every presidential election, but virtually all of its statewide offices are held by Republicans.  And the gerrymander of its state legislature is ridiculous--to the point of being the subject of a Supreme Court case pending right now.

If, as I've speculated, the GOP gerrymander is broken because it rests on the assumption that educated suburban white voters are overwhelmingly Republicans, then there could be a really big swing in the Wisconsin legislature, even without a Supreme Court decision.

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cactusflinthead

cactusflinthead 27601

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Farenthold finally decided it is time to quit. 

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 Texas Republican Rep. Blake Farenthold abruptly resigned Friday, four months after announcing he wouldn't seek re-election amid sexual harassment allegations."While I planned on serving out the remainder of my term in Congress, I know in my heart it's time for me to move along and look for new ways to serve," Farenthold said in a video statement, adding that his action was effective as of 5 p.m.

https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2018-04-06/gop-rep-farenthold-resigns-from-congress?utm_content=business&cmpid=socialflow-twitter-business&utm_source=twitter&utm_medium=social&utm_campaign=socialflow-organic

 

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shnsajax

shnsajax 3591

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Posted
On 4/6/2018 at 11:06 PM, cactusflinthead said:

Farenthold finally decided it is time to quit. 

https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2018-04-06/gop-rep-farenthold-resigns-from-congress?utm_content=business&cmpid=socialflow-twitter-business&utm_source=twitter&utm_medium=social&utm_campaign=socialflow-organic

 

I don't know how the GOP will ever fill that gap.

Blake-Farenthold2.jpg

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cactusflinthead

cactusflinthead 27601

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So, the internals were good. He was in a primary with a 'pro-white' anti-Semitic that he beat 85/15 last time. He has a warchest of 54 million.
That's a lot of cash. Hold his stash and come back as a Senate candidate? Go to K street? Ds didn't bail out like this in 2010 or 1994.
This seems...odd

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VRHorn

VRHorn 718

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3 hours ago, cactusflinthead said:

So, the internals were good. He was in a primary with a 'pro-white' anti-Semitic that he beat 85/15 last time. He has a warchest of 54 million.
That's a lot of cash. Hold his stash and come back as a Senate candidate? Go to K street? Ds didn't bail out like this in 2010 or 1994.
This seems...odd

I can only assume he wants to get out because he'll be the Minority Leader with a really pissed off majority.

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lemonlime

lemonlime 5503

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The biggest trend that should scare the shit out of Republicans is the amount of engagement.   1 in 5 Americans have taken part in a political rally or protest since Trump entered office.  Of those 70% disapprove of Trump.

https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/national/wp/2018/04/06/feature/in-reaction-to-trump-millions-of-americans-are-joining-protests-and-getting-political/?utm_term=.7d4db4e187f2

The GOP is counting on gerrymandering, voter suppression, and stupid culture wars that appeal only to angry white old men yelling at the sky to stay in power. And the old rules about who turns out to vote may not hold true in 2018 and 2020.  

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cactusflinthead

cactusflinthead 27601

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Scrolling through twitterville I saw a post linked to SC. 13 candidates to replace Gowdy at the Tea Party hoedown. Not one of them had or wanted the endorsement of the Chamber of Commerce. Because they thought it was a good idea to make a path to citizenship for undocumented immigrants? Oh yeah and raising the tax on gas to pay for roads.
What else?
Yep, keep feeding the base the fell meats of fear. It's all they have.

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zork

zork 629

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It is pretty common for the midterms to go against the incumbent President.  This blue wave might be an even bigger event than the norm though.  We are here in mid April though.  Lots of time before the November elections.

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Hugo Stiglitz

Hugo Stiglitz 23367

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Posted (edited)
11 minutes ago, zork said:

It is pretty common for the midterms to go against the incumbent President.  This blue wave might be an even bigger event than the norm though.  We are here in mid April though.  Lots of time before the November elections.

I’m trying to come up with scenarios where Republicans actually gain ground on the Democrats before the midterms.  

Like, what could happen that would help them?  Would a war or terrorist attack even help? I doubt it.  

They’re not going to pass anymore significant legislation so I guess they’re hoping the Democrats self destruct.

The Russians aren’t going to go all out for a midterm election either like they did in 2016.

Edited by Hugo Stiglitz
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zork

zork 629

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Posted
9 minutes ago, Hugo Stiglitz said:

I’m trying to come up with scenarios where Republicans actually gain ground on the Democrats before the midterms.  

Like, what could happen that would help them?  Would a war or terrorist attack even help? I doubt it.  

They’re not going to pass anymore significant legislation so I guess they’re hoping the Democrats self destruct.

The Russians aren’t going to go all out for a midterm election either like they did in 2016.

The obvious thing, well before the disaster that has befallen the typical R in late '17 and early '18 thus far, is that the map was pro Republican in terms of traditional outcome predictors.  The disaster scenarios being predicted now are because of a well designed confluence of self-inflicted R outcomes and of easily questionable accusations that are not being reputably countered by reasonable R people. 

By the time the elections take place there might be enough innuendo and actual factual questionable actions that the people will potentially rightfully vote against R's just because.  What is true won't matter.  What is being reported, whether true or not but as plausible seems to be enough but we are just in April.

Manafort and Gates faulty actions as to truth/remembrance in their FBI interviews should not influence the elections for actions well before they were ancillary a  part of the Trump campaign.(with Manafort being the lead during a couple months of the Primary consolidation before giving way the highly influencial Conway leadership to victory)

The R's still have a chance to consolidate in their strongholds a way to victory in enough places to hold serve.  Although that might not happen, clearly.

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SuingToGetAMessageBoard?

SuingToGetAMessageBoard? 3861

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21 hours ago, Hugo Stiglitz said:

I’m trying to come up with scenarios where Republicans actually gain ground on the Democrats before the midterms.  

Like, what could happen that would help them?  Would a war or terrorist attack even help? I doubt it.  

They’re not going to pass anymore significant legislation so I guess they’re hoping the Democrats self destruct.

The Russians aren’t going to go all out for a midterm election either like they did in 2016.

Good economy throughout the year will really kill Ds. It’ll be credited to Trump by then. 

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ShaggyBevo RIP

ShaggyBevo RIP 3868

Posted
Posted (edited)
1 hour ago, SuingToGetAMessageBoard? said:

Good economy throughout the year will really kill Ds. It’ll be credited to Trump by then. 

The rank and file blue collar voters aren't getting shit from the stock market or tax cut.

Edited by ShaggyBevo RIP
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RayDog

RayDog 682

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1 hour ago, SuingToGetAMessageBoard? said:

Good economy throughout the year will really kill Ds. It’ll be credited to Trump by then. 

Trump has a 40% approval with a good economy. If things start to get worse and more people realize they have not been helped his approval rating could be in the 30s come election day.

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FondrenRoad

FondrenRoad 4378

Posted
Posted
On 4/11/2018 at 9:59 AM, Skyline said:

I hardly think so. 

 Also Boehner wants to legalize pot now? 

The problem for the GOP is that they currently have a white nationalist running for that seat rather than a "generic" R.  Still time for them to get someone else though.

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FondrenRoad

FondrenRoad 4378

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5 hours ago, ShaggyBevo RIP said:

The rank and file blue collar voters aren't getting shit from the stock market or tax cut.

Yep.  The economy was already good in places where Trump can stake any claim.  It still sucks ass in coal miner country and most of rural America where he promised jobs.

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bolverk

bolverk 29717

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Will Democrats Win the House? Ask Texas

SAN ANTONIO — The Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee’s wish list of House seats to flip from red to blue includes slightly over 100 districts — remember, it’s a wish list — and is chockablock with the usual swing states.

Ohio makes six appearances; Pennsylvania, seven. Wisconsin is present and more promising than ever, with Paul Ryan’s soon-to-be-open spot squarely in Democrats’ sights.

But wait, what’s this? Texas once, Texas twice, Texas five times in all. It reads like a typo. It looks like a delusion. Predominantly Republican and perversely gerrymandered, the Lone Star State is where Democrats send their dreams to die. Only 11 of its 36 House seats are in the party’s hands.

But 2018 is shaping up as a year in which old rules are out the window and everything is up for grabs. Ryan’s planned retirement and the increasing disarray of the Republican Party illustrate that. So does Texas’ emergence as a credible wellspring of Democratic hope.

Leave aside the Senate contest and Beto O’Rourke’s surprisingly muscular (if nonetheless improbable) bid to topple Ted Cruz. Several of the most truly competitive House races in the country are in Texas, which could wind up providing Democrats three or more of the 24 flipped seats that they need for control of the chamber. The state tells the tale of the November midterms as well as anywhere else.

The appeal of youth, of first-timers, of women, of veterans and of candidates of color will be tested here. And a bevy of compelling characters have emerged from the primaries on March 6 and are poised to prevail in runoffs on May 22.

There’s Gina Ortiz Jones, for example. Jones, 37, is almost certain to be the Democrat challenging Representative Will Hurd in the 23rd District, which sprawls from San Antonio to the outskirts of El Paso. Despite its large numbers of rural voters, Hillary Clinton beat Donald Trump in the 23rd by more than three points. (Clinton lost the state by nine.)

Jones was an Air Force intelligence officer in Iraq. Like Conor Lamb in Pennsylvania, she drew the support of the Serve America PAC, which promotes veterans as candidates on the theory that they can help Democrats forge a cultural connection with working-class voters in swing districts.

She’s Filipina-American. She’s also openly lesbian, and while Texas political analysts told me that they weren’t sure whether that would affect her bid, Jones has figured out precisely how to handle it: with brief acknowledgment and no special focus.

At a recent house party in San Antonio where she introduced herself to a few dozen of the district’s voters, she mentioned that she “served under ‘don’t ask don’t tell’” but didn’t spell out the significance of that.

She talked more about it during an interview with me the next day, comparing her time in the military with the anxiety and vulnerability of many minorities, particularly immigrants waiting to see what happens with the DACA program.

“I don’t know what it’s like to be a Dreamer,” she told me. “But I do know what it’s like to have worked hard for something and to live in fear that it can be ripped away from you. When I was in R.O.T.C. at Boston University, I lived in fear every single day that if they found out I was gay, I would lose my scholarship. My opportunity to get an education — my opportunity to serve my country — would be taken away.”

Democrats also have an excellent shot at victory in the 32nd District, a collection of Dallas neighborhoods and suburbs. Its Republican incumbent, Pete Sessions, has been in Congress for two decades, but the district has become more diverse and less white over those years, and his likely opponent, a black civil rights lawyer named Colin Allred, should benefit from that.

Allred is 34. Like Jones, he’s making his first run for office. Also like her, he has an unconventional professional biography. Before getting his law degree at the University of California, Berkeley, he played professional football for the Tennessee Titans, and before that he was a football star at Baylor University in Waco and at a high school in his Dallas district. Many of its voters remember watching him play.

And more of them voted for Clinton than for Trump in the presidential election, a sign of the district’s evolution and an outcome for which Democrats were so unprepared that not a single Democrat challenged Sessions in 2016. This time around, seven Democrats entered the race. Allred got 38.5 percent of the votes in the primary, more than twice that of the second-place finisher.

“We’ve seen a level of activism here that is off the charts,” he told me after a town hall in Dallas where he spoke with voters about the school shooting in Parkland, Fla., and the need for gun-safety legislation. Sessions is a major recipient of donations from the National Rifle Association, and Allred, echoing the campaigns of Democrats across the country, is making an issue of that.

The mere existence of the runoffs that he, Jones and other Texas Democrats will compete in next month reflects Democrats’ hopes in Texas in 2018, because it means that there were three or more Democratic candidates in districts that had two, one or none in election cycles past.

“Democrats smell blood in the water,” Harold Cook, a former executive director of the Texas Democratic Party, told me, “and for the first time in maybe forever, there is a Democrat running in every single congressional district in Texas, including ones where it’s a ludicrous thought that a Democrat could conceivably win.” They’re that angry about Trump and that convinced that his turbulent presidency and failure to nudge his approval rating much above 40 percent could mean an enormous blue wave.

Democrats may even take a few districts that Trump won, like the 21st and 31st. The 21st attracted the party’s attention largely because its Republican incumbent, Lamar Smith, isn’t seeking re-election. He decided to retire after more than three decades in the House.

And the 31st? Well, it’s hard not to indulge in some optimism when your party’s leading candidate is a female war hero whose story is possibly becoming a movie, “Shoot Like a Girl,” starring Angelina Jolie. That candidate, M. J. Hegar, 42, did several tours of duty in Afghanistan as a search-and-rescue pilot and won a Purple Heart after she was wounded while saving fellow passengers when the Taliban shot down her helicopter.

Richard Murray, a professor of political science at the University of Houston, told me to keep an eye as well on the 22nd District, a largely suburban swath of the Houston area that he described as a microcosm of demographic changes that are making the state ever more hospitable Democratic turf.

“The suburban counties that led Republicans to dominance here 25 years ago are getting significantly less Republican fast,” he said, adding that Fort Bend County, in the 22nd, is roughly 20 percent Asian-American now. The first-place finisher in the district’s Democratic primary, Sri Preston Kulkarni, is Indian-American. Murray said that if Kulkarni wins his runoff, that could be a significant boost to Democrats’ chances to nab this House seat.

Trump took the 22nd by almost 8 points. But Mitt Romney won it four years earlier by more than 25. And bear in mind that Lamb notched his Pennsylvania victory last month in a district that had gone for Trump by a margin of 19 points.

“When you look at what happened in Pennsylvania,” Allred told me, “you can’t take anything off the board.” Lamb’s triumph, and the Virginia returns last November, suggest a suburban revolt against Trump.

But who best understands how the winds are blowing — the national Democratic Party or local primary voters? And are those voters making smart general-election choices or romantic ones? I suspect they made the right calls with Allred and Jones, neither of whom was anointed by the party and both of whom faced primary opponents with more money and with powerful connections.

In Jones’s case that was Jay Hulings, a former federal prosecutor who went to law school at Harvard with the Texas political stars Joaquin and Julián Castro. He finished fourth in the five-candidate primary, with 15 percent of the vote. Jones’s 41 percent tally was more than twice that of her nearest competitor.

Allred’s better-financed and more conventionally pedigreed rival was Ed Meier, who has a master’s degree in Middle East studies from Oxford University and worked as a management consultant with McKinsey. He finished fourth among the seven primary candidates.

Following their hugely impressive primary performances, Jones and Allred landed on another, more refined list — “Red to Blue” — that the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee puts together. It directs donors to House candidates in especially strong positions. It’s now 33 names long.

Meredith Kelly, the communications director for the D.C.C.C., told me that Jones’s and Allred’s newness to politics could prove hugely appealing. When the party did focus groups in Pennsylvania’s 18th District after Lamb’s victory, she said, “One of the biggest takeaways was that he was seen as a young, fresh face in contrast to Rick Saccone.” Saccone was 60 and had long served in the State Legislature. Lamb was 33 and had never held elected office.

Allred put it to me this way: “My youth is not a bug. It’s a feature.”

He and Jones are and potentially formidable for additional reasons. There’s not a whiff of entitlement or the establishment about either of them. Both had single mothers of humble means. Both talk expansively and eloquently about government or community help that was crucial in their lives.

Both have deep roots in their districts, where they spent their childhoods. Both are great-looking, as it happens. (That rarely hurts.) And both acknowledge the shock of Nov. 8, 2016 — and the peril of what they’ve witnessed since — as factors that motivated them to run and could be central to whether they win or lose. Trump is large in their minds and in their races.

Before and immediately after the presidential election, Jones worked in the federal government as an economic and national security adviser. She hadn’t thought about a career as a lawmaker, she told me.

But Election Day changed everything. “I remember a sinking feeling in my stomach,” she said, “in no small part because a lot of us thought, ‘That will never happen.’ That was not an option, because then what does that mean?”

“About America?” I asked.

“That’s right,” she said.

She quit her bureaucratic job and became one of a record number of 309 women to file to run for House seats. There’s an unusual bounty of Democratic candidates of all kinds, and as Jones and Allred demonstrate, that’s not merely a numerical phenomenon. It has brought engaging new figures and impassioned new voices into the arena. On Nov. 6, in Texas and elsewhere, we’ll see how much that matters.

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cactusflinthead

cactusflinthead 27601

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Saw couple of stories on Trent Frank's old district. Emerson? College poll had it in the margin of error. It's an outlier for sure but they are up to 900k on trying to keep it and that's the other story. Make your opponent fight you where they shouldn't have to. It's still less than a tenth than what they spent to lose in PA.

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NBMisha

NBMisha 224

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I saw any analysis maybe 10 days ago, some tv panel type, that went the D's had to garner 55.5% of votes, nation wide, as a proxy to get a one seat majority in the house.  That is, they need an 11 point generic gap to win.  That is a hard fact to absorb.  If true.

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BabaYaga

BabaYaga 15311

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5 hours ago, NBMisha said:

I saw any analysis maybe 10 days ago, some tv panel type, that went the D's had to garner 55.5% of votes, nation wide, as a proxy to get a one seat majority in the house.  That is, they need an 11 point generic gap to win.  That is a hard fact to absorb.  If true.

Down to 5% (WaPo), and we've seen recently inflated Dem numbers with these "generic ballot" polls.  May be even lower.

JUST IN: Democrats’ advantage in 2018 midterms narrows in latest @ABC News/WaPo poll, with Democrats holding a five-point lead among registered voters certain to vote in November. https://abcn.ws/2qFZrPt 

 

MORE: 95% of likely Republican voters say they’d vote for their party’s candidate, compared to 89% in January, matching the level among Democrats. http://abcn.ws/2qFZrPt 

 
 
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