2017: Whither Democrats?

(The 92 year old Dingell suffered a heart attack, but is apparently doing much better. He’s a terrific twitter follow.)

There are three debates scheduled between Beto and Cruz and I anticipate they will be very good for Beto.

Given that Beto is behind, and does well on his feet they are a good opportunity. But Cruz never did badly in a Republican debate, and he went to the semi-finals of the world debate team competition, so I wouldn’t be surprised if they don’t help Beto.

Yes, political debates are often scored along the rigid structures of academic team debate, and never on the likeability of one candidate over the other, or whether one might have gross-ass booger on his lip.

That would be Cruz, right? Or am I thinking of the gross ass booger on the top of his neck.

Well based on likability, Ted Cruz should be working at McDonalds getting his head shoved in a toilet every shift. For me personally, Ted Cruz was least loathsome on twitter and during the debate, and most loathsome on the campaign trail giving speeches and in ads.

A large part of Beto’s appeal is his authenticity. I don’t know how he threads that needle if he panders to the gun crowd and maintains that. Is he going to win Texas? No, he’s not. Will he become a national figure? Most likely, yes. It’s probably better for him and the Democratic party if he remains authentic.

Does suck for the short term though. D’s don’t need Texas to win, but I’m dubious Democrats will be able to keep all the Senate seats they currently hold, let alone win in both AZ and TN.

Please tell me this is not an actual work experience you had or anyone else you know.

Maybe just for Cruz?

No it is not, but if I worked with Ted Cruz it might be hard to resist the temptation.

"If you killed Ted Cruz on the floor of the Senate, and the trial was in the Senate, nobody would convict you, Lindsey Graham.

Hey, if Donald Trump can become President with 30% chance, Beto can become Senator with similar odds.

Unfortunately the fact is that if he changes his stance to pander, he loses votes from one side to maybe gain votes from the other side.

Is Tester in Montana looking good for reelection?

538 currently has him at 80%+ to win.

As i’ve said before the real issue is the huge number of Republican voters that vote blind straight Republican. In my county it was something like 47% of all voters voting straight Republican.

So imo the problem is that some 30-45% of Texas voters are completely unreachable. It’s not so much 55% to 45% as 40-45% is against you no matter what your opponent says or does. And that’s a much harder problem to solve since neither debates nor ads can make a difference.


https://www.texasobserver.org/on-the-road-with-beto-is-orourkes-personality-driven-campaign-reaching-the-right-voters/

Edit: More evidence of weak Hispanic support for Democrats in red districts that Clinton won:

Starting to get a bad feeling about the mid-terms.

One thing I’ve heard anecdotally is that Hispanics want the border wall more than white people. The gist of it is they feel like illegals give them a bad rap.

Reuters poll … wait for it …

Beto up on Cruz. Don’t understand that at all.

Gillum +6 in Florida

Sinema +3 in Arizona

Beto O’Rourke +2 in Texas

But: Heller and Scott hold small leads in NV and FL

The issue (described by The Texas Tribune) is that many of these Spanish-speaking first, Hispanic voters, are so low information that they literally vote for the person with the Spanish name, and nothing else.

O’Rourke lost some counties in the primary to challengers who had not spent a single dollar campaigning and had never run for office before, but had a good “hispanic” last name.

There’s a reason the Democrats are really, really pushing “Beto” as his name and not Robert Francis O’Rourke.

This also means it’s possible Republican controlled election officials might try to sabotage a little bit by making sure “Beto” is excluded from the ballet and “Robert Francis O’Rourke” is the candidate listed, for ex.

Thank you for the insight. I wondered what was going on.
*
Regarding the large discrepancy between Q-Poll and Reuters/IPSOS, the latter offered this explanation:

Ipsos is trying to gauge political enthusiasm on each side, said Jackson. The poll asked respondents to estimate the likelihood that they’d vote in the midterm elections on a scale from one to 10. “More Democrats are registering at the highest part of the scale, at the 10, than the Republicans,” Jackson said. And that’s what’s interesting, he said, because Republicans usually have the momentum advantage in Texas.