The neverending campaign cycle continues.
With Toomey out, his PA seat is up for grabs, and it’s gonna be crazy.
Fetterman’s got a puncher’s chance at it.
Fetterman is the best chance for a pickup. I don’t think Beasley has the chance Jackson would have had in NC (though Beasley was going to win the primary, the candidates who tend to do well in Dem primaries tend to have lower ceilings in Dem generals)
Oregon gained a congressional district for 2022, going from 5 to 6 districts.
Which means they need to redraw their map.
With the understanding that Oregon voted 56-40 for Biden in 2020, and 51-39 for Clinton in 2016, which map do you think is more fair and logical (circles represent approximate sizes of major population metro areas in Oregon.)
Map A
Map B
Not knowing Oregon demographic divisions, all I can really see for certain is that Map A divides Portland into four districts and Map B divides Portland into three, and Map B seems to divide the state between the coast and the hinterland, and Map A pools the south and east together.
What I’m not sure about is that Map A builds a district around Salem and Eugene, and Map B seems to be double dipping into Salem and Eugene. Considering Oregon is urban / rural divided, I’d guess that Map B favors the Democrats? My guess is Map B will mean 5 districts will be primarily Democratic, and Map A will mean 3 districts will be primarily Democratic, but this is just a guess. I’m thinking district 1 and 6 of Map A have some grade-A, street level gerrymandering going on.
Southern and especially eastern Oregon tilt heavy GOP. Eastern Oregon, outside of Hermiston and Bend is basically unpopulated high desert.
Map B is closest to the current map in a lot of ways, though it looks to split a significant chunk of Washington county with the northern coast.
The thing you need to know is that outside of the cities of Portland, Salem, Eugene, and Bend that most of the land is completely unpopulated. Even the coast has only about 200,000 people living on the entire 350 mile stretch.
District 6 is a weird one in map B though, very weird. Tilamook and Astoria, the big towns on the coast at around 20k mixed with the Intel and Nike hubs and parts of Clackamas county which is the rural exurb of Portland.
Map A would highly depend on where the line is. Depending which side of Troutdale it is on could make district 6 either a reasonable or insane district.
I’d need more granularity on both. But it appears A puts parts of Portland proper with Hermiston which… yeah not really logical unless the split somehow creates a 5-1 split.
Appreciate the responses. :)
We asked a mixed group of Republicans and Democrats the same question, with a little more context (such as CraigM provided.) They locked up too, and then weirdly chose Map A --which yeah, puts the Portland metroplex into four congressional districs. Map A also puts Eugene and Bend into one district, which helps it Blue-ify.
Dave Wasserman (he of “I’ve seen enough…” fame) who is the political redistricting expert at the non-partisan Cook Political Report came up with both of those maps last summer, before Oregon did their ACTUAL redistricting. Map A likely assures a 5-1 split favoring the Democrats. Map B, crazily enough, gets you a 3-2 Republican split. I’m as surprised as you on District 6 in Map B, but it checks out as a narrow Republican advantage (probably) when you remove Portland from it.
For reference, that’s the ACTUAL redistricting in Oregon, approved along party lines in the Oregon legislature, signed by the governor in October. It also likely leads to a 5-1 split favoring Democrats. (I think you can maybe make a case for 5-1, but maybe a better case for 4-2, perhaps.)
Oz gives a gift to his GOP Primary opponents in PA.
He is kissing the thing he purchased? Sounds like an Oprah moment.
Working as intended.
Whomever VoteVets hired to write their direct mail should get a medal. Their take no prisoners language has me reaching for my checkbook. Them and Rep Elissa Slotkin and Rep Abigail Spanberger have this civilian ally’s attention.
Crackpots, traitors and towering toadies!
This is the sort of language that appeals to me directly.
I may be a filthy quasi- democratic socialist (some of them would argue I’m not), but I’m a patriotic quasi-democratic socialist damnit!
This seems to me like it would be a dealbreaker, even for craven GOP voters?
I very much feel the same way about this:
Fetterman seems like exactly the kind of candidate who can win as a Democrat in a state-wide contest in Pennsylvania. Unlike Conor Lamb.
What about Connor lamb makes him unable to win in my state?
Both of these guys are good.
Lamb barely won his district the first time he ran for Congress, and he actually did worse than Joe Biden in 2020, getting just over 51% of the vote in his district. Fetterman, on the other hand, won the statewide race for lieutenant governor by more than 17 points in 2019.
Lamb is…okay? But he’s hardly a charismatic candidate, he has no track record at the statewide level, and he’s apparently polling 30 points behind Fetterman in the Dem primary.
PA Dems want more of a fighter, and Fetterman is that?
What you might be unaware of, was that the first time Connor Lamb ran for congress, it was for PA’s 18th district, prior to the re-districting mandated by the Supreme Court.
That district was actually heavily republican, and had been held by the GOP going back to 2002.
Connor Lamb’s victor there actually highlights his electability, as that election was likely harder for a Democrat to win than a statewide election that would include large numbers of votes from liberal strongholds like Philly.
As someone who lives in PA, I think your suggestion that he’s somehow uncharismatic seems misplaced.
Often what it takes to win in those types of places hurts you in a Dem primary. The average Democrat wants real change now.
If you want more candidates like Lamb, support jungle primaries.
I can live with the Kathy Mannings and Connor Lambs of the world in the short term. Yes, I’m a leftie who wants DemSoc policies , but harm reduction in the general. I’d never vote for one of those candidates in a primary though unless the other options were untenable.
For me to support someone like a Lamb, I’d have to believe that they were basically holding their powder dry to win - this is how I feel about Roy Cooper for example.
But it’s what would help you win in the general election, which in the case of PA’s senate seat, is by no means a gimme for the Democrats.
They’re fighting for a seat that is currently held by Pat Toomey. You’re gonna want to get some of the more purple areas of the state.
Federman is also good in these cases, don’t get me wrong. I don’t actually know which of them I’ll vote for at this point… but I think you guys may be severely underestimating Connor Lamb’s strengths that he demonstrated by not fully grasping the demographics of the district he was competing for in the Pittsburgh area.