Well, it’s pandering of a particular kind: the kind where you tell the electorate outrageous and obvious lies to get their votes.
Strikes me as a calling card more than pandering.
A guy like McConnell with a low approval rating will win by making the campaign all about liberals and their anti-religion, anti-gun, anti-rural culture ways.
The route to beating a guy like McConnell is to make the campaign all about Republican promises versus Republican deliveries. So you hit him with direct accusations, probably hyperbole, but very difficult to ignore.
McGrath does not need to win these arguments, she just needs to prevent a replay of the same old tired red state campaign theme: “Republicans may disappoint us over and over, but at least they don’t hate us and plan to re-make us in the image of their culture, like Democrats.”
Terrific ad. I contributed to her House race, it is an uphill battle, but I guess I’ll do the same for her Senate race.
Meanwhile MJ Hegar is challenging Sen. Cornyer in Texas. I’m not sure of the wisdom of losing a Congressional race and then run for Senate. I think MJ has no chance. Any thoughts @triggercut?
In all honesty, I would expect that Democrats will pour resources into Arizona, North Carolina, Colorado, and Maine…and secondarily maybe Iowa and Georgia.
Hegar and McGrath are interesting and terrific candidates, but both are very much longshots, I’d think.
Senate races are almost never unopposed. House can be due to gerrymandering, but not Senate. Dems even try in Alabama (and won last time)
NC is going to get attention. Swing state, unpopular Tillis, and the likely Dem candidate isn’t terrible. Not Jeff Jackson (who would have been favored), but not bad.
See the original post in this thread. Back then there were 8 senate races where Republicans were still running unopposed. Hopefully there will soon be zero.
I feel quite confident that Colorado will be a Dem pickup. Gardner is pretty well despised in this state. I recognize that I’m speaking from my own little silo, but I have never seen a Senator as reviled as he is. If Hickenlooper pulls his head of out his ass and drops the POTUS run, he will demolish Gardner.
Even if Hick doesn’t do that, pretty much any dem is going to do well considering the national environment, Colorado’s hatred of Trump, and the shifting demographics in the state.
I think the real value of having good candidates like Hegar and McGrath in states where they’re probably not going to win is that it forces the GOP to spend a little in those areas. In fact, that’s the broader plan, I believe: make the NRSC defend in a lot of areas so they can’t concentrate their defense on Colorado, Arizona, North Carolina and Maine. Make them fright for Joni Ernst in Iowa. Make them fight for Perdue in Georgia. Make them a little nervous in Kansas (yes, Kansas.)
Hopefully the inactivity in this thread does not presage people taking their eye off of the ball of what I consider our top imperative in 2020 - retaking the Senate. Sure, The Trump Show is riveting, and it’s all impeachment all the time. But, the US Senate is up for grabs and it is critically important that Dems get the majority. Which won’t be easy but it is possible and worth working our asses off for and writing checks for.
Let’s review for a moment:
#1 Mitch McConnell gets demoted, maybe to Minority Leader, maybe the fucker loses his re-elect next year.
Plus all this other consequential stuff.
Nominations
The Constitution provides that the president “shall nominate, and by and with the Advice and Consent of the Senate, shall appoint Ambassadors, other public Ministers and Consuls, Judges of the Supreme Court, and all other Officers of the United States… (Article 2, Section 2).” Judicial nominations are the only thing Mitch is allowing to go forward and the GOP is moving at light speed to pack the federal judiciary with young, smart, overwhelmingly white and male ultra conservative judges. This has to stop or we will lose the judicial branch for the rest of many of our life times.
Treaties
The Constitution gives the Senate the power to approve, by a two-thirds vote, treaties made by the executive branch. The Senate may also amend a treaty or adopt changes to a treaty. International trade, arms control, CLIMATE CHANGE, etc.
Expulsion
Article I, Section 5, of the U.S. Constitution provides that each house of Congress may “…punish its members for disorderly behavior, and, with the concurrence of two-thirds, expel a member.”
Investigations
Congress has conducted investigations of malfeasance in the executive branch—and elsewhere in American society—since 1792.
Contested Senate Elections
The United States Constitution gives each house of Congress the power to be the judge of the “elections, returns, and qualifications of its own members” (Article I, Section 5). Since 1789 the Senate has developed its own procedures for judging the qualifications of its members and settling contested elections.
Okay, little lecture is over.
One of the top priorities in this fight, and a rare trifecta for 2020 is Sen. Susan Collins’ re-elect. Maine, like Nebraska, apportions its electoral votes by congressional district. The presidential candidate that wins the statewide vote gets two electoral votes, and they get an additional electoral vote for each of the two congressional districts that they win. In 2016 Hillary won state wide and the first CD so she got three electoral votes but Trump won in the rural second CD and he got one.
Maine has a freshman Congressman Jared Golden representing the 2nd CD and he is in a tough re-elect. Trump is working hard to win the 2nd CD again. The playbook for Susan Collins has been to win big in the more conservative 2nd CD and cut her loses in the more urban (by Maine standards ;-)) and liberal 1st CD. So, if we can boost turnout in the 1st CD and hold our own in the 2nd CD we can toss her out, re-elect Jared and deny Trump one electoral vote. And save our country!
This article would indicate that there is trouble in Collins’ back yard, so yeah, the impeachment is important and it may be super useful in winning back the Senate.
But not if we don’t work our asses off and write all the checks that we can. Some gripe about getting all those annoying emails once you make a contribution. To you I say get over it.
Maine still elects Senators by popular vote, as is required by the 17th Amendment.
Markos did a pretty good rundown of Senate races a couple of days ago:
tl;dr: We need 5 seats. We’ll probably get CO. ME and AZ are possibilities. GA and NC are competitive, but we don’t have a good candidate in either of those. It’s a really tough map.
I’m writing a check for Jaime Harrison, who is challenging Lindsey Graham in South Carolina.
He just announced in June of this year and is making huge strides - he’s gained over 60,000 donations, averaging about $26 each. A recent poll, from a left-leaning and C rated pollster have him only 2 pts back from Graham - it will be interesting to see if any better pollsters pick the race up and give us more data.
Jaime looks great and if you want to contribute as well, that would be great.
" Thanks to the third-quarter fundraising haul, where his average campaign contribution was $24, Harrison now has over $2.6 million cash on hand, compared to the less than $1.5 million he had at the end of quarter two on June 30, according to filing data from the Federal Elections Commission. Since the launch of his campaign in late May, Harrison has brought in nearly $4 million."
Bummer.
Why bummer? I think she’s a known quantity with a tanking approval, and the dem funding machine is in overdrive because they believe this is a winnable seat.
I’m actually surprised this was a question. I assumed she was already running.
While it’s a ‘gettable’ seat, she still has the incumbent advantage (and some independents somehow think ‘divided government is best government’.)
She hadn’t declared yet and (naive) people like me hoped she’d head for the lucre (she’s 67 and has been in the Senate a long time.)
I think we’re better off with Collins as the Republican candidate here. Both with the Senate impeachment trial and with the actual election.
In 2016, no Senator was elected in a state where their party’s presidential candidate lost.
What a fascinating data point. I’d never realized this.