With margins like this it's going to take a lot more heavy duty conspiring with Russisns and hacking to avoid a supermajority level wipeout in 2020. Might even have to bring in new #MAGA bro in waiting Kim Jong An Hopefully Jared has some more failing buildings and Trump has more hooker vids out there that can be leveraged into great #MAGA victories.
It is nuts that Lamb was even close. The district is so gerrymandered and Trump has been playing to the PA steel crowd with his recent tariff talk, but still, it looks like Lamb has a victory here. This is nuts. Once that is redistricted in a less gerrymandered way, it should be easier for Lamb to keep the seat. But you never know for sure.
No he's just trying the "Pelosi = scari!" message that failed in Pa-18. I think Pelosi needs to probably step aside, but blaming Pelosi/Hillary doesn't look like it's going to stop this problem. If Scalise wants to see an effective election year message, in action, as a recent victim of gun violence, or just as a normal human being, he should look out his window to the thousands of kids currently on the front steps of the Capitol Building. That's a winning message.
Adults are always too set in their ways and ignorant to change, because they are adverse to it. What is happening is no so much of a BLUE WAVE as an awakening of an entire generation who outnumber every other voting block combined. And they don't like guns, and they want national healthcare, and want free education. A HUGE wave is coming, and the dems will benefit, but it is really a PROGRESSIVE wave that will sweep the nation..... And it is about time. DD
Trump is radioactive and Republicans still haven't caught on to it yet. It'll take a solid ass kicking in the midterms for the party to finally come out of its fever dream and start distancing itself from him. The Republican civil war that will erupt in the run up to and immediate aftermath of 2020 is going to be pretty incredible to watch. Trump is not going to go quietly. He will burn down the house and salt the earth as he leaves politics.
In PA18, though, Trump is actually pretty popular-- Connor Lamb said so today. In these Congressional races, you are gonna have to run against your actual opponent, not just fight a Trump/Pelosi proxy war. Right now, it seems that the Democratic voters are more energized, and the Trump voters, even those who would still answer "Yes" on an approval poll about him, are rather lethargic and disappointed. Part of it is disappointed that things just didn't magically turn around in the rust belt, part of it is Trump admin incompetence/scandals, and part of it is them not actually liking the GOP in congress and their congressional candidates
That's the entire point. Trump is so odious that Republicans are losing districts he won by 20+ points left and right. This is the backsplash from the turd hitting the toilet at Mach 1. We're in really uncharted territory in terms of the unpopularity of a newly minted President and how it is affecting voter turnout in the midterms.
It's not just Trump was popular in November 2016, though-- Lamb says Trump is still popular now in PA18 in March 2018. Trump isn't popular overall in the country-- this I agree and his unpopularity will be a drag on GOP turnout. The interesting part is even where Trump is popular he still isn't doing much to increase turnout for the GOP candidate. Same thing applied to Obama back in the days even with higher approval ratings (than Trump, at least) -- so maybe the fact is that there is a limit of what a President can do to turn out voters for his preferred candidate when the President himself isn't on the ballot. He sure can turn out voters who don't like him, though.
Imagine that... a "conservative" democrat does the impossible. I've been telling you folks that it's all right there for the taking if the Dems could just get out of their own way. Like it or not a major part of this country likes it guns and conservative values. Do you want to win or be right?! Thankfully Mr. Lamb wanted to win and he did. Beto could learn from this dude but it might be too late after his recent ar-15 ban talk. Like most dems, Beto rather be right and lose than wrong and win. Now the people lose because it's probably Cruz again.
That's the deadly mix we're seeing. Mid-term elections are typically the bread and butter of conservatives. Special elections even more so. Instead, we're seeing very red districts and seats go blue. Democrats are energized, sure. But you know who is really energized? Disaffected and low-participation independents. If 2018 goes sideways for Republicans (and at this point it's not "if" but "how badly"), it will be hard for Trump to recover. Trump has to energize his base, and he's just too slimey to do it. He doesn't have HRC to energize it for him anymore.
So your suggestion is that Democrats should win by dumping all the things they believe in and just switching all their views? You may have missed the whole point.
First of all "dumping all the things" is overly dramatic but yes because you can't do **** if you keep losing. You WIN and then you slowly over time change the consciousness of this country with tiny victories that move this country to the left. Campaigning on dramatic, rapid, sweeping, changes is a guaranteed loss and then you get NOTHING done! Mr. Lamb's victory proves my point. He is seen as "pro-gun" and anti-abortion but in support of roe-wade. But now that he's won perhaps he can push for tiny victories on both issues while having his other liberal ideas on the table because at least he's at the table.
Funny seeing folks pushing the angle about Lamb's supposed conservative bonafides. He has actually pushed a fairly progressive platform that is pro-choice, pro-union, pro-Affordable Care Act, wants to use tax dollars to fund public schools and community college education, anti-corporate tax cut and pro-massive infrastructure spending, wants drug treatment and rehabilitation in addition to going after drug dealers both on the streets and in "drug company boardrooms", wants to restructure/refinance student loan debt (as opposed to the Trump/GOP program of basically letting predatory lenders run free in the student loan industry), and while he wants to buttress the natural gas industry, he is for protecting the environment and wants the industry thusly regulated. https://conorlamb.com/priorities/
