I don't know about this time around, but in 2018, he had massive downballot benefits as the Dems took a lot of state seats that had previously been out of reach. Even forced the GOP to re-define the filibuster to lower the threshold to the new # of Senators they had.
issue I see with Pete is that he got basically zero support from black and Latino voters How can he win a primary or get the nomination with such low support among POC?
I don't think Pete is going to make any headway with the minority vote. Even with being given a position in the Cabinet, I don't think he has been in the spotlight enough to truly get support behind him. It's cool seeing him hand out burns in Fox News, but yeah, that's not likely to make a different to get him up to speed in being a major player for the democrats.
Abrams has done a ton of work in GA and deserves credit for that work helping put Biden in the white house and securing the Senate majority once and perhaps a second time. Even if she never wins office herself. Beto has done a ton of work in TX, but it's hard to see fruits of it anywhere to be honest. He's ruined at this point. I don't think this was the right race for him to begin with though. Bad cycle, coming off two losses.
Democrats can avoid admitting it as much as they want, but Pete's sexuality makes him a non starter for democratic primaries.
It is not BS. I know someone that worked on the campaign back when Wendy Davis was running. She was absolutely told to push those issues. The National party wants their candidates to have a unified message. She hated campaigning on that but had to do it in order to get the money from the party. The national party was told that they were hurting her chances to win, and they said she needed to find a way to make it work and that they wanted to push their national issues for help in states where they needed the name brand of the Democratic Party to be unified on those issues. They didn't make her talk about it in the state. They made her put it as part of the platform and talk about it on the national media shows.
That liability doesn't stop in the primaries. I think his problems with minority voters would absolutely sink him in the general.
Don't know what Wendy Davis did or did not do, but Beto had no National Party mandate anchor tied to him. He raises a ton of money independently. And the gun position was one he took STRONGLY with his hell yes were' coming for your guns take
In the near term it's going to take a celebrity candidate. As much as I don't care that much for celebrities Matthew McConnaughey should've been encoraged to run. As I said earlier though it's going to take a lot work to crack TX for Democrats. It's starts with building a better local organization that can get out the vote and develop local candidates who can then move on to higher office.
I figured that was a given. He's not electable in the primaries because of zero black support, just scratch off the list for a national general election. Zero viability.
Margorie Taylor Greene's district must be a bunch of half-brained racist backwoods flossing their tooth with a banjo string m*f*ckers to vote her in.
Right. Like I said in my initial post, it didn't seem that the party mandating talking points was an issue that Beto had.
It's still to early to say but it's entirely possible the Republicans will capture the Senate. Johnson has been declared the winner in WI and Laxalt has a lead in NV. If he wins that, it gets the Republicans to 50 with a run off likely in GA where Walker would be slightly favored even if Kelly can hold on to AZ for Dems (which seems likely). It also seems very likely the Republicans will also capture the House with a small majority. These aren't the Red Wave results that were talked about so much but will be enough to stop any 2nd half plans the Dems had hoped to achieve and a Senate win stops judicial nominations including the Supreme Court. Meanwhile, there are some interesting trends in the overall result. Florida is a lost cause for Dems thanks to Desantis (and Rubio). Kemp winning Georgia and Abbott winning Texas shows these states probably aren't going Blue anytime soon. Latinos also did move towards Republicans in large numbers, while Dems appear to have managed to motivate young voters to show up for them. The Dobbs decision probably saved the Dems from the Red Wave, but will that dissipate by 2024? What lessons will each party learn from this? Republican voters should now see that Trump is an albatross on the party and that Desamtis is not only a viable alternative but the best chance to win back the White House. They also need to learn the lesson that candidate quality matters especially in critical swing states. They can't just trot out famous names and get a win. I believe that the 2022 result might lull Democrats into believing they don't need to change their approach. The map this year was supposed to be in Democrats favor and they still could lose the Senate. In the House, the Dems gave up 14 seats in 2020 and about 8-10 in 2022. With two more years of this kind of economic malaise and BIden fatigue it's setting up a delayed shellacking if the Republicans learn the lessons above. The 2024 Senate map is EXTREMELY favorable towards Republicans and is really their election to lose. Lastly, completely detached from the political consequences but certainly attached to elections is polling. This is a dead science. Obviously, what we're getting are educated guesses from people doing their best but they've lost their ability to get consistent quality data from the electorate and that means nobody really knows till election day what's gonna happen. Their polling results really should be ignored going forward.
Pete's best route would be as a VP to "normalize" him. Interestingly, he moved to Michigan recently (I don't know how that works since he's presumably in DC), so I'm curious if he has a plan there of some sort.
For those curious the OR governor election is going down to the wire. With 67% reporting Democrat Tina Kotek has a 1% lead over the Republican Christine Drazan. Independent Betsy Johnson who left the Democrats is at 8.8%. Phil Knight the founder of Nike put in a lot of money late for Drazan.
Congrats to the Dems. Very disappointing night but time marches on. This was another referendum on trump so maybe he moves on and endorses a successor.
Well often times primary viability and general viability are not the same thing. I think Pete's time will come in the next 10-15 years.
I respect it though. He believed in that issue and wasn't going to hide it. He was going to lose either way. Better to lose on what you believe in. He never had a shot against Abbot. 1) Bad cycle for democrats 2) Abbot isn't Cruz. Doesn't engender the hate that Cruz did. 3) The failed presidential run was embarrassing
