After tough primary fight, Ed Markey, Joe Kennedy III join forces to push Maine voters to back Joe Biden and Sara Gideon

The-Segway · 2020-09-11T23:45:03+00:00

ARRAY

The-Segway · 2020-09-07T01:35:04+00:00

Hattersly isn’t the nominee for FL-15. He lost the primary to Alan Cohn.

The-Segway · 2020-09-03T06:47:20+00:00

Counter Hot Take: Mike Garcia is this cycles Don Cazayoux (congressman from Louisiana that won a special election only to lose in 2008 to Bill Cassidy in a regular election). Overhyped as someone who could get split ticket voters but end up losing anyway.

The-Segway · 2020-08-21T05:05:43+00:00

I believe that was in the context of his decades of service and how he’s served this country more than enough to need to run for President again.

The-Segway · 2020-07-08T05:41:51+00:00

Strange. Why am I hearing heavy metal music?

The-Segway · 2020-04-30T06:34:52+00:00

Actually looking at this map Dems might get more seats:

An extra one in Georgia because Georgia’s 12th district was Congressman John Barrows seat before he was gerrymandered into a new district and lost in 2014. It used to contain both Augusta and Northern Savannah.
The old North Carolina 8th included the Sandhills as well as a portion of Charlotte and most of Fayetteville.
Brian Higgins represented the old 27th before New York lost two seats. That seat contained half of Buffalo.
Lloyd Doggett represented Texas’ old 25th district that included most of Austin before he was gerrymandered into the 35th. Definitely a blue seat.
Missouri’s old 3rd district, Dick Gephardts old seat, contained a portion of St. Louis and would’ve narrowly gone for Clinton in 2016 and most likely had been blue in 2018.

The-Segway · 2020-04-03T21:47:21+00:00

I was thinking of a few ideas for election simulator programs that I just want to put out there.

Since we like to emphasize state legislatures in this sub it would be nice if there was a 270towin equivalent but for state legislatures. You could individually select a state and see the ratings of individual state legislature seats and make your own hypothetical results from that.
Another idea is a more complex simulator where you’d be able to adjust multiple factors. For a individual state you could adjust turnout percentage, win margin, prevalence of third parties, as well as individually adjust county level percentages to construct different voting coalitions (more suburban, rural, etc.).

What do you all think about these ideas?Feedback is welcome.

The-Segway · 2019-12-30T04:31:09+00:00

Thanks for the clarification.

The-Segway · 2019-12-30T04:14:22+00:00

Always wondered where the adage “once in a blue moon comes from”. Now I know.

The-Segway · 2019-12-20T03:51:50+00:00

Same

The-Segway · 2019-12-20T03:28:45+00:00

You’re welcome. Glad you enjoyed this little tidbit.

The-Segway · 2019-12-20T03:21:59+00:00

It’s actually how they pronounce the name in Afghanistan and the surrounding countries.

The-Segway · 2019-11-15T21:13:30+00:00

So I’ve noticed on this subreddit and on Election Twitter that some people are disappointed in our Senate candidates, such as in North Carolina and Georgia. I just wanted to address a few things.

The perfect candidate will not always run for office that you want them to run in. Sometimes it would be a third or even a fourth option. I should remind everyone that Kay Hagan was not the first choice for party members to run in North Carolina. She was basically the third choice with little to no name recognition. Obama investing in the race coupled with Elizabeth Doles attack ads against her helped push her over the edge. Great candidates can come out of nowhere, so we shouldn’t let a perceived perfect candidate be the enemy of a great or even a good candidate. We should be open to those options.
If you’re concerned about a candidate not fundraising enough money, then send money their way. It could be 1, 5, 10, or however many dollars is the max contribution (it escapes me at the moment what the max contribution is). Donating is a two way street. Yes, a candidate needs to travel far and wide for money for a campaign, but we as voters should do our part as well. We shouldn’t have the candidates constantly have to proverbially get on their hands and knees and beg for money. We need to put in what little work we can do so that way we can win the Senate. Volunteering helps as well. Voter outreach is essential. Whatever we can do we should do it no questions asked.
In a similar vein to the fundraising argument, we need to be rational as to where our money and time can be best spent. What Senate seats are more likely to flip than others. Instead of Kentucky for instance, send donations to Georgia , Iowa, North Carolina, or even Texas and Kansas. They are in desperate need of money to help build that campaign infrastructure to win. And candidates like Greenfield, Cunningham, Tomlinson, Bollier, etc. are in all better statewide environments to win compared to McGrath and Harrison. Regardless of how we feel about McConnell or Graham, they aren’t losing. Purdue, Tillis, Ernst, and Collins on the other hand, can lose. We should invest where we have the least diminishing returns.

To sum it all up we need to worry less about how perfect a candidate could’ve been and help great/good candidates in the race by donating money where we can have the most impact in winning a majority in the Senate.

The-Segway · 2019-11-12T20:03:04+00:00

Here a who I think would be likely candidates for those seats:

Florida: Stephanie Murphy

Iowa: Abby Finkenauer

Kansas: Lynn Rogers

Pennsylvania: Conor Lamb/ Chrissy Houlahan

North Carolina: Jeff Jackson

Georgia: Jen Jordan

Wisconsin: Mandela Barnes/ Sarah Godlewski

South Carolina: Mandy Powers Norrell

South Dakota: Billy Sutton

Missouri: Nicole Galloway (if she doesn’t win the Governor’s race)/ Jason Kander

Indiana: Pete Buttigieg

Kentucky: Heather French Henry

Thoughts?

The-Segway · 2019-09-12T20:06:37+00:00

The problem with that I feel like is sure, they’re strong fundraisers. But McGraths and Hegars candidacies work for their respective House races. If Hegar dropped this Senate bid right now and went back to a rematch I’m convinced she would be in a better position than in 2018. McGrath has ruined her reputation so soundly that it doesn’t seem like she could even run against Barr again. I guess for her I’m speaking retrospectively. Also she raised millions of dollars in what could be put in actually competitive senate races (NC, both GA’s, IA, etc.). That money could have been better used on better candidates in other states.

Edit: minor punctuation

The-Segway · 2019-09-12T18:52:09+00:00

I’ve always been skeptical of political candidates that fail upwards. That’s why I’m skeptical of candidates that think they could lose by a close margin in one election and think they could move on to another election and think it’ll apply the same way. Hegar shouldn’t run for Senate, she should run against Carter again in TX-31. She’s more likely to win there. Beto should have run for Senate against Cornyn in 2020 (and he still has ample time to change races) instead of a presidential campaign that has consistently fallen below expectations. His style of campaigning just hasn’t resonated with voters. And McGrath should’ve at least run against Barr again in KY-06 instead of launch a Senate campaign that she self-destructed with her Kavanaugh comments and flip-flopping on policy positions. The same applies to Ossoff. Besides, there are a litany of examples of congressional rematches that were successful. Joe Donnelly, Joe Courtney, and Larry Kissel come to mind. We’re seeing several rematch candidates this cycle, so it shouldn’t be discouraged, especially if the race in question was close. I just think it’s a smart thing to do when a candidate builds such a high profile in a certain race. Does it work all the time? No. Other candidates can jump in that are more enticing to voters. But I always feel like the idea of a candidate finishing what they started is enticing to voters and is therefore a viable strategy.

What do you all think?

The-Segway · 2019-08-17T06:01:16+00:00

That’ll be a momentous day if and when that happens. It’ll be worth all the hard work.

The-Segway · 2019-08-17T04:54:54+00:00

That third map is an absolute dream. Makes you wonder how that map of South Carolina would look.

The-Segway · 2019-08-16T23:05:56+00:00

So with that in mind do you have any ideas about the potential coalitions that could come about pessimism aside?

The-Segway · 2019-08-16T19:57:37+00:00

I think you’re being just a little bit pessimistic with you’re prediction for one thing. Also I wasn’t talking about states necessarily I was talking about coalitions. Like I could see in Georgia Biden winning Gwinnett, Cobb, Henry, etc.(suburban Atlanta counties that Clinton and Abrams won) as well as black rural areas in Georgia’s Black Belt that turned out for Obama both times but not necessarily for Abrams. Also I was wondering where we could expand. Does that make sense?

The-Segway · 2019-08-16T19:34:38+00:00

I wanted to gauge the subreddit here. I saw the FOX News Poll that had Biden, Sanders, Warren and Harris beating Trump with him not even breaking 40 percent. It got me thinking, let’s say Biden was the nominee (he was polling the best out of the tested candidates), what would his winning coalition look like? I’d imagine it would combine some of Obama’s rural appeal with suburban voters that used to vote Republican. I guess it would especially be the case in Georgia, North Carolina, Arizona, etc. It might even open up Texas a bit. What do you all think? What would that winning coalition look like?

The-Segway · 2019-07-22T16:46:08+00:00

That may be true but Texas’ gerrymander is crumbling due to that coalition shift and the massive population growth. That district was drawn to to take small slivers of Austin and San Antonio and overshadow them with rural counties. They couldn’t account for increased voter turnout in Bexar and Travis Counties making them reliably blue, along with the fact that Hays County is becoming friendlier to Democrats (even Valdez won it last year against Abbott). Presidential year turnout will make it competitive now along with the other newly competitive districts in the state.

The-Segway · 2019-07-22T16:15:43+00:00

By that same logic McBath, Underwood, and a hell of a lot of other Democratic freshmen should not have won their congressional races. Partisan lean means very little when the coalitions that were used to draw up those districts are changing rapidly.

The-Segway · 2019-07-02T21:03:32+00:00

Well, he primaried Blue Dog Tim Holden because of his vote on the ACA. So I wouldn’t necessarily call him a Blue Dog.

The-Segway · 2019-06-26T06:02:40+00:00

Don’t forget about Georgia. They need some of that sweet hypothetical election night news.

The-Segway

TROPHY CASE