2018 Midterms

[simple schoolboy]

fool me once, shame on you

https://www.wired.com/story/time-about- ... elections/

When the BBC asked CIA Director Michael Pompeo last week whether he foresaw Russia continuing to pursuing election meddling during the 2018 midterm elections, he said, "Of course. I have every expectation that they will continue to try and do that." Likewise former State Department cyber coordinator Christopher Painter said in Congressional testimony on Tuesday that, "The lack of a sufficiently strong, timely, and continuing response to Russian interference with our electoral process virtually guarantees that they will attempt to interfere again."

Those Facebook ad buys are really going to change voter turnout.

obnoxious

they already did once! just ask the 13 pinkos the FBI just indicted

Maybe the early reports I saw were in error, but the indictment was for 13 Russian nationals well outside the grasp of US law enforcement, correct?

no

and the point question was 'can you impact voter turnout via facebook ad buys' and the answer is 'yes you can', and the example is 'they did'

Is there an update to this? "13 Russian Nationals" Are they in custody? I didn't think we charged people in absentia...

https://www.cnn.com/2018/02/16/politics ... index.html

[BurtReynolds]

still my favorite tweet ever

[Bi_3]

Apparently Feinstein is too old for Cali dems now. Oh, how the mighty have fallen.

[McParadigm]

The tax cut polling bump has already evaporated, in the light of the events of the last few weeks.

Two polls out both have Trump and party matching their historic lows and, perhaps worse for the midterms, surpassing any previous negative intensity gap. There’s no easy win-messaging legislation coming up to do what the tax cuts nearly did, and a lot of land mine topics are on the horizon where the official GOP position is brutally unpopular outside of its base.

A few strategic corrections would do a world of wonders I think, but they increasingly seem to take every issue with the “no turning back” attitude they’ve had towards Trump. For example, I read a few weeks ago about some suburban districts that have been purple for a while but went Trump, and how much work the GOP was putting into saving those in the midterms. I went back to look at them, because one of the points made at the time was that GOP-leaning suburban districts trend decidedly pro-gun control. The NRA doesn’t even typically spend on those candidates. But nevertheless, two out of the three candidates in question used townhall events to defend ownership of AR 15‘s and oppose any control-centered legislation.

Coming from the party that once mastered the art of messaging, it’s gotten to where it almost feels like self-sabotage.

[Superblood Wolfmoon]

The true colors of the modern Republican Party were proudly flying at CPAC. The gun nuts, uneducated and racist fringes are clearly in control now, and for that they will pay dearly. The party of Trump indeed.

[Bi_3]

The true colors of the modern Republican Party were proudly flying at CPAC. The gun nuts, uneducated and racist fringes are clearly in control now, and for that they will pay dearly. The party of Trump indeed.

All you need to know about the state of the red team:

[McParadigm]

[96583UP]

the russians have their work cut out for them this time

[McParadigm]

So Republicans have had to scale back tax cut-related ads in PA18, because they’re having no effect. Their base only wants culture wars trash that wins no one else over, so instead they’ve started focusing on dampening Democrat enthusiasm by seeing out fliers “thanking” Lamb for his gun rights support.

Ryan’s PAC has spent three million dollars now (part of $9m total R spending!) in a conservative district that Trump won by 20 points. Even a close finish will be a huge red flag about the midttrms at this point.

[McParadigm]

Thad Cochran is resigning.

[McParadigm]

Today’s Texas primaries will be a good indicator of how the balance of power looks going in to the 2018 election cycle.

Early ballots have been worrying Republicans:

Total Votes
2014 - 592,153
2018 - 885,574

Distribution
2014 – 62% Republican
2018 – 47% Republican

Total Votes by Party
2014 Republican: 367,000
2014 Democrat: 213,000

2018 Republican: 416,000
2018 Democrat: 460,000

[McParadigm]

This is now more than half of what they typically spend for a hotly contested senate seat. Risky House seats usually get more like $400,000.

They really believe they need a victory to tout, either for morale’s sake or for future fundraising.

More importantly, this kind of spending is unsustainable on a broader field, so they may be testing whether or not they can strategically save some purple seats, if they choose them well.

[McParadigm]

Today’s Texas primaries will be a good indicator of how the balance of power looks going in to the 2018 election cycle.

So the final voting shows a 15% increase in Republican vote compared to 2014, and an 87% increase in Democratic turnout. This paints a complicated picture:

1. The Republican vote total for the primary is still well above the Democrat total, but...
2. This increase is consistent with Dem overperformance in the special elections this year, and...
3. If Democrat overperformance in the midterm continues to match the specials, it sounds like that would lead to a lot of district-based pickups.

Still a red state, but it’s the difference between a 40 point Republican safety net and 15. The party will have to spend more money in Texas than they typically do to avoid disappointment, which will hurt their ability to support other at-risk places (or vice versa). It also continues to suggest that the Democrat 15 to 20 point surge is both nationally consistent, and not fading with time or attributable in any way to specific candidates.

Probably good news for Ted Cruz, but terrible for the RNCC

[McParadigm]

Turnout in potentially newly-competitive districts that people were watching closely:

TX-7 (Houston): 38K GOP, 33K Dem

TX-23 (SA): 44K Dems, 31K GOP

TX-32 (Dallas): 41K GOP, 40K Dem

[McParadigm]

One last thing: the tax cuts are not having the intended motivating effect. They actually started dropping tax cuts as a talking point in many places (same for PA-18). And now the economic story Republicans will be living under may well be a trade war.

[McParadigm]

Ryan’s PAC has spent three million dollars now (part of $9m total R spending!) in a conservative district that Trump won by 20 points. Even a close finish will be a huge red flag about the midttrms at this point.

[96583UP]

wonder how much money the russians have spent

[B]

Not helping.

Clinton: I won places moving forward, Trump won places moving backward
http://thehill.com/homenews/campaign/37 ... g-backward

[Norah]

Not helping.

Clinton: I won places moving forward, Trump won places moving backward
http://thehill.com/homenews/campaign/37 ... g-backward

Or it's honest. If you're clinging to coal and the return of mid 20th century manufacturing, which way are you looking?

[B]

Not helping.

Clinton: I won places moving forward, Trump won places moving backward
http://thehill.com/homenews/campaign/37 ... g-backward

Or it's honest. If you're clinging to coal and the return of mid 20th century manufacturing, which way are you looking?

I'm not saying it's wrong. But if Clinton's going to go out and try to give that lesson, you might as well surrender the country to Trump for the next 20 years. It's the "basket of deplorable." You win zero votes from the people you insult, and you probably lose more votes to people who are sympathetic.