The PowerPost over at the Washington Post points to another sign that Republicans’ are in trouble for the fall midterm election cycle….
Republican members of the House fared especially poorly Tuesday in primaries across four states, offering fresh evidence that this fall will bring another change election and a new batch of outsiders promising to shake up Washington.
North Carolina Rep. Robert Pittenger was felled by former Baptist pastor Mark Harris despite a massive spending advantage, an outcome that caught D.C. Republicans off guard. Harris portrayed the third-term lawmaker as a creature of “the swamp” and relentlessly hammered him over his March vote for the $1.3 trillion spending bill. Pittenger is the first incumbent of either party to be forced out of Congress this year.
In the primary to take on Indiana Sen. Joe Donnelly (D), wealthy businessman Mike Braun won an upset over two GOP congressmen, Todd Rokita and Luke Messer, who have been rivals since college and spent months beating the tar out of each other.
In West Virginia, Rep. Evan Jenkins (R) lost to state Attorney General Patrick Morrisey in the primary to challenge Sen. Joe Manchin (D). The ex-convict Don Blankenship, who garnered so much attention in recent days, finished in third place — averting another national GOP nightmare a la Roy Moore.
In Ohio, support for Rep. Jim Renacci (R) was surprisingly soft in the primary to challenge Democratic Sen. Sherrod Brown. Despite being endorsed by President Trump, who recorded a robo-call on his behalf and appeared alongside him at a recent event, the congressman could only garner 47 percent against four unknown candidates.
That’s five GOP members who will not return to the House next year.
Having “congressman” on a resume is not just a liability for Republicans in this environment. Dennis Kucinich, who served 16 years in the House and ran for president in 2008, lost the Democratic primary for governor in Ohio to Richard Cordray, who ran the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau until last November.
It didn’t used to be this way…..
No they sure didn’t did they, and the first Republican incumbent to lose yesterday was beaten by a “Freedom Caucus” wannabe (giving the Democrats another pick-up opportunity in North Carolina).
Now, this setup (with the truncated response boxes) is incredibly difficult to follow. So, I will comment from yesterday and then get going. I am working on a fundraiser for Tammy Baldwin this weekend (Mother’s Day) in San Francisco and need to make calls, since we also leave on Sunday for our “fire make-up trip” to Europe on Sunday.
Senator Baldwin did the classy thing and called me this week to thank me for my help. She knows her stuff, and now I need to produce.
But, before I go for the day I want to comment on some of the back & forth yesterday. The conversation started because one Jew said they were embarrassed when another Jew committed an immoral act. I get that.
My question was how a Jew, one that professes to be strong in his faith, could excuse Billy Graham’s anti-Semitic comments. The conversation devolved into much whataboutism and went to Jessie Jackson’s horrible “Hymie in Hymie Town” comments as a way to mitigate the Graham remarks. Beyond the obvious “two wrongs don’t make a right” aspect of this comparison, it should be obvious that Billy Graham (the Nation’s Pastor) making anti-Semitic comments to the President of the United States is more powerfully outrageous and morally contemptuous than anything Jackson could ever say. But, this isn’t a comparison contest. It’s about the fact that a “man of God” would say that the Jewish “stranglehold has got to be broken or the country’s going down the drain.” Nixon agreed of course, as Graham told Nixon that “the Jews did not know his true feelings about them.”
Now, of course, when HR Halderman revealed this conversation in his book Graham lied and said he never said those things. Until, of course, the tape came out.
Sorry, Graham was over 50 at the time he made these comments and had “ministered” to at least three Presidents. He wasn’t simply trying to agree with Nixon, Nixon agreed with him.
How any Jew could defend these remarks is beyond me.
Got to go. Money to raise!
Republicans run everything.
Why do we need to elect more Republicans to “shake up” Washington?
Of course I recognize asking Republican primary voters to think beyond their perpetual rage is a fool’s errand.
You said it..
Perpetual Rage
There’s plenty of rage to go around. Just wait to see who you guys wind up nominating this year and in the next couple of cycles.
What I know though, is that Republicans dodged some bullets at least last night, and that *could* lead to some wins in November. I am especially pleased that in competitive Ohio Congressional primaries, the establishment Republicans beat back the “You Must Bow Down to Trump” candidates opposing them.
But they all support Trump.
It really says a lot that NeverTrumpers ,like you are reduced to applauding those Republicans who support Trump, just not as vociferously as others.
Reminds me of the old adage..
Damning with faint praise.
Who did I applaud?
I was just stating a fact of what happened and how it fits my own self-interest in what is a macro battle. I think that’s perfectly fair to do. The two candidates who won specifically had much money spent against them in the primaries claiming they were “anti-Trump”, so it must not have mattered in the end.
Once again, anyone can say anything can happen.
Dealing with the here and now?
Yes, perpetual rage ,fanned by its leader ,is the present state of the Republican Party.
There “here and now” is that whether he deserves it or not, because of these developments with North Korea, including the incredibly good release of the hostages, is that the “leader of the Republican Party” is probably going to tick up in the polls a bit more than he has over the last couple of months and Democrats are going to have to run on something besides impeachment to get votes beyond their base.
He very well might.
So?
I’ve never been with this impeachment talk and have made several posts here specifically stating that I have seen nothing yet that would justify impeachment.
Was this supposed to be a response?
What are the Democrats running on then? Can anyone explain specifically what they are campaigning on besides impeachment? What do they stand for?
In 1994, there was a Contract With America, with 10 points, and everyone knew exactly what the Republicans were proposing to do if given the majority.
According to a just released CNN poll, the Democrats generic ballot advantage over Republicans have fallen from 16 points in February to just three now.
Theories? or “fake news, fake polls?”
Voters also are divided almost evenly over whether the country would be better off with the Democrats in control of Congress (31%) or with the GOP in charge (30%). A sizable 34% — including nearly half of independent voters (48%) — say it doesn’t matter which party controls Congress.
https://www.cnn.com/2018/05/09/politics/cnn-poll-generic-ballot-narrows/index.html
The Generic polling average is still probably around 8% right where the Dem’s need it to be…..
If you look at voting results and other polling the Dem’s ARE looking good for November….
According to the poll, that’s now what the number is, but I have seen for years and years, cheerleaders on both sides, “re-weigh” polls to get them to where they feel better about the poll results, so it’s nothing new.
The trend line though is clearly down for the Democrat advantage.
I don’t know what “voting results” and “other polls” indicate and what defines “looking good.”
Republican turnout in Ohio yesterday was well above Democrat turnout, for whatever that is worth. Perhaps a large part of that is because Republicans had the “hotter” races, but it still indicates that plenty of Democrats stayed home.
The constraint Trump fuck-ups have actually become common and people are blocking them out….
But the voting in most 2018 elections HAS been away from Trumpism
And the number of GOPer’s running, with money , is down sharply….
And the historical factor to all this….
And
MUELLER…..
Nate Cohen
Via twitter
There’s nothing weird about the volatility in individual generic ballot polls. The MoE on the ‘margin’ is quite large–generally +/- 6, even more.
The generic ballot average, on the other hand, has been pretty stable for months and still seems stable today.
Morning Cosult
Via twitter….
Generic Democratic candidates in lean blue districts have a much wider lead than Republicans in lean red districts:
The Contract with (on) America wasn’t unveiled until late summer early fall of 1994 and I doubt most voters cared about it. That was the first midterm I voted in and in my conservative Republican hometown most who voted the GOP never talked about it. The most partisan voters just wanted to stick it to Clinton and the more independent voters just wanted to see another party in power for a change.
24 years later the same sentiment will be more of a motivation than some slogan.
Well, the new CNN poll also shows this:
“By 48% to 43%, registered voters say they would rather back a candidate who opposes Donald Trump than one who supports the President. That margin has narrowed from the 52% who opposed Trump to the 41% who supported him in January.
The results come from the same poll this week that found nearly six in 10 saying that things in the country are going well amid improving approval ratings for the President’s handling of major issues, including the economy, immigration and foreign trade. Trump’s overall approval rating, however, held steady at 41%.”
That’s quite a narrowing for the anti-Trump motivation.
Now, his 41% approval rating is anemic, but it’s almost like we may be at the point where he is the complete reverse of Obama in regards to when Obama was President, people tended to like him personally but were unhappy with the results in the country. With Trump, people seem to dislike him personally, but are becoming more satisfied with conditions in the country.
(as you all know, my lifelong position is that character matters above all else.)
I have stated that much of the talk surrounding “waves “ and such is overwrought.
In my view, these numbers may vary wildly depending on unforeseeable events between now and November.
The analogy with Trump and Obama has some validity.
Indeed, this whole thing could depend on gas prices!I hear more and more talk about tha,
Yup Scott…..
As in 2016?
Democrats need to have a good message
Not just anti-Trump