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The 2016 Downticket Elections Thread for People Who Are Capable of On-Topic Civility
joshofalltrades
Class TraitorSmoke-filled roomRegistered User regular
Class TraitorSmoke-filled roomRegistered User regular
This thread is mod-approved, but you can bet your ass it'll be gone faster than Kevin Federline's music career if you can't keep it to an actual discussion of actual races rather than a second front in the moron slapfight wars.
I don't claim to speak for the mods but if I had to take a wild stab in the dark, they'll have pretty much an identical policy to the Presidential Election thread with regard to being excellent to one another and keeping things on topic. Speaking of wild stabs in the dark, I would not rule that out as a potential consequence for failure to live up to those standards.
So! Downticket races!
Remember Mary Lou Bruner? That awful, unbelievable candidate for the Texas Board of Education? Turns out she lost her race back in May! I hadn't seen it mentioned anywhere, but it gives me the warm and fuzzies.
Another candidate I'm keeping a close eye on (despite being nowhere close to her district) is that of Zephyr Teachout, the woman who gave Cuomo a real run for his money (well, relatively speaking) back in 2014. She currently holds a double-digit lead over her primary opponent (53%-23%, 24% undecided) which means that short of photographic evidence of Teachout showing up onstage with Kevin Federline, she is set to be the district's representative, assuming she beats her likely Republican opposition (Faso).
Be nice.
For those of you not living in the United States that still want to vote, but need more info, @lonelyahava has provided this resource!
I don't claim to speak for the mods but if I had to take a wild stab in the dark, they'll have pretty much an identical policy to the Presidential Election thread with regard to being excellent to one another and keeping things on topic. Speaking of wild stabs in the dark, I would not rule that out as a potential consequence for failure to live up to those standards.
So! Downticket races!
Remember Mary Lou Bruner? That awful, unbelievable candidate for the Texas Board of Education? Turns out she lost her race back in May! I hadn't seen it mentioned anywhere, but it gives me the warm and fuzzies.
Another candidate I'm keeping a close eye on (despite being nowhere close to her district) is that of Zephyr Teachout, the woman who gave Cuomo a real run for his money (well, relatively speaking) back in 2014. She currently holds a double-digit lead over her primary opponent (53%-23%, 24% undecided) which means that short of photographic evidence of Teachout showing up onstage with Kevin Federline, she is set to be the district's representative, assuming she beats her likely Republican opposition (Faso).
Be nice.
For those of you not living in the United States that still want to vote, but need more info, @lonelyahava has provided this resource!
joshofalltrades on
+9
Posts
Batsignal me and I'll stick it in my OP.
Unfortunately I live in Texas, which is why I'm paying attention to races like NY-19 and not the hopeless Fuckstravaganza of TX-19.
On the other hand, Faso is still a long time area politician whose political roots in the area go back longer than I've been alive. I do think that this will be a slight lean-R, but it's a good opportunity for a Dem pickup. Depends a lot on how much Trump scuttles downticket chances, he could easily turn into Teachout's biggest asset.
And it was the same person! George Holding pulled a twofer and turfed Renee Ellmers. So...thanks for that?
Also we have Richard Hudson who soundly won his primary and just might be the goosiest goose who ever did goose, but I'll get into him another time when it's a bit more relevant (which I hope is never).
Yeah I don't like her new gun control stance but I like pretty much everything else (including the prospect of increasing the percentage of Congress that is female).
I think with every politician there will always be at least one thing you disagree with.
Uh yeah, that was one thing I wanted to bring up in this thread: Congressional Primaries aren't over. NY's aren't until the end of this month. Now is the time to get involved in influencing who you can vote for come November when it comes to House races.
I would guess California Republicans are pretty upset about this, but I also don't want to go to Breitbart or RedState and see for myself.
I am not a fan of jungle "primaries", which aren't primaries at all - they're general elections with a mandatory runoff.
They also seem like they would decrease voter involvement in the general election? Which is something I'm fundamentally opposed to.
It was a ballot initiative of course, sold as fixing the fptp system instead of proven working systems. My understanding is the hope was that so many democrats would split the primary vote so much two republicans would get on the ballot in a solid blue area.
So let's replace a rigged system that doesn't work in our favor with another rigged system that does.
If that's really the intent behind it, I'm glad it blew up in their faces.
The same applies to Rep seats so there are some that are two GOPers
QEDMF xbl: PantsB G+
The idea that he's vulnerable pretty much comes down to him making a few pro-Trump comments and running in an anti-Trump (but still heavily Republican) district.
A lot of that will quiet down as the GOP falls in step behind Trump, though.
Not to rain on your parade, but Ballotpedia is declaring the race safely Republican. Where are you seeing vulnerability?
Hopes and dreams, mostly.
What a lovely day.
NH - Sen Kelly Ayotte (R) vs Gov Maggie Hassan (D)- Ayotte, who has tried to tie herself to McCain and Graham, has endorsed Trump and Hassan is (disappointingly) centrist. The latest PPP poll has Hassan up 3, its about equal using averages
IL - Sen Mark Kirk (R) vs Rep Tammy Duckworth (D) - Kirk is probably the most endangered Senator by a substantial amount, and recently unendorsed Trump. It may not be enough against double amputee Iraq War veteran Tammy Duckworth.
WI - Sen Ron Johnson vs Russ Feingold (D) - Johnson is a tea partier, Feingold is a former liberal Dem Senator and is increasingly favored. Johnson is really illsuited for WI even after the 2012 wave
PA - Sen Pat Toomey vs Katie McGinty. McGinty was strongly endorsed by Obama and Biden and was formerly chief of staff to her 2014 primary opponent Gov Wolf. Toomey defeated Sestak in 2012 after Sestak successfully primaried former R turned D Arlen Specter.
FL - Rubio is not defending as far as we know, and each party has a primary forthcoming
AZ - McCain vs Rep Ann Kilpatrick (D) - McCain is vulnerable according to polls, especially with Trump hurting him with Latinos and his inability to respond to Trump insulting him will hurt him with Republicans.
OH - Rob Portman (R) v former Gov Ted Strickland (D). A tossup, its sure to see lots of Presidential campaigning as well
QEDMF xbl: PantsB G+
This is a particularly weird case as both are incumbents. After the court ruling, Holding got redrawn out of his district and his residence ended up pretty close to the border between a Democrat dominated district represented by David Price and a Republican dominated district (which I happen to live in) represented by Renee Elmers.
Since you don't have to live in the district you represent, he decided to take on Elmers instead of getting stomped by Price in the general election. Price has been a Representative for 28 of the past 30 years, only missing one term to the '94 "Republican Revolution".
I can see it in a state like my native OR, where the big blue city with half the population gets one vote, and the entire rest of the state (which tends to the red side) gets the other.
I suppose Brown won in 2006 and 2012 while Portman won in 2010, so that's a lot of it. But still!
If anybody wants to see something really weird watch the newest adds by Ron Johnson. You can watch entire campaign adds that make no reference to the fact he has been the sitting senator for the last 6 years. He runs like feingold is the current sitting senator. It is really really strange.
I just looked one up, you are right it is like an ad from an alternate world where 2010 never happened.
Yeah Murphy is very meh, its just that Grayson is hot garbage
QEDMF xbl: PantsB G+
NNID: Hakkekage
Everybody vote for anybody, top two in the general.
I mean, I'd love to see that, but this state's pretty fucking high on Trump, so I dunno. Though we did manage to get Donnelly into the Senate after Mourdock did his "God intended for you to get raped, so now you get to have a rape-baby, I hope you feel blessed" thing. I'm just not sure that Todd Young will be quite so massively monstrous.
The idea of Indiana having 2 D Senators amuses me though.
Every candidate who manages to hit some kind of low threshold gets on one primary ballot, every primary voter can vote for any one person on the ballot. Then the general is between just the top two from the jungle primary.
This has problems because you might have some place where ten Democrats are running and two Republicans. Even if Republicans are a small minority of the district, the Dem vote might be split enough that the Republicans win and the general election is between two people that 80% of the electorate hates.
Again, it's worth pointing out that Louisiana once had such a system.
They dropped it after it very nearly got a Klansman elected governor.
As far as CA has gone so far it appears that Dem only districts far outweigh GOP only districts.
Which is precisely what happened in the Senate race.
There were 7 Democratic candidates (but only 2 serious ones), and 12 Republican ones (with seemingly 4 serious ones). Harris won with 40%, Sanchez got second place with 19%, follwed by the 4 viable Republicans with 8, 5, 4, and 3 (who, combined, would have beaten Sanchez).
I believe I voted against the ballot prop when it was first proposed (I'm afraid I can't recall, but I'm not fond of it in concept), and it's not the first time it's ended up this way. Ostensibly, in districts which are heavily Republican/Dem, it's basically allowing for the minority party to vote for the more "moderate" of the two candidates which win the primary, which isn't TERRIBLE, but there's so many better ways to go about doing this.
Anyway, looks like I'm in a battleground district again for the House, but Bera managed to squeak out a win in 2014, so I'm cautiously optimistic for 2016. Not nearly as gung ho for him this time around, after that whole Syrian Immigrant bullshit. Made a very specific point of contacting his office and lambasting him for acting the coward like the Republican Party on that one. Ugh.