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"Unexpected defeat in rural Wisconsin special election sets off alarm bells for Republicans"

In case you hadn't been following all of the smaller special elections this was for a state senate seat in Wisconsin's 10th District. One that Trump had won by 17 points but just went to Democrats by 9 points. Gov. Scott Walker has labeled it a "wake-up call" to the GOP and its supporters.

Some important points from the linked article:

• Republicans far outspent Democrats in this race
• The previous Republican incumbent had won the seat with 63% of the vote
• Unlike with Moore, the Republican candidate was not particularly weak
• Schachtner was a model candidate for the area with deep roots to the area and a message that resounded well (read as just left of center)

Analysts are sometimes skeptical of projecting special elections results onto midterms ("special elections are special" is the phrase I hear most) but there is mounting evidence that the national sentiment is more against the party holding the White House than is typical.

This result should scare the bejesus out of Walker. 10 months is a long time in politics, so things could still change, but the recent result is a terrible sign for state Republicans if November was today.

EAllusion wrote:This result should scare the bejesus out of Walker. 10 months is a long time in politics, so things could still change, but the recent result is a terrible sign for state Republicans if November was today.

In his defense he seems to be taking it pretty seriously. There was no sugar coating from him on these results, just a call to action.

Xenophon wrote:

EAllusion wrote:This result should scare the bejesus out of Walker. 10 months is a long time in politics, so things could still change, but the recent result is a terrible sign for state Republicans if November was today.

In his defense he seems to be taking it pretty seriously. There was no sugar coating from him on these results, just a call to action.

I read him as taking the occasion to try to scare up Republican fundraising. He's outraising Democrats as usual, but his pace is lagging his usual haul.

I sense the national journalist mood has shifted to predicting a Democrat wave. It's premature for that. Wisconsin definitely is a leading indicator of a wave, but it's a lagging indicator of approval numbers we've already seen.

Interestingly, over the past few weeks Trump and generic GOP numbers have improved by a few points. It's consistent enough to be a real trend. I'm not sure why, though my first guess is the decent economy will inexorably pull Trump's numbers up because the public is just that shallow. Generic GOP numbers coattail Trump's to an extent. Trump continues to benefit from a media that has so many scandals to report on that it underreports on them all. There's also the vast right-wing propaganda apparatus and the non right wing media consistently manufacturing balance by creating a constant stream of artificial pro-Trump coverage. (Check tomorrow's NYT where they hand over their editorial page to Trump fans saying they still like Trump.)

It's also possible that the tax reform passing shored up some soft Republican support because the perception of getting something done, and the media covering it as a "win," was helpful.

I don't think any Republican who abstained from GOP Kool-aid is not looking forward to 2018.

I like to think of Paul Ryan going to bed while thinking What would Ayn Rand do?

I hope a government shutdown happens so it hurts Republicons

EA wrote:I read him as taking the occasion to try to scare up Republican fundraising. He's outraising Democrats as usual, but his pace is lagging his usual haul.

No disagreement, I think he recognizes there is a problem but I'm skeptical he has any idea how to correct it (or even if he can). I'll also echo your "too early to call" on the Democrat wave, the general indicators are favorable but we are a long way off.

I think it is also too early to know how the tax bill will effect general attitudes of the voters come midterms, yes there is an uptick now with the passing but we will see if that holds when people see what they actually get. I know we have said it before but it is all highly reliant on the economy holding as strong as it is now. Even a minor down tick (temporary or not) leading up to midterms could be disastrous for incumbents.

DT wrote:I hope a government shutdown happens so it hurts Republicons

It is possible the public will not perceive it that way. Although a general shutdown probably belongs to the Republicans, public support for shutting it down over DACA isn't as high as Democrats might wish it to be.

From what I recall on research on the matter, the impact of the overall economic performance is baked in to the public's voting decision-making around the first half of the year of an election. 2008-like crashes might be a different story, but in normal circumstances, that's when the impact largely happens. The economy is going to be fine from now until June I would expect.

I claim no expertise on the matter, but that is far less shallow than I would have expected given the nation's relatively short attention span and memory. I'm curious now, any recommended reading before I go down the rabbit hole?

Xenophon wrote:I claim no expertise on the matter, but that is far less shallow than I would have expected given the nation's relatively short attention span and memory. I'm curious now, any recommended reading before I go down the rabbit hole?

It has to do with two facts as far as I know. The first is that swing voters start to make up their mind about which party they favor earlier than what they think they do. That is to say, when a person says they don't know who they are going to vote for, if you force them to pick a candidate if they absolutely have to, the person they pick is likely who they will vote for and that number tightens up the closer you get to the election. Even several months out, it's highly predictive. So the influence on voting decisions is occurring earlier because the decisions are ossifying earlier.

The second is that economic factors that impact voter behavior, trends in unemployment most notably, lag economic performance rather than lead it.

In the thread in Terrestrial I referenced Alan Abramowitz's "Time for Change" forecasting model for presidential elections. Here's a link regarding it:

https://pollyvote.com/en/components/eco ... nge-model/

It's got a decent track-record without being retrofitted to the data. What he uses as a measure of the economy's impact on voting behavior is GDP growth in the second quarter of an election year. His theory is that presidential elections are almost entirely a referendum on the incumbent, even if the incumbent isn't running. Who the challenger is doesn't matter. He just looks at how long they've been in office (because people at first favor incumbents, but then grow tired of them), how popular they appear to be, and how good the economy has been going. His numbers focus on the middle of the year because that's when voting decisions are firming up.

I'll pull up some papers later.