canpakes wrote:As a 25-year resident of that state (and having just moved out to another this year), I see this as an accurate analysis of the situation. Thanks, H.
In a way it's easy to understand why McSally made the gamble she did. Historically the Sun City crowd shows up at mid-terms while the Tempe progressives know their votes don't count so they don't show up. So she played to their fears while recognizing many are fierce Trump loyalists. In a normal mid-term election it may have been a winning strategy. But contrary to what subbie hears in his Republican echo chamber, 2018 was a wave election against the sitting President and those Sun City votes got drowned out by younger, concerned and energized voters who were savvy enough to leisurely fill out their ballot over a cup of coffee on a Sunday morning and drop it off on voting day Tuesday morning on their way to the gym.
ETA: It would be interesting to see how things play out if the current attempt to force a special election for McCain's seat were to be successful. I don't know enough about the details of the underpinning of Arizona law regarding the issue to guess as to if it will be, but minus a national focus on the election it's reasonable to guess the demographics among voters will be a little different than compared to Nov. 6th's turn out.
The world is always full of the sound of waves..but who knows the heart of the sea, a hundred feet down? Who knows it's depth? ~ Eiji Yoshikawa
honorentheos wrote:In a way it's easy to understand why McSally made the gamble she did. Historically the Sun City crowd shows up at mid-terms while the Tempe progressives know their votes don't count so they don't show up. So she played to their fears while recognizing many are fierce Trump loyalists. In a normal mid-term election it may have been a winning strategy. But contrary to what subbie hears in his Republican echo chamber, 2018 was a wave election against the sitting President and those Sun City votes got drowned out by younger, concerned and energized voters who were savvy enough to leisurely fill out their ballot over a cup of coffee on a Sunday morning and drop it off on voting day Tuesday morning on their way to the gym.
Agreed. And if it was as simple an explanation as suggested upstream that McSally “wasn’t pro-Trump enough” (which is a nonsense argument for this result anyway) then we should have seen different tallies in her primary.
Rep. Martha McSally handily defeated former Sheriff Joe Arpaio and Kelli Ward in the Arizona Republican Senate primary on Tuesday night, setting the stage for a November battle over a seat that could determine control of the Senate, NBC News projects.
McSally, a former fighter pilot, had been favored to prevail over the two conservatives, who split the anti-establishment vote. But McSally tacked to the right in the primary, which could cause problems for her in what is expected to be a tough race against Democrat Kyrsten Sinema in November.
McSally had 51.4 percent, or 196,452 votes, to Ward's 28.6 percent, or 109,105 votes, and Arpaio's 20 percent, or 76,517 votes, with 58 percent of precincts reporting.
Republican officials had worried that Ward or Arpaio would be unelectable in November, potentially costing the GOP a Senate seat. Despite both of the challengers accusing McSally of being too moderate, she's on track to win more votes than both of her challengers combined.
Heh. Those are great quotes that highlight why doubling down harder on Trump is a bad strategy when one has to court young, educated and more urban voters to win.
I personally don't think Democrats should view Arizona as a true swing state just yet because there are plenty of ways even younger Arizonans would go for an economic conservative with a lighter social conservative touch and openness to immigrants. McSally could have won just by spending more time pointing to her military background, what she might have done for Arizona regardless of how it aligned with the national GOP, and found a way to ally with Ducey. While that's all hindsight Monday morning QB stuff, I think we'll see her going after McCain's seat in either 2020 or sooner and with a much better strategy. I would be very hesitant to expect that seat to go blue right now without knowing who is stepping up to claim it. Greg Stanton, former Phoenix mayor, is probably the next best Democrat in terms of name recognition and general popularity who might be able to attempt to win a Senate seat but with his move to the House recently I think he'd be unable to jump over so quickly without spending some time proving he wasn't just climbing over his current constituents to get statewide office.
The world is always full of the sound of waves..but who knows the heart of the sea, a hundred feet down? Who knows it's depth? ~ Eiji Yoshikawa
McSally lost because she a) was an outsider to the most populous area of Arizona (Maricopa County and the Phoenix-Metro area) where over half of Arizona voters live while Sinema was a well-known political figure here, b) failed to effectively introduce herself to voters and give them a reason to vote FOR her, instead leaning almost entirely on negative ads aimed at influencing voters to not vote for Sinema, and c) she almost completely relied on her being Trump's surrogate including appearances together here in Arizona right before the election so the anti-Trump sentiment among new, younger urban voters couldn't be overcome by older Trump-loving voters in Maricopa County or rural voters in rural less populous counties where McSally won.
Great Analysis of the Arizona Senate race. McSally did win 10 out of the 15 Arizona Counties, but about 60% of Arizona voters live within Maricopa County. Sinema's Congressional District is within Maricopa County, and Sinema ended up winning Maricopa County by 4.18%. Link
"And I've said it before, you want to know what Joseph Smith looked like in Nauvoo, just look at Trump." - Fence Sitter
Remember when folks like Water Dog were posting those fabricated text screen grabs from supposed Democrat voters that were defiantly rebuking Democrats in general for daring to question Kavanaugh about Ford? And the threats that so many of their offended Democrat friends were going to vote for Republicans because “my son won’t be protected against grrrlz” otherwise?
Lol. That BS didn’t seem to catch on as the BS fabricators had hoped it would.
An exit memo put together by strategists for Rep. Martha McSally’s (R-AZ) failed US Senate campaign draws disturbing conclusions for President Donald Trump and his hopes of a second term.
The memo, which was published by the Washington Post, explains McSally’s narrow loss to Democrat Kyrsten Sinema in part by citing internal polling indicating that Trump is not popular among Republicans — particularly women — in a state that will be crucial to his 2020 hopes.
“A significant segment of the AZ GOP was hostile to the President,” it says. “In internal polling during the primary, President Trump never broke 80% favorability among Republican voters. A certain segment of AZ Republicans was outright hostile to President Trump, and was against the Kavanaugh appointment. This segment of moderate Republicans, especially woman [sic], proved very difficult to bring home to a Republican candidate that supported President Trump and the confirmation of Justice Kavanaugh.”
canpakes wrote:Remember when folks like Water Dog were posting those fabricated text screen grabs from supposed Democrat voters that were defiantly rebuking Democrats in general for daring to question Kavanaugh about Ford? And the threats that so many of their offended Democrat friends were going to vote for Republicans because “my son won’t be protected against grrrlz” otherwise?
Lol. That BS didn’t seem to catch on as the BS fabricators had hoped it would.
An exit memo put together by strategists for Rep. Martha McSally’s (R-AZ) failed US Senate campaign draws disturbing conclusions for President Donald Trump and his hopes of a second term.
The memo, which was published by the Washington Post, explains McSally’s narrow loss to Democrat Kyrsten Sinema in part by citing internal polling indicating that Trump is not popular among Republicans — particularly women — in a state that will be crucial to his 2020 hopes.
“A significant segment of the AZ GOP was hostile to the President,” it says. “In internal polling during the primary, President Trump never broke 80% favorability among Republican voters. A certain segment of AZ Republicans was outright hostile to President Trump, and was against the Kavanaugh appointment. This segment of moderate Republicans, especially woman [sic], proved very difficult to bring home to a Republican candidate that supported President Trump and the confirmation of Justice Kavanaugh.”
I hadn't seen that. Wow, it's damning in all of it's implications but very consistent with the outcomes from the election. Nice find, canpakes.
Brackite wrote:McSally did win 10 out of the 15 Arizona Counties, but about 60% of Arizona voters live within Maricopa County. Sinema's Congressional District is within Maricopa County, and Sinema ended up winning Maricopa County by 4.18%. Link
That the Green Party candidate got over 30k votes in Maricopa County in a race where Sinema won overall statewide by less than 40k votes was surprising and makes me think there is something to take away from it about the state of the Democrat party in Arizona. Those votes were probably never going to go to McSally or any Republican candidate. Yet they were made by people deciding to not stay home knowing their candidate was almost certainly not going to win. As protest votes go, it's meaningful. As a signal that a more progressively liberal Democrat might have picked up a more sizeable victory through votes almost all concentrated in Maricopa County (there were 52k total votes cast for Angela Green) I don't know how the Democrat party does anything with that information but be concerned they would probably lose votes elsewhere in an attempt to court them in.
The world is always full of the sound of waves..but who knows the heart of the sea, a hundred feet down? Who knows it's depth? ~ Eiji Yoshikawa
A month after Congresswoman Martha McSally lost her bid for the U.S. Senate, Gov. Doug Ducey appointed her to the seat that had been held by John McCain.
So, we're at 53 to 47 R vs. D in the Senate?
Democrats better hope Ginsburg makes it to 2020!
- Doc
In the face of madness, rationality has no power - Xiao Wang, US historiographer, 2287 AD.
Every record...falsified, every book rewritten...every statue...has been renamed or torn down, every date...altered...the process is continuing...minute by minute. History has stopped. Nothing exists except an endless present in which the Ideology is always right.
A month after Congresswoman Martha McSally lost her bid for the U.S. Senate, Gov. Doug Ducey appointed her to the seat that had been held by John McCain.
So, we're at 53 to 47 R vs. D in the Senate?
Democrats better hope Ginsburg makes it to 2020!
- Doc
How do impeachments work again?
Seek freedom and become captive of your desires...seek discipline and find your liberty I can tell if a person is judgmental just by looking at them what is chaos to the fly is normal to the spider - morticia addams If you're not upsetting idiots, you might be an idiot. - Ted Nugent
I think it's that the authoritarian political party doesn't vote to convict a member of its own no matter how clear the evidence of guilt or how serious the offense against the public is. Just like the founding fathers intended.
I think it's that the authoritarian political party doesn't vote to convict a member of its own no matter how clear the evidence of guilt or how serious the offense against the public is. Just like the founding fathers intended.
Was this taken from Holder's abstract for the Fast/Furious gun program?
Seek freedom and become captive of your desires...seek discipline and find your liberty I can tell if a person is judgmental just by looking at them what is chaos to the fly is normal to the spider - morticia addams If you're not upsetting idiots, you might be an idiot. - Ted Nugent