Windy wrote:Did the democrats dramatically defy expectations again
Well, this is kinda what was meant by "Defying Expectations."
Leaving aside discussion about the long-term value of running candidates in every election to at least get a message out there in each state to slowly permeate (I'm of the Howard Dean school of thought on that), the point is more about the national environment. Like...nobody should've ever expected a Democrat to win in Kansas or Montana, deep red states that haven't voted blue since...Carter, I believe (40 years ago, for our non-US peeps). Which was why I found it pretty annoying when Trump was like "SEE?! DEMOCRATS ONLY CAME WITHIN STRIKING DISTANCE IN KANSAS! I'M BASICALLY THE RETURN OF REAGAN HIMSELF, HOP ONBOARD MY AGENDA, DEMS!"
But Virginia was a good measure of what happens when you have Democrats beating out expectations in red states, where you have a slightly blue-leaning state suddenly voting like it's Massachusetts in 2008 (I believe they won state seats they haven't won for over a century). If that environment hadn't been there when this Alabama election came around, Roy Moore would've won. Had Roy Moore been a better candidate from the jump, he would've won. Had the allegations not happened, he would've won. But because all three happened, it allowed Democrats to win a state they haven't won since 1992.
So that's why it may seem a little silly for people to be excited that Democrats only lost Montana by 8, but once Democrats are posting those kinds of stats in every ruby red state, that tends to be very bad for states that are only +10 red or so.
As for the Senate race, I'm actually realizing that there may be an X-Factor here I hadn't considered before: Bannon, who's promised to run a primary challenger against every red seat in the Senate. There's a chance he might pull a Roy Moore in several red states, where he funds and helps force through a garbage or too-fringe primary candidate that loses a general election that might have been won by another more moderate candidate.
I guess what I'm saying is that if Mitch McConnell wants to hold onto the majority so they can continue to get nothing done, he better start working to defeat Kelli Ward in Arizona.