With due respect, Hogan would never have been elected in those states, therefore he would not have become a viable candidate(Hogan was elected originally due to bad state party dysfunction imo)
With due respect, Hogan would never have been elected in those states, therefore he would not have become a viable candidate(Hogan was elected originally due to bad state party dysfunction imo)
Yes, of course, but saying the Democratic Party had a terrible year in 2014 isn't really getting to the point.
Democrats during both 2010 and 2014 midterms were running away from their accomplishments and not being confident in messaging when it came to President Obama's agenda. He certainly didn't please all of the most liberal of the base but that still wasn't an excuse for Democrats, especially Michelle Nunn in the GA-SEN race and Alison Grimes in the KY-SEN Race, to run away from Obama.
If Democrats got their act together and ensured higher turnout in 2014, Hogan might not have benefitted as much in the MD-GOV race.
You are trying to blame the quality and behavior of the Democrats, but that's very dubious, especially in 2010, when the economy SUCKED. But it wasn't that good in 2014, either. And come on! Grimes? You think there was actually a way for her to win? Gimme a break!
I'm putting the blame on the campaigning and messaging. Democrats were not showing a spine in 2010 and 2014 when it came to this and were regularly on the defensive. This wasn't specific to one or several Democratic candidates but the larger national party apparatus. There was no reason why Democrats needed to be on the defensive although President Obama and his administration did royally F up with the initial roll out of the healthcare.gov website. The PR of the ACA during 2010 was awful and didn't help Democrats heading into midterms.
2014 economy was better than 2010 but it depends on who nationwide was benefitting. Democrats didn't do anything to really change what happened in 2010 and it was a broken record once again.
There are no assurances Alison Grimes running a different and spine-free campaign would have given her a victory. Even while his popularity ratings were always lower than many GOP Senators, Mitch McConnell has always been an entrenched incumbent notoriously difficult to unseat. Bruce Lunsford came the closest to unseat McConnell back in 2008 but after that, he got re-elected comfortably.
That said, there was no reason for Grimes to run away from Kynect and its association with the Affordable Care Act. Governor Steve Beshear did not, and his popularity ratings didn't tank. Grimes had multiple opportunities to go after McConnell but didn't. Certainly, she didn't have a chance to win but my god, she was no fighting Democrat. Put someone up in KY who can put up a good fight.
Also, Tim Kaine was AWFUL as DNC Chair. He didn't do anything.
Debbie Wasserman-Shultz wasn't much of an improvement except in helping President Obama get re-elected. After that, it was like the 2014 midterms were a repeat of 2010, just with the Senate being the focus of the loses.
I'm glad Jaime Harrison is DNC Chair now. He's getting Democrats to show fire and it's showing to work. Thank god!
Fair point but you never know what can happen. After all, 2010 and 2014 feared low turnout elections. At least with 2022 the low turnout among Democrats that was noticeable was primarily in FL.
I just think that regardless of the political environment, I don't want the Democratic Party to start having to pull B.S. stunts like any of the following:
-Trying to run away from Presidents like Obama when there was nothing to run away from. Be comfortable with the accomplishments and recognize more needs to be done.
-Not showing enough empathy. If people are hurting, show them they understand and are working to deal with the problem.
Hold on a second there, youтАЩre missing important context. Michelle Nunn and Alison Grimes running away from Obama and the ACA, got those Democrats some of their best over performances in recent years.
LetтАЩs compare with context:
National environment vs Dem nominee
2014 KY R+6 vs R+15 Difference R+9
2014 GA R+6 vs R+8 Difference R-2
Notice how close they are? Now letтАЩs look at other elections for Senate compared to national environment and how Dems did:
KY:
2002 R+29 vs R+5 Difference R+24
2004 R+1 vs R+3 Difference R-2
2008 R+6 vs D+11 Difference R+17
2010 R+11 vs R+7 Difference R+4
2016 R+14 vs R+1 Difference R+13
2020 R+20 vs D+3 Difference R+23
GA:
2004 R+18 vs R+3 Difference R+15
2008 R+15 vs D+11 Difference R+26
2010 R+19 vs R+7 Difference R+12
2016 R+14 vs R+1 Difference R+13
At best, you can argue this is true for Alison Grimes, but she also performed better or equal to 3/6 candidates Democrats nominated for Senate, so that claim imo, is sketchy at best. Taking into account the national environment, she did better than 2/3rds of the Democrats nominated in KY Senate races, making that claim even more shaky than it was.
You absolutely cannot claim the same of Michelle Nunn however and the evidence is strong for not including Grimes either. They did well because they framed themselves as a different kind of Democrat in their campaigns and ran away from some party policies that were unpopular in their states at the time.
It's all about the numbers. And based on the following data, Grimes did in fact perform worse than Bruce Lunsford did. Her percentage of the votes in 2014 was similar to President Obama's percentage of the votes in 2008. Therefore, her pivot to running away from Obama and Governor Beshear's accomplishments with Kynect really didn't help her much (it was also popular in KY). Keep in mind that Lunsford did better than Obama in 2008.
Also, with respect to GA, Nunn was a credible candidate in the GA-SEN race who IMO didn't exactly do any better than Obama did in 2012. Both their margins of loss in the state comparatively in 2012 and 2014 respectively weren't exactly far apart.
There really is nothing to lose by giving it straight and not having to pretend like you're Republican lite. I have no reason to believe Grimes and Nunn would have gotten less votes if they had done this.
YouтАЩre arguing that 2 different things are the same. No, she didnтАЩt do better than Lunsford, but that doesnтАЩt mean she didnтАЩt do well compared to most Democrats. Meaning she did better than the average Democrat and your claim is not grounded with strong enough evidence. That doesnтАЩt mean she was the best. ThatтАЩs a different argument and one IтАЩm not making.
Also comparing the presidency which often depends on the person that can wildly differ from the literal agreed upon measure of the national environment, is only going to lead you astray. Your insistence on focusing on the best Democratic candidate is making you miss the full picture. Just because someoneтАЩs worse than the best, doesnтАЩt automatically mean they werenтАЩt good.
I took some time to calcuate both the KY presidential and senate election results since 2008. Here's what they reveal:
Democratic Presidential Candidates since that time have averaged 36.94% of the votes based on presidential election results.
Democratic Senate Candidates since that time have averaged 41.69% of the votes, which shows they have done a bit better than what we've seen at the presidential level.
If we're taking into account the 4.75% difference between the presidential and senate election results, that shows that Democratic Senate Candidates can do better than Democratic Presidential Candidates. However, it also reveals that running away from a POTUS whether it be Obama or Biden hasn't exactly moved the needle much. Also, I made the comparison with what Obama got in percentage of the votes vs. Grimes percentage of the votes mainly to make the point that KY is a difficult nut to crack if Democrats want to win the state at the presidential level or win a Senate seat there.
My understanding with the 2014 KY Senate election results is that Grimes' campaign did in fact turnout voters. However, the turnout for her campaign is on par with Obama's turnout in the state in 2008, which isn't bad. Obama was never going to win KY to begin with and his appeal in the state was limited compared to say Indiana and Missouri, two red states where he won or nearly won.
The difference in percentages at the presidential level vs. senate level show that there was really no reason why Grimes needed to run away from President Obama. If she was going to, she needed to give a completely different candidacy and show she was a fighting Democrat in her own right. She did not do much of that and ended up running a typical DLC type of campaign that didn't exactly fire up and expand the base enough.
There's nothing else I can say other than KY is a really difficult state for Democrats to win, unless we're talking the state government. If accomplishments and the agenda of a POTUS were not popular, then the question should be "why?" The average election results in KY show that it really doesn't make much a difference in running away from or supporting Democratic POTUS.
What youтАЩre not misunderstanding, I think, is three-fold.
1) State electorates move! Just because Grimes got Obama margins in 2014, doesnтАЩt give the full context, which is, that the state had moved hard right since 2008.
2) Comparing the national electorate gives a better idea of actual performance because a heavy Republican year 15 point loss is way different than a heavy Democratic year 15 point loss.
3) Elections are all about the margins! Just because most voters are immovable, that doesnтАЩt mean all are, and the right candidate or opponent can make a difference. Campaigns would commit murder if they thought it would give them a 2 points boost in the election. Now, for red states, this normally doesnтАЩt turn a loss into a win except in very close races (See KS, KY, LA), but it did improve her margins in a year she should have lost by more in.
You're making a valid argument. That said, while improving the margins helps, just from what I observed the relative difference been the Democratic Senate candidates from 2010-2022, there still is no reason why running away from Obama really helped Grimes.
She needed to run a Senate campaign that was truly distinctive, but she was caught up too much in a DLC-type of campaign where didn't really go after Mitch McConnell hard like she needed to. Again, being wishy washy on the popular Kynect statewide healthcare program was an awful strategy.
By contrast, 2016 Democratic Senate Candidate Jim Gray, a liberal gay Democratic Mayor of Lexington, ran more of a fighting campaign against Senator Rand Paul when he was a freshman Senator running for re-election. Unlike Grimes, he went to running a more liberal campaign. He ended up getting 42.7% of the votes against Paul, an improvement over Grimes.
Also, Paul's 2022 Democratic Challenger Charles Booker got 38.2% of the votes, which in perspective isn't bad considering he ran as a black progressive Democrat without the DSCC's help. This is only a 2.5% difference compared to what Grimes got in 2014.
Democrats need to give a good excuse as to why candidates in respective districts or states are to run away from Obama, Biden, Harris, etc. if it's going to help their race. They can't be wishy-washy or try to be like the GOP. That didn't help Grimes and isn't going to help Democrats win in KY.
IтАЩm sorry, but it did help Grimes to run away. Democrats need to understand, not all of their party policies are popular in red states. The winnable voters arenтАЩt lefties who stayed home, but moderates who donтАЩt pay attention. Any person who advocates for Democrats to move left just isnтАЩt paying attention to the reality of decades of campaign research. Rand Paul is a different kind of opponent than Mitch McConnell. IтАЩll leave it at that for why the liberal mayor had a better performance than Grimes. Candidates arenтАЩt always the same!
Also, once again, the 2016 election was more Democratic than 2014, so I donтАЩt think that proves anything. 2022 was also more Democratic than 2014. This doesnтАЩt take into account how much the state has moved right either.
The excuse is, they want to win the election and thatтАЩs the only excuse they need to have to fit their constituents better. Wishy-washy moderate is exactly the type of Democrat who overperforms. The problem isnтАЩt not enough progressives voting Democratic. ItтАЩs moderates, independents or centrist Republicans voting Republican. TheyтАЩre red states. They have to win over red voters! ThereтАЩs not enough socialists or progressives to win any purple seat or state, let alone red.
Kentucky is gone, federally, period, for the party, but still open to some Democrats for Governor with the right Republican opponent.
With due respect, Hogan would never have been elected in those states, therefore he would not have become a viable candidate(Hogan was elected originally due to bad state party dysfunction imo)
Agreed. The Republican Parties in Colorado and Oregon are way too extremist for Hogan.
And Hogan was also elected during the 2014 midterms, when the Democratic Party ran candidates who had no spine.
That also
You mean when the party had a terrible year.
Yes, of course, but saying the Democratic Party had a terrible year in 2014 isn't really getting to the point.
Democrats during both 2010 and 2014 midterms were running away from their accomplishments and not being confident in messaging when it came to President Obama's agenda. He certainly didn't please all of the most liberal of the base but that still wasn't an excuse for Democrats, especially Michelle Nunn in the GA-SEN race and Alison Grimes in the KY-SEN Race, to run away from Obama.
If Democrats got their act together and ensured higher turnout in 2014, Hogan might not have benefitted as much in the MD-GOV race.
You are trying to blame the quality and behavior of the Democrats, but that's very dubious, especially in 2010, when the economy SUCKED. But it wasn't that good in 2014, either. And come on! Grimes? You think there was actually a way for her to win? Gimme a break!
I'm putting the blame on the campaigning and messaging. Democrats were not showing a spine in 2010 and 2014 when it came to this and were regularly on the defensive. This wasn't specific to one or several Democratic candidates but the larger national party apparatus. There was no reason why Democrats needed to be on the defensive although President Obama and his administration did royally F up with the initial roll out of the healthcare.gov website. The PR of the ACA during 2010 was awful and didn't help Democrats heading into midterms.
2014 economy was better than 2010 but it depends on who nationwide was benefitting. Democrats didn't do anything to really change what happened in 2010 and it was a broken record once again.
There are no assurances Alison Grimes running a different and spine-free campaign would have given her a victory. Even while his popularity ratings were always lower than many GOP Senators, Mitch McConnell has always been an entrenched incumbent notoriously difficult to unseat. Bruce Lunsford came the closest to unseat McConnell back in 2008 but after that, he got re-elected comfortably.
That said, there was no reason for Grimes to run away from Kynect and its association with the Affordable Care Act. Governor Steve Beshear did not, and his popularity ratings didn't tank. Grimes had multiple opportunities to go after McConnell but didn't. Certainly, she didn't have a chance to win but my god, she was no fighting Democrat. Put someone up in KY who can put up a good fight.
Also, Tim Kaine was AWFUL as DNC Chair. He didn't do anything.
Debbie Wasserman-Shultz wasn't much of an improvement except in helping President Obama get re-elected. After that, it was like the 2014 midterms were a repeat of 2010, just with the Senate being the focus of the loses.
I'm glad Jaime Harrison is DNC Chair now. He's getting Democrats to show fire and it's showing to work. Thank god!
I agree that they did a bad job, but that didn't make the difference between winning and losing, just the margins, and certainly not in Kentucky!
Fair point but you never know what can happen. After all, 2010 and 2014 feared low turnout elections. At least with 2022 the low turnout among Democrats that was noticeable was primarily in FL.
I just think that regardless of the political environment, I don't want the Democratic Party to start having to pull B.S. stunts like any of the following:
-Trying to run away from Presidents like Obama when there was nothing to run away from. Be comfortable with the accomplishments and recognize more needs to be done.
-Not showing enough empathy. If people are hurting, show them they understand and are working to deal with the problem.
Hold on a second there, youтАЩre missing important context. Michelle Nunn and Alison Grimes running away from Obama and the ACA, got those Democrats some of their best over performances in recent years.
LetтАЩs compare with context:
National environment vs Dem nominee
2014 KY R+6 vs R+15 Difference R+9
2014 GA R+6 vs R+8 Difference R-2
Notice how close they are? Now letтАЩs look at other elections for Senate compared to national environment and how Dems did:
KY:
2002 R+29 vs R+5 Difference R+24
2004 R+1 vs R+3 Difference R-2
2008 R+6 vs D+11 Difference R+17
2010 R+11 vs R+7 Difference R+4
2016 R+14 vs R+1 Difference R+13
2020 R+20 vs D+3 Difference R+23
GA:
2004 R+18 vs R+3 Difference R+15
2008 R+15 vs D+11 Difference R+26
2010 R+19 vs R+7 Difference R+12
2016 R+14 vs R+1 Difference R+13
At best, you can argue this is true for Alison Grimes, but she also performed better or equal to 3/6 candidates Democrats nominated for Senate, so that claim imo, is sketchy at best. Taking into account the national environment, she did better than 2/3rds of the Democrats nominated in KY Senate races, making that claim even more shaky than it was.
You absolutely cannot claim the same of Michelle Nunn however and the evidence is strong for not including Grimes either. They did well because they framed themselves as a different kind of Democrat in their campaigns and ran away from some party policies that were unpopular in their states at the time.
It's all about the numbers. And based on the following data, Grimes did in fact perform worse than Bruce Lunsford did. Her percentage of the votes in 2014 was similar to President Obama's percentage of the votes in 2008. Therefore, her pivot to running away from Obama and Governor Beshear's accomplishments with Kynect really didn't help her much (it was also popular in KY). Keep in mind that Lunsford did better than Obama in 2008.
Also, with respect to GA, Nunn was a credible candidate in the GA-SEN race who IMO didn't exactly do any better than Obama did in 2012. Both their margins of loss in the state comparatively in 2012 and 2014 respectively weren't exactly far apart.
There really is nothing to lose by giving it straight and not having to pretend like you're Republican lite. I have no reason to believe Grimes and Nunn would have gotten less votes if they had done this.
YouтАЩre arguing that 2 different things are the same. No, she didnтАЩt do better than Lunsford, but that doesnтАЩt mean she didnтАЩt do well compared to most Democrats. Meaning she did better than the average Democrat and your claim is not grounded with strong enough evidence. That doesnтАЩt mean she was the best. ThatтАЩs a different argument and one IтАЩm not making.
Also comparing the presidency which often depends on the person that can wildly differ from the literal agreed upon measure of the national environment, is only going to lead you astray. Your insistence on focusing on the best Democratic candidate is making you miss the full picture. Just because someoneтАЩs worse than the best, doesnтАЩt automatically mean they werenтАЩt good.
I took some time to calcuate both the KY presidential and senate election results since 2008. Here's what they reveal:
Democratic Presidential Candidates since that time have averaged 36.94% of the votes based on presidential election results.
Democratic Senate Candidates since that time have averaged 41.69% of the votes, which shows they have done a bit better than what we've seen at the presidential level.
If we're taking into account the 4.75% difference between the presidential and senate election results, that shows that Democratic Senate Candidates can do better than Democratic Presidential Candidates. However, it also reveals that running away from a POTUS whether it be Obama or Biden hasn't exactly moved the needle much. Also, I made the comparison with what Obama got in percentage of the votes vs. Grimes percentage of the votes mainly to make the point that KY is a difficult nut to crack if Democrats want to win the state at the presidential level or win a Senate seat there.
My understanding with the 2014 KY Senate election results is that Grimes' campaign did in fact turnout voters. However, the turnout for her campaign is on par with Obama's turnout in the state in 2008, which isn't bad. Obama was never going to win KY to begin with and his appeal in the state was limited compared to say Indiana and Missouri, two red states where he won or nearly won.
The difference in percentages at the presidential level vs. senate level show that there was really no reason why Grimes needed to run away from President Obama. If she was going to, she needed to give a completely different candidacy and show she was a fighting Democrat in her own right. She did not do much of that and ended up running a typical DLC type of campaign that didn't exactly fire up and expand the base enough.
There's nothing else I can say other than KY is a really difficult state for Democrats to win, unless we're talking the state government. If accomplishments and the agenda of a POTUS were not popular, then the question should be "why?" The average election results in KY show that it really doesn't make much a difference in running away from or supporting Democratic POTUS.
Therefore, why run away?
Sorry, didnтАЩt see this until now.
What youтАЩre not misunderstanding, I think, is three-fold.
1) State electorates move! Just because Grimes got Obama margins in 2014, doesnтАЩt give the full context, which is, that the state had moved hard right since 2008.
2) Comparing the national electorate gives a better idea of actual performance because a heavy Republican year 15 point loss is way different than a heavy Democratic year 15 point loss.
3) Elections are all about the margins! Just because most voters are immovable, that doesnтАЩt mean all are, and the right candidate or opponent can make a difference. Campaigns would commit murder if they thought it would give them a 2 points boost in the election. Now, for red states, this normally doesnтАЩt turn a loss into a win except in very close races (See KS, KY, LA), but it did improve her margins in a year she should have lost by more in.
No problem.
You're making a valid argument. That said, while improving the margins helps, just from what I observed the relative difference been the Democratic Senate candidates from 2010-2022, there still is no reason why running away from Obama really helped Grimes.
She needed to run a Senate campaign that was truly distinctive, but she was caught up too much in a DLC-type of campaign where didn't really go after Mitch McConnell hard like she needed to. Again, being wishy washy on the popular Kynect statewide healthcare program was an awful strategy.
By contrast, 2016 Democratic Senate Candidate Jim Gray, a liberal gay Democratic Mayor of Lexington, ran more of a fighting campaign against Senator Rand Paul when he was a freshman Senator running for re-election. Unlike Grimes, he went to running a more liberal campaign. He ended up getting 42.7% of the votes against Paul, an improvement over Grimes.
2014 https://ballotpedia.org/Alison_Lundergan_Grimes
2016 https://ballotpedia.org/Rand_Paul
Also, Paul's 2022 Democratic Challenger Charles Booker got 38.2% of the votes, which in perspective isn't bad considering he ran as a black progressive Democrat without the DSCC's help. This is only a 2.5% difference compared to what Grimes got in 2014.
https://ballotpedia.org/Rand_Paul
Democrats need to give a good excuse as to why candidates in respective districts or states are to run away from Obama, Biden, Harris, etc. if it's going to help their race. They can't be wishy-washy or try to be like the GOP. That didn't help Grimes and isn't going to help Democrats win in KY.
IтАЩm sorry, but it did help Grimes to run away. Democrats need to understand, not all of their party policies are popular in red states. The winnable voters arenтАЩt lefties who stayed home, but moderates who donтАЩt pay attention. Any person who advocates for Democrats to move left just isnтАЩt paying attention to the reality of decades of campaign research. Rand Paul is a different kind of opponent than Mitch McConnell. IтАЩll leave it at that for why the liberal mayor had a better performance than Grimes. Candidates arenтАЩt always the same!
Also, once again, the 2016 election was more Democratic than 2014, so I donтАЩt think that proves anything. 2022 was also more Democratic than 2014. This doesnтАЩt take into account how much the state has moved right either.
The excuse is, they want to win the election and thatтАЩs the only excuse they need to have to fit their constituents better. Wishy-washy moderate is exactly the type of Democrat who overperforms. The problem isnтАЩt not enough progressives voting Democratic. ItтАЩs moderates, independents or centrist Republicans voting Republican. TheyтАЩre red states. They have to win over red voters! ThereтАЩs not enough socialists or progressives to win any purple seat or state, let alone red.
Kentucky is gone, federally, period, for the party, but still open to some Democrats for Governor with the right Republican opponent.