Ping.
Nope. It will all come down to who counts the votes on Tuesday.
Big. So far, out of 27 specials, Rs have flipped 6 seats, one seat in LA flipped R-I when all the Ds voted with the I.
But not a single seat so far has flipped R-D.
In addition, the races in MN and CT were especially concerning to the DemoKKKrats, as the MN seat was held by an family for years, and the CT seat was blue and very suburban, indicating the Trump suburban vote was coming back (according to pollster Richard Baris).
Hate to be the pessimist here, but this one is going to the Dem.
The PA Republican Party once again quite STOOOOOPIDLY nominated a candidate who has virtually no shot.
- He is arrogant.
- He is Indian (and let’s face it, there are lotsa Stan Grabowskis from Turtle Crick n’at who are never going to go there).
- He is neck-deep in his involvement with H1B’s and offshoring.
- His company is one of THE WORST places to work in Western Pennsylvania, and all of his ex-employees are all to happy to tell others about that.
- His opponent is a military vet (albeit a shockingly Liberal one)
- His opponent is white with a vowel at the end of her name.
Decades living in this are tell me that Mr. Raja is toast.
So please, GOP, QUIT NOMINATING HIM!!!!!
WI Supreme Court:
There is also a seat on the WI Supreme Court up this week in a California Rules Top Two format; though we don’t generally cover judicial races it is worth an incidental mention. There are two candidates, both judges on the state’s intermediate appellate court, liberal Lisa Neubauer and conservative Brian Hagedorn. Dems’ enthusiasm in the Trump era probably means Neubauer is a moderate favorite, especially as she has a large spending advantage. Hagedorn has also been under fire for founding a religious school with policies against LGBT individuals, which cost him support from outside Chamber of Commerce forces.
PA-SD-37 is the biggest legislative race of the day by far.
At stake is an R+4 seat covering most of the middle- to upper-middle-class suburban South Hills region in suburban Pittsburgh, making a crescent from Sewickley in the west to Mt. Lebanon and Jefferson in the south. 2012 nominee, ex-Mt. Lebanon councilman, and local GOP official Raja (R) is making a second bid for this seat.
An Indian immigrant, Raja (who does not use his first name)
has a very interesting story of building a software company from scratch. He is an establishment conservative with some minor upscale moderate tendencies. However, he has been hit for outsourcing and suing employees in business disputes, which led him to underperform in his run seven years ago. Raja is facing former congressional candidate and Bush 43 Admin official Pam Iovino (D). Iovino has an interesting biography as a career Naval officer who later served in a high-level VA post under W. She has also held veterans’ affairs positions in state and Allegheny county government. Iovinio is running as an establishment liberal, and has been hit by Raja for some issue stances that are a bit left of the district’s sensibilities, particularly on abortion. The leftward trend in this area and Raja’s weakness as a candidate would seem to make Iovino a marginal favorite to flip the seat, though overall the race is still quite competitive.