He can now vote any way he wants to and the next D running for his seat can disavow him right up until the day he takes the oath of office, whereby breaking all previous campaign promises similar to the jackhole in NY-23.
I can see that happening in lots of toss up districts. Sacrifice the incumbent, vote the party line, the incumbents get a chip good for a future run when RINO’s manage to screw the pooch in that district.
Even though Baird doesn’t have to defend his bad votes now, the downward Dim trend is encouraging. It’s almost always easier to win an open seat than against an incumbent. Any one with a D next to his name will morph into Pelosi. After all a D MUST vote for Pelosi and that means supporting her agenda. This is easy enough for even the most casual voters to understand.