Posted on 03/14/2018 1:12:13 PM PDT by Simon Green
We get it! Republicans are in deep trouble.
If you skipped watching the results of the special election in Pennsylvania’s 18th Congressional District last night to catch an action movie or read a crime thriller instead, you picked the less exciting activity. Democrat Conor Lamb and Republican Rick Saccone ran neck and neck for most of the evening (at one point, they were separated by only 95 votes), and even The Associated Press went to bed without calling the race. As of 8 a.m. Wednesday, with 100 percent of precincts reporting, Lamb led by 641 votes, or 0.28 percentage points. And he and Democrats had claimed victory.
The exact margin will likely change,1 but it’s going to be very difficult for Saccone to make up that deficit. The only votes left to be counted are around 200 absentee ballots in Greene County (expected to be announced on Wednesday) as well as a handful of provisional and overseas ballots, which may take days to finalize. There may not even be 641 ballots left to count.
Nor is a recount likely to change the final result. Although it would be pretty easy for Republicans to request a recount should they want one, recounts typically don’t shift election margins by that much. That’s especially true in Pennsylvania, where most voting is done on electronic touchscreens; a recount would only reveal errors in the small population of paper ballots.
But as we’ve told you from the beginning, for those of us who don’t live in the Pennsylvania 18th, it doesn’t really matter who wins if what you’re mainly interested in is the 2018 midterms.2 The takeaway for November’s elections will be the same no matter whether Lamb wins by a fraction of a percentage point or Saccone wins by a fraction of a percentage point: Tuesday represented yet another huge Democratic overperformance in a Trump-era special election.
(excerpt)
Another important takeaway is that the media push-polling is still invalid.
Try as they might to overstate the doom for Republicans, the results continue to demonstrate the lie. Republicans should take away a determination to f@ck with pollsters at every turn. Rather than refuse to participate, they should take part in any polling and tell the pollsters they support the democrat. The more skewed the elections become from the polling, the less validity polls will have in upcoming elections.
EXACTLY!!! THE MESSAGING OF THIS RACE WAS TERRIBLE!
Just Red Meat for the reliable R voter, not a damn bit of message or reason or even attempt to engage and motivate the Trump I and D crossover voter...
This was complete ELECTORAL INCOMPETENCE by everyone in the GOPe sphere... Saccone’s campaign directly all the PAC’s etc....
The GOAL from day one of this race should have been reaching those I and Cross over Ds that voted for Trump and get them motivated to show up... and not 1, not 1 single solitary attempt was made to do this!!
Complete INCOMPETENCE from the top on this... The line workers busted their buts, I never saw so much hard concerted effort put into this district by the R’s, but unfortunately they were undercut and killed by bad and incorrect messaging and still almost managed to pull it out by their hard work.
They literally were lined up on an ice sheet by the GOP leadership and told run to the finish line....
MESSAGING WAS WRONG, INCOMPETENT AND INEXCUSABLE in this race, and if the messaging here was the plan for November, then the Dems will take the house, period.
GROSS AND COMPELTE INCOMPETENCE!!
They literally were running a Rove type campaign in the Trump world... STUPID, STUPID, STUPID!! Red meat for the base, but NOTHING for those who weren’t part of that traditional base!!!!
This race with proper messaging the D’s would have never been closer than 8 points, instead the R lost.... INSANITY!
TRUMP SHOWED YOU HOW TO WIN!!! YET YOU IGNORED IT ALL AND JUST KEPT DOING WHAT YOU DID BEFORE TRUMP!!! MORONIC!
Tonight he'll be at the neighborhood tavern, seated at the table in the far dark corner. There he and 3 or 4 other outcasts will sip generic lite beer and celebrate their "great moral victory".
You’ll have to speak up, I can’t hear you. :-)
I agree with every single word you wrote! I sure as hell hope the RNC gets the right message from this humiliation. He may be a sham but Lamb ran a whole helluva lot closer to Trump than Saccone did. Idiots.
I'd be more concerned with winning elections than skewing polls.
1. The GOP lost a ton of credibility when it couldn't even do a half-assed repeal of ObamaCare after promising to do it for seven years.
2. Trump may have won in 2016, but he was also running against an awful candidate and damn near lost anyway. The likelihood of a groundswell of voter support carrying into 2018 is marginal at best.
3. Mediocre GOP candidates will lose to good Democrat candidates in many of these districts. Stop rolling out these dull characters with no energy who don't generate any enthusiasm among voters.
Yep. That's the truth.
The visuals on this Saccone were terrible. What year is it? 1968? 1978? 1988? 1998? 2008? 2018? Saccone looks and emotes like a generic Republican time traveler from the past half century.
But hey, it was "his turn'.
five thirty eight website is Nate Silver!
The same guy who gave Hilary a 98 percent chance of winning!
The GOP will do anything to throw the mid-terms. Unlike the Dims, the GOP is completely uncomfortable with being the majority party, and with power itself. This is so because in order to fulfill their campaign promises, they’d have to flip off their K Street underwriters.
I stopped voting for Republicans because they never do what they say they’re going to do. I stopped voting for Democrats because they always do what they say they’re going to do.
It wasn’t really “his turn,” but he did agree to drop out of the GOP primary race for the 2018 Senate election in PA (to challenge Bob Casey) and opt to run for this seat instead.
Aren’t there over 641 absentee ballots that have not been counted?
What about the military ballots?
When you win by 20 points like Trump did, you don't need to worry about counting absentee and military ballots.
That is exactly what has been happening. The Republican candidates have been outspent badly. But that level of spending isn't sustainable by Dems and liberals come the mid-terms.
Considering a Romney is now RNC chair, we can look forward to more of the same.
Bwahahahahahaha! BS!
Oh, without a doubt. Today's congressional GOP is the most cowardly gaggle of dickless eunuchs to ever sully Capitol Hill.
Sure, they talked a great game when Obama ruled by executive order and vetoed every bill that crossed his desk. Once Trump threatened to sign whatever they give him, they tucked their balls under their legs and curled up in a fetal position.
They're salivating for January, 2019, when they'll once again be the minority party and have to shrug their shoulders, "there's only so much we can do in this position..."
But at least they'll get a paycheck.
These pussies sicken me. And posters here on Free Republic wonder why they're not winning elections. "It's gotta be voter fraud!"
Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.