“While Rulli defeated Kripchak in Tuesday’s matchup and expanded Republicans’ thin House majority, the election was much closer than originally predicted. Preliminary results indicate Rulli won the race by 9.4 points — a more than 20-point shift in Democrats favor.”
That’s what I mean.
Rulli’s support was over and above the margin of cheating. Democrats weren’t expecting that and didn’t plan for a sufficient number of fake ballots. Rulli was probably supposed to lose by 1 or 2 percent.
That's asinine. This is an R+16 district, in which Democrats (rightfully) didn't even bother spending chump change on their candidate. Aside from typical GOP complacency in a special election, nobody has come up with any plausible reason why it wasn't a blowout; even the primary, though hard-fought, was apparently amicable. The margin doesn't matter anyway -- a win is a win.
It probably wouldn't have helped even if they Rats did invest heavily yesterday, and money won't help them buy this seat in November either. But to declare that this race was expected to be even remotely close, nevermind a loss, reflects a lack of knowledge of anything about this district.