Sigh, yes, some folks voted against HIllary.. but that again is NOT why this race was lost.
This race was lost because the GOP Leadership, is either too stupid, lazy or incompetent to realize exactly why TRUMP WON, particularly in this part of the country.
They literally ran a tired generic campaign message that was all about attacking the D... something that never got these disenfranchised voters to show up and vote R in the past 15+ years.. It was red meat for the R base... but the reality is, there isn’t enough of the R BASE to win against a motivated D base.. you NEED the non traditional Trump voter, and they OFFERED THEM NO REASON TO SHOW UP! They never offered a message to them, let alone a reason for them to come out and vote.
They literally threw away an easy win.... This race should have never gotten closer than 8 points... even with a mediocre candidate.... but they ran the type of campaign you would run in a deep red district, when you need th ebase fired up,... and if FAILED Miserably....
Even if by some miracle a recount or other thing gets the R the win, this was still a complete embarrassment at every level.. this was an inexcusable outcome.... Because of gross incompetence... nothing less.
Complacency that this district was so red you can just nominate any mediocre candidate and they would win because the Democrats aren’t supposed to be able to win this district. Well they didn’t believe that and nominated a very well spoken, fit good looking young marine vs. some boring mediocre GOP candidate...and we see the result. Little money would had to have been spent on this race with a better candidate...now millions were spent to what is apparently a losing effort in a ruby red district. Open seats are fair game and good candidates are needed no matter who is “supposed” to win. We’ve beaten Democrats before in blue areas by outsmarting them like this before as well (Scott Brown Massachusetts Senate race in 2010, and the replacement for Anthony Weiner after he was forced to resign in that NYC based district - one of the bluest of the blue - and GOP candidate won that special election). There were surely better candidates available in that district than Rick Saccone...but regardless, they failed to garner national interest in the race - contrast to that to the Georgia 6 race last year - Karen Handle had the full backing of everyone, the talk radio circuit nationwide had it as a focal point of discussion for weeks prior to the election, whereas this race was occasionally mentioned - at best.
I know Hillary wasn’t on the ballot, we’re agreeing with each other here!
My point is that, as you said well, they offered the non traditional Trump voter no real reason to show up, as far as I can tell. Attacking the ‘D’ doesn’t necessarily motivate the independent voter, the non ideologue. I think your post nails it, good analysis, especially as a rather brave antidote to the conspiracy thinking and looking for conspiracies in dark corners rather than in plain sight.