I see what you’re saying. But on the other hand, everyone thought Stewart was a bad candidate and that he dragged down probably 2 and maybe 3 House races.
The fact that these are socialists doesn’t mean that much because you could argue that we have moved “to the right” with Blackburn, Cramer, Braun, Scott, DeSantis, and even, if she survives, McSally who ran Trump/border commercials.
So I’d look at this as much more division as opposed to “drift” in the same direction.
Another issue I didn’t talk about: the economy is fantastic. But that ceases to be an issue in this day and age (vs. Reagan) after 2 years because of the accelerated news cycle. I think many Rs got NO “love” for the economy because it was just now “accepted.” SO that was a major issue that, in essence, was off the table. It is, in terms of a campaign, something to take into account.
Well, Braun was pretty geeky candidate too, but Indiana is at a different place - demographically - than Virginia...and it is those trends that are making the future look troubling for conservatives.
The Republican Party is much tighter and better than it was two days ago. That is unquestioned, but McSally has to see how tough her situation is - she may become our Manchin if Arizona is indeed that open to a socialist. We also have Romney, Collins, Murkowski, Burr and Sasse, so we still can’t get out over our skis here.
The economy issue is a worry - it’s central to the Trump presidency...his being a businessman outsider and all. Yet, people weren’t swayed by the economy but seemed at least willing to go along with open borders positions and nationalized healthcare.
On the economy issue, we may actually learn something from the Democrat claims that the gains are just for “the rich”. It gets out the vote in urban areas. Here in Vegas we went dark blue because of the huge influx of immigrant workers over the years - they work in low paying jobs (service jobs, hotels, day care) where tax cuts don’t even register and the benefits from booming business do not come swiftly in the way of higher pay or new, better jobs. This is a huge number of urban and suburban workers not seeing anything - yet - from the economic boom. To them “fixing healthcare” (nationalization, like in their original home countries) is the big winner, economically. We need to find a way to reach these people - they vote in droves here - and get real benefits into their hands.