Congressional Special Elections Results Thread (OLD, PLEASE UNSTICKY)

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Apparently Gomez supports a Single Payer, 15$ Min Wage, publicly financed elections, paid leave etc so he won't be that bad either ! Just shows how strong left the district is. The Republican has 0 chance.

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Apparently Gomez supports a Single Payer, 15$ Min Wage, publicly financed elections, paid leave etc so he won't be that bad either ! Just shows how strong left the district is. The Republican has 0 chance.

He endorsed Hillary in a Bernie district, though.

Ohh Wendy or Kenneth would be way better but you have to make do, too many bureaucrats running & the Carmona thing totally sank the whole race.

Atleast he will support Paid leave & Medicare for all. Way better than Cory Booker I suppose !

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Kander is less of a moderate than a Evan Bayh & is to the left of Donnelly.  He didn't run as an uber centrist, there were distinct undertones of running like a subdued liberal & he did surprisingly well.

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Kander did better than the much more conservative/moderate Chris Koster, and did so against an incumbent. Sounds to me like running as a moderate isn't everything.

I agree, but tbh Roy Blunt ran a disastrous campaign. I suspect any other Republican would have done better.

We don't know how the race would have panned out do we? Kander deserves credit for running so far ahead of HRC too & it is not always hey the other candidate is bad but a myriad of complex factors.

Elections aren't decided by 1 issue. I still think empathy, the ability to connect with voters emotionally, candidates personal honesty perception, the ability to turn out the base etc also play a pivotal role.

People don't vote on Economic & Social Score only. An issue close to the heart like honesty, corruption, war-mongering, marijuana, abortion etc could totally turn the votes from a candidate someone agrees with 90% of the time. Honesty, Authenticity & trustworthiness have massive cross-over appeal & can cut across some "small" policy differences given how politicians are these days.

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Kander did better than the much more conservative/moderate Chris Koster, and did so against an incumbent. Sounds to me like running as a moderate isn't everything.

Well it helped that he got huge swaths of voters to disregard his F rating from the NRA with this little gem: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-wqOApBLPio

Phenomenal & even that maybe under-appreciating gem - His whole background, candour, seemingly honesty & charisma really makes the ad stick out !

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Not fair to draw a national picture but Dems didn't fight this race hard, the DSCC barely helped & they didn't even pour big money. Republicans definitely tried with Trump, Cruz, Pence, Ryan & poured money too.

Anyways special elections are weird but turnout was decent & performance is very encouraging. In 2014, Dems won 69K odd of 208K votes & this time it's 51K out of 113K, even with bigger turnout of their base, surely they would have gone well past the 69K mark with a 208K turnout. Dems did make solid ground despite Republicans pushing hard in this seat, don't know that can even be denied. And Thompson ran as an unabashed liberal progressive berniecrat.

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HRC btw was the most anti-gun major nominee in a long while. In the Michigan debate vs Sanders, she said that gun manufacturers & sellers should be held liable even if some random dude commits an act of violence while Sanders was arguing they should be held liable if they knowingly sold guns to the wrong people or en mass etc. That would have ended gun manufacturing in a way - HRC's stance was beyond extreme just to prove Sanders' isn't a perfect progressive.

That did cost her in rural areas in the GE. I am also disappointed the that the DNC & DSCC atleast didn't send more money & helped in the ground game considering how hard Republicans tried. You have to atleast try than give up everywhere !