IA: 2016 Senatorial Democratic Primary Election Result

[GMantis]

New Election: 2016 Iowa Senatorial Democratic Primary Election Results
   
   

[Maxwell]

To be clear, Robb Hogg would've also lost by a lot - but I'm almost enticed by that what if. Patty Judge was a prime example of the kind of recruiting that Democrats were doing in 2016 - big names, regardless of substance. I don't know what kind of campaign or how energetic her campaign was, but if it was anything like Feingold, Strickland, or even Hassan who barely edged a win, I can't imagine it was that great.

[GMantis]

To be clear, Robb Hogg would've also lost by a lot - but I'm almost enticed by that what if. Patty Judge was a prime example of the kind of recruiting that Democrats were doing in 2016 - big names, regardless of substance. I don't know what kind of campaign or how energetic her campaign was, but if it was anything like Feingold, Strickland, or even Hassan who barely edged a win, I can't imagine it was that great.

To be fair to Patty Judge, she had the best performance of all of Grassley's opponents since his first victory. And this in a very Republican year in Iowa.

[GMantis]

I'm curious why Fiegen won Jefferson county of all places. He's not from there and his former senate district was mostly in Cedar county.

[PAK Man]

I can tell you firsthand she didn't have much of a presence. All her ads were exactly the same; saying Grassley was out of touch with voters. But she didn't do much to offer herself as an alternative to him.

But as has been said, she did better than any of Grassley's previous opponents. At least Democrats actually got somebody with name recognition to challenge him. But Grassley will never lose here in Iowa. Too many people love him and are willing to overlook his flaws.

[Attorney General, LGC Speaker, and Former PPT Dwarven Dragon]

Party Judge's campaign seemed to be based around Garland and nothing else, or at least that's the feeling I got from college this past fall (ISU). People weren't willing to reject grassley on that issue alone. There was also the fact that no one seemed to be really trying for her - the campus Democratic groups were all in for Hillary, but often there wasn't even a sign for Patty Judge at their display. Even if such a sign existed, they were still spending 95% of their energy promoting Clinton, and I was never personally approached about Judge despite them making several attempts to get me to vote for Clinton. There were plenty of chalk messages across campus for Grassley, Hillary, and Trump, along with a couple for Johnson. But not even one for Judge. Add all this to the fact that Grassley ran a serious campaign and that it was the strongest battleground state for Trump.

[Pandaguineapig]

Judge was the democrats star recruit back when they believed people actually cared about the Garland confirmation. Grassley is very popular and she was never able to become more than a generic D

[Chancellor Tanterterg]

Judge was the democrats star recruit back when they believed people actually cared about the Garland confirmation. Grassley is very popular and she was never able to become more than a generic D

Judge was never a star recruit.  She was a non-no name; there's a big difference.

[Pandaguineapig]

Judge was the democrats star recruit back when they believed people actually cared about the Garland confirmation. Grassley is very popular and she was never able to become more than a generic D

Judge was never a star recruit.  She was a non-no name; there's a big difference.

Dke and the dscc were excited about her and felt that the garland thing would give her a chance

[Chancellor Tanterterg]

Judge was the democrats star recruit back when they believed people actually cared about the Garland confirmation. Grassley is very popular and she was never able to become more than a generic D

Judge was never a star recruit.  She was a non-no name; there's a big difference.

Dke and the dscc were excited about her and felt that the garland thing would give her a chance

I mean, she was far better than the some dude-level candidates who were running.  And again, saying "if things go well, Judge *might* have a chance of making this competitive, but Grassley is heavily favored" is very different than "holy sh!t, Bob Casey just jumped into the PA Senate race; Santorum is gonna get proto-Blanched!"

[Attorney General, LGC Speaker, and Former PPT Dwarven Dragon]

Oh, and I'll also note that it was legitimately hard to track down media articles on Garland after the first couple months. Even most liberal sites had given up by June. There was no permanent energy behind him, probably because he wasn't really much of a liberal anyways and because it looked like Hillary was going to win. Sure, there were people standing outside the supreme Court every day, and if you followed We Need Nine on Facebook you saw pictures of that, but the wider media was all "old news, let's move on."