538: Liberals Would Be Foolish To Primary Joe Manchin

[I’m not Stu]

Primarying him with a progressive would obviously be nonsensical, and I wouldn't support it anyways. But primarying him with someone with views similar to say, Nelson, would be a good move and I don't think it would totally ruin everything for Ds, and I would support it.

Even a candidate similar to Nelson would still lose to the GOP in WV. If any Democrat has a chance to defeat Moore-Capito in 2020, it's Tomblin or Justice.

[I’m not Stu]

Primarying him with a progressive would obviously be nonsensical, and I wouldn't support it anyways. But primarying him with someone with views similar to say, Nelson, would be a good move and I don't think it would totally ruin everything for Ds, and I would support it.

Even a candidate similar to Nelson would still lose to the GOP in WV. If any Democrat has a chance to defeat Moore-Capito in 2020, it's Tomblin or Justice.

Jay Rockefeller was definitely to Bill Nelson's left.

WV is far more Republican than it was when Rockefeller was in office. That kind of candidate couldn't win today.

[I’m not Stu]

Some folks really want to be an eternal minority.  "Fighting the Good Fight" and losing, time and time again, becomes somewhat irresponsible at some point, does it not?

In the end, most voters just want actual results. They aren't policy experts nor do they know all the factors going into these elections. After a certain point, the purists who have a seemingly impossible checklist of requirements become a hindrance to actual progress when their goals clash with reality. Having people overly focused on the perfect candidate can be good sometimes, but it can also cost a party a lot of chances to actually win seats. I can totally see rabidly anti-Trump liberals grab hold of WV's Senate race, manage to oust Manchin (ok maybe not right now but work with me here), lose the GE bigly, then just walk away from the wreckage and move on to the next race. I can see why they'd want to get rid of him, in fact I totally do myself, but only if we can hold it with another person. So far that seems doubtful. I just think the logic/judgement behind such is flawed.

Also, as with the TP, it seems like all of this purist stuff is less to do with policy and more to do with who is more anti-Trump. Being 100% anti-Trump no matter what, even when it conflicts with your own goals seems silly to me. We can't/shouldn't just bring everything to a halt for 4 years.

We keep hearing about those terrible liberal purists who will cost Democrats tons of elections, and yet they haven't. The only 2 Democratic Senators primaried for decades were Lieberman and Specter, and neither of them cost Democrats a seat. In Lieberman's case, he still won and Lamont would have won if Lieberman went away. In Specter's case, he would have done worse than Sestak.

PA has a closed primary that Sestak won the primary with 54%. Specter probably would have won an open primary. Specter likely would have done better than Sestak and defeated Toomey in the general.

[I’m not Stu]

Some folks really want to be an eternal minority.  "Fighting the Good Fight" and losing, time and time again, becomes somewhat irresponsible at some point, does it not?

In the end, most voters just want actual results. They aren't policy experts nor do they know all the factors going into these elections. After a certain point, the purists who have a seemingly impossible checklist of requirements become a hindrance to actual progress when their goals clash with reality. Having people overly focused on the perfect candidate can be good sometimes, but it can also cost a party a lot of chances to actually win seats. I can totally see rabidly anti-Trump liberals grab hold of WV's Senate race, manage to oust Manchin (ok maybe not right now but work with me here), lose the GE bigly, then just walk away from the wreckage and move on to the next race. I can see why they'd want to get rid of him, in fact I totally do myself, but only if we can hold it with another person. So far that seems doubtful. I just think the logic/judgement behind such is flawed.

Also, as with the TP, it seems like all of this purist stuff is less to do with policy and more to do with who is more anti-Trump. Being 100% anti-Trump no matter what, even when it conflicts with your own goals seems silly to me. We can't/shouldn't just bring everything to a halt for 4 years.

We keep hearing about those terrible liberal purists who will cost Democrats tons of elections, and yet they haven't. The only 2 Democratic Senators primaried for decades were Lieberman and Specter, and neither of them cost Democrats a seat. In Lieberman's case, he still won and Lamont would have won if Lieberman went away. In Specter's case, he would have done worse than Sestak.

PA has a closed primary that Sestak won the primary with 54%. Specter probably would have won an open primary. Specter likely would have done better than Sestak and defeated Toomey in the general.

The polling had Sestak doing slightly better than Specter in the general election. Sestak lost by 2 points in a Republican wave where Republicans picked up 5 House seats in Pennsylvania alone.

Toomey narrowly won. I think the more conservative Specter would have had far more GOP votes than Sestak, giving Specter enough votes to defeat Toomey. Polls can be flawed.