Heitkamp needs to Todd Akin him, hard.
As I've said for a while now, North Dakota strongly backs Kavanaugh and a majority of North Dakota voters likely agree with Cramer's comments. If Heitkamp wants to lose, focusing on Cramer's "Akin comments" should certainly be her strategy.
Dems really overplayed their hand and shot themselves in the foot with the Kavanaugh situation, at least in regards to their deep red state Senate incumbents.
I mean she hasn’t leaned into the Cramer stuff as hard as one thought she might after he made the comments.
Because unlike this forum and Twitter users from California she realizes it would backfire. Looks like the Dems overplaying their hand with Kavanaugh has already blown up in her face and could very well cost them their chance at the Senate. Brilliant strategery. Between that and them backing corrupt clown Menendez....Dems are so bad at politics it makes me wince sometimes.
What exactly should they have done then? I think you are forgetting how hard of a needle this is to thread, where Kavanaugh is not just any nominee, but a potential rapist nominee in the #MeToo era nominated by Donald J. Trump, another serial sexual assaulter who has currently lit a nuclear-hot fire under the collective asses of the Democratic Party. I mean... what do you expect? Even if they didn't want to fight over this confirmation with everything they had, the base
demands it. You could also argue that Republicans are completely overplaying their own hands here with regards to Gardner too. This kind of issue could come back and bite him in the ass or potentially tank his favorables after the confirmation if Democrats move to weaponize it effectively. Voting for a rapist justice is something a lot of people on the left seem to be taking note of.
Regarding Menendez, it's a shame but, again, this is really just a failure of local political machines not prioritizing ethics and actually reliably winning elections over their friends and favors. Not to mention that the primary voters decided to keep him. Again, Republicans and Republican primary voters have made loads of joke decisions themselves over the years, costing them a number of important, high-profile races. So yes, not trying to oust Bob with everything they had was a dumb move, but not exactly unique in its stupidity among both parties.
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We really need more polling of ND in general. And until I see proof, I'm not willing to buy in completely to the idea that voting against even a rapey SCOTUS nominee means CURTAINS for these people. I'd like to see solid evidence first. I can buy that Heidi is down, but not necessarily that this confirmation is killing her.