KS-SEN 2020 Megathread: Marshall overperforms and wins

[alancia]

Safe R -> Safe R

[smoltchanov]

Safe R with "normal conservative" (like Jenkins), Lean R with Kobach-type candidate. It's a federal election, where voters are, usually, more "loyal" to dominant in their state party..

[Peanut]

All those people won. Big.

That doesn't mean they are good

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I do think that is a rather simplistic approach and analysis. Jealous and Gonzales' losses were not caused by their unpopularity or by their holding too extreme positions (you said yourself Warren got 60% in a State perfectly receptive to Democratic talking points and ideology.) Their losses were caused by their incredibly popular and strong opponents. Chalking up a loss to an opponent with incredible approvals to a mere "oh, they were too left-wing" drastically misses the points that:
1) Popularity, obviously, matters. Kobach did himself in with his abysmal numbers, whereas Baker and Hogan survived because of their amazing ones.
2) There are different conditions in every State, and a lot of variables in both that prevent any analysis that does not look beyond simple numbers. As I stated, popularity matters, the underlying conditions in any given State matter, and it would be quite hard to establish a comparative pattern without any prior understanding of the basic differences in the culture and situation of both States.
Kelly's win was something that does show Democrats the path to a future statewide Democratic win, and her achievements, even against a disaster like Kobach, should be taken to be quite valuable for the Democrats (though, of course, nobody would rate it anything but Safe R in 2020-PRES.

You did state it was your opinion, and I quite respect it, but I do believe there are some conditions that you might not have taken into account in developing your analysis. If you want, we can now return to KS-SEN .

[smoltchanov]

All those people won. Big.

That doesn't mean they are good

Snip.

Snip.

Snip.

Snip.

Snip.

Snip.

Snip.

Snip.

I do think that is a rather simplistic approach and analysis. Jealous and Gonzales' losses were not caused by their unpopularity or by their holding too extreme positions (you said yourself Warren got 60% in a State perfectly receptive to Democratic talking points and ideology.) Their losses were caused by their incredibly popular and strong opponents. Chalking up a loss to an opponent with incredible approvals to a mere "oh, they were too left-wing" drastically misses the points that:
1) Popularity, obviously, matters. Kobach did himself in with his abysmal numbers, whereas Baker and Hogan survived because of their amazing ones.
2) There are different conditions in every State, and a lot of variables in both that prevent any analysis that does not look beyond simple numbers. As I stated, popularity matters, the underlying conditions in any given State matter, and it would be quite hard to establish a comparative pattern without any prior understanding of the basic differences in the culture and situation of both States.
Kelly's win was something that does show Democrats the path to a future statewide Democratic win, and her acheivements, even against a disaster like Kobach, should be taken to be quite valuable for the Democrats (though, of course, nobody would rate it anything but Safe R in 2020-PRES.

You did state it was your opinion, and I quite respect it, but I do believe there are some conditions that you might not have taken into account in developing your analysis. If you want, we can now return to KS-SEN .

Before we return i only want to say that of course - popularity matters, and yes, Baker and Hogan were, may be, the most popular present governors. But both Massachusetts and Maryland have "saphire blue" reputation, and thus - must have rather high Democratic floor "no matter what". In normal situation it's at least 45%, usually - substantially higher. Both Jealous and Gonzalez underperformed even that floor. Gonzalez - considerably, but even Jealous lost almost 4% to abysmal result of Anthony Brown of 2014. Was it caused by popularity of Baker and Hogan? Partially, of course, yes, but to assign 100% to that only??? Well, simply can't believe. There must be other reasons as well. And some ideological problems is the first that comes to mind in such situation. It's difficult to be "too liberal" in these states, but still possible (good example, IMHO, is Mark Roosevelt in 1994, who managed to lose to Weld by even bigger margin 71-28). So, that was a rather natural theory for me...

[Chancellor Tanterterg]

All those people won. Big.

That doesn't mean they are good

Snip.

Snip.

Snip.

Snip.

Snip.

Snip.

Snip.

Snip.

I do think that is a rather simplistic approach and analysis. Jealous and Gonzales' losses were not caused by their unpopularity or by their holding too extreme positions (you said yourself Warren got 60% in a State perfectly receptive to Democratic talking points and ideology.) Their losses were caused by their incredibly popular and strong opponents. Chalking up a loss to an opponent with incredible approvals to a mere "oh, they were too left-wing" drastically misses the points that:
1) Popularity, obviously, matters. Kobach did himself in with his abysmal numbers, whereas Baker and Hogan survived because of their amazing ones.
2) There are different conditions in every State, and a lot of variables in both that prevent any analysis that does not look beyond simple numbers. As I stated, popularity matters, the underlying conditions in any given State matter, and it would be quite hard to establish a comparative pattern without any prior understanding of the basic differences in the culture and situation of both States.
Kelly's win was something that does show Democrats the path to a future statewide Democratic win, and her acheivements, even against a disaster like Kobach, should be taken to be quite valuable for the Democrats (though, of course, nobody would rate it anything but Safe R in 2020-PRES.

You did state it was your opinion, and I quite respect it, but I do believe there are some conditions that you might not have taken into account in developing your analysis. If you want, we can now return to KS-SEN .

Not to nitpick or anything, but Jealous lost b/c he ran one of the most incompetent gubernatorial campaigns of the cycle.  It had nothing to do with ideology and everything to do with candidate quality.  Hogan would’ve lost to Jealous had the latter simply run a competent or even mildly below average campaign.  Baker probably would’ve beaten a non-sacrificial lamb opponent by high single-digits, but he’d get destroyed if he ran for Senate (his ceiling against Markey is probably 42% given that Trump will be on the ballot). 

[Hindsight was 2020]

“Yes Kobach uses voter id laws to purged people off the voting roles (that by complete coincidence were overwhelmingly demographics that voted dem) but Cortez has economic views I disagree with so they are equally morally reprehensible”-Atlas blue logic

[Holy Unifying Centrist]

Ben Jealous only had a 44-39 favorable rating in Maryland, much lower than the average Dem. This shows that he was out of the mainstream of many Maryland dems.

Compare his rating to Ben Cardin. Ben Cardin had a 60-26 favorable rating.

Larry Hogan, meanwhile, had a 71-22 favorable rating.


Support for raising taxes for public schools was only 44% approve - 55% disapprove in Maryland. Taxes for infrastructure, however, had 51% approve - 48% disapprove.


All numbers can be found here https://www.foxnews.com/midterms-2018/voter-analysis?filter=MD&type=G

[Pollster]

Any Dem candidates floated yet?

[aaroncd107]

Any Dem candidates floated yet?

Gov. Candidate Josh Svaty, US Atty. Barry Grissom, KS-3 Candidate Brent Welder, Lt. Gov. Elect Lynn Rogers, there are certainly more... KS Dems have quite the bench.

[Oryxslayer]

Any Dem candidates floated yet?

Gov. Candidate Josh Svaty, US Atty. Barry Grissom, KS-3 Candidate Brent Welder, Lt. Gov. Elect Lynn Rogers, there are certainly more... KS Dems have quite the bench.

Not to mention the previously stated state legislators that have moderate credentials from their former republican party ID, but check all the ideological boxes thanks to their voting history.

[Brittain33]

I know 3 Democrats who decided not to vote for Gonzalez because of his proposal to tax college endowments. 2 worked for Harvard; the 3rd didn’t but said it showed he wasn’t ready for prime time. The 3rd did not vote for Baker. At least one of the other 2 did.

We can’t talk about a Democratic floor of 40% and peg a number like that to it because we have almost no data points from the last 20 years of a Republican romping like Baker. You have to go back to Weld in 1994, probably. It’s most likely that Gonzalez *defined* the Democratic floor rather than that he’s an exception who fell below it.

[Pollster]

Any Dem candidates floated yet?

Gov. Candidate Josh Svaty, US Atty. Barry Grissom, KS-3 Candidate Brent Welder, Lt. Gov. Elect Lynn Rogers, there are certainly more... KS Dems have quite the bench.

Not to mention the previously stated state legislators that have moderate credentials from their former republican party ID, but check all the ideological boxes thanks to their voting history.

The more I read about Katrina Lewison, the more of a no-brainer she seems. Young, veteran, West Point grad, business background, strong on education policy, from a rural area, and has no voting record to defend yet. She seems like the ideal candidate to hold Kelly voters and win over Orman voters, especially if the GOP nominates a disaster.

[RogueBeaver]

https://twitter.com/BryanLowry3/status/1082319192215511040

[RogueBeaver]

https://twitter.com/BryanLowry3/status/1082651166843043845

[Brittain33]

LaTurner is an interesting last name. I wonder if it's a corruption of Letourneau.

[tmthforu94]

LaTurner is a very hard worker - he is currently 30, so if elected, he would leaps and bounds be the youngest senator in America and would probably hold that title for quite a while. With his entrance, I doubt that either D. Schmidt or Colyer runs.

LaTurner as GOP nominee? Safe R.

[Pollster]

La Turner seems like the embodiment of the "ladder climber" attack.

[Senate Minority Leader Lord Voldemort]

La Turner seems like the embodiment of the "ladder climber" attack.

I almost respect the guy for how shameless he is. If he gets into the Senate in 2021, he could easily be reelected in the Senate for ten terms.

[Flyersfan232]

Kingpin Kelly needs to get the Kansas Dem machine up and running and this race will get cookin

like rauner and his republican machine.

[VPH]

La Turner seems like the embodiment of the "ladder climber" attack.

I almost respect the guy for how shameless he is. If he gets into the Senate in 2021, he could easily be reelected in the Senate for ten terms.

LaTurner is slimy and overly ambitious but represents the Republican trend of his region. His campaign co-chair is Ivan Crossland. That name doesn't say much outside of SE Kansas, but in Southeast Kansas, Crossland Construction is one of the big funders of right-leaning Republicans. Lots of Democratic activists blame the region's especially quick trend away from Democrats on Crossland money. Hell, it probably made a difference in Rep. Adam Lusker's defeat in Frontenac.

[IceSpear]

Too bad. Dems probably needed a trash-tier candidate like Roberts to have long shot potential here.

Kobach tells NYT he's considering.

Wow, right on cue! He really wants to keep hope alive for the Dems in this race!

[RogueBeaver]

https://twitter.com/jonshorman/status/1083113397309399041

[tmthforu94]

https://twitter.com/jonshorman/status/1083113397309399041

You keep beating me to the punch!

Not sure if she'll be able to win the statewide primary, but shouldn't have a problem in the general election. Kobach is the only formidable candidate who would put the seat at risk.

[SnowLabrador]

The primary could be interesting to watch. I think even Kris Kobach would win the general election, though.

[MT Treasurer]

Godd riddance. Roberts retiring probably makes the seat more likely to stay R, but it could certainly flip in a perfect storm for Democrats. Lean R for now.