What happened in AL-2 last year?

[Adam Griffin]

I've heard talk before about how AL-2 could potentially be vulnerable in a worst-case scenario for the GOP, yet since Roby took the seat, she won with 65%+ of the vote in 2012 and 2014.

Then, 2016:



What happened here? She didn't even get a majority! Surely her pulling the Trump endorsement didn't cause that much of a revolt.

[GeorgiaModerate]

Yes, it was probably her withdrawal of support for Trump that caused the decline.  Note the large write-in percentage.

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[windjammer]

Well:
1) She's a weak incumbent establishment friendly and she's hated by the base.
2) She pulled out her endorsement for Trump in a Trump district.
3) there was a write in campaign made by arch conservatives that got 10% of the vote

[LabourJersey]

What about Mathis, though? His 40.5% is higher than any of the challenging Democratic House candidate in Alabama that year.

[Attorney General, Senator-Elect, & Former PPT Dwarven Dragon]

What about Mathis, though? His 40.5% is higher than any of the challenging Democratic House candidate in Alabama that year.

Some conservatives who hated Roby didn't know about the write in campaign, and so voted D in disgust.

[LabourJersey]

What about Mathis, though? His 40.5% is higher than any of the challenging Democratic House candidate in Alabama that year.

Some conservatives who hated Roby didn't know about the write in campaign, and so voted D in disgust.

I find it really difficult to imagine Trumpists who are disgusted by a GOP candidate being "Never Trump" would vote for a Democrat out of pure spite, as opposed to just staying home.

I mean some might do that, but staying home seems like both an easier and more coherent thing to do for those who didn't know about the write-in campaign

[GeorgiaModerate]

What about Mathis, though? His 40.5% is higher than any of the challenging Democratic House candidate in Alabama that year.

Some conservatives who hated Roby didn't know about the write in campaign, and so voted D in disgust.

I find it really difficult to imagine Trumpists who are disgusted by a GOP candidate being "Never Trump" would vote for a Democrat out of pure spite, as opposed to just staying home.

I mean some might do that, but staying home seems like both an easier and more coherent thing to do for those who didn't know about the write-in campaign

Spite can be a pretty strong motivator.  Some Trump voters might have been so angry with Roby that they wanted to turn her out of office, and voting for the Democrat would be the best way to accomplish that.

[Adam Griffin]

What about Mathis, though? His 40.5% is higher than any of the challenging Democratic House candidate in Alabama that year.

Some conservatives who hated Roby didn't know about the write in campaign, and so voted D in disgust.

I find it really difficult to imagine Trumpists who are disgusted by a GOP candidate being "Never Trump" would vote for a Democrat out of pure spite, as opposed to just staying home.

I mean some might do that, but staying home seems like both an easier and more coherent thing to do for those who didn't know about the write-in campaign

Spite can be a pretty strong motivator.  Some Trump voters might have been so angry with Roby that they wanted to turn her out of office, and voting for the Democrat would be the best way to accomplish that.

Also keep in mind that a typical GOP voter casting a ballot for a Democrat is worth twice as much as somebody staying home, leaving the contest blank or writing in somebody, so it wouldn't necessarily take all that many protest votes to dramatically improve the Democrat's share of the vote/margin of loss in a situation like this.

If just one in three of the protest voters did this, it'd have as much impact as the other two writing stuff in or leaving it blank.

[Attorney General, Senator-Elect, & Former PPT Dwarven Dragon]

What about Mathis, though? His 40.5% is higher than any of the challenging Democratic House candidate in Alabama that year.

Some conservatives who hated Roby didn't know about the write in campaign, and so voted D in disgust.

I find it really difficult to imagine Trumpists who are disgusted by a GOP candidate being "Never Trump" would vote for a Democrat out of pure spite, as opposed to just staying home.

House races are a different landscape than presidential or senate campaigns, and far less partisan. As the house was viewed as Safe R in the lead up to the election, some people in this district clearly felt free to essentially say "since we have a big majority, we can be picky about who is in that majority". There's also an argument that Roby had the votes to win no matter what, but a closer margin of victory would teach her a lesson.

[Figueira]

I imagine the idea behind targeting it again is that Roby could run again and would be just as vulnerable.

[Attorney General, Senator-Elect, & Former PPT Dwarven Dragon]

I imagine the idea behind targeting it again is that Roby could run again and would be just as vulnerable.

No one is going to remember or care who was and wasn't #NeverTrump in '18. If Roby gets another embarrassing margin, it'll be for some other reason. Of course, this seat is by no means something dems need to take back the house.

[Figueira]

I imagine the idea behind targeting it again is that Roby could run again and would be just as vulnerable.

No one is going to remember or care who was and wasn't #NeverTrump in '18. If Roby gets another embarrassing margin, it'll be for some other reason. Of course, this seat is by no means something dems need to take back the house.

Sure, but if Roby is the type who might anger the base at times, Democrats should try to take advantage.