Republicans Avoided Total Disaster

[DonViejo]

August 8, 2018 at 6:41 am EDT By Taegan Goddard

Playbook: “Republicans avoided a multi-faceted disaster last night. If they lost, money would’ve gone dry… Balderson’s tight-as-a-tick victory should put all GOP incumbents on notice that this is a very challenging electoral climate. It’s the second-tier candidates — the R+5s to R+10s — who need to watch their backs. Endangered incumbents are already well aware they have races.”

“Moral victories warm hearts, but don’t win power back. Democrats will take solace that they kept this thing close. But the reality is: Dems have flipped a total of one single House seat in nine special elections since Trump became president. We’re not saying they don’t have an extremely favorable electoral climate — they do — but near victories don’t count.”

However: “The GOP has so far overcompensated for a bad environment — and bad candidates — by spending heaps of money. They spent $3.1 million here and $3.5 million in an unsuccessful bid to drag Rick Saccone over the finish line against Conor Lamb. There is simply no way they can keep doing that.”

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https://politicalwire.com/2018/08/08/republicans-avoided-total-disaster/

[beachbum bob]

1. near victories are wins and when GOP has to outspend 5-1 to win a "safe seat" that is a clear win

for democrats...moral victories are huge just like demoralizing victories are huge downers

[NewJeffCT]

2. so, there is no chance that absentee ballots

and provisional ballots can narrow the gap?

[Atman]

3. Wont flip it, but likely will bring race into automatic recount territory

If O'Connell can pick up about 700 votes it make the margin less than .5%, and that triggers a recount.

[NewJeffCT]

6. I don't think many recounts work out well

for the person with fewer votes to begin with, but you never know.

Hopefully, a large majority of the absentee ballots wanted to make sure that their anti-trump vote was registered.

[drray23]

4. It will very likely narrow the gap

However it's not clear if it could be enough to give connor a victory.

[Nitram]

7. NPR reported this morning that Balderson was 1,700 votes ahead with 8,000 absentee ballots left

to count.

[NewJeffCT]

9. big margin

so, O'Connor would need to win absentee ballots by greater than 4850-3150, or almost 61%

[Nitram]

10. I s there any differential in the rate of absentee and privisional ballot voting between Democrats

and Publicans? BTW, I checked the NPR web site, and the figures actually put Balderson 1,754 votes ahead, with 3,435 provisional ballots to be counted and 5,048 outstanding absentee ballots.

[Atman]

11. Absentee ballots tend to favor Democrats

We'll see if that works out here.

[Nitram]

12. That's what I thought. We still have a slim chance.

[DemocratSinceBirth]

5. The wheat

-- IF DEMOCRATS can make a bunch of seats like this competitive, they’ll win some and they can, of course, win the House. These kinds of seats -- R+7s and the like -- are the heart of the GOP majority. There are nearly 70 seats with a better partisan makeup for Democrats than this one. DAVE WASSERMAN (@redistrict): “If anything, tonight’s #OH12 result reinforces our view that Dems are substantial favorites to retake the House in November.”

[dalton99a]

8. The handwriting is on the wall