Is this why we lost FL and GA?

[Cattledog]

“Because there are still more white voters, what it means is that people of color are going to have to have higher turnout rates,” Mr. Martin said. “Andrew Gillum cannot win Florida if Miami-Dade turnout is below 60 percent, period.”

The turnout gap was stark in Florida, the most pivotal presidential swing state. Only 56 percent of registered voters cast ballots in Miami-Dade County, one of the worst showings in the state. But in Collier County, which includes Naples and where there are few African-Americans, turnout was over 73 percent — the highest the jurisdiction had ever recorded in a midterm campaign.

https://www.nytimes.com/2018/11/24/us/politics/south-race-mississippi-senate.html?action=click&module=Top%20Stories&pgtype=Homepage

[RandySF]

1. Bingo

[rpannier]

2. More and more conservative retirees moving in

There was an article (in Slate I think) about this and how they are skewing FL more and more red

[Quemado]

7. Bingo again

There are several articles posted on the Internet on this phenomenon.

[JI7]

3. in Georgia it was Voter Suppression , all out in the open by the piece of shit running against her

and she STILL came close. imagine the results without the shit he pulled.

[DFW]

4. It should be illegal for anyone in that position to be running for statewide office

Any state's Secretary of State wishing to run for Statewide office should be required to resign the post with no outside influencing his or her successor at least a year before the next election. Otherwise, it's practically like the same person running for office having the sole right to count the votes.

[CentralMass]

5. Republicans cheat.

[FloridaBlues]

6. Senator in waiting is from collier county not surprised turnout high there

[Hortensis]

8. No. Republicans STOLE FL and GA through election theft.

THAT's why.

The Democratic Party -- and our candidates -- deserve admiration for how well we did in two very conservative states (!), not this self-flagellating OP title that ignores the crimes of the right. Stacey Abrams is right when she refuses to concede and believes we should all be angry! Andrew Gillum and Stacey Abrams would be governors of their states with honest elections.

The answer to this problem is not expecting Democrats to always turn out in such large, excess numbers Republicans can't steal enough votes fast enough but campaign and election reform, which we are 100% committed to.

Even more, though, Democrats are NOT responsible for the decisions of people who choose to vote their conservativism, and the south has always been intensely conservative. Blacks are hardly the only actively oppressed, insulted and even persecuted race/group under Republican government, but they are the only one whose conservatives grit their teeth and come together to vote monolithically for Democrats against Republicans.

Hispanics, who substantially outnumber blacks considering indigenous only and 2-1/2 times over when including white Hispanics, are wrongly assumed to "of course" be the Democratic Party's to pluck -- all we have to do is "talk to" them. Pure, rubbish. Hispanic groups are almost all predominantly conservative both by culture and geography. Their conservatives watched Trump put mostly Hispanic children in cages and mostly either voted Republican or didn't vote. Their choice. Not our negligence.

[JustAnotherGen]

15. Plus 100000

Adding in a thousand pounds of voter suppression and we have a trillion tons of unAmerican activity in FL and HE by let's just say it - white men.

WTF is wrong with that group in GA and GO and why do they vote against American values?

[dalton99a]

17. Absolutely

[DFW]

9. I think we didn't lose the vote in either Florida or Georgia. We lost the counting of the votes.

"Those who cast the votes decide nothing. Those who count the votes decide everything."--attributed to Josef Stalin.

Of course, if the candidate running is also the official in charge of the election or his boss, the chances of a challenger being declared the winner, whether the true winner or not, are minimal.

[Hortensis]

11. Yes. Jim Crow mentality rages in the Republican Party,

which has distilled into a political redoubt for those trying to hold back the demographic progression by all means possible. Brian Kemp's election theft was every bit as blatant as that of political bosses who in prior elections destroyed ballots at polling places while those watching didn't dare intervene.

[DFW]

12. It's an admission as much as anything else

They are practically saying, "look, if we don't do this we lose. We do it because we can get away with it. As long as no one stops us, we will continue to win like this. We prefer to see Democrats losing in a rigged election than us losing in a fair election."

[UCmeNdc]

10. Voter Suppression was why the democratic candidates lost both Georgia and Florida.

If you do not allow Black or Latino voters to vote or do not count their votes in large enough numbers then Democratic politicians will lose.

If you did the same voter suppression tactics on white voters The GOP candidates will lose. Go to 30 rural Florida counties and take away a third or their voters, who wins then in Florida?

[elocs]

13. When voters on the Left choose to self-suppress their votes and not show up

to vote when they could have, Republicans celebrate.
Please explain how those who choose not to vote when they can help any Democrat to be elected? Because they don't. In the state of Florida there were certainly more than enough non-votes on the Left to have elected the Democratic candidates.
So for the many who like to make excuses that the Republicans stole elections, suppressed the votes, how do you excuse those who could have help to elect a Democratic candidate but chose not to vote?
In that case, we have met the enemy and they are us.

[Cousin Dupree]

14. Spot on!

[Hortensis]

16. You think those you identify as left who aren't voting

for candidates running as Democrats are "us." I, however, am absolutely sure they're very different from those on the left who are committed to voting for candidates who promote our democratic liberal ideals of equality and government of, by and for the people -- and against those who do not. In this era of a nation in danger of falling to extremism, it's a profound defining difference.

This idea that they're somehow all nevertheless "us" is a flaw in how we count and assign people who are able to vote, not in us.

For just one question, who should be considered "us" in terms of ideology? If someone is so outraged by the Democratic Party choosing a particular candidate from the broad mainstream, as we virtually always do, that he or she refuses to vote for, or even votes to defeat the Democratic candidate, is that person "us"? Should the majority be blamed for that? Are we at fault for democracy itself?

Are those on the left who must always find reason to despise the majority left "us"? It appears to me as an irrational hostility that is not only as real as anything from the right but often more intransigent, unaffected by actual issues and solutions. The majority is always wrong to those in every era. I have to admit they do insist they alone are the true "us," not the rest of us.

Are all members of minority groups automatically "us" because the right is actively persecuting them? Or is that an extreme delusion of wishful thinking? They should be "us" by default and if they decline it's our fault?

How about all those who election after election are unable and unwilling to care or to be responsible? The many who won't turn on the news in good part because it shows neo-Nazi marches, killer wildfires and children in cages and they don't want to see it, proclaim proudly that they are above the quarreling troublemakers on both sides? Are those you? Those who refuse to spend a half hour once every two years to do their civic duty, even in an era of growing atrocities committed by their own government, may belong to a big "us," but it's not my us.

I know that they are all very different from me and that I did not make their choices for them. Whatever you've been up to (hopefully not watching way too much Michael Moore and Bill Maher or soaking up RT), "us" are not "our own enemy." These people are who and what they are and they make their own choices. We do the same.

[aikoaiko]

18. That and voter suppression.

We could have won both states even with voter suppression and gerrymandering (for House seats) with big enough turnouts.