McConnell Confidant/former chief of staff:"Elections last night alarming if you know voting history"

[kpete]

Holmes is still a McConnell confidant and the majority leader's former chief of staff...

@HolmesJosh
Taking a step back from KY and looking at all the elections last night, GOP should be most concerned about what happened in local elections in Chester, Delaware and Bucks County, PA last night. That is genuinely alarming if you know the voting history.

Link to tweet

[beachbumbob]

1. those were bellweather elections and pretty much takes PA off the map for trump and gop in 2020

without those 20 electoral votes they will have ZERO chance to win the WH.especially with a Biden/Harris ticket

[BumRushDaShow]

12. PA should have never flipped in 2016

That was the first time since 1988 - and aside from the Jill Stein factor, I think the margin at the time was also due to the flip of Erie County. Erie has generally moved from blue to purple and is barely holding there as it gets redder with the loss of industry, but the hope is that the eastern side of the state that is increasingly blue, can offset that.

[yellowcanine]

13. I am still not sure there were not some shenanigans in PA.

I grew up in Lebanon County. It is conservative and it went for Trump just as I expected. However, for some reason the results there came in dead last. There is no way that should have happened. Lebanon County is suburban/rural so it should have been somewhere in the middle of the pack, not dead last.

[BumRushDaShow]

15. Whenever the votes are close

they can certainly steal it. That's why the importance of getting as much turnout as we can to offset that.

[TheCowsCameHome]

2. Don't get cocky, but

after yesterday, I think the tide is turning.

[CrispyQ]

3. Maybe 110 million people are starting to give a shit, huh?

[colsohlibgal]

4. I Wonder

The Trend is good but what of the 30 or so percent of his gun loving Neo Nazi type base? The loyalists. I hope none of them act out if we take all 3 branches.

Now my State Ohio needs to get a clue. I think of my Mom’s family, lived down near that “Silver Bridge” that collapsed in December 67. Hardly had a pot to pee in but kept voting for a party that wasn’t interested in changing that for them and others in a similar situation.

[BumRushDaShow]

5. The results of the Chesco & Delco County Commisoner/Council races

were reaffirming 2 new (D) Congressional seats in those counties that were won in the 2018 election. The 3rd (D) seat should have been the one that is in Bucksco (with Brian Fitzpatrick), that barely remained (R) in 2018... just barely. Meaning that (PA-1) is definitely a potential for a pickup in 2020.

These locations represent the rim suburbs (commuting area) of Philly.



ETA - 2018 election map/party -

?1519669587

[DeminPennswoods]

7. I am most amazed at the change in Chester County

That is rock-ribbed Republican, old money, horse country. To see it move so far into the Dem column is still stunning to me. I think Lancaster County is next to go this route, too. If it does, that will be the death knell for the state GOP.

[BumRushDaShow]

10. I had been shocked by them too however

it's possible that because many of them were old-money "Rockefeller Republicans", what the GOP has devolved into, may have made the difference in their voting habits, particularly if there were Democrats (who were more moderate) who were convincing enough for them.

If anything, this was an anti-Drumpf vote.

With respect to Lancaster County - during the 2016 election, the GOP was heavily campaigning there and there were articles showing the big billboards with a horse and buggy (paid for by "Amish PAC" ) -



As I understand, they were going to try that again (despite the fact that most of them there who were registered, didn't vote in 2016, let alone for him)... but as they say, every vote could count. https://www.post-gazette.com/news/politics-state/2019/08/26/amish-trump-lancaster-county-2020-election-pennsylvania-republican/stories/201906110071

[woodsprite]

8. As a New Castle Co., DE resident, I am very pleased about Chesco and Delco!

It'd be awesome if that 'Blue Wave' would just wash down our state and add a little bluing to Kent and Sussex counties.

[BumRushDaShow]

11. I agree

Central & southern DE needs some serious (D) lovin'.

[woodsprite]

14. Yeah, I'd definitely feel safer. nt

[DeminPennswoods]

6. Pat Toomey should be worried

He's not up again until 2022, but eastern PA is his home base. If the speculation that LtGov Fetterman plans to run for Senate in 2022 and not governor turns out to be right, makes it that much tougher. Western PA voters tend to vote for "western" candidates. Fetterman was the long time mayor of Braddock, so he's qualifies on that count and will cut into whatever republican support Toomey has here.

[Cosmocat]

9. Darn straight

Why I have been a Fetterman backer, be it Governor or senate, he is going to be a really strong statewide candidate.

[DeminPennswoods]

21. Yes, Fetterman will be a formidable opponent

My favorite 2018 campaign ad is still the online video of Gov Wolf taking Fetterman tie shopping. LOL!

[bucolic_frolic]

19. Toomey is an ideological nutjob

He sends replies to letters, but they never in my experience address the subject, just lay out extreme policy positions and tell you you're wrong. Doesn't even try to nuance.

[Dopers_Greed]

16. Funny

Considering that Chris Cillizza was trying to spin the election results as somehow "good for McConnell".

[lagomorph777]

17. What a twit. Moscow Mitch is in HUGE trouble now.

KY is going to slide him out, just like his pal Bevin.

[Hortensis]

18. Very interesting discussions, PA watchers. Thanks.

Remembering that the Repubs have been winning dramatically against the odds by micro identifying and targeting precincts that can swing whole swing states.

The beginning of their run, of course, was managing to "win" the national census and state and local redistricting for a decade by surgically strategic wins. What's looking like the end of that dreadful era will hopefully be timing as inadvertently bad as that was good and thus as strategically disastrous.

[JAD]

20. I canvass for the Democratic Party in Chester County

....and have found many reasonable Republicans. They are sick of trump and his enablers. This victory for the Democratic Party in Chester County is no outlier. I have lived in Chester County all my life and because my family has lived here for centuries the till death Republican locals have admitted to me, in private, the Party of Lincoln is dead!