Curious. As things stand the 3 Dem Govs who pushed hardest for Gun Safety...

[Tom Rinaldo]

are all being reelected during a strong Republican Wave election. Cuomo in New York is a done deal, Hickenlooper in Colorado is clinging to a lead and did far better in his race than Udall did in his bid to be reelected to the Senate, and Malloy in Connecticut now seems likely to win there by a bigger margin (though still very small) than he did in his last match up against the same Republican opponent. This in a year that saw Republicans flip the Governorship to their side in Blue States like Massachusettes and Maryland.

[earthside]

1. However, in Colorado ...

... Democrats have lost control of the state senate.
The guns laws are responsible for that.

Beauprez is just a rotten guy ... that's why Gov. Hickenlooper won (because Hickelooper ran a terrible campaign like Udall, too).

[Tom Rinaldo]

3. Just speculation here but...

I think a group like the NRA can bring greater pressure to bear on smaller district units than they can on a state wide race. They can flood the zone in a small district with advertizing, and look for the most vulnerable seats to flip. Things even out more on a state wide basis, with a candidate running state wide being able to win greater support from urban areas for example to offset some loss of rural voters because of their stance on gun safety.

[BlueStater]

4. So Udall partly lost because he didn't want to see more little kids get their faces blown off.

What a country.

[GGJohn]

6. No, Udall lost because he ran a lousy campaign.

[BlueStater]

7. That's why I said "partly". n/t

[GGJohn]

8. Yes you did.

But Udall wasn't involved in the CO gun law fiasco, he just got tied to it because he's from CO.

[earthside]

10. He didn't say anything about it at all.

Like every other important issue ... except birth control.

Udall didn't go down swinging on anything.

He didn't run on our improved economy.
He didn't run on the ACA.
He didn't run on the end of two wars.
He didn't run on the deficit cut in half.
He didn't run on a 17,000 Dow.
He barely talked about the environment since he was so afraid of the Keystone pipeline.

So, who knows what Mark really thought about Colorado's gun safety legislation.
You can't even really say, therefore, that he "partly lost because he didn't want to see more little kids get their faces blown off."

If you can't tell, I'm pretty unhappy about our cowardly Democrats running for office this year in Colorado.

[JonLP24]

11. Recently I came across some press regarding

criticism for focusing only on the issue of abortion to the point where it was portrayed as the only thing he talked about but not at all familiar with the details. (I see a lot headlines but only click on a fraction of the links)

[Bjorn Against]

2. Look at the ballot initiatives in WA

The gun control initiative won by a huge margin, while the competing NRA backed initiative lost by a huge margin. Those who continue to try to claim that we lose elections by fighting the NRA are wrong, even in a year that was bad for Democrats overall those who stood up to the NRA won.

[GGJohn]

5. Hickenlooper backed away from the gun control bills he signed,

that could be one of the reasons he's ekeing out a victory, but the CO legislature has fallen to a Repub. majority and the gun issue is a big part of it.

NY has always been pro gun control as is CT.

[hack89]

9. Considering NY and CT have always had strong gun control laws, not a surprise

doesn't necessary reflect widespread national support for strong gun control laws - they were outliers to start with.

[Lurks Often]

12. Be careful about what you think the take aways from those three states are

Last edited Wed Nov 5, 2014, 02:48 PM - Edit history (1)

The NY race was never in question, NYC and it's suburbs are the tail that wags the dog. Upstate NY is red outside of some of the cities.

The reason CO race is even close is probably due to the gun control laws that were passed, keep in mind the Democrats in CO lost control of the state senate.

As for the CT race, Visconti ran mostly on repealing the gun control measures that CT passed, if his supporters had used their brains just a little and switched their support to Foley when Visconti dropped out, Foley would have given his acceptance speech already. Per the link there are only 369 votes between Malloy & Foley and 21.3 % of the precincts still out

http://elections.courant.com/results/national/?st=CT