Gee, it turns out that appealing to Republicans is not the sure road to successthat establishment Democrats and some Democratic presidential candidates (hint: one rhymes with Ride Em) think it is.
Rachel Bitecofer’s prediction on the 2018 “blue wave” was “numerically close to perfect,” writes Paul Rosenberg in an interview for Salon. The assistant director of the Judy Ford Wason Center for Public Policy at Christopher Newport University in Newport News, Virginia estimated Democrats would gain 42 seats. The do-over election in NC-9 scheduled for September 10 could make Democrats’ final count 41. On August 6, Bitcofer released a preliminary list of 18 House seats that with the right campaigns Democrats could pick up in 2020.
Her explanation for the size of the tsunami contrasts with conventional wisdom still on display among Democrats in Washington.
Bitecofer tells Salon, “I don’t know why Nancy Pelosi, the DCCC or many of these moderate members are convinced that moderate Republicans crossed over and voted for them. I have the data for some of these districts and the data tells a very different, very clear story: If Republicans voted in huge numbers, they voted for Republicans.”
And Republicans did turn out in large numbers. Turnout among Democrats and independents was simply higher. What made them turn out was not health care, but negative partisanship. It was Trump, Inc. By Bitecofer’s reckoning, not understanding the effects of that on turnout may have cost Democrats an additional half dozen seats they may have successfully contested in 2018.
Who would have thunk it?
According to Biden and the establishment Democrats, the way to turn out those folks is by selling yourself as Republican-lite. That ought to do the trick.
Post a Comment