Dems Lose Five For Five Open Seats

[Mountain Man]

Trump and Putin share three out of five letters in their last name. Wake up, people!

[Sparko]

Trump and Putin share three out of five letters in their last name. Wake up, people!

and if you spell it Drumpf then it sounds like Trump is Hitler!! Who was Russian!

[Teallaura]

A disappointment for democrats, but not a big deal. Dems were not expected to win any of those redder than red districts in a special election in the first place, if they did win it would have been an anomaly and a big deal, they didn't pullit off, but they came much closer in all of them than anyone expected they would from the get go. All it shows really is that the dems have made inroads, but not enough to overcome bright red districts. I wouldn't be jumping for joy over the results if I were republican, they won but they won by much smaller margins in what were extremely red districts.

Why is it odd that they lost elections that had been held by republicans for decades and that they were expected to lose?

So what?

You argued that the Dems had expected those losses - it has been shown that they did not expect to lose all five races.

[rogue06]

Nope, not at all. As I said, its a disappointment, would have been an anomally, and a great win had the dems pulled it off, but that they cut 16% from the vote margin of the 2016 republican win, is encouraging.

You don't throw $30 million at something you don't think you are likely to win unless you think the Democrats have completely lost... their... minds. Um, forget I mentioned it.

[rogue06]

Nope, not at all. As I said, its a disappointment, would have been an anomally, and a great win had the dems pulled it off, but that they cut 16% from the vote margin of the 2016 republican win, is encouraging.

Price was very popular and well liked and Handel has the charisma of a wet dish rag yet she still managed to nearly triple the margin that Trump carried the district by.

[JimL]

You don't throw $30 million at something you don't think you are likely to win unless you think the Democrats have completely lost... their... minds. Um, forget I mentioned it.

Actually The RNC spent nearly twice that, 12 million, than that of the Democrats who spent only 6.7 million, the rest came from private donations.

[rogue06]

Actually The RNC spent nearly twice that, 12 million, than that of the Democrats who spent only 6.7 million, the rest came from private donations.

Actually the RNC spent $6.2 million through the National Republican Congressional Committee and the DNC spent $5 million through the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee.

Now for a laugh: Jon Ossoff spent six times more than Karen Handel but complains about 'money in politics'

[JimL]

Actually the RNC spent $6.2 million through the National Republican Congressional Committee and the DNC spent $5 million through the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee.

Now for a laugh: Jon Ossoff spent six times more than Karen Handel but complains about 'money in politics'

Thats an even worse argument in support of your claim that the Democrats wouldn't spend that much money if they didn't expect to win. The DNC spent less than the RNC.

[Terraceth]

Dems Lose Five For Five Open Seats

Not really accurate. As the second link indicates, this requires counting the Georgia election as two elections because of the runoff voting, which seems a bit shady. Not only that, it also completely ignores the fact Democrats won the special election for the house in California. Really, Democrats have lost four for five, not five for five.

I don't think any of these results mean much, though. Georgia, Kansas, Montana, and South Carolina are all red states where Republicans won the special election. California is a blue state where a Democrat won. All of these are business as usual.

[Tassman]

Here's CNN's reaction...

http://www.breitbart.com/big-journal...-the-election/

Uh, this is the Alt-Right Breitbart's "reaction" to CNN, which is not quite the same thing. And it in no way alters the fact that it was a very close race in a traditionally Republican district. Nor does it alter the fact that the Gallup Presidential Approval Ratings has Donald Trump at 38%. (Average for U.S. presidents: 53% - a figure Trump has yet to reach). So I wouldn't start crowing just yet.

[Mountain Man]

Uh, this is the Alt-Right Breitbart's "reaction" to CNN, which is not quite the same thing. And it in no way alters the fact that it was a very close race in a traditionally Republican district. Nor does it alter the fact that the Gallup Presidential Approval Ratings has Donald Trump at 38%. (Average for U.S. presidents: 53% - a figure Trump has yet to reach). So I wouldn't start crowing just yet.

It's obvious you didn't read the article. There was even a link to the video of the moment when the CNN panel become despondent over the fact that Ossoff lost. You don't have to take Breitbart's word for it if you don't want to, you can go to the original source.

And the race was close only because Ossoff outspent Handel by a significant margin - the most expensive congressional bid in US history, - and riding a supposed wave of anti-Trump sentiment, and the Democrats STILL couldn't get the job done. Not to mention that Handel won the district by a larger margin then Trump did in 2016, so the numbers are moving in the wrong direction for the Democrats despite their heroic efforts to gin up momentum.

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(TIME.com) "Not only did Republican Karen Handel survive any anti-Trump sentiment among voters — she actually outperformed him in the district. With all 208 precincts reporting, Handel won with 51.87% of the vote in the head-to-head contest. A TIME analysis of the 2016 election results in those exact same precincts found that Trump only captured 50.44% of the vote to Hillary Clinton's 49.56% when one discounts third-party candidates and write-ins. (Some election counters put Trump's margin of victory in the district at closer to 1.5 points, which is likely due to discrepancies in which precincts were open Tuesday. That margin is still less than half of Handel's 3.7 point lead.)"

http://time.com/4826293/georgia-elec...en-handel-map/

[Mountain Man]

And speaking of polling, the polls had Ossoff winning easily. I don't believe the presidential approval polls are any more credible.

[JimL]

It's obvious you didn't read the article. There was even a link to the video of the moment when the CNN panel become despondent over the fact that Ossoff lost. You don't have to take Breitbart's word for it if you don't want to, you can go to the original source.

And the race was close only because Ossoff outspent Handel by a significant margin - the most expensive congressional bid in US history, - and riding a supposed wave of anti-Trump sentiment, and the Democrats STILL couldn't get the job done. Not to mention that Handel won the district by a larger margin then Trump did in 2016, so the numbers are moving in the wrong direction for the Democrats despite their heroic efforts to gin up momentum.

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(TIME.com) "Not only did Republican Karen Handel survive any anti-Trump sentiment among voters — she actually outperformed him in the district. With all 208 precincts reporting, Handel won with 51.87% of the vote in the head-to-head contest. A TIME analysis of the 2016 election results in those exact same precincts found that Trump only captured 50.44% of the vote to Hillary Clinton's 49.56% when one discounts third-party candidates and write-ins. (Some election counters put Trump's margin of victory in the district at closer to 1.5 points, which is likely due to discrepancies in which precincts were open Tuesday. That margin is still less than half of Handel's 3.7 point lead.)"

http://time.com/4826293/georgia-elec...en-handel-map/

Calm yourself MM, its a reliable republican district and has been for decades. Had Ossoff won, it would have been huge for that reason. Don't forget, there were 3 special elections after Obama was elected as well and democrats won them all, and then they got massacred across the country in the next elections. Republicans should be more concerned about their smaller margins of victory than they should be celebrating the win.

[Meh Gerbil]

If things go well the Democrats will never win another election.
Soon, we'll be able to hunt them for sport.

sarah_palin_alaska_3.jpg

[rogue06]

Thats an even worse argument in support of your claim that the Democrats wouldn't spend that much money if they didn't expect to win. The DNC spent less than the RNC.

So you acknowledge that your claim that the Republican Party spent nearly twice as much as the Democrats was full of hot air? And while the Democrat Party itself didn't spend six times as much on Ossoff, their donors sure did. They poured money into the race at record levels -- 97% of Ossoff's money came from outside of Georgia with the majority coming from California (primarily the Bay Area -- Pelosi's stomping grounds) and New York.

Further Handel nearly tripled the margin of victory of what Trump took the district by in spite of being outspent 6 to 1.