(08-08-2018 09:56 AM)bullet Wrote: Pessimistic Republican view of the results.
American Greatness is an unbashed pro-Trump website.
https://amgreatness.com/2018/08/07/ohio-...t-winning/
Republicans and Trump supporters needed some good political news, and they got it Tuesday night in the special election for Ohio’s 12th Congressional District.
"Republican Troy Balderson’s narrow, one-point win doesn’t mean a “red wave” is swelling. Instead, the results contain both good and troubling news for President Trump and his party. Rather than setting the GOP at ease, these results should serve as a wake-up call to improve their focus on swing voters before the November elections....
It might be troubling for many Republican leaders to hear this, but it appears these voters <Romney/Clinton> are lost to the GOP in most races this year. The booming economy might be attracting yet another group of voters, those who voted for Romney and either Gary Johnson or Evan McMullin, to stay with the party. But there is no evidence that this, the tax cuts, or any other policy measure yet devised can overcome the antipathy many of the Romney/Clinton voters feel for the president.
Ultimately, enough of these voters have to be won back if a new Republican Party is to become the clear majority party. But that won’t happen this year, and the party needs to plan accordingly.
What should trouble the party more than this drag on their numbers is the apparent weakness Republican candidates have among the Obama/Trump voters....
Restricting immigration is part of that appeal, but only a part. Trump won these voters’ loyalty because he showed them he cared about their lives, their aspirations, and their role in building America. That means talking about a lot of things many Republicans prefer to avoid...."
While most of that post is simple partisan hackery.
There's actually something in this far right wing analysis I agree with.
Romney/Clinton voters are staying with the Dems. While I generally agree with his analysis of Obama/Trump voters, I think you can divide them into 2 groups.
1) Obama/Trump voters (blue collar). They appear to be sticking with Trump but are doing so at a far lower level of voter participation. Saccone and Moore got the percentages out of these groups they needed to win, but NOT the participation rate.
2) Obama/Trump voters (white collar). They appear to be sticking around in some cases. This was the case of a largely "Country Club" Republican running with the endorsement of a very popular and very moderate Republican Governor. In Arizona they bailed. In Alabama they bailed. In Pennsylvania they bailed. In Montana, Ohio, and Georgia, they didn't. I think this was simply the result of the GOP putting up the correct candidate. Balderson barely won his primary. That other candidate would have probably lost by 5 points.
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I think that's why you see the Trump rallies. The GOP knows its driving up Dem participation and probably making Obama/Trump voters uncomfortable, but the problem they have that if the Blue Collar Trump voters don't vote in high percentages, they can't win because they've lost so much elsewhere and the Dems are so much more motivated. I think we will see a lot of the Hollering Mob Show in the next 3 months.
I'd also like to add, that no one has really polled the Romney/Johnson and Obama/Johnson voters. I suspect virtually all Obama/Johnson voters are Dems this year, and that probably at least half of the Romney/Johnson voters are too (but I suspect a LOT of them are just non-voters right now)
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I think that's the GOP's problem. They're going to have trouble winning with blue collar GOP turnout low. But it seems that the only thing that they have to give them is a circus.
They also cannot afford a lower turnout from the white collar Obama/Trump voters either. But because the big issue with Trump's 'coalition' is voter participation in blue collar areas, the GOP is not messaging this group much.
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