Special Election megathread (6/25: CO-4)

[SaintStan86]

Considering how close Nick Begich III came to winning this (and also had the support of the official Alaska GOP as well as the state chapters of Americans for Prosperity and FreedomWorks, various Young Republican groups, the CURRENT Mayor of Wasilla and even reportedly Palin's ex-in laws), I wouldn't be shocked if voters gave him a second look after this result. For what it's worth, Sarah Palin is now effectively what many of her detractors say she is: nothing more than a question to a Jeopardy! answer. Will be curious if Sargent Shriver would have been a better candidate than Gerry Studds in 1972 had he chosen to run there in the heart of Kennedy Country (as opposed to what he obviously accepted in running for Vice President alongside George McGovern)...

Also, I wouldn't be shocked if this result draws comparisons to what happened in HI-01 in the 2010 cycle, when a Republican named Charles Djou won a special election, only to lose to Colleen Hanabusa in what turned out to be a blockbuster 2010 midterm for the GOP. Then again, many thought Gary Peters would have been left for dead that year, and he eventually got reelected, then again in 2012, and then won a Senate term in 2014 and again by an even closer margin in 2020 in Michigan.

[SaintStan86]

Yes we all know the race for NJ-10 is going to be closely watched by Blexit diehards to see how many Black Democrats switch to the GOP to vote for Carmen Bucco...

Except his bid was over before it even got started, because we all know whichever Democrat wins the primary in July (likely LaMonica McIver) will have measured the drapes long before the September special election, let alone November the 5th. Not very many folks care about Blexit anyway, considering its lead champion has since disgraced herself amongst many conservatives over her spat with Ben Shapiro.

[SaintStan86]

When comparing CO-04 to OH-06, I think there are some takeaways in each district that can foretell the future, especially after November the 5th regardless of who the President will be, and with some odes to two iconic ABC sitcoms.

With OH-06, you have a lot of ancestrally Dem working class areas that largely do not subscribe to conservative economic viewpoints, but largely went Republican because the Democrats abandoned the working class wholesale. These are your typical Roseanne voters, your lunch pail Democrats who are Obama-Trump "pivot voters" and will be voting for Sherrod Brown in November, but who voted for Kripchak despite the race essentially being Rulli's to lose.

It is also important to note that Rulli's underperformance relative to Trump was much smaller in the more urban Youngstown portion of his district (where you have a lot of suburban areas like Canfield and Boardman) that he served in the Ohio Senate as opposed to the more downriver rural areas that moved strongly towards Kripchak. Give or take, it is a special election and the result will likely be different, but while there are a number of voters in OH-06 that won't be going back to the Democrats soon, they aren't necessarily becoming Republicans either and likely would be less inclined to favor a Republican in 2028, whether it's DeSantis or even favorite son Vance. Which is why, should DeSantis- and Rand Paul-style Freedom Caucus Republicans more interested in the Constitution and the Club for Growth than the "culture wars" gain the upper hand in Republican primaries in 2026 and 2028, these areas might or might not be in danger of trending leftward depending on the direction of the Dems (do we go more Roseanne, more AOC, or more (insert name of random soccer mom who has Joy Behar's brain infused into her veins via in IV)?

Likewise, in CO-04, you have a sizable number of areas that shifted Dem in the Trump era - particularly in suburban Douglas County to the southwest and parts of Larimer and Weld counties to the northwest. This is where you have your typical real-life Modern Family voters with the aspirational but goofy parents and their two or three kids, is where the growth is happening in the state, and which trended a lot towards the Dems because they were turned off by Trump's "culture war" preening because his mouth was his own worst enemy and because he and the Republican Congress couldn't deliver on the principles that mattered to a lot of suburban areas where they expect whatever hard-earned money they didn't send to the tax man to not be wasted on Republicans "doing nothing" (in Chip Roy's words). On top of depressed (mostly young) suburban voters who otherwise would be drawn to the GOP like they were in the 2010 and 2014 midterms before that golden escalator ride, you also have a lot of (mostly older) Liz Cheney fanboys who yearn for the days of when Bill Kristol and the Neocon Playboys ruled the roost in the GOP and are fed a pureed meal of Morning Joe every morning, especially unsurprising considering this district partially borders Wyoming. And that's not even counting the tech bros and California transplants who vote Republican on economics but are as socially liberal as you'd expect from many of them, overflowing from the nearby CO-06...which adds more intrigue to these growing and rather perilous western ends of the district, for which the beet, beet red rural eastern Colorado portion is largely irrelevant.

What is interesting here is that given Greg Lopez's numbers here tonight, whatever Dem overperformance exists here barely registers, and if these numbers hold up, whatever feelings a lot of voters in the two western prongs of the CO-04 barbeque tong may now be somehow muted now that COVID has faded into oblivion and Biden's economic package isn't exactly all it's cracked up to be in the voters' minds. Trisha Calvarese couldn't even clear the bar earlier tonight against Ike McCorkle's well-funded blue machine, and the bigger question may be "Can Trisha unite Team Blue in November?", regardless of whether or not Boebert can unite the 50-60 percent of voters who didn't vote for her tonight in the primary. May as well bring up the "Roe card" and the "democracy card" to whip Trump skeptics back in line for them...

It may also be dependent on what direction the Colorado GOP goes in after November the 5th, especially now that the embattled Dave Williams just got blown out next door in CO-05 in an election where Trump's proven theory - halfway proven in Virginia two weeks ago - may now be in jeopardy given Jeff Crank blew out Williams (and also given that Mark Burns barely got edged out in a South Carolina district many, many miles away), since it's obvious Colorado has the worst state GOP in the country right now. By that logic, and CO-03 also soundly rejecting Ron Hanks despite the Democrats' best efforts to buy that election, there just may be hope in Colorado this year for the GOP, if not after the Trump era is over for which the GOP hopes in the suburbs might be a little better not just in Douglas, but also in the core counties of Arapahoe, Adams and Jefferson that haven't exactly been competitive for Republicans for almost a decade if not since the halcyon days of Bill Owens, Tom Tancredo and Bob Beauprez. (The rural remainder of CO-04 will be just fine, as it's as monopolistically Republican as it's ever been all these decades.)

And for the record, I still think the way the Colorado GOP treated Eli Bremer with the nomination process in 2022 was absolute horse****, and that Bremer would have been a fine representative for CO-05.

[SaintStan86]

Once again, I think it is premature on Tekken's part to imply that the GOP can do no better than they are now in CO-04, and also for PP to somehow imply that Colorado will eventually have an 8-0 delegation. CO-03 and CO-05, it's fair to say, have a greater chance of staying Republican over the long term, and even in that case I don't see a situation where CO-04 will fall down that rabbit hole - as if the numbers in wealthy suburban Douglas County are the most the GOP can muster down the road. As long as the Colorado GOP is in the sorry state it's in, it's fair to say CO-04 could be in play as well as the other two. Once the Colorado GOP gets ACTUAL leadership that believes in their grassroots AND in their donors spending their hard earned money to ensure quality conservative candidates, things could very well change to where CO-08 makes it even, or even a situation where CO-06 and CO-07 could potentially flip on the backs of second-generation young families and middle-class Hispanics (just like what happened in Texas and Florida).

Nevermind the likelihood that AFTER November the 5th, many of the wealthier suburban areas - particularly those with McMansions and families with 2-4 kids donning the likes of North Face jackets and (insert random frat boy polo brand) and watching college football on the weekends - will likely be taking a 5-10 point swing back towards the GOP after Trump is no longer a candidate on the ballot. DeSantis and Vance likely have staying power after the party ceases to be Trump's, and it's a given those two and many others are not going to have the sort of baggage that Boebert let alone the oomph has that would turn off a lot of voters. It's also important to note that if not for Trump's bluster + COVID, many of these suburban areas likely would have registered numbers for the GOP that are somewhat lower than the 2014 midterms but definitely higher than the 2018 ones. By that logic, Trump would have been reelected, and instead of the conversation revolving around how the GOP lost suburban America, the conversation would instead be fixated squarely on how the Democrats abandoned working class and Hispanic voters. And as long as the Dems continue to think that going down the AOC rabbit hole is going to net them wins on the national stage, the GOP could very well taking more than just Roseanne and Dan - they could be taking their oversized bathtub as well!

For what it's worth, if Michael Kripchak gets the kinds of numbers he got recently in OH-06 in November, there's a roadmap Dems can use to try to win back some of the lost votes in the rural Midwest.

Meanwhile, what about NJ-10 in the actual backyards of Tekken and PP?