SC-SEN 2022: Could Joe Cunningham make this race competitive?

[Calthrina950]

The best Cunningham could do would be to lose to Scott by "only" 10%-the same margin that Jaime Harrison lost by to Lindsey Graham. More realistically, I think he would lose to Scott by closer to 15-20%, as Scott still has a significant amount of crossover appeal in Charleston, Greenville, and Richland Counties, and tends to do marginally better with black voters. Regardless of whether the margin is 10% or 20%, this race is Safe R.

[Calthrina950]

I’ll be voting third party or writing in.

He seems set on running for governor,  which I think he’ll lose by a slightly smaller margin than normal, though if HR1 passes and causes SC-1 to be redrawn he may run there. I think the reason he’s not doing it this time for sure is that he doesn’t think he could flip it back in it’s current form.

Looks like I might be right on this.

Do you think it is plausible that Scott gets over 60% again? Given his general popularity and the extreme weakness of his Democratic opponent, I believe that it could happen. Matthews could sink almost to the levels that Alvin Greene reached in 2010. 

[Calthrina950]

I’ll be voting third party or writing in.

He seems set on running for governor,  which I think he’ll lose by a slightly smaller margin than normal, though if HR1 passes and causes SC-1 to be redrawn he may run there. I think the reason he’s not doing it this time for sure is that he doesn’t think he could flip it back in it’s current form.

Looks like I might be right on this.

Do you think it is plausible that Scott gets over 60% again? Given his general popularity and the extreme weakness of his Democratic opponent, I believe that it could happen. Matthews could sink almost to the levels that Alvin Greene reached in 2010.  

I could see him getting close but America has just become far more polarized since then. Contrary to popular belief, Scott really didn't do particularly amazing with the African American vote and his heavy overperformances of Trump were in the metro areas of the state. A lot of these overperformances were like 30% + relative to Trump 202 so those will be very difficult if not impossible for him to replicate, and it'll be hard to make up for those losses with significant rural gains over Trump where he basically ran even.

So perhaps we might see a result of ~58-35-7% or something along those lines? It would represent slippage for Scott from 2016 but would still be a better performance than either Graham or Trump in 2020, and better than what McMaster will manage. I believe McMaster will beat Cunningham ~53-45%.

[Calthrina950]

Elsewhere I called Franken the worst Democratic nominee of the cycle, but I forgot about Matthews.

I wonder if Scott might be able to break 60% this year, like he did in 2014 and 2016. I doubt it, and I'm thinking he's probably going to get in the upper 50s.