PA-SN 2022 megathread: Shrek vs. The Wizard of Oz

[MT Treasurer]

Yes, it’s pretty much a given that any D nominee here will vastly outspend whoever the Republicans put up, but we’ve also seen that there are obvious limits as to how far that can get you, especially in what is likely to be a more unfavorable environment for Democrats than 2020. Costello’s not going to win the primary, nor do we need a 'centrist' Republican to hold this seat if the messaging + rhetoric are right/the campaign is conducted competently. Toss-up with any Democrat, but Tilt R for now.

[MT Treasurer]

Boring take: Unless Republicans nominate a complete disaster of a candidate, this will quickly turn into a generic R vs. generic D vote, regardless of whether Democrats nominate Lamb, Cartwright, or Fetterman. (1) What’s Biden's approval on election day? (2) How high is R turnout in rural/small-town PA? And there you have your winner. It’s more likely than not that the Democratic candidate for SEN slightly outperforms Biden's approval %, but it won’t be by more than 1-2% (granted, that could be enough in a very close race). Tilt R for now.

[MT Treasurer]

Boring take: Unless Republicans nominate a complete disaster of a candidate, this will quickly turn into a generic R vs. generic D vote, regardless of whether Democrats nominate Lamb, Cartwright, or Fetterman. (1) What’s Biden's approval on election day? (2) How high is R turnout in rural/small-town PA? And there you have your winner. It’s more likely than not that the Democratic candidate for SEN slightly outperforms Biden's approval %, but it won’t be by more than 1-2% (granted, that could be enough in a very close race). Tilt R for now.

No, John Fetterman or Matt Cartwright would do better among the working-class in western or northeastern PA, while Conor Lamb or generic Phili D would do better among educated voters in the Phili suburbs.

K.

[MT Treasurer]

I still think there’s a slight but by no means non-negligible chance of a scenario in which NC becomes the best pick-up opportunity for Democrats or at least votes slightly to the left of PA/WI. I generally agree that Democrats are unlikely to hold a 100-member Senate if they can’t flip even one of PA/WI/NC, though. The more this particular race morphs into Generic R vs. Generic D contest, the worse Democratic prospects become.

[MT Treasurer]

I get that some people seem to think the Democratic primary is all that matters in this race (this race seems to be the new poster child for Atlas' "Democratic candidate quality matters, all Republican candidates are clowns" shtick), but no Republican will be "toast" in a general election for federal office in PA in 2022, please get real.

[MT Treasurer]

I get that some people seem to think the Democratic primary is all that matters in this race (this race seems to be the new poster child for Atlas' "Democratic candidate quality matters, all Republican candidates are clowns" shtick), but no Republican will be "toast" in a general election for federal office in PA in 2022, please get real.

If they nominate some generic Trumpist who wins after a divided primary in which all the other Trumpists eat each other and question each other's loyalty to the former President? Uh, it's not gonna be easy. It didn't work for Scott Wagner in 2018 and he won the primary without the kind of competition that we're going to see in this Senate primary. Wolf won by 17%. I get it's a Biden midterm this time around, but if the Republicans don't run someone worth voting for, people are not going to turn out without Trump's name on the ballot. "Toast" might be too harsh, but it's an uphill battle for a loser like Parnell or Barnette or even Bartos. Their best chance is nominating a Trump ally in Congress who's at least interesting and has a record to run on like Reschenthaler or Meuser, both of whom scare the sh*t out of me as a Democrat.

1) People don’t turn out in midterm elections because of a desire to vote for one particular candidate in one particular race. Running an "inspiring" candidate for a high-profile office does help the out-of-power party in articulating/reinforcing their message, but attitudes toward the current administration & cyclical dynamics will almost always trump any affinity for a particular candidate as an incentive to turn out in such elections. "Inspiring" is also an inherently subjective term — I may deem a Republican inspiring, but you all may not agree!

2) I get that Democrats are counting on R voters not turning out in 2022 because "Trump’s name [is not] on the ballot," but boy, I wouldn’t want to trade places with you guys there.

3) There have been plenty of candidates who emerged from a divisive primary who went on to win a general election, including in the great Commonwealth of Pennsylvania. This isn’t the obstacle people are making it out to be (interestingly only on the R side, I wonder why....).

4) Scott Wagner lost because he was facing a fairly uncontroversial/popular-ish governor in a massive Democratic wave year. He might not have been the best candidate (and 2018 was indeed a pathetic performance by the PA GOP across the board), but a stronger campaign wouldn’t have made a difference in terms of the binary outcome.

5) After two years of a Democratic trifecta, the center of political gravity (in both primary & general elections) may, just may, not revolve around Donald Trump anymore. Granted, if 2022 somehow developed into a referendum on Donald Trump instead of Joe Biden & this Democratic trifecta, I’d be less bearish on D chances as well, but my suspicion is that it won’t.

[MT Treasurer]

Costello is leaning against running.

What really is the R bench here?

Costello was never part of the serious R bench in this state, even if it had been completely depleted. Possibly one of the worst possible statewide candidate for PA culturally/ideologically (not Charlie Dent-tier bad, but pretty close), and (this should be blatantly obvious) never would have made through a R primary. 

I also think concerns about the GOP "bench" in these Senate races (including PA, but also AZ/NV) are quite overblown in general. The size of the state's population allows for plenty of R options, particularly but not exclusively among the Representatives. I might be wrong, but you’re also likely to see no shortage of private-sector Republican candidates with no political background emerge in several House/Senate races. It’s just incredibly early in the cycle.

[MT Treasurer]

That’s a lame announcement video, certainly not indicative of a candidate who’s likely to attract a ton of crossover appeal. Much like the R field for OH-SEN, I find the Democrats' bench here (especially Lamb, but also Fetterman) to be fairly unimpressive/overrated, especially given how dominant the two parties have been in their respective states (at the local level, at least). Really think the margins in both races (and most other competitive races, to be fair) will be near-identical to Biden's approval-disapproval spread.

Overall, I think Democrats are being overrated in PA and AZ, slightly underrated in WI and NC, definitely underrated in GA, and somehow both over- and underrated in NH. Don’t even get me started on NV.

[MT Treasurer]

It’s reminding me of when Jon Ossoff announced. He might be “bland” to hyper partisans on Atlas but regular folks will eat his schtick up. He’s inoffensive to white people and is the exact type of white candidate old Black folks love. And when he’s in office he will vote like a mainstream Democrat and will never be the deciding vote that kills any Dem legislation. I’m here for it.

Ossoff underperformed Biden by 2 points in the first round, was saved by a runoff rule which does not apply to PA elections, ran in a state zooming leftward in which any Democratic statewide will be competitive regardless of the environment, and could count on a much, much more diverse electorate than Democrats in PA, who are still very reliant on holding their own in certain non-metropolitan regions. He also ran on enabling certain (select and popular) parts of the D agenda like stimulus checks, good luck with that after two years of complete Democratic control in Washington.

Ossoff being an "inoffensive white male" was never the reason he won that election—see: Warnock, Raphael winning by an even wider margin on the same day (even if it was against a 'weaker opponent'). Lamb running on "saving American democracy" in his first announcement video isn’t exactly the sign of an inoffensive white male who won’t activate partisan identity by enraging/vilifying the other side and completely nationalizing the race...

[MT Treasurer]

How much longer are people going to have the “electability” argument and why their candidate is the most electable? Electability isn’t a set characteristic like some sort of video game trait. It’s a process and depends partially on the ability of a candidate to understand the environment and electorate and partially blind luck.

Case in point - the conventional wisdom about Ossoff/Warnock months before the election:

I haven't paid too much attention to the Georgia races, but is it fair to say Dems totally bombed recruiting here? Ossoff and some random pastor? Yikes.

Dem recruiting for both GA seats has been quite disappointing

Agreed. I think it's very telling that no remotely decent candidates decided to run for this seat. Ditto with Iowa and Texas.

I mean... who did GA have besides Abrams, McBath, and maybe Carter?

those 3 would be better than ossoff/tomlinson/warnock

The runoff turned both into strong candidates™.

[MT Treasurer]

IMO John Fetterman, Don Bolduc, Catherine Cortez Masto, Larry Hogan, Mark Kelly, Phil Scott, Mandela Barnes, Tim Ryan, Tiffany Smiley, and Abby Finkenauer are all going to win simultaneously.

[MT Treasurer]

Can’t wait until Dr. Oz wins the GE by more than the "reasonable", "centrist", "bipartisan", well-mannered old-school Republican Pat Toomey — this would be even more hilarious than Toomey underperforming the "unelectable extremist" Ron Johnson in 2016.

However, even if this happens, people will keep clinging to their "we need uncontroversial moderates to win in tough seats" theories because if there’s one thing that’s been made abundantly clear in the last few years, it’s that people refuse to learn no matter what.

[MT Treasurer]

I don’t think Democrats were ever going to win this race because of the "candidate quality" of the D field, especially in this environment — Fetterman likely has a lower floor than Lamb and is more likely to underperform generic D, but at the end of the day Republicans would need to nominate a seriously flawed candidate and inept campaigner to lose to any Democrat here, which is still very much possible, arguably more so in PA than in any other swing state race. Republicans may get away with a scare if they nominate a joke candidate in OH, but PA isn’t red enough for the GOP to rest easy with someone like Oz.

I have this rated as a (cautious) Lean R, like AZ and NV. Both parties likely need to win two of those three to win the Senate.

[MT Treasurer]

https://twitter.com/blake_allen13/status/1488192770653237254?s=21

Fetterman is finished if this is the best he can do in an internal before the DSCC has even gone to bat for Lamb. Not too surprising, though (he was never inevitable or even "favored" in the race).

Weird how overhyped in general this man has been.

[MT Treasurer]

Well, I guess I don't need to strategically vote for Fetterman if he's up by 30 points. If he does win the primary, I hope and pray that he starts taking the campaign more seriously. If he campaigns as hard in the general as Malcolm has in the primary, that would be great.

I really don’t think there’s a universe in which Fetterman is leading Lamb by 30 points (or was leading him by 30 points in February, for that matter). The F&M poll from late February showed the race much closer (28% Fetterman, 15% Lamb), and I’m still expecting establishment-aligned groups/endorsements to get behind Lamb and get more aggressively involved in the race in general.

[MT Treasurer]

Lol you guys are arguing about which guy will lose by 2% to the Republican candidate.

2% is a pretty generous estimate at this point.

[MT Treasurer]

Republicans really dropped the ball with candidate recruitment on this one. If they win, it will be because of the national environment and Fetterman's own weaknesses as a candidate.

It’s been a while since candidate recruitment for a party benefiting from a wave/very favorable midterm environment went this poorly — in fact, I don’t remember the last time this happened to this extent. If you had shown me the list of GOP candidates currently running (or not running) and competitive in/favored to win their respective primary contests in AZ/NH/PA/OH/etc. in, say, 2019, I would have been certain that 2022 was going to be another Trump midterm/Democratic wave.

Also, FTR, I think Barnette would be a stronger GE candidate than Oz or McCormick.

[MT Treasurer]

I honestly think that whoever the GOP nominates here performs in the general election almost exactly the same. Oz, McCormick, Barnette it doesn’t matter. I think this race is going to be high-Tilt R to Lean R. I do not see how anyone is going to change their vote (or not vote) regardless of the candidate.

Disagree. It won't change many votes, but there's a nice chunk of voters especially in the suburban areas that may be open to voting for someone like McCormick but who Barnette is way too far for them. PA has a large MAGA base, but they also have a large Republican base who isn't *very* far right and is closer to the center. Barnette may be a step too far for some of them.

I honestly think those voters would prefer Barnette to Oz, who is probably the Republican most likely to just throw away the seat. Besides, McCormick might underperform in some of the areas with residual Democratic strength (esp. in the West/Northeast), which would more than cancel out any 'suburban' strength he supposedly still has even after going hard right. His past just makes it incredibly easy for a candidate in the mold of Fetterman to run against him.

I think Barnette has 'surged' for a reason (despite being outspent 350-to-1 on TV), and it certainly speaks to Oz's and McCormick's weaknesses as candidates.

[MT Treasurer]

Why I think Barnette is stronger than Oz/McCormick, despite any baggage of her being "extreme": It's becoming clear that Fetterman is going to try and run a somewhat populist localized campaign, much like Tim Ryan. He can easily attack Oz and McCormick as out of touch, out of state, rich guys who don't care about working people and who are insincere with their political flip-flopping. Can't really do that with Barnette.

Ultimately, none of this will actually matter, the types of voters who would be swayed by that messaging are gone for Democrats now and on the other hand, Fetterman actually could be uniquely weak in some of the suburban areas that Democrats need to do well in to win in Pennsylvania (not that any of this will actually matter in a year as red as this one).

This isn’t entirely true — whether Fetterman can cut into Republican margins or minimize Republican gains in those places absolutely matters in a state like this since the GOP has no buffer/cushion in PA (unlike in OH, where even a Ryan overperformance in his old CD would make no difference in terms of binary outcome for the sole reason that Democrats start out from too deep a hole for it to matter). While I agree that his appeal to those voters is likely overstated, you’re essentially asking Fetterman to write off large swaths of the state, which is never a good idea in an (almost) evenly divided state won on margins more so than county flips. At the very least, you should try not to alienate even more of those voters.

Rick Scott would have never won in FL in 2018 if his campaign had just looked at the "trends" in Miami-Dade in 2004/2008/2012/2016 and completely written off gains in that Clinton +29 county as essential to their path to victory statewide.

[MT Treasurer]

I have noticed a real refusal to engage with reality on the part of conservatives regarding this race. So much mockery of optimistic liberals who think CCM still has a chance despite middling poll numbers, but when it comes to PA, "oh this poll's sample is too D," "oh Oz just hasn't consolidated," "oh indys are good in this poll," etc. etc. There have been several polls now and the picture is clear as day: Oz is seriously unpopular with both indys and Republicans, if the election were held today he's probably be an underdog, and if the election were under a neutral environment he'd lose. He might be saved by the environment, and his poll numbers could improve, but these are just the facts.

1) I haven’t seen any Republican here mocking optimistic liberals for saying that CCM "has a chance." What some of us disagree with is the arbitrary reasoning used to justify why NV will suddenly vote well to the left of the HPV when it’s been the state closest to the national popular vote for three consecutive cycles or why it is guaranteed to be close even in a Republican wave year.

2) I think by now most Republicans on this board have acknowledged that Oz is a very poor candidate (and I’ve been on record claiming that he would be since months before the primary). In my view, the only reason why Fetterman has a real chance in this race is because the PA GOP (clearly) did a miserable job in terms of recruiting and nominating candidates, both here and in the gubernatorial race. It’s true that there were posters who overestimated Oz's appeal as a candidate (in part because of rather lazy comparisons to the 2016 presidential race) and the extent to which he would run ahead of Mastriano (worth noting that this forum is notoriously unfriendly to candidates it perceives as 'extreme' in part because even most blue avatars on here are well to the left of the average GOP primary voter), but I think there’s a case to be made that it’s all downhill for Fetterman from here and that the past few weeks will turn out to have been Oz's weakest position in the race, with his prospects improving as the race becomes more nationalized/a referendum on Fetterman and Biden and voters forget about the GOP primary. I don’t think Oz will win this race on his own merits as a candidate, but Fetterman has a lot of positions that are completely out of step with the state while having no moderate image/established brand or experience navigating competitive races to fend off anything the GOP will use against him to put him through a meat grinder (case in point: the "Fetterman put murderers back on streets" line of attack) or to defy the environment. Unlike in Mastriano's case, national Republicans will also go to bat for Oz to win this race, so I’m not sold on Fetterman outperforming Shapiro like many now seem to think.

This will basically come down to whether Republicans can morph Oz into a generic Republican or at least a blank but safe option against the far left. This will take time because Oz's favorabilities are truly abysmal (and he’d lose if the election were held today), but I think it can be done (although it will still be closer than it should be) and it’s still a fairly volatile race.

To the broader point about Republican recruitment/candidate failures in the Senate and a potentially large Republican underperformance of the HPV in the individual Senate contests (people forget that this also happened in 2014), I absolutely acknowledge those. If Masters wins the nomination in AZ, I think there’s a real path for Democrats to hold the Senate even in this environment (-NV, +PA), in which case PA would become a must-win race for the GOP and in which case you’ll see the GOP throw even the kitchen sink at Fetterman.

[MT Treasurer]

I’ve never understood why many here thought that Barnette was a "weaker candidate" than Oz. Oz (supposedly) being helped by the fact that he is less "extreme" than Barnette presupposes that persuadable voters largely vote based on ideology as opposed to appearance, authenticity, & trust, which... is certainly an unconventional view of the role of psychology in political campaigns.

[MT Treasurer]

This is the kind of guy who you feel a sudden urge to punch in the face every time you see/hear him talk. As someone who generally thinks "candidate quality" is a nebulous and arbitrary concept, I really do think he’s a uniquely poor candidate, even more so than, say, Walker or Masters, both of whom at least come across as people with sincere convictions. Every time Oz opens his mouth or steps in front of a camera, (a) he comes off as ridiculously fake/insincere and the embodiment of the slick snake oil salesman, (b) you can tell he’s struggling so much to relate/pander to the people he needs (just reinforces the notion that he is incredibly out of touch), (c) he struggles to deliver even the most basic talking points fed to him, and (d) he barely manages to articulate a coherent message or stay on topic. Between this and his abysmal favorability ratings as well as trends lagging a bit behind in down-ballot races, PA voting to the left of GA this year (one last time) wouldn’t really surprise me.

I also think Mastriano outperforming Oz isn’t out of the question at all. Absolutely humiliating.

[MT Treasurer]

As a general rule, the carpetbagger line of attack isn’t really the "gotcha" or game changer people think it is. It obviously doesn’t help, but the residency issue alone can’t really sink a candidate unless there is already a host of other issues making said candidate particularly vulnerable. Case in point: Evan Bayh 2016 (textbook case of a lobbyist gone Washington), Matt Rosendale 2018 (literal insurance commissioner with a career in real estate and land management who fell into the public lands & health care trap which has been part of the MDP playbook for decades), Sara Gideon 2020 (a perfectly scripted, predictable, and transparently disingenuous career politician whose vulnerabilities already made it a lot easier to paint her as 'inauthentic'). This line of attack mostly intends to reinforce/solidify the already existing impression that a candidate may be out of touch, something that Dr. Oz would convey even if he were from Pittsburgh, PA.  

What makes Oz different from Masters and Walker is that you wouldn’t trust him even if his ads told you that Harrisburg was the capital of PA. When Mitt Romney looks relatable next to you, something has gone very wrong.

[MT Treasurer]

[MT Treasurer]

You are missing the point — I didn’t mean to imply that Fetterman will win by a margin comparable to Peters's (although I definitely disagree with the idea that this race is guaranteed to be close and that Oz will remain in contention no matter what), but to add to what soundchaser/other posters already alluded to: When you really wish to combat a powerful narrative like this, it’s do or die and you absolutely have to know what you’re doing while being aware of the risk. If you don’t, chances are that your attempt will absolutely blow up in your face and reinforce your opponent's narrative more than any of your opponent's ads could have done. Voters don’t blindly trust negative ads, but you can’t explain away your own actions/words.

There’s a reason why many campaigns steer clear of anything which would even entertain their opponent's narrative (even when there might be an opportunity to weaken/lay it to rest, the risks are simply too high) and instead try to create a more powerful narrative in the hope that theirs wins out. In Oz's case, this should be easy — focus on Fetterman being out of touch with PA on the issues and a vote for Biden/Sanders. Humanizing Oz would be a welcome byproduct along the way and could be done - for instance - by articulating his own positions/vision, but (a) he almost never does that, and (b) it should definitely not be the main focus of their campaign, especially of one this clumsy. This should be all about nationalization but it’s clearly turned into an absolute meme-tier campaign.