IN-SEN: Brains or Braun?

[KingSweden]

Young had a rough primary with Stutzman in 2016 and it didn't stop him from beating the most successful democratic politician of the last half century in Indiana in a ten point landslide.

TBF didn't Bayh have some pretty extreme liabilities with his residency gaffes? Took down Luger, too.

(Pro tip, aspiring pols: live in your goddamn home state)

[KingSweden]

https://twitter.com/indgop/status/952253852484554752

Messer wins the strawpoll at the GOP meeting. About the result I'd expect looking at the Messer/Rokita/Braun ratio.

Is this the straw poll he was accused of rigging?

[KingSweden]

Braun might seriously become the front runner soon

[KingSweden]

http://www.indystar.com/story/news/politics/2017/08/02/senate-slugfest-9-fights-so-far-indianas-bare-knuckle-us-senate-race/525108001/

Good article from the Star

Yes, good article.

The story of Rokita and Messer attacking each other, even though they're not the only candidates running for the GOP nomination, reminds me of how Russ Feingold came from way behind to win the Democratic nomination for the Senate in 1992. It's a story I've always thought was fascinating, amusing, and insightful. If Poli Sci departments have not been teaching students about that story for the last 25 years, they ought to start teaching it.
Early in 1992, Russ Feingold was a little-know state senator in Wisconsin, who, according to the polling, was in a distant third place behind two major, wealthy candidates: Rep. Jim Moody and businessman Joe Checota. Throughout the primary season, Moody and Checota each assumed that the other was their main opponent in the primary, and they attacked each other viciously, repeatedly, in their TV ads. Feingold ran a positive campaign, emphasizing his good qualities, and the only negative thing he ever said about Moody and Checota was to point out how they were slinging so much mud at each other. Feingold's strategy worked like a charm, while Moody and Checota succeeded only at making each other look terrible. Feingold ended up with a huge 70% win, and Checota and Moody were virtually tied for a distant second place at about 14% each.

Likewise, for Rokita and Messer to attack each other as often as they appear to be willing to do, is a strategy that can backfire, and it could easily lead to a win by someone like Mike Braun.

Major props, Mark.

[KingSweden]

Heard it down the grapevine from an Indiana Republican officiant that they don't want Braun to be the nominee. Which doesn't make sense to me, but ¯\_(ツ)_/¯

Lolwut why on earth? He’s easily the strongest nominee. I’d set this race to Tilt R if he wins the primary

[KingSweden]

https://apnews.com/amp/aaeb92bec9c2430ea6b23c85fab84948

Rokita used to be a Never-Trumper. Messer isn't gonna let him off the hook for it.

This primary is such a sh!tshow.

Eh, not really, that's just politics. The first debate between the 3 was very civil.

Who do you prefer, out of curiosity?

[KingSweden]

https://apnews.com/amp/aaeb92bec9c2430ea6b23c85fab84948

Rokita used to be a Never-Trumper. Messer isn't gonna let him off the hook for it.

This primary is such a sh!tshow.

Eh, not really, that's just politics. The first debate between the 3 was very civil.

Who do you prefer, out of curiosity?

Not decided yet. I know it's not Rokita, so I'll vote for either Braun or Messer. Right now I'm leaning Braun.

I'll be attending the April 23rd debate.

Fair enough. You didn’t strike me as a Rokita guy, so that makes sense.

[KingSweden]

Todd Rokita released a children's book attacking Messer.

https://www.indystar.com/story/news/politics/behind-closed-doors/2018/04/25/indiana-senate-race-2018-rokita-childrens-book-messer-braun/546499002/

This is the pettiest, most immature primary race I’ve ever seen

[KingSweden]

That Mark Souder can throw some serious shade

Also; StateBoiler, thank you for all your updates from the ground!

[KingSweden]

Republicans only leading 56-44 in early votes when the hottest primary in the country is the Republican Senate contest? Yikes.

As always, Limo, we should be careful reading too much into primary votes - especially early votes.

[KingSweden]

Flawless, Beautiful Braun is a stingy swindler

Dunno if this is fatal, necessarily, but in a fluid primary like this it could help Rokita slip by

[KingSweden]

Easily the nastiest primary in the country. Pure toss-up.

Yep.

Also - welcome!

[KingSweden]

Like I said, I don’t think this is some kind of knockout against Braun, as some seem to think, but they are unhelpful headlines. We’ll see next Tuesday, I guess

[KingSweden]

Thought you were a Braun guy, StateBoiler?

[KingSweden]

Thought you were a Braun guy, StateBoiler?

I'm definitely not a Rokita guy. I'm leaning more toward Braun than Messer, but before I vote in the primary I'll try to listen to the last debate from this past Monday. If it was a straight up Rokita-Braun race and Messer had little to no chance at winning, I'll probably vote Braun. But if there are as many undecideds as everyone thinks there are, it's literally anyone's ballgame, which is a plus to Messer's chances. This is a pretty crazy race for it being so high-profile as far as it being Senate, it's a 3-way race, and the complete lack of good polling.

Indiana’s polling rules probably don’t help

[KingSweden]

Thought you were a Braun guy, StateBoiler?

I'm definitely not a Rokita guy. I'm leaning more toward Braun than Messer, but before I vote in the primary I'll try to listen to the last debate from this past Monday. If it was a straight up Rokita-Braun race and Messer had little to no chance at winning, I'll probably vote Braun. But if there are as many undecideds as everyone thinks there are, it's literally anyone's ballgame, which is a plus to Messer's chances. This is a pretty crazy race for it being so high-profile as far as it being Senate, it's a 3-way race, and the complete lack of good polling.

Indiana’s polling rules probably don’t help

Not that familiar with Indiana politics, what are these rules like?

I believe they make it very hard to do anything other than expensive live-caller polls

[KingSweden]

I am proud to have voted against both outsider businessmen in the 2016 election (republican Donald Trump and democrat Jim Barksadale)

I like my politicians to be actual politicians... granted Braun actually does have experience in a legislature, so he is acceptable.

*huffs this post* THIS....This is that GOOD Atlas.

Businessmen are thugs that exploit the workers!

True! So are most long term politicians!

My ideal congress is full of people from all sorts of backgrounds. Teachers, nurses, public defenders, soldiers, ect. A congress full of only "lawyers with political science degrees that served a few terms in some legislature" somewhere would be god awful.

Good thing that’s not the Congress we have!

...wait

[KingSweden]

I put this on Pence's influence on him as veep, but President Trump will visit Joe Donnelly's hometown of South Bend on Thursday, May 10th, 2 days after the primary in what is seen as a come-together party. Brian Howey: "if all 3 Senate candidates are not there, it will be ominous".

Voted yesterday. I pondered between Braun and Messer, but in the end voted for Braun. My wife voted earlier in the day and told me she voted for Messer.

So confirmed vote count so far including Bismarck's vote is:

Braun 2
Messer 1
Rokita 0

So did all 3 candidates show up?

[KingSweden]

Is Roll Call Atlas now? When did it become acceptable to extrapolate statewide elections from <400 person house district polling, especially in a state with 9 districts.

If you’re seriously posing this question then I’m not sure why you hang out on political forums.

[KingSweden]

If Donnelly pulls off a win, I find it hard to believe the GOP picks up any Senate seat in November.

His seat is a pretty good bellwether for the Senate elections.

Yes, and since Indiana polls close at 6 pm, a strong showing by either side would give us an early clue as to how things are likely to go nationally.

Indeed. IN-Sen and KY-6 will be good early indicators.

[KingSweden]

Have there been any recent polls from Indiana? I haven't seen any posted here since the one immediately after the primary, that showed Braun with a 1 pt. lead. And what leads you to believe that Donnelly is DOA? At best, I thought this race was a tossup.

Apart from my own deep antipathy towards the man? Setting that aside, I think there are several things to bear in mind when assessing the state of this race and they all, to me, add up to a lean R race:

I'll start with the poll that you mentioned. A deficit as an incumbent against a challenger with a lower name recognition is not a strong position to begin with and betrays a low personal brand than similarly situated incumbents in West Virginia, Montana and Ohio.

Which segues perfectly into my next point - Donnelly is ultimately a bland candidate too spineless and cowardly to take a strong stand on issues that his constituents care about. Once again, similarly situated incumbents have taken tough votes and tough stances against the President to secure their own bases before pivoting to convincing moderates. McCaskill loudly took a stand against the ACA repeal, Tester torpedoed Jackson and Donnelly isn't running in R+40 West Virginia. He still needs to hold his own base and he has done an exceedingly poor job thereof.

I won't rehash it, but a few posts back, some of the Indiana avatars were discussing Donnelly's website; it's a bland, cookie cutter bipartisanship relic from the 80's. His campaign is not geared for the cycle in which it is being run.

And if you want demographics, the dude can provide. Marion and Lake provide anywhere between a third and 2/5 of the Democrats' votes statewide in Indiana. Historically, both counties have turnout problems for Democrats in the midterms. Donnelly's squeaker of a victory in 2012 was in no small part to an unusually high number of vote splitters in the highest two Republican vote getting counties - Hamilton (northern suburbs and exurbs of Indianapolis) and Allen (home to Indiana's second largest city, Fort Wayne), coupled with a coattails ballot effect in both Monroe and Lake from Barack Obama (both counties, of course, have more Black voters relative to the rest of Indiana's counties and Obama's presence on the top of the ballot juiced black turnout in both of those counties).

Mourdock's comments cost him thousands of voters in Hamilton and Allen counties - home to Indiana's famed fiscal conservative, social moderate to liberal ™ demographic. These counties voted for Trump in higher numbers than for Mourdock. Braun is literally a former small businessman in the mold very much in line with those voters. And as Donnelly continues to refuse to distance himself from a President who makes those voters squeamish, he will continue to lose their votes to someone more in line with those voters' economic interests, as those voters prioritize their tax cuts. Donnelly received in the low 40s in those two counties, compared to low 30's for Obama in the same year. That makes up fully a third of his margin over Mourdock that he won't be able to rely on in 18, nor will he be able to count on a third party libertarian spoiler siphoning nearly 6% of the vote.

What Donnelly, then, is doing in these counties is failing to give moderate suburbanites ™ a reason to cast a vote against Trump, while also failing to win over the types of rural voters that have seen Republican gains across a number of special elections.

There is, of course, the likelihood that I am hopelessly biased against the man and that he's fine. But these are my reasons for thinking he's more likely to lose than win.

Why do you hate with such a passion? That would be like me hating a random bland congressman like Thornberry lol.

Yeah but seriously f**k Mac Thormberry, he knows why.

[KingSweden]

Well it’s kind of a poll but Politico has an article on the race and both sides internals have that race “essentially tied”. So nothing seems to have changed from Brain +1 https://www.politico.com/story/2018/08/13/joe-donnelly-indiana-senate-midterms-2018-772506

So it’s gone from Tossup to Tossup!

[KingSweden]

Well it’s kind of a poll but Politico has an article on the race and both sides internals have that race “essentially tied”. So nothing seems to have changed from Brain +1 https://www.politico.com/story/2018/08/13/joe-donnelly-indiana-senate-midterms-2018-772506

So it’s gone from Tossup to Tossup!

I mean,
The idea that Donnelly is a generic dem politician is a myth. And he has been underestimated many times.

It's a toss up but he's definitely not an underdog.

I didn’t say he was. He’s a good politician in a tough state. I think it’s a Tossup.

[KingSweden]

inb4 "Braun is a recruitment fail/the worst Republican challenger of the cycle"

He’s not. He was clearly better than the hacks he beat... but by beating those hacks people overrated his strength a little, I think

[KingSweden]

Write in Stutzman

Write-in votes aren't allowed here.

I know. I’m a Hoosier too. The L-NC is still up because I’m thinking of my friends down there who have been dealing with the aftermath of Florence. I still would rather have Stutzman than Braun or Silent Joe hence my expression.

I'm voting for Joe solely due to dissatisfaction with Trump, not to mention Boring Braun hasn't given me a reason to vote for him.

Sound reasoning