NC- Civiqs: CAL +9

[Chancellor Tanterterg]

Six months to go, but yeah, this looks pretty good. Democrats have a real shot taking the senate and ousting Cocaine Mitch this November. Can we now see some more polls out of Maine?

Lol so Schumer didn't screw up that much in recruiting Cunningham.

Not praising him too much before the results are in, but it seems Schumer was done a great job with recruitments this year. He also pushed Steve Bullock to jump in and got Obama to pick up the phone for Bullock.

IA, GA, and TX are disappointing though. Jon Ossoff is seriously the best Dems can do?

The DSCC-endorsed candidates in IA and TX don't seem objectively bad; what makes Schumer's choices poor here is that there were (and, in IA's case, still are) better candidates available. The Democratic bench in GA is weak, but I agree that Ossoff is a genuine recruitment failure (though not necessarily worse than Amico or Tomlinson, so perhaps more excusable for the DSCC than IA given that they didn't ignore a better candidate who was already in the race).

The most obvious recruitment failure was in Kentucky, though it was never really winnable so perhaps it isn't particularly consequential. Maybe Rocky Adkins, Steve Beshear or Matt Jones could have managed the lift (though they'd move it to Likely R at best), but even if they couldn't be recruited, the other candidates in the race besides McGrath are likely to be of more help for the rest of the Democratic ticket than her.

Kentucky is a recruitment failure because we're running a candidate who passes the laugh test meaning folks will flush money down the drain by donating to McGrath (who should've sought a KY-6 rematch tbh). 

Texas wasn't really Schumer's fault because he'd almost managed to recruit Joaquin Castro, but then Beto started doing his Hamlet act and froze the field.  Plus, until the first debate, no one wanted to run in case Beto switched to the Senate race.  After that, too much time had passed and no one was interested anymore.  Hager should've run against Carter again, I actually think she might've had a better shot in a Presidential year than she did in 2018 tbh, plus TX-31 only voted for Cruz by 2%.

In Iowa, Greenfield was perfectly fine as a wave insurance candidate since no one had any reason to think this might be competitive and it still may not be when all is said and done.  It'd be a mistake to waste a strong candidate here this cycle, a solid wave insurance candidate was exactly what we needed.

With NC, we don't know why the DSCC pushed Jackson out and I still wonder if there was some sort of skeleton in his closet.  Plus, Cunningham is clearly doing something right b/c he was consistently leading even before the COVID-19 pandemic blew up.

Both Georgia seats were recruiting failures, no getting around that.  However, I think we also have to give the DSCC credit for recruiting Mark Kelly (IIRC most on Atlas thought we should run Ruben Gallego [which clearly would've been a mistake] or Greg Stanton instead) and Steve Bullock (which from what I've read, it sounds like Schumer also deserves some credit for).  While I'd rather someone more progressive, I also think Hick counts as a DSCC recruiting win given how he completely put this race away to the point that it's all but off the board.  Lastly, the DSCC wisely recruited a solid Kobach insurance candidate in Kansas at a time when few here thought the race would be competitive even with Kobach.

TL;DR: The DSCC dropped the ball in Georgia, but I think there is also some revisionist history going on in this and some other threads re: the DSCC's performance this cycle.  They've done relatively well overall and for all that folks here like to rag on them, the DSCC certainly got it right more often than the Atlas CW did (at least so far).

[Chancellor Tanterterg]

- Re: KY: McGrath should've run against Barr again.  I doubt there are too many people who'd only donate to someone running against McConnell, maybe they'd donate to Biden or something, but that's a far better use of the money.  And McConnell would win easily this year no matter who we ran.

- Re: TX: I definitely agree the way TX went down reflects badly on Castro (and Beto, for that matter), but Schumer didn't do anything wrong there.  Even if you want to blame the DSCC, it isn't run by Schumer and I maintain Hegar should've run for House again.   

- Re: IA: Running Axne or Finkenauer would've been a big mistake imo since all it would do was open up their house seats.  Rob Sand is planning to run for Governor or reelection IIRC.  Vilsack is a washed up has-been.  Also, I'd argue that Greenfield is a far, far better wave insurance candidate the two folks you mentioned (we may just have to agree to disagree on this).  And it is a mistake to waste a strong candidate on a long-shot race; I'd rather keep Axne and Finkenauer's House seats than have a slightly better chance of winning a Senate seat that we probably won't win either way. 

- Re: NC: But those are really assumptions.  The truth is that we really don't know anything about what went down here except that (1) Jackson was initially planning to run, (2) the DSCC felt so strongly that he was the wrong guy that the Dem Senate leadership basically told him not to run; and (3) the DSCC wanted Cunningham to run instead of the available options. 

We really don't know and I could just as easily say "the DSCC was trying to avoid blowing the race by running an overhyped candidate with a major skeleton in his closet."  We don't know and I don't think it makes sense to just assume the DSCC was trying to recruit a random no-name.  Like, you've gotta ask why from their perspective it would make logical sense to push out Jackson in favor of Cunningham. 

Agree or disagree with their choice, these folks aren't idiots and they want to flip the seat just like we do, so you gotta consider what the DSCC's thought process might have been.  I mean, my guess is that Jackson isn't all that he's been hyped up to be for one reason or another.  And Cunningham was consistently leading even before the COVID-19 situation blew up, so maybe he's stronger than we gave him credit for, idk.  All I know is we're currently more likely than not to flip this seat, so I ain't complaining

- Re: GA: I know Atlas has always been bullish about Warnock, but I've always been pretty bearish about his prospects.  He's strikes me as a random, overhyped some dude and I'd actually argue that even Osoff is a stronger candidate.  I mean, both are more or less some dude-tier, but at least Osoff out-raised his main Republican opponent.  OTOH, while Warnock will probably make it to the runoff, there has been at least one poll showing him in single-digits with Matt Lieberman in second.  If Warnock can barely handle Joe Lieberman's some dude-tier son, I don't see how one can argue that he's not an extremely weak candidate tbh.  Osoff is a meh candidate at best, but at least he's leading the field in fundraising and likely has the Democratic nomination locked up.

- Re: Overall: I don't think the DSCC missed any open-goals this cycle except for Georgia - where I've always said they dropped the ball in both races - since I don't think Texas was their fault.  That said, I think that if you're gonna attack them for the disappointments and mistakes, then you also need to give them credit for their successes.  I often see folks on Atlas talking about how the DSCC blew this race or that race, but I seldom see folks giving the DSCC credit for Montana, Arizona, Kansas, etc.  Plus, as of now we're on track to flip the Senate which is the thing that really matters here.

[Chancellor Tanterterg]

- Re: KY: Yeah, but at least then we'd have a solid recruit in KY-6.

- Re: TX: My understanding is that they did indeed go all out on trying to recruit Beto and especially Joaquin Castro.  At one point, Castro even said he'd run for Senate if O'Rourke jumped into the Presidential race.

- Re: IA: I think Scholten would've been a better candidate, but my understanding is he decided on his own to run in IA-4.  Tom Miller is probably too old and I could see him retiring in 2022 tbh.  Fitzgerald was briefly recruited IIRC (although if I'm misremembering then they should've tried with him), but wasn't interested.  They also tried to get Axne to run at one point, but she wasn't interested either.  Greenfield can at least raise money, whereas Franken and Graham haven't raised much.  That's important in a race where a low name-ID candidate will need to introduce themselves to most voters.

- Re: NC: Ehh, I dunno that I agree with you about those patterns tbh.  Honestly, I think the DSCC almost as a rule been far better at it than the NCCC, DCCC, and NRSC combined from 2006 onward.  Whatever the DSCC has been doing on the candidate recruitment front, I hope they keep it up because it's clearly working!

- Re: GA: Fair enough.

Re: Overall: I would say 2020 is about average in terms of DSCC candidate recruitment.  Usually it's pretty good, but with one or two missed opportunities (can't win 'em all and sometimes candidates just unexpectedly implode like with Montana in 2014).  2010, 2014, and 2018 were more about defending vulnerable incumbents, so they're a bit different.