IN-SEN: Brains or Braun?

[Calthrina950]

https://twitter.com/JoshuaKarp/status/1027917575051796480

Ooh, this is the exact kind of thing that could make a massive difference in such a close race. Let's see how the Donnelly campaign plays their cards here. The blatant hypocrisy isn't a good look for Braun and it could seriously make a huge difference if Donnelly were to capitalize on it.

This won't make a lick of difference. Donnelly's own brother profited from shipping jobs to Mexico and Donnelly owned shares in that same company. Any attack on Braun will be answered with that so it'll have a net neutral impact. Donnelly is still toast and this doesn't change anything.

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.

[Calthrina950]

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.

This seems like a reasonable, well thought-out response. I admit that I don't know too much about Indiana's politics, but I've believed, over the past few months, that this is probably the most likely race, of the competitive red-state races, to be won by Republicans this year. Braun does come across as a generic Republican in many respects, but he also has the "outsider" persona, business background, and protectionist cred that endeared so many voters to Trump. And he is definitely a far more formidable challenger to Donnelly then either Rokita or Messer would have been. Donnelly has voted exactly 50-50 with Trump, so he is the definition of a moderate. I think that if he achieved a balance between emphasizing his votes with Trump on "common-sense" issues that benefit Indiana, pointing out his opposition to Trump's egregious comments and to his more unpopular actions, and attacked Braun as "more of the same", then he could pull off a victory. Whether or not he can do so remains to be seen. Indiana is a Republican state at heart, and a Braun victory would not surprise me in the slightest.

[Calthrina950]

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 Marion 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.

This seems like a reasonable, well thought-out response. I admit that I don't know too much about Indiana's politics, but I've believed, over the past few months, that this is probably the most likely race, of the competitive red-state races, to be won by Republicans this year. Braun does come across as a generic Republican in many respects, but he also has the "outsider" persona, business background, and protectionist cred that endeared so many voters to Trump. And he is definitely a far more formidable challenger to Donnelly then either Rokita or Messer would have been. Donnelly has voted exactly 50-50 with Trump, so he is the definition of a moderate. I think that if he achieved a balance between emphasizing his votes with Trump on "common-sense" issues that benefit Indiana, pointing out his opposition to Trump's egregious comments and to his more unpopular actions, and attacked Braun as "more of the same", then he could pull off a victory. Whether or not he can do so remains to be seen. Indiana is a Republican state at heart, and a Braun victory would not surprise me in the slightest.

Thanks. What concerns me about Donnelly's campaign strategy is that he's taking the heavily Dem leaning votes in Monroe, Lake and Marion counties for granted, while seeming to court Trump's rural base. It's of course an interesting strategy and it's a good data point for the great Democratic burbs v rural strategic direction debate. And if I'm wrong, then that's a good thing for the party strategically to know that it can win back the WWC voters it lost to Trump.

Strategically, I think that the best path is something similar to Jones's coalition in Alabama. Jones ran up the score by cultivating strong ties with Alabama's black population and by courting moderate suburbanites, particularly women, plus strong turnout in Alabama's college towns. Indiana certainly has different demographics from Alabama, in that there are fewer black voters and probably more urban white professionals and more economically conservative / social indifferent voters, but the same strategy could be replicated. It's just that it's not what Donnelly is doing. If it makes any sense, he's trying to do what Sherrod Brown is succeeding with next door in Ohio. Brown's got a strong economic populist brand that resonates well with Trump's WWC base because he's developed that brand methodically for years. Donnelly just doesn't have that brand to rely on and it's showing in his middling performance.

I would certainly be happy to be wrong in that a Donnelly win or loss will be likely to be the deciding vote in the Senate, but I must stress that I do not care for him, a number of his policy positions, or his campaign strategy, so a loss wouldn't be all that saddening to me.

I see what you are saying. The socially moderate, fiscally conservative voters that you have described here are exactly the kind of voters who, I imagine, would be turned off by Trump. His rhetoric and his comments would offend them socially, and his imposition of tariffs would be bound to upset them, given that I am sure they are probably in favor of free trade. If these voters were courted in the correct manner, they could be won over. But at the same time, you have midwestern Democrats (i.e. Sherrod Brown) who are populist and who do support more protectionist trade measures. Protectionism does appeal to many rural and working-class voters. How would one reconcile these positions?

Also, what is it about Donnelly in particular that you object to? You said something about civil liberties in one of your other posts, but are there any policy moves that he made which you find to be wrong? I don't know that much about Donnelly's voting record besides the facts that he has voted for most of Trump's nominees (DeVos is the only exception, I believe) and has voted with the Administration 50% of the time.

[Calthrina950]

@Calthrina950 - his vote in favor of Haspel. I voted for him in '12 when I still lived in Indiana based on his rhetoric of civil liberties defense and his Haspel vote was a betrayal of the values on which I based my vote. A vote like that is one of the few things I absolutely cannot countenance in a politician.

I perfectly understand. I opposed Haspel as well, because of her role in waterboarding suspects, and she should not have been confirmed. Civil liberties is a very important issue, and should be a bipartisan concern. Donnelly's vote in favor of Haspel, I believe, was probably cast in an effort to try to win over some of those Trump voters that he is courting, but I'm not sure if it will. One thing I like to do is to frequent the comment boards of conservative websites (as I've noted elsewhere), and many of those people think that all Democrats, including people like Donnelly, Manchin, Heitkamp, Tester, Jones, and McCaskill, are evil, baby-killing, America-hating communists.

People of that mindset comprise a large portion of the electorate in those states, so any vote in favor of a Trump nominee or law is considered by them to be pandering. They would still rather have an actual Republican who votes with Trump 95% of the time then a moderate Democrat who votes with him 40, 50, or 60% of the time. Donnelly's vote against Haspel probably also hurt him with these socially moderate voters, while doing little to win over Trump types. And it could very well hamper his efforts at reelection.

[Calthrina950]

I guess the INGOP was so scared sh**tless after the Mourdock fiasco that they decided to go from being too brash and flamboyant to being too uninspiring and boring.

It surprises me (in a pleasant way) that Donnelly is leading by such a margin in this latest poll. He could very well end up winning with a percentage similar to that of 2012. If this poll is anywhere near the truth, then he is in a better position than either Heitkamp or Nelson at this point, and possibly McCaskill as well. Tester and Manchin are the two safest Romney-state Democrats still, though.

[Calthrina950]

Donnelly losing by 6 really puts the lie to all of those "Obama-Trump voters will never come home" lines. Obama lost IN by 10, Clinton by 19. Donnelly rebounded to 2012 and further. He also reclaimed almost all the Obama Trump counties.

But it still wasn't enough. If Donnelly had focused more on the Indianapolis suburbs, he might have pulled it off. And his advertising campaign greatly depressed turnout among the Democratic base.

[Calthrina950]

At this point, Mayor Pete is probably the Indiana Democrats' only hope of achieving anything statewide.

I guess they’re truly hopeless then.

They must be. Indiana, though is a historically Republican state, but until recently, Democrats were competitive there. Now, it seems like it's moving completely out of their reach. It still amazes me that Donnelly lost by that much, and the extent to which his "psuedo-Republican" strategy backfired on him.