IN-SEN: Brains or Braun?

[Bidenworth2020]

Here is something that Joe Donnelly can use against Braun if he the Republican nominee.

https://www.indystar.com/story/news/politics/2018/04/06/mike-braun-indiana-primary-2018-senate-race-ethics-concerns-timber-industry/490093002/

Nobody will care. Almost all 2018 races are a referendum on Trump period

Nobody will care because the legislation benefited his entire industry, not just his business.

deregulating oil companies-

Nobody will care because the legislation benefited his entire industry, not just his business.

[Bidenworth2020]

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.

[Bidenworth2020]

Wow. Check out Mexico Joe's latest ad:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?time_continue=29&v=VmD8fYF4Rzg

It's clear he's down bigly to Mike Braun if he's putting up overtly pro-Trump ads.

lmao

[Bidenworth2020]

snip

Thanks for posting this, I will definitely be watching this one on Tuesday. One of the most satisfying things in life is to see anti-LGBT a-holes lose elections to LGBT candidates.

Yeah, Danica Roem beating Bob Marshall was the highlight of the night for me last year.  Let's hope Ford has similar success!

But do you think that my view is a typical Atlas #hottake?  Or is there some truth that this state senate race could be a bellwether for the Donnelly one? 

Didn’t this district vote for Clinton? If so, I don’t really think it tells us much about Indiana as a whole

I'm not sure if we have 2016 presidential breakdowns by state senate district.

it went for hillary by 12... idk if thats a great bellwether

https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/14t1IIgPtL8VfJYwl0m4nXTsoZYEg2HyzuyOgCC0NG0I/edit#gid=719564425