Rate KS-03

[ON Progressive]

New, independent poll shows Welder with a substantial lead in the Democratic Primary.

Welder - 35%
Davids - 21%
Niermann - 15%
The others (Williams, McCamon, Sidie): 12%
Undecided: 17%

Tossup/Tilt R -> Tossup/Tilt DSA

You mean Tossup > Likely R.

And no, this has nothing to do with Welder being left. Welder is from Missouri and has practically zero connections to the area. We are not going to win this district with a carpetbagger from another state.

[ON Progressive]

New, independent poll shows Welder with a substantial lead in the Democratic Primary.

Welder - 35%
Davids - 21%
Niermann - 15%
The others (Williams, McCamon, Sidie): 12%
Undecided: 17%

Tossup/Tilt R -> Tossup/Tilt DSA

You mean Tossup > Likely R.

And no, this has nothing to do with Welder being left. Welder is from Missouri and has practically zero connections to the area. We are not going to win this district with a carpetbagger from another state.

Carpetbagging has been an issue with many Democratic candidates this cycle (Ann Kirkpatrick being an egregeous example) but it hasn't really brought anyone down yet. I don't expect the same to happen to Welder.

Kirkpatrick is at least carpetbagging within the same state. That is not remotely comparable to Welder, who is from a completely different state.

It's not even like Welder is from Kansas City (which wouldn't hurt him since KS-03 is Kansas City suburbs), he's from St. Louis!

[ON Progressive]

I think Welder would lose in a wave that's realistic in its size (he'd probably still win in a D+15 wave, but a D+15 wave is almost certainly not happening).

Republicans have a massive wave in 2014, and Scott Brown still lost because he was a carpetbagger across state lines. In fact, NH was the only state where the calculation of "GCB + state partisan lean + incumbency advantage" didn't predict the winning party because he was the only US Senate nominee in a competitive state that was carpetbagging. He only outperformed Romney by about 2-3 points in a red wave in a very elastic state.

Here's some other examples:
2000 NY-Sen: Hillary Clinton (carpetbagged from Arkansas) won by 12 while Gore won by 25, doing worse than Gore by 13 points.

2014 WV-02: Alex Mooney only won a 60-38 Romney district by 4 in a Republican wave year. Moore Capito won the district by 25 for US Senate, so it was underperforming the top of the ticket by 21. In fact, in 2016, Mooney underperformed Trump by 20 as an incumbent!

2008 CA-04: Tom McClintock won by less than 0.5% in a district McCain carried by over 10 points on top of the ballot. McClintock wasn't even carpetbagging outside his state, but he still took a big penalty anyway.

I could go on with even more examples too, but I'll stop there. The fact of the manner is, carpetbagging across state lines is often worth a double digit penalty. Even waves don't prevent this from happening.

The only reason carpetbaggers across state lines sometimes win is because they're running in areas that favour their party big time in the right environment. KS-03 is not blue enough to have this happen, so Welder would almost certainly lose and lose bad.

[ON Progressive]

Carpetbagging hasn't dogged the campaigns of Elissa Slotkin and Tom Malinowski, both of whom are seen as top-tier recruitments by Democrats for their districts. It's an accusation that's going to be thrown against many high-profile Democratic challengers, but I doubt it will stick.

Regardless of whether Welder, Davids or even Niermann wins the primary, this race is at least a Tossup.

Both Slotkin and Malinowski grew up in their districts though.

Meanwhile, Welder literally has only lived in the district since April and came from 250 miles away from the closest point to the district in St. Louis, Missouri.

Welder would lose by at least 5, and I wouldn't be shocked if he lost by over 10.

[ON Progressive]

Carpetbagging hasn't dogged the campaigns of Elissa Slotkin and Tom Malinowski, both of whom are seen as top-tier recruitments by Democrats for their districts. It's an accusation that's going to be thrown against many high-profile Democratic challengers, but I doubt it will stick.

Regardless of whether Welder, Davids or even Niermann wins the primary, this race is at least a Tossup.

Both Slotkin and Malinowski grew up in their districts though.

Meanwhile, Welder literally has only lived in the district since April and came from 250 miles away from the closest point to the district in St. Louis, Missouri.

Welder would lose by at least 5, and I wouldn't be shocked if he lost by over 10.

Do you really think the difference will matter that much that Welder loses even in the midst of a Democratic wave? He's not running in Trump country, this is a district Clinton won.

If he runs a strong grassroots campaign than it won't matter. He led Yoder by 7 points in a February PPP poll, and I doubt the race has shifted enough for him to lose. And he's not losing the general election in a cycle like 2018.

Senator Scott Brown (R-NH) agrees that carpetbagging doesn't lead to losses even in wave elections in purple areas.

[ON Progressive]

Carpetbagging hasn't dogged the campaigns of Elissa Slotkin and Tom Malinowski, both of whom are seen as top-tier recruitments by Democrats for their districts. It's an accusation that's going to be thrown against many high-profile Democratic challengers, but I doubt it will stick.

Regardless of whether Welder, Davids or even Niermann wins the primary, this race is at least a Tossup.

Both Slotkin and Malinowski grew up in their districts though.

Meanwhile, Welder literally has only lived in the district since April and came from 250 miles away from the closest point to the district in St. Louis, Missouri.

Welder would lose by at least 5, and I wouldn't be shocked if he lost by over 10.

Do you really think the difference will matter that much that Welder loses even in the midst of a Democratic wave? He's not running in Trump country, this is a district Clinton won.

If he runs a strong grassroots campaign than it won't matter. He led Yoder by 7 points in a February PPP poll, and I doubt the race has shifted enough for him to lose. And he's not losing the general election in a cycle like 2018.

Senator Scott Brown (R-NH) agrees that carpetbagging doesn't lead to losses even in wave elections in purple areas.

Scott Brown wasn't leading in any polls in his race against Shaheen. Welder has led in polls against Yoder. Don't be daft.

Literally a single poll with a sample size of only 315 that was commissioned on behalf of a PAC that supports Welder. Also, it's 6 months old. I guarantee Welder's percentages would tank the second "WELDER IS FROM SAINT LOUIS" went on the airwaves.

Also, Brown was the only US Senate candidate in either party that lost despite fundamentals. Like I said earlier, if you do the calculation "GCB + state partisan lean + incumbency advantage" for 2014, Republicans should have won New Hampshire.

Instead, they lost it. Why? Because Brown was a carpetbagger across state lines.

Carpetbagging hasn't dogged the campaigns of Elissa Slotkin and Tom Malinowski, both of whom are seen as top-tier recruitments by Democrats for their districts. It's an accusation that's going to be thrown against many high-profile Democratic challengers, but I doubt it will stick.

Regardless of whether Welder, Davids or even Niermann wins the primary, this race is at least a Tossup.

Both Slotkin and Malinowski grew up in their districts though.

Meanwhile, Welder literally has only lived in the district since April and came from 250 miles away from the closest point to the district in St. Louis, Missouri.

Welder would lose by at least 5, and I wouldn't be shocked if he lost by over 10.

Do you really think the difference will matter that much that Welder loses even in the midst of a Democratic wave? He's not running in Trump country, this is a district Clinton won.

If he runs a strong grassroots campaign than it won't matter. He led Yoder by 7 points in a February PPP poll, and I doubt the race has shifted enough for him to lose. And he's not losing the general election in a cycle like 2018.

Senator Scott Brown (R-NH) agrees that carpetbagging doesn't lead to losses even in wave elections in purple areas.

NH has one of the best D parties in the world, and has also voted D in 2010 and 2016, largely neutral or R waves in "purple" NH. Scott Brown was a poor candidate and was not able to beat the incredibly popular senator. A carpetbagging is not as much a downer in GEs, its a downer in primaries.

NH didn't vote D in 2010, and only went Dem by ~1000 votes in 2016. While NH's Dem Party isn't bad, calling them "one of the best" is incorrect. It makes zero sense to call a state party which controls neither state legislative chamber in a purple state a strong state party (granted, the NH State House will almost certainly fall to the Democrats).

As for why Brown was a poor candidate, I wonder why he was poor. Maybe it had to do with *gasps* the fact he was a former Senator from Massachusetts that was running in New Hampshire?

[ON Progressive]

Carpetbagging hasn't dogged the campaigns of Elissa Slotkin and Tom Malinowski, both of whom are seen as top-tier recruitments by Democrats for their districts. It's an accusation that's going to be thrown against many high-profile Democratic challengers, but I doubt it will stick.

Regardless of whether Welder, Davids or even Niermann wins the primary, this race is at least a Tossup.

Both Slotkin and Malinowski grew up in their districts though.

Meanwhile, Welder literally has only lived in the district since April and came from 250 miles away from the closest point to the district in St. Louis, Missouri.

Welder would lose by at least 5, and I wouldn't be shocked if he lost by over 10.

Do you really think the difference will matter that much that Welder loses even in the midst of a Democratic wave? He's not running in Trump country, this is a district Clinton won.

If he runs a strong grassroots campaign than it won't matter. He led Yoder by 7 points in a February PPP poll, and I doubt the race has shifted enough for him to lose. And he's not losing the general election in a cycle like 2018.

Senator Scott Brown (R-NH) agrees that carpetbagging doesn't lead to losses even in wave elections in purple areas.

Scott Brown wasn't leading in any polls in his race against Shaheen. Welder has led in polls against Yoder. Don't be daft.

Literally a single poll with a sample size of only 315 that was commissioned on behalf of a PAC that supports Welder. Also, it's 6 months old. I guarantee Welder's percentages would tank the second "WELDER IS FROM SAINT LOUIS" went on the airwaves.

1. Again, Leonard Lance made the same attack line against Tom Malinowski in NJ-07 and that hasn't slowed down the latter one bit.

2. If Brown was uniquely bad for his carpetbagging issues despite the 2014 red wave, than Maggie Hassan would've lost to Walt Havenstein in the gubernatorial race and Annie Kuster might've lost to Marilinda Garcia as well in NH-2. But as Zaybay mentioned, the Democratic Party in NH is one of the strongest in the US. Compare that to the Kansas GOP, which is in a historically weak position.

1. If you would read my earlier post, you'd recognize that Malinowski GREW UP in NJ-07. That makes the carpetbagging attack way less effective. Welder was born and raised in Iowa, was a Bernie delegate from Missouri, and moved into the district in April.

2. Hassan had been in NH since 1999 at least (and probably even earlier, she worked for Boston law firms since the 80s but a lot of people commute from NH to Boston). She was also an incumbent governor in 2014, and running for a second term (which since NH has 2 year terms made her a favourite anyway).

As for Kuster, she was born and raised in New Hampshire. Calling her a carpetbagger is absurd. Even if it was from NH-01 to NH-02, that's not nearly as blatant as crossing state lines. Especially not really blatant because NH is quite small.