PA-SN 2022 megathread: Shrek vs. The Wizard of Oz

[If my soul was made of stone]

Very glad to see him reaching for a bigger platform. Enthusiastically endorsed.

[If my soul was made of stone]

https://twitter.com/RyanCostello/status/1347618307403362307

imo fetterman wins greene by 40 but falls short of 35% in chester

don’t be a d hack, fetterman’s ceiling in chester is 10%, he’d also lose montgomery, but he probably cracks 55% in luzerne

just imo

Fetterman's floor in Lackawanna is 99.99%.

 imo tbh (atlas colors)

[If my soul was made of stone]

[If my soul was made of stone]

My prediction is that it'll be Fitzpatrick vs. Fetterman, with polls showing a slight Fetterman advantage. Fitzpatrick will then win by 5 points.

Fitz would be a formidable opponent, but he isn't getting past a statewide GOP primary.

[If my soul was made of stone]

Honestly, the Republicans' best hope here is to boost Costello and hope that they can boost him enough that it won't matter that he voted for Biden or to try to convince Fitzpatrick to enter.

I doubt that Fitz could win a statewide primary, or that he'd even want to run given that he has a lock on a seat that could otherwise become troublesome for the GOP. Even if he made it past a primary somehow, I'm not sure if he could juice the turnout from the hardcore Republican base that's needed in addition to defections nowadays. Looking back at Toomey's two runs, I doubt that a Republican Senate nominee is carrying Chester or Lehigh again anytime soon, and he underperformed quite strongly in a number of counties that had been Democratic-leaning within the prior quarter-century, failing to crack 60% in, for example, ​Washington or Westmoreland. I think that we'd see a similar dynamic with Fitz.

[If my soul was made of stone]

Connor Lamb on the other hand flipped a trump +20% district against a fairly normal repubclain candidate and won another Trump district by double digits in 2018 an incredibly strong perfomance. Even in 2020 his vote share was higher than Biden showing proof that he is able to win over trump and non-democratic voters, despite his margin being lower due to his republcian opponent outperforming trump.

Lamb's special election victory was much more a function of turnout dynamics in the immediate aftermath of the Trump shock than persuadable voters, and his 2018 performance was in, well, 2018. The district went for Biden in 2020, and he underperformed.

[If my soul was made of stone]

It's interesting to observe the segmentation of Fetterman's message. You have sick meme dunks to fire up the online donor crowd (and, as we can see, those people are making those themselves now and Oz's people are feeding them #content without a care in the world). Then for the actual PA audience, those memes are paying for, on the one hand, reminding people that Oz is a quack who sells miracle weight loss cures he doesn't even believe in and that the GOP is anti-choice:

https://twitter.com/JohnFetterman/status/1558097877729173504
and on the other hand, stuff like this:

https://twitter.com/JacobRubashkin/status/1559689719138713600
Insofar as there's a thrust to Oz's campaign beyond 'I deserve this', on the other hand, it's him trying to do the handwringing respectable Tory 'I have a sensible economic plan and my opponent is a radical liable to ruin everything' thing. Except 1) this is Pennsylvania and 2) Oz is a totally contemptible figure who doesn't have credibility with the sort of voter who could potentially buy that message in another context, if not necessarily against a reasonably respected statewide official.

My high school guitar teacher once said that there was a Beatles song to rebut every common overgeneralized criticism of them. Come to think of it, Oz and Piero Scaruffi have pretty similar vibes...

[If my soul was made of stone]

Incredible ad! Some dark money super pac needs to spend millions of dollars micro targeting it to all of Pennsylvania’s most racist registered voters.
https://twitter.com/reallyamerican1/status/1562596798849757189?s=21&t=WpeWkT...

This seems to be a joint venture by Greek and Armenian-American orgs, because of course it is. Trying to make Oz sound scary seems kinda pointless and counterproductive when the electorate is already inclined to think he's a joke.

[Bronz voice] Will Greek family diner owners in Bethel Park hurt hard by Brandonflation and the supply chain crisis be Anxious™ enough about Oz' Ottoman revanchist beliefs to vote for the Braddock hunk? Many people are saying this

[If my soul was made of stone]

https://twitter.com/JanMurphy/status/1578805579770122240

If some of them slipped away to buy some Hershey's Ice Cream* at a Rutter's this would officially become the most York County thing ever.

*no relation to the chocolate people, as anyone worth their salt knows

[If my soul was made of stone]

https://twitter.com/johnfetterman/status/1580997252046524416?s=21&t=xiqz6hlR...

He should forge a truce in the civil war and appeal to the people of his ancestral homeland by visiting a Rutter's.

(seriously though york's one of the biggest gop raw vote counties nationwide now and it's pretty important to lose respectably there so you have less cutting into you)

[If my soul was made of stone]

I get that people here are desperate for a (pseudo)leftist to be as unpopular as Dr. Oz but I think it's over, folks. I wouldn't be surprised to see Fetterman win by 5 points now, which is an achievement in PA this year after having a stroke.

Blue avatars, it's time to do some soul searching. You can't just say "socialist, weak on crime" anymore and win.

This is ridiculous - with a debate that let’s be honest is going to be a net negative for Fetterman - there is no way in hell this is over. Personally I’ve bet the farm on Oz on PI. Hope I’m wrong

[If my soul was made of stone]

I think the mainstream media still has a lot of respect for Oz as one of their own, plus Fetterman doesn't fit in with the intolerable Democrats that they like, so I'm not surprised they're going all in against him.

Plus Fetterman, for lack of a better word, is a weirdo. The whole hoodie-lives in his mom's basement-thing just gives off vibes that tell me the white male vote will go heavily against him.

wow almost like the white male vote is firmly republican in the vast majority of states, shock horror

[If my soul was made of stone]

https://twitter.com/gldivittorio/status/1580664747980386305

Broke: Oz lives in New Jersey and should be sent back there
Woke: Oz should be exiled to Delaware where he can soak up all the credit card money he wants and would basically be a median Democrat

[If my soul was made of stone]

https://twitter.com/gldivittorio/status/1580664747980386305

Broke: Oz lives in New Jersey and should be sent back there
Woke: Oz should be exiled to Delaware where he can soak up all the credit card money he wants and would basically be a median Democrat

Dr. Oz would be considered a moderate socialist in Delaware imo.

dr oz is the peter franchot to tom carper's william donald schaefer, it is foretold

[If my soul was made of stone]

I was looking through election results on DRA and one race that stood out to me was the 2020 Auditor General Election which was pretty remarkably polarized despite being a relatively low-profile race. The Republican ultimately won the race by about 3 points.

What stoof out to me specifically was in that race, the Republican actually outperformed Trump in rural PA which so far has been quite unusual given that there really didn't seem to be any particularly weird dynamics in this race.

The reason I bring this up is because I kinda always assumed win or lose, Fetterman would probably do better than Biden in significant swaths of rural PA but now that I found another example, I am taking that as less of a given.

Does anyone know if there were specific circumstances that allowed the Republican to do this? Would Oz have the ability to outperform Trump in places like Luzurne and Cambria Counties?

Cambria and Luzerne are or are in small metros, not predominantly rural. Ahmad underperformed Biden across the board with a few very strange exceptions (Lackawanna; so much for Scranton Joe), but clearly underperformed the most in suburbs both of the two P blobs and the aforementioned smaller metros (see also Harrisburg, Reading, etc). Sadly it seems that the sort of suburban above-it-alls stuck in an ancient conception of partisanship who see themselves as Heroes of Bipartisanship by checking random boxes for the GOP downballot were in full force here, which may have been compounded by "identity issues" (read: bigoted suburban resentment) surrounding Ahmad above policy concerns given that Joe Torsella did better on the same ballot but still lost re-election.

Pat Toomey tended to underperform in the small metros and actual rural areas but overperform among that demographic in genteel P blob land, but with Oz' particular weaknesses and the Fetterman campaign's strength in attacking him from every angle for everyone I think it'll be a wash as far as the numbers are concerned.

[If my soul was made of stone]

Oz on tape responding to the puppy allegations - not a great answer!

https://twitter.com/AllAboutPA/status/1583417749484670976

[If my soul was made of stone]

If the Fetterman campaign is smart, they'll go all-in on a strategy to hit Oz for serving in the Turkish military and hint at him being Muslim in the last week. Democrats will hate this but, guess what? Most of them will have already voted via absentee ballot!

Have you ever considered not being a pig for one solitary minute in your life?

[If my soul was made of stone]

Fetterman is gross, he's wearing a hoodie and looks dirty. I'm not saying that if you're a democrat or a leftist, you shouldn't be voting for him for that reason but come on look at him and compare him to Dr Oz. At least, he's well-dressed and looks sophisticated.

Maybe I'm wrong but Fetterman's appearance will hurt him in the philly suburbs. Romney country club never trumper republicans especially who will vote for him will hold their nose while doing it.

Tell me you know nothing about Pennsylvania or our electorate without telling me you know nothing about Pennsylvania or our electorate.

A county Romney won by 500 votes with a small belt of post-industrial boroughs, a Black college town, and Mexican mushroom farmers = LITERALLY EVERYONE IS A MAIN LINE REALIGNER