Special Election megathread (6/11: OH-6, 6/25: CO-4)

[TheDeadFlagBlues]

It blows my mind that people are extrapolating from a race with such pathetically low turnout. Dems are going to have a bad midterm, but this election has a small fraction of the votes of even the 2017 special elections where Dems fought in Republican seats. We see the 2020 realignment with extra apathy and a small swing away from Biden. There’s a good reason all the Republicans on Twitter keep calling back to Clinton and Obama, not Biden, for a comparison.

Collin and Denton for Cameron is a good trade.

"For every blue-collar Democrat we lose in McAllen, we will pick up two moderate Republicans in the suburbs of Dallas and you can repeat that in New Mexico, Arizona and Nevada."

You do realize that Mexicans do not only live in Brownsville but also in Houston, Dallas, San Antonio, and, basically, throughout Texas? Right now, it might appear that the "trade" is worthwhile but we are a rapidly growing demographic and Democrats have a lot to lose from writing us off - there's nothing preventing Mexican-Americans from giving Trump 60 or even 65 percent of the vote in Texas in 2024.

[TheDeadFlagBlues]

It blows my mind that people are extrapolating from a race with such pathetically low turnout. Dems are going to have a bad midterm, but this election has a small fraction of the votes of even the 2017 special elections where Dems fought in Republican seats. We see the 2020 realignment with extra apathy and a small swing away from Biden. There’s a good reason all the Republicans on Twitter keep calling back to Clinton and Obama, not Biden, for a comparison.

Collin and Denton for Cameron is a good trade.

"For every blue-collar Democrat we lose in McAllen, we will pick up two moderate Republicans in the suburbs of Dallas and you can repeat that in New Mexico, Arizona and Nevada."

You do realize that Mexicans do not only live in Brownsville but also in Houston, Dallas, San Antonio, and, basically, throughout Texas? Right now, it might appear that the "trade" is worthwhile but we are a rapidly growing demographic and Democrats have a lot to lose from writing us off - there's nothing preventing Mexican-Americans from giving Trump 60 or even 65 percent of the vote in Texas in 2024.

Not writing anyone off other than a marginal voter in the RGV who likes Trump. Is there evidence urban Hispanics are voting like RGV and other rural Hispanics? I don’t see people saying that any of those urban Hispanic districts are at risk like TX-34. And I can match Collin and Denton County with diverse suburbs all over the country if we want to extrapolate, too.

In a word: yes. The swing to Trump in Houston in Mexican-American neighborhoods, while not as large as in the RGV, was very large. In my mind, Democrats have much further to fall in Houston, Dallas and San Antonio. You shouldn't view us as being "safe", you shouldn't write us off and treat us like your possession. There's no special issue that Democrats can use to appeal to Hispanics these days and, frankly, the way Democrats talk about race today actively alienates Hispanics!

Goodnight and good luck! P.S. you should be scared of diverse suburbs because those are suburbs that are lower middle class and poorer - this is ultimately a class issue.

[TheDeadFlagBlues]

RGV is just shifting right, no other explanations make sense. Not the end of the world. Better there than somewhere more vote rich.

What this post is actually saying: due to innumeracy, I have found a way to cope with the fact that my party is a loathed piece of excrement in every rural area where neither Blacks nor American Indians live.

[TheDeadFlagBlues]

Mexican-Americans have created huge upward mobility for themselves over the past decade, in spite of having the lowest rates of educational attainment of any major American racial or ethnic group. In other words, they're becoming kulaks, who have never been big on left-leaning politics.

Mexican-Americans have attained a great deal of social mobility over the past century. It has been disguised by the fact that there have been new waves of Mexican immigrants, who start at the bottom. The communities with exclusively "old stock" Mexican immigrants like Pueblo in Colorado voted strongly for Democrats up until 2016. This is to say that your thesis is BS: there's no support for it and it is nothing more than the wet dream of Republicans.

Another way of putting this: Mexicans have achieved lots of social mobility in the US but they have always been working class or lower middle class at best as a demographic, even in more affluent areas like Downey in CA. Historically, this segment has leaned Democratic. What has changed? The class alignment of US politics isn't what it used to be, so Mexicans are shifting to the right and, on top of this, the special factor of immigration no longer benefits Democrats because immigration reform isn't on the agenda.

[TheDeadFlagBlues]

It blows my mind that people are extrapolating from a race with such pathetically low turnout. Dems are going to have a bad midterm, but this election has a small fraction of the votes of even the 2017 special elections where Dems fought in Republican seats. We see the 2020 realignment with extra apathy and a small swing away from Biden. There’s a good reason all the Republicans on Twitter keep calling back to Clinton and Obama, not Biden, for a comparison.

Collin and Denton for Cameron is a good trade.

"For every blue-collar Democrat we lose in McAllen, we will pick up two moderate Republicans in the suburbs of Dallas and you can repeat that in New Mexico, Arizona and Nevada."

You do realize that Mexicans do not only live in Brownsville but also in Houston, Dallas, San Antonio, and, basically, throughout Texas? Right now, it might appear that the "trade" is worthwhile but we are a rapidly growing demographic and Democrats have a lot to lose from writing us off - there's nothing preventing Mexican-Americans from giving Trump 60 or even 65 percent of the vote in Texas in 2024.

Not writing anyone off other than a marginal voter in the RGV who likes Trump. Is there evidence urban Hispanics are voting like RGV and other rural Hispanics? I don’t see people saying that any of those urban Hispanic districts are at risk like TX-34. And I can match Collin and Denton County with diverse suburbs all over the country if we want to extrapolate, too.

In a word: yes. The swing to Trump in Houston in Mexican-American neighborhoods, while not as large as in the RGV, was very large. In my mind, Democrats have much further to fall in Houston, Dallas and San Antonio. You shouldn't view us as being "safe", you shouldn't write us off and treat us like your possession. There's no special issue that Democrats can use to appeal to Hispanics these days and, frankly, the way Democrats talk about race today actively alienates Hispanics!

Goodnight and good luck! P.S. you should be scared of diverse suburbs because those are suburbs that are lower middle class and poorer - this is ultimately a class issue.

Nobody is doing that? This is quite literally a made up concept that people use against Democrats when no one is treating Latinos/Hispanics as such?

Also, to the latter point in what you said, so the "way" Democrats talk about race is alienating but the way that the GOP has talked about race and in particular Latinos over the last 5-10 years isn't alienating? Come on now.

The liberal media hasn't covered this election, Democratic politicians aren't panicking over this election, Democrats didn't panic over massive losses sustained in 2020, they didn't prioritize immigration reform in 2021. Bluntly, in general, Democratic politicians and white liberals don't care about Hispanics. They don't care much about Asians either but there has been far more of a focus on "Asian hate" than any issue affecting Hispanics in this country.

Republicans were extremely alienating in 2016 and 2018 but they've dropped this rhetoric. Perversely, Democrats and, in particular, left-wing activists now sound much more offensive than Republicans. In the wake of Black Lives Matter, many actively scolded Latinos for being racist.

[TheDeadFlagBlues]

RGV is just shifting right, no other explanations make sense. Not the end of the world. Better there than somewhere more vote rich.

What this post is actually saying: due to innumeracy, I have found a way to cope with the fact that my party is a loathed piece of excrement in every rural area where neither Blacks nor American Indians live.

Obviously it's not ideal, but parties can't really be popular everywhere in this day and age. Sometimes populations shift against you, it's just inevitable.

I don't really care if you feel this way but could you at least have the decency of changing your avatar? No socialist alive should endorse the proposition of trading support in Brownsville or Youngstown for support in Greenwich or Malibu - this is extremely perverse stuff.