Examples of when canidate quality hurt the Democrats?

[kwabbit]

I don't think Cal Cunningham was a bad candidate even after historically sexy. Generic Rs outperformed Trump by 2-3 points in most places. In NC it was zero. Tillis might be weak, but IMO Cunningham was slightly above average. Jeff Jackson would not have won easier. The list of Democrats that outperformed Biden in 2020 was very slim and he would not have done that against an incumbent.

As I said earlier, Gideon did not cost Dems that seat. Collins would have beaten everyone except maybe Golden and still that would've been close. She barely lost ME-01!

The Democrats only lost one winnable Senate race this year in Wisconsin. While Barnes wasn't great, it's not clear Nelson or Godlewski were stronger.

[Pollster]

Many good examples in this thread (Cal Cunningham and Martha Coakley are the first that come to mind for me) though it's worth noting that:

A) Democrats tend to nominate their worst candidates in safe seats (both safe D and R) so the electoral impact of their poor candidate quality are often muted/less consequential

B) The Democratic party has much stronger guardrails in place to prevent these types of candidates from winning consequential primaries, often (though not always) to the point that poor candidates don't even run

C) Many (though not all) of the consequentially poor Democratic candidates were only revealed to be so after they had won the primary (many will point to Cal Cunningham here, though I actually believe he was a poor candidate before the affair was revealed and was a rare misfire by Schumer)

For your second point, what are the guardrails you are referring to, and why doesn't the GOP have them in place?

Democrats like their leaders. So whenever the latter endorse or otherwise put a thumb on the scale for a certain candidate, the voters follow their lead.
OTOH, Republicans hate their leaders and try to stick it to them as often as possible.

^This, and also the Democratic party's leaders in general have a much stronger understanding of their base voters, what motivates them, and how to talk to them.

You can see the same guardrails/infrastructure at work when a squad-type makes a play for a safe D seat. Those who manage to win usually do so with a) a very small plurality in a clown car field, b) uniquely low turnout (NY primaries are notable for this), c) aloof incumbents whose districts have demographically shifted beneath their feet, or d) no institutional Democratic Party involvement until it's too late/at all.

[Oryxslayer]

Many good examples in this thread (Cal Cunningham and Martha Coakley are the first that come to mind for me) though it's worth noting that:

A) Democrats tend to nominate their worst candidates in safe seats (both safe D and R) so the electoral impact of their poor candidate quality are often muted/less consequential

B) The Democratic party has much stronger guardrails in place to prevent these types of candidates from winning consequential primaries, often (though not always) to the point that poor candidates don't even run

C) Many (though not all) of the consequentially poor Democratic candidates were only revealed to be so after they had won the primary (many will point to Cal Cunningham here, though I actually believe he was a poor candidate before the affair was revealed and was a rare misfire by Schumer)

For your second point, what are the guardrails you are referring to, and why doesn't the GOP have them in place?

Democrats like their leaders. So whenever the latter endorse or otherwise put a thumb on the scale for a certain candidate, the voters follow their lead.
OTOH, Republicans hate their leaders and try to stick it to them as often as possible.

Case in point, the VA-04 special election primary next week. State Dems and their allies have quickly closed ranks around McClellen in reaction to Morrissey. Which is normal practice if someone with known scandals tries to ascend up the ladder.

We can also see that the guardrails kinda break down when the party is in disorder, as in FL-10 with both Alan Grayson and Corrine Brown trying for comebacks. But even they failed because the Dem electorate itself has no tolerance for abuse of position, so in these non-ideology influenced situations, the party is acting to facilitate or preempt their decision.

[Pollster]

As I said earlier, Gideon did not cost Dems that seat. Collins would have beaten everyone except maybe Golden and still that would've been close. She barely lost ME-01!

Susan Collins essentially ran the same campaign against Sara Gideon that John Fetterman ran against Mehmet Oz - she just didn't memeify it. And Maine is the exact type of state (small population, filled with white, secular, usually Dem-voting small towns that are ideologically moderate and extremely persuadable) where carpetbagging attacks are extremely effective - and the carpetbagging case against Gideon was far less cut-and-dry than that against Oz.

You're probably right that she didn't cost Dems the race, but certainly a candidate with less potent and easily exploitable vulnerabilities would not have almost lost ME-01 of all places.

[MargieCat]

Andrew Gillum.

Gwen Graham may very well have defeated DeSantis.

[○∙◄☻¥tπ[╪AV┼cVê└]

Christy Smith, Sara Gideon, and Katie McGinty.

[Anti Democrat Democrat Club]

IL-SEN 2010, NV-SEN 2012, ME-SEN 2020 and NC-SEN 2020 all come to mind. There are others like IA-SEN 2014 where the Democratic candidate was terrible and massively underperformed, though I’m not sure that seat was winnable for Democrats.

There have also been plenty of House candidates that blew winnable races (Christy Smith, Donna Shalala, Scott Wallace, etc.)

What's the argument that Gideon was a terrible candidate? I thought the consensus was just that Collins was a very strong candidate.

Almost totally ignoring kitchen table issues.

Another thing is that nearly her entire campaign staff was imported from DC. Maine is a very unique, insular state.

Gideon was an unmitigated disaster of a candidate.

[Amenhotep Bakari-Sellers]

As I said before Ryan was a good candidate but he didn't ascend to any leadership in the H now post Pelosi they are creating lots of new leadership posts and if Ryan had Leadership not just a H member he could oflf  been best of like Chairman of the blue dogs, why do you think Brown wins all his races and he is going to win because he gotten out of the H during Katrina era, if he stayed in the H and been like Ryan and OH moved R he would had a tough time like Ryan did, he ran for Minority Leader and Lost

Brown isn't immortal he just won during the time OH is a blue state 2006 when Strickland was elected and Senate is always higher than H that Ryan was stuck in a decade after Brown

Rs really think they can defeat Brown with a 46/30 Approvals and Beshear has 62/36 they didn't learn from CCM experience that she had good Approvals too and wasn't defeated and Johnson won with 37% Approvals

IA is still a battlegrounds Ernst has 42% approvals she will be targeted in 26 she won with 51% but like FL it's not a battlegrounds when Grassley or Rubio are up for reelection, if Fink ran in 2020 instead of Greenfield she would have beaten Ernst

[Senator Incitatus]

Stacey Abrams, especially compared to how well Warnock did and the overall election night.

What exactly happened that turned Abrams from a prophet in 2018 and 2020 into a pariah in 2022?

A public relations façade eventually runs into trouble when you continually fail. She was all spin, no win from the start. (But very, very excellent at the spin.)

[Amenhotep Bakari-Sellers]

Barnes was overrated as a candidate obviously we could of won with another candidate

[Хahar 🤔]

Stacey Abrams, especially compared to how well Warnock did and the overall election night.

What exactly happened that turned Abrams from a prophet in 2018 and 2020 into a pariah in 2022?

Abrams was never a particularly good candidate; her performance in 2018 was exactly that of a generic Democrat, and she did just as well as every other Democrat in the state that year (with the exception of John Barrow, who did better). She can't be compared to Beto O'Rourke, who ran far ahead of other Texas Democrats.

Given that she was a generic Democrat and Kemp managed in 2020 to brand himself as something other than a generic Republican, she would have always had a tough time in the rematch. She turned that into a comprehensive defeat by demonstrating repeatedly that she was interested in political celebrity and not Georgia, but it's not as though she had great potential in the first place that was tragically squandered. She was good at raising money from liberals, which is something liberals often mistake for electoral talent.