Who was the most overrated Republican of the 2022 cycle?

[Ferguson97]

Laxalt still came very close to unseating CCM. At the same time, the mere fact that anyone thought Masters could possibly win made him "overrated."

Yeah but a lot of people (myself included) treated him like a sure thing.

[oldkyhome]

I voted O'Dea for the same reason as others. He was probably touted more than anyone else as the sleeper flip, and he got demolished by Bennet. To be fair to him, the image of a competitive race probably helped turn out Ds, whereas Rs in races that were considered to be forgone conclusions (Think CA-Gov, FL-Gov, TX-Gov) broadly overperformed expectations.

[John Dule]

Laxalt still came very close to unseating CCM. At the same time, the mere fact that anyone thought Masters could possibly win made him "overrated."

Yeah but a lot of people (myself included) treated him like a sure thing.

I guess I just wasn't active enough on the prediction/congressional boards at the time to notice that. All I saw was a Nevada race within the margin of error, and I assumed the Democrat would overperform as usual.

That said, I figured the final margin would be very close, and Laxalt had a realistic path to win. Meanwhile, I never thought Masters had a chance. The guy was running against a popular astronaut with a wife who was injured by gun violence, and his campaign strategy was to just post videos of himself standing alone in the desert shooting at random stuff with dead silence in the background. It doesn't help that he looks like a serial killer who's still wearing his last victim's face over his own. It's really weird to me that people apparently thought he could win that race.

[fluffypanther19]

Lake, Laxalt.

[Interlocutor is just not there yet]

All it takes is 8000 Nevada votes to change and the results of this poll would be very different, I think

[dw93]

Lake. Laxalt is a close 2nd.

[MT Treasurer]

Laxalt (or possibly Lake) was the one whose chances of winning were most overrated in retrospect, but the one whose overall amorphous "quality" was the most overrated was clearly O'Dea. I would say Smiley, but nobody seemed to rate her so much as they underrated Murray.

This is the correct answer.

Laxalt was overrated the same way Ted Budd (who no one here has brought up, interestingly enough) was overrated — (a) both Laxalt and Budd looked (and indeed were) more 'generic' next to more 'controversial' and inept Republican candidates, but they both embraced Trump and never really put distance between themselves and the national party; (b) many (myself included) just generally overstated the Republican lean/trend of NV and NC, but that had little to do with Laxalt and Budd as candidates; (c) many who overrated Laxalt and Budd really just underrated Cortez Masto and Beasley, who were arguably (slightly) stronger than generic D, at least with the benefit of hindsight.

However, many of the same users who used to point out how overrated Laxalt was also pointed to Joe O'Dea as a prime example of an 'actual' strong challenger not tainted by Trump and the toxic national party who would overperform in a way more 'partisan' Republican candidates in the swing states would not. No one expected O'Dea to lose by more than Trump! As 'overrated' as Laxalt and Budd were, at least they didn’t perform worse than Trump.