New Hampshire 2018: The Bloody First

[ON Progressive]

We have more clarification on Sullivan's statement.

She didn't vote. Not for Clinton or Sanders or any of the Unidentified Men. She just stayed home.

That's just embarrassing.

[Anti Democrat Democrat Club]

We have more clarification on Sullivan's statement.

She didn't vote. Not for Clinton or Sanders or any of the Unidentified Men. She just stayed home.

Disgusting. That alone should disqualify her, honestly.

It gets worse.

Not only did she not vote in the 2016 primary, she hasn't voted in a midterm since 2006. She stayed home in 2010 and 2014, when she was living in Massachusetts.

Not only can she be partially blamed for GOP control of the governor's mansion, but it begs the question on whether she voted in 2009. If she didn't, the irony is absolutely rich. Her not voting helped indirectly lay the carpet to Scott Brown's failed carpetbagging bid, which is what is causing many Democrats to riot against her.

I thought this was some odd Old Atlas civic duty thing. The DC primary was the last primary. I could at least understand if she didn't vote in the last primary of the cycle, when the race was all but decided. But this... this is worse than I ever could have imagined. Maura Sullivan pissed the governor's mansion away because she couldn't get off her ass and vote, and she may have pissed away the supermajority too. And she expects us to vote for her after she couldn't be bothered to vote for us or the party?

Get the finks out of here.

[Arkansas Yankee]

So another Dem military vet in the race is attacking Sullivan accusing her of stolen valor.

You must be logged in to read this quote.

http://www.unionleader.com/state-government/congressional-candidates-military-service-records-under-attack-20180826

Why should you all care anyways.   You all support a U.S. Senator from Connecticut who claimed he was Vietnam War veteran, when he never served over there. What is ok for him should be ok for anyone else.

[Former Dean Phillips Supporters for Haley (I guess???!?) 👁️]

We have more clarification on Sullivan's statement.

She didn't vote. Not for Clinton or Sanders or any of the Unidentified Men. She just stayed home.

Disgusting. That alone should disqualify her, honestly.

It gets worse.

Not only did she not vote in the 2016 primary, she hasn't voted in a midterm since 2006. She stayed home in 2010 and 2014, when she was living in Massachusetts.

Not only can she be partially blamed for GOP control of the governor's mansion, but it begs the question on whether she voted in 2009. If she didn't, the irony is absolutely rich. Her not voting helped indirectly lay the carpet to Scott Brown's failed carpetbagging bid, which is what is causing many Democrats to riot against her.

I thought this was some odd Old Atlas civic duty thing. The DC primary was the last primary. I could at least understand if she didn't vote in the last primary of the cycle, when the race was all but decided. But this... this is worse than I ever could have imagined. Maura Sullivan pissed the governor's mansion away because she couldn't get off her ass and vote, and she may have pissed away the supermajority too. And she expects us to vote for her after she couldn't be bothered to vote for us or the party?

Get the finks out of here.

Yikes!!! When I google this, I can find articles about her not voting in the 2016 presidential primary, but not about 2014/2012. What is the earlier statement and where are you getting that from?

Anyway, if that is so, that is just a terrible look. Not exactly the most plausible thing to do to ask people to vote for you in a midterm when you cannot even be bothered to vote in midterms yourself.

[Zaybay]

I really hope this sends her down so Pappas can win. We need a real progressive in this seat, not some carpetbagger moderate "#bothsides" representative.

[Fmr. Speaker anna0kear]

NH-01 - Safe D
NH-02 - Safe D

The End.

Don't ask.

[henster]

At this point Dems better hope Sullivan isn't the nominee or it will end up costing them the seat.

[Anti Democrat Democrat Club]

Quick GOP thing:

* Andy Martin, a perennial candidate known for his conspiracy theories about Obama, performed better than expected. He is still Andy Martin, so he is probably not going to sneak through. Generally, I didn't notice anything from Sanborn or Edwards.

* Sanborn grabbed an endorsement from the NRA. Strangely enough, he seems to be doing better.

[Former Kentuckian]

It will be so disappointing if Maura wins

[I spent the winter writing songs about getting better]

Sullivan getting owned!

LOL Jeppe.

[Zaybay]

This numbers are highly promising, and some are calling it, Im keeping the race open for now, but Pappas is a strong favorite

[Former Kentuckian]

https://twitter.com/JudyReardon/status/1037082764212936704?s=19

Sullivan follows suit. Much more forceful and personal than "Maura's money comes from out of state/Wall Street." The state establishment is furious, with Pappas's allies claiming homophobia. They'll come around if she wins.

Dante Scala, a professor at UNH, said that the negativity could cause a third candidate to slip through. The problem is that McEachern isn't well known outside of Portsmouth, Andrews is obscure, and the Bernie vote is split six different ways. And that's not even counting Pappas and McEachern cutting into it.

It'd be great if Sullivan would apologize for dog-whistle homophobia (on her way out of the state), but I think that's asking too much of her.

[henster]

I really want to hear from Sullivan why she left a perfectly fine district in IL for NH, this has to be one of the most bizarre political decisions of 2018.

[Zaybay]

I really want to hear from Sullivan why she left a perfectly fine district in IL for NH, this has to be one of the most bizarre political decisions of 2018.

easy, political opportunism.

[IceSpear]

I really want to hear from Sullivan why she left a perfectly fine district in IL for NH, this has to be one of the most bizarre political decisions of 2018.

easy, political opportunism.

That's why it's strange. IL-03 or IL-06 seemed like they would've been paths of lesser resistance. Maybe poor Maura really did love NH so much she only wanted to run there, lol.

[new_patomic]

This result is why Pappas didnt seem worried during the campaign.

[Antonio the Sixth]

Glad to see the two non-scumbags won their respective primaries (it would have been fun to see Sanborn get Keyesed, but Pappas is still gonna win by double digits anyway).

[Anti Democrat Democrat Club]

I really want to hear from Sullivan why she left a perfectly fine district in IL for NH, this has to be one of the most bizarre political decisions of 2018.

easy, political opportunism.

Also delusions of grandeur.

[Atlas Force]

https://twitter.com/Redistrict/status/1039672880924057601

[Anti Democrat Democrat Club]

Takeaways for the other nine:

* Messmer's performance was right on the mark, and I'm proud to estimate her surge. Anyone paying serious attention could tell was by far the most credible Berniecrat with the strongest grassroots support. I truly believe with some real monetary backing she could have made some very real noise. I actually volunteered for her before Sullivan started her blitz, and I know well enough that she's got a groundswell of support. I thought she would get third place, to be honest, and I'm glad to see myself proven right. She has a bright future here.

* Naomi Andrews did about as expected. Did well in her areas and had a respectable performance at home. But unfortunately (or, fortunately if you're in Pappas's camp), it was too little too late. If she got in earlier, I truly believe we might be in fear about Congressman Edwards.

* I massively overestimated Deaglan McEachern's performance. He was raising a credible amount of money, albeit mostly from out-of-state, and I thought he would do well enough in Portsmouth to cut into Sullivan's margins. Instead, he ran behind Mindi in his home wards and wasn't even competitive in the others. I had him firmly in Tier 2 with Mindi/Naomi but he performed like a Tier 3 candidate.

* Lincoln Soldati outperformed expectations - about on par with a fringe Tier 2 candidate. He has a small base of support in Strafford County, and he was at least able to compete with the top 2 candidates in that turf. 3% was above expectations, considering I had him very low on the pole.

* At its most base form, Levi did okay. He got 2% off of name recognition. The only thing that makes sense of him going here is not to force his father into an awkward, losing battle with the state establishment and Kuster. To put it plainly, he doesn't have the strength AOC has.

* I'm very surprised that Mark Mackenzie did so poorly. I knew Pappas was massively cutting into his support base (unions and the Manchester area), but I didn't expect him to cut into his lead by so much that he had trouble breaking 1%. Levi massively outperformed him.

* Terence O'Rourke may not have shown up electorally (only gaining about a percent of the vote), but he put himself in the conversation. He helped chip away at Sullivan - without him, there's no Confederate monument controversy for Pappas to seize on, and there's no chipping away at her "life of service" that got interrupted by a 5-year stint as a Pepsi executive. Also, his message of progressive patriotism was incredibly compelling and strong enough. He even got a shoutout from some of the establishment after the race, despite being very firmly #NeverMaura and attacking Pappas on some of the issues. I've taken a lot of personal inspiration from him and I hope he runs in 2020 for SD-6 (if Grassie can't get it done). I'm excited to see how his career unfolds - we need a Congressman with guts.

* Cardinal and Martin were literal whos.

[Anti Democrat Democrat Club]

Big takeaways from the top 2:

* I massively overestimated Maura Sullivan. I didn't think she'd be a paper tiger, and I actually had her winning before her bad week. She had powerful national backing and an arm of part of the Obama administration as well. I also decided to go with VoteVets's trend. I saw Jared Golden, Conor Lamb, and Amy McGrath do well, and I thought Sullivan looked fine on paper. The big problem was that that week, the cracks began to show. In reality, she was much closer to Josh Butner or Rachel Reddick, two other failed veteran candidates with similar non-voting scandals, than Lamb or McGrath.

* Overall, I think it proved my carpetbagging theory right. On a precinct-by-precinct level, Sullivan did best exactly where I predicted: in Rockingham County, at least 3 towns away. I don't think many people predicted it. The major issue was Hillsborough, the "inconclusive area" that still leaves as many questions as it does answers. Pappas carried it commandingly and actually represented most of it in the Executive Council. I at least expected that. One thing I didn't expect Sullivan to run even with Pappas in rural areas in Belknap and Carroll. These were ostensibly strong Shaheen-trending places that I don't believe would hold up. There's also (interestingly enough) a precinct in Campton that was pro-Sullivan.

* Sure, I thought Chris Pappas would do very well in Manchester, but I didn't expect him to rock the urban areas as much as he did. I certainly didn't expect Pappas to do as well as he did in Portsmouth. I thought the battleground would be in Strafford County, and I thought Sullivan would have the slight advantage on the Seacoast. Instead, he took Rockingham on the back of Maura's "home city". Overall, it suggests a very strong ground presence for Pappas, especially in more urban areas.

* A poster on AAD had a great post about Maura's main problem. There were much more glaring issues than carpetbagging - mainly sounding very scripted, vague, and almost Rubio-esque. This was very evident in the WMUR debate. It feels like she believed that the best way to connect to NH voters was to tell her stories about how other people connected with her, and the only one that really sunk was the one that everyone on stage agreed with.

* If anything sunk Maura Sullivan's campaign, it was being forced to improvise. Whenever she was asked about an off-the-cuff answer, she failed miserably and it created controversy. Clearly out of left-field, considering there are no monuments here. She could have taken time to condemn them. Instead, she decided to not only, but defend them by equivocating it to "the federal government taking our monuments." Same with the 2016 question - she made it sound like a dodge, and when people investigated, they found out that she didn't vote in the critical months before the campaign. She even admitted that she "hadn't really been thinking of torture" when the controversy over Gina Haspel erupted. Looking back, this was the major warning sign, and even more of a factor than the carpetbagging, As NHPR said, Maura Sullivan seemed right out of central casting, and it showed.

* Pappas's strong geographic roots are the #1 factor as to why he won. Dante Scala, a professor at UNH, said he needed to break 50% in Manchester. He broke 70% and came near 80%. He also needed 40% in his Executive Council district. He was closer to 60% than he was 50%. He needed 30% to win everywhere else. He didn't shatter it like he did 50% and 40%, but he did substantially better than he needed to. Sullivan, in contrast, had no real geographic base. She didn't really have much roots in Portsmouth, she didn't have the institutional connections inside pivotal areas of the state to win, and she utterly failed in Pappas Country.

* The main takeaway that we have is that the national Democratic establishment has learned nothing. They have forgotten the first rule: all politics is local. Our DC overlords basically parachuted one of their own into our state and tried to make her "happen" when we had a perfectly good, top-tier candidate with ironclad roots. The gobs of money spent on Maura Sullivan could have gone to women like Marie Newman (who could have used an earlier cash infusion), some of the IDC challengers, or veterans down-ballot. Instead, national special interest groups blew $2 million on a candidate who repeated Hillary's worst mistakes in a race that anyone in NH could have really looked at and said not to spend money.

[NHI]

Hurrah! Sullivan and Sanborn lost . NH politics is still local, and backgrounds matter, thank God! The race favors Pappas but at least this’ll be a fight between two respectable candidates.

[Anti Democrat Democrat Club]

Hurrah! Sullivan and Sanborn lost . NH politics is still local, and backgrounds matter, thank God! The race favors Pappas but at least this’ll be a fight between two respectable candidates.

My thoughts exactly. Edwards is a very strong candidate, and someone I can respect.

https://twitter.com/NHDems/status/1039723482664382464

Even the official account is taking shots at Sullivan

[Alabama_Indy10]

Ehh.. Pappas doesn't seem that bad

[136or142]

Hurrah! Sullivan and Sanborn lost . NH politics is still local, and backgrounds matter, thank God! The race favors Pappas but at least this’ll be a fight between two respectable candidates.

My thoughts exactly. Edwards is a very strong candidate, and someone I can respect.

https://twitter.com/NHDems/status/1039723482664382464

Even the official account is taking shots at Sullivan

On the issues, Edwards is still a standard far right conservative.