NC-SEN 2020: Tar Heel Tillis

[S019]

Isn't Tillis main issue that rural voters distrust him and thus they probably vote for Trump, but leave Senate blank? I'm sure there are some Biden/Tillis voters, but they really shouldn't occur in any sizable amount

[ProgressiveModerate]

https://twitter.com/sahilkapur/status/1314926460692582400?s=20

Wonder if other Senate Republicans will follow suit

Not this s*** again. Republicans would not be a “check” on Biden, they’d be a pair of handcuffs. They’d stop at no means, no matter how corrupt and unethical, to stop him from doing anything to help Americans, and happily let the country go to hell so that they can blame it on him and win again. People thinking about voting Biden and Republican downballot need to understand this. Biden and a Republican Congress would not play footsie and make America a moderate wonderland again.

The Democratic rebuttal to this has to be two things. 1) The election isn’t over yet. 2) Republicans like Tillis have proven that they won’t be a check on anything, since they’ve shown time and time again that they’ll vote with Trump and McConnell without question, without any concern for Americans. They can’t be trusted to bring any kind of balance to Congress.

Newsflash: THIS STRATEGY ISN"T AIMED AT YOUR VOTE

This kind of strategy is aimed at rich suburbanites, who are center right but hate Trump's guts. People who aren't on board with Biden's agenda or at least not as a whole and thus don't feel comfortable with him having a blank check to implement it. They are just voting for him to get rid of the Orange buffoon.

Why is this forum full of such smart people so clueless when it comes to elections. "Why would anybody vote for Biden and Tillis", I see this everywhere. It isn't that complicated, idiosyncratic voters are a thing and they often end up deciding close elections. Not everyone is as engaged and knowledgeable about politics as us, and we should be mindful of that when getting outraged at the thought that there might be Anti-Trump voters who want Biden to get elected to get rid of this incompetent administration, but don't want some or all of Biden's proposals.

I agree with your general point that people thinking themselves themselves and the people they know are representative of the entire electorate is annoying, but I also feel like Atlas stereotypes entire groups of voters instead of looking at the more complex shifts. For example, "Rich Suburbanites" seems kind of vague, and the idea of a wealthy moderate well educated Romney Republican seems more like a stereotype than a large voting block. We treat Suburban Women, WWC, Hispanics, and other groups as monoliths when they are really more complex than that, which is why I really dislike it when people say "Biden will win TX because suburban women". Also, at this point, I think turnout is more important than the "swing voter", though both are relevant.

Anyways, I agree with your point that most voters tend to be stupid, and can vote for or against someone based on their party, soundbites, or just what they're friends say, and this cycle, most evidence suggests that partisanship will be the biggest factor in most of these senate races, as it was in 2016 and 2018.

Its not that voters are "stupid" because they aren't as engaged across the range of policy issues. It is more that they have too many things going on in their busy lives to spend hours upon hours studying the various intricacies of policy that down the line party people live and die by.

Fair enough. "Stupid" is harsh language for the most part, but it does get me annoyed when I see people who have the right to vote and either don't bother to use it, or they vote blindly for a party just because. People don't have to be educated on each and every issue, or try to keep up with national politics all the time as that can definately be time consuming, but I think having a basic understanding of who stands for what is important.

[Ogre Mage]

It is highly questionable if voters will care about Cal Sextingham's problems in the era of Trump, Stormy Daniels, et al.  But he has shown very poor judgment.  And as a result this CRUCIAL Senate race now looks more uncertain.

But look at it this way -- at least we saw Sextingham was a John Edwards type BEFORE we put him on a national ticket.  I certainly will not support any higher ambitions he may have now.

[MillennialModerate]

I’m convinced this is going to cost us the senate

[Xing]

https://twitter.com/sahilkapur/status/1314926460692582400?s=20

Wonder if other Senate Republicans will follow suit

Not this s*** again. Republicans would not be a “check” on Biden, they’d be a pair of handcuffs. They’d stop at no means, no matter how corrupt and unethical, to stop him from doing anything to help Americans, and happily let the country go to hell so that they can blame it on him and win again. People thinking about voting Biden and Republican downballot need to understand this. Biden and a Republican Congress would not play footsie and make America a moderate wonderland again.

The Democratic rebuttal to this has to be two things. 1) The election isn’t over yet. 2) Republicans like Tillis have proven that they won’t be a check on anything, since they’ve shown time and time again that they’ll vote with Trump and McConnell without question, without any concern for Americans. They can’t be trusted to bring any kind of balance to Congress.

Newsflash: THIS STRATEGY ISN"T AIMED AT YOUR VOTE

This kind of strategy is aimed at rich suburbanites, who are center right but hate Trump's guts. People who aren't on board with Biden's agenda or at least not as a whole and thus don't feel comfortable with him having a blank check to implement it. They are just voting for him to get rid of the Orange buffoon.

Why is this forum full of such smart people so clueless when it comes to elections. "Why would anybody vote for Biden and Tillis", I see this everywhere. It isn't that complicated, idiosyncratic voters are a thing and they often end up deciding close elections. Not everyone is as engaged and knowledgeable about politics as us, and we should be mindful of that when getting outraged at the thought that there might be Anti-Trump voters who want Biden to get elected to get rid of this incompetent administration, but don't want some or all of Biden's proposals.


Tillis is very much dialed into this mindset as a business Republican from a business oriented community of probably now ex-Republicans in the Charlotte Area, hence why it is not surprising that he would be the first to break ranks and embrace such a strategy.

Yes, I’m completely aware of what Tillis is going for, and I’m merely pointing out how wrong it is, even if I know why people would be susceptible to buying into it. I was also pointing out how Democrats should respond. I fully understand why some people would vote Biden/Tillis, but that doesn’t mean I have to view that vote as smart, productive, or even particularly rational.

[Ferguson97]

All of this bedwetting is going to look very funny on Election Day.

[Blair]

I’m convinced this is going to cost us the senate

Then donate some time or money to either Cal's campaign or one of the alternative states the democrats need to pick-up if you can.

[cp]

It is highly questionable if voters will care about Cal Sextingham's problems in the era of Trump, Stormy Daniels, et al.  But he has shown very poor judgment.  And as a result this CRUCIAL Senate race now looks more uncertain.

But look at it this way -- at least we saw Sextingham was a John Edwards type BEFORE we put him on a national ticket.  I certainly will not support any higher ambitions he may have now.

Seriously? That's the epithet you're going with? Leaving aside the fact that Cunningham's texts are too tame to deserve it in the first place, the obvious choice for a childish taunt is 'Cal Cummingham'.

[Amenhotep Bakari-Sellers]

We have only gotten 2 NC polls since the scandal and no ME polls, since Collins was down by 1 pt, and they keep polling GA

[VAR]

Sen. Durbin tells Chuck Todd that Cunningham has faced the scandal “squarely”, and the campaign “continues”.

[Landslide Lyndon]

https://twitter.com/JonMIPol/status/1315311366195105793

[KaiserDave]

https://twitter.com/JonMIPol/status/1315311366195105793

Hmmmmmmmmmmmmm

[This user has not been convicted of 34 felonies]

Ultimately, I don't think this is going to flip voters from Cunningham to Tillis. Some folks will just leave the Senate race blank. As long as Cunningham can convince enough folks to vote for him while also reminding everyone how terrible Tillis is, he will still have a good chance.

[Ogre Mage]

It is highly questionable if voters will care about Cal Sextingham's problems in the era of Trump, Stormy Daniels, et al.  But he has shown very poor judgment.  And as a result this CRUCIAL Senate race now looks more uncertain.

But look at it this way -- at least we saw Sextingham was a John Edwards type BEFORE we put him on a national ticket.  I certainly will not support any higher ambitions he may have now.

Seriously? That's the epithet you're going with? Leaving aside the fact that Cunningham's texts are too tame to deserve it in the first place, the obvious choice for a childish taunt is 'Cal Cummingham'.

Yeah, that nickname is probably better.  I went with Sextingham because that was how he got caught.  He's a real "mental genius" to leave an electronic paper trail.  I can almost hear Sade singing "Smooth Operator" in the background.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rS7Va0sBYAM

[Interlocutor is just not there yet]

Interesting to see the rollercoaster play out over the last 2 weeks on this board:

1. Folks calling Cunningham a great candidate in a race that's his to lose.
2. Scandal breaks and is plastered all over the local news media (Fairly or not).
3. Folks depressingly downgrade this race to Tossup and predict the emergence of Biden/Tillis voters.
4. Folks deride Cunningham as a bad candidate and openly question who should've won the primary or whether he should stop out.
5. Stories/polls start popping up about how little the scandal seems to be changing votes & how Cunningham still has the higher ground.
6. Folks start propping Cunningham back up as a great good candidate, though with a "He could still lose" caveat.

The Senates version of Kenosha, if you will.

[MT Treasurer]

It would probably work better for Cunningham to argue he'll be a check on a Trump second term lol. People simply won't believe Biden is inevitable, no matter what the polls show.

Trump/Cunningham voters aren’t supporting Cunningham because they went a "check" on Trump, so that would be a really, really bad strategy on his part. He can’t afford to nationalize this race even further, especially when Tillis has done such a poor job of executing this strategy himself and is underperforming among R-leaning voters.

Also (not related to your comment but the last two pages of this thread), no politically aware person buys into the "check" rhetoric at this point. I’m not going to deny that I’m excited for McConnell to put the same "check" on Biden's presidency that Democrats were so eager to put on Trump, though....

[GeneralMacArthur]

I’m not going to deny that I’m excited for McConnell to put the same "check" on Biden's presidency that Democrats were so eager to put on Trump, though....

You're eager to go back to the days of

Zero legislation getting passed

Zero nominees getting confirmed

Artificial crises being created by the Republicans just so the country can lose and they can blame the Democratic president

Annual government shutdown fights

Endless, pointless hearings about Fox News conspiracies that go absolutely nowhere

Republicans passing 50 different Obamacare repeals instead of working on real legislation

and all while Mitch McConnell laughs about it with his rich buddies?  You really enjoy having a completely broken government?

If we could have balanced government like Tip and Reagan in the 80s, I'd be fine with that.  But Mitch McConnell just smashes everything and leaves the country in a deep freeze for purely political reasons.

[Indy Texas]

Apparently when one of Thom Tillis' constituents, a cancer patient, contacted his office to relay her concerns about affording healthcare, she was literally told, "If you can't afford it then you don't deserve it."

Thom Tillis Staffer Tells a Cancer Survivor to Not Get Health Coverage if She Can’t Afford It

During a recent call with the staffer, which was recorded and is now circulating widely, a frustrated Bev Veals, who has survived cancer three times, asked several variations of that question and was met with nonchalance.

“You’re saying that, if you can’t afford it, you don’t get to have it—and that includes health care?” said Veals, a three-time cancer survivor.

“Yeah, just like if I want to go to the store and buy a new dress shirt. If I can’t afford that dress shirt, I don’t get to get it,” said the staffer.

“But health care is something that people need—especially if they have cancer.”

“Well, you got to find a way to get it.”

[Woody]

Apparently when one of Thom Tillis' constituents, a cancer patient, contacted his office to relay her concerns about affording healthcare, she was literally told, "If you can't afford it then you don't deserve it."

Thom Tillis Staffer Tells a Cancer Survivor to Not Get Health Coverage if She Can’t Afford It

During a recent call with the staffer, which was recorded and is now circulating widely, a frustrated Bev Veals, who has survived cancer three times, asked several variations of that question and was met with nonchalance.

“You’re saying that, if you can’t afford it, you don’t get to have it—and that includes health care?” said Veals, a three-time cancer survivor.

“Yeah, just like if I want to go to the store and buy a new dress shirt. If I can’t afford that dress shirt, I don’t get to get it,” said the staffer.

“But health care is something that people need—especially if they have cancer.”

“Well, you got to find a way to get it.”

This is like a month old.

[VAR]

People are really shocked about IndyRep being a Republican huh

[Indy Texas]

Apparently when one of Thom Tillis' constituents, a cancer patient, contacted his office to relay her concerns about affording healthcare, she was literally told, "If you can't afford it then you don't deserve it."

Thom Tillis Staffer Tells a Cancer Survivor to Not Get Health Coverage if She Can’t Afford It

During a recent call with the staffer, which was recorded and is now circulating widely, a frustrated Bev Veals, who has survived cancer three times, asked several variations of that question and was met with nonchalance.

“You’re saying that, if you can’t afford it, you don’t get to have it—and that includes health care?” said Veals, a three-time cancer survivor.

“Yeah, just like if I want to go to the store and buy a new dress shirt. If I can’t afford that dress shirt, I don’t get to get it,” said the staffer.

“But health care is something that people need—especially if they have cancer.”

“Well, you got to find a way to get it.”

This is like a month old.

You have no defense of the way Tillis treats his constituents, so you're going to make up a one-month statute of limitations.

[Xing]

I’m not going to deny that I’m excited for McConnell to put the same "check" on Biden's presidency that Democrats were so eager to put on Trump, though....

You're eager to go back to the days of

Zero legislation getting passed

Zero nominees getting confirmed

Artificial crises being created by the Republicans just so the country can lose and they can blame the Democratic president

Annual government shutdown fights

Endless, pointless hearings about Fox News conspiracies that go absolutely nowhere

Republicans passing 50 different Obamacare repeals instead of working on real legislation

and all while Mitch McConnell laughs about it with his rich buddies?  You really enjoy having a completely broken government?

If we could have balanced government like Tip and Reagan in the 80s, I'd be fine with that.  But Mitch McConnell just smashes everything and leaves the country in a deep freeze for purely political reasons.

I mean, I at least appreciate Republicans being honest about the fact that they want a Republican Senate because they don't want Biden getting anything done, rather than trying to argue that we should have Biden and a Republican Senate for "bipartisanship and moderation " and/or because said Republicans will provide "checks and balances ".

If it's electoral success for Republicans that they want, they should at least own up to it.

[Ferguson97]

https://twitter.com/josh_posts/status/1315773909309030400

[Penn_Quaker_Girl]

https://twitter.com/josh_posts/status/1315773909309030400

Can I somehow get a shirt with that Cunningham art on it?

[Chancellor Tanterterg]

https://twitter.com/josh_posts/status/1315773909309030400

Celebrating adultery and home-wrecking to own the cons.  Guess it just goes to show that there are plenty of shameless partisan hacks in the Democratic Party too.  

Actually, it's even worse than that.  You can want Cunningham to win despite his scandal because this could be the tipping point seat for control of the Senate.  Fair enough, but that doesn't change the fact that Cunningham is a lying, pathetic excuse for a human being.  What he did was unjustifiable and utterly reprehensible.  A Democratic Senate majority is worth tolerating him for six years, but that doesn't make Cunningham any less of a deplorable scumbag.

Moreover, celebrating him for being a home-wrecking adulterer just because he happens to be a Democrat is precisely the sort of morally bankrupt partisan hackery that folks here are always complaining about whenever Trump supporters say they don't care about Trump's scandals.