KY-SEN: Amy McGrath in

[Oryxslayer]

My question here is how many counties will McGrath win come November? I honestly only think 5-10; she will win Fayette and Jefferson, but after that I would guess Franklin, Elliot, Wolfe, Bath, and Rowan; maybe in a stretch she might pick up Campbell or Boone or something.

There are only enough Presidential Dem voters in KY for Biden to carry Fayette, Jefferson, and Franklin, maybe with a few pluralities in the sububrs. However, there are enough anti-Turtle voters for her, or Booker if he won, to get to high-30s or 40%, but no higher. So I wouldn't be surprised if she got not just Elliot and some neighboring rurals (Old D's in coal fields won't a different kind of Republican) but also some suburbs.

[n1240]

Bit late to the party... time zone differences, plus having to work remotely and just recently logged onto Atlas....

Shame about Booker, but I suspect we'll be seeing him in the future within KY politics at a high level election...

Do we know how many KY mail in ballots were chucked because they didn't have signatures on the outside envelope or were post-marked or received after KY SoS deadlines?

Pretty sure I read an article on this from a local newspaper (Louisville?) and it seemed like there was a significant quantity of invalid mail in ballots....

Not sure this would have flipped the election here, but wouldn't be surprised if it caused a bit of an impact.

Additionally, it speaks to some of the challenges educating voters about VbM this coming November, many of whom are unused to the rules regarding mail in ballots.... (Obviously in Oregon we've been dealing with since the beginning as the first state to go all VbM, so generally most voters are pretty savvy about *how* to make sure one's ballot gets counted, and can even track the status online, etc....

Twitter keeps repeating a 6,000 figure for the amount of tossed ballots. McGrath is ahead by about 15,000 votes so I'm not sure it would change the outcome. That's also assuming all ballots would have gone to Booker, although I suspect a majority would.

https://twitter.com/srl/status/1278062232061034499

Jefferson has about 6k fewer absentees counted than reported received as well.

[NOVA Green]

Bit late to the party... time zone differences, plus having to work remotely and just recently logged onto Atlas....

Shame about Booker, but I suspect we'll be seeing him in the future within KY politics at a high level election...

Do we know how many KY mail in ballots were chucked because they didn't have signatures on the outside envelope or were post-marked or received after KY SoS deadlines?

Pretty sure I read an article on this from a local newspaper (Louisville?) and it seemed like there was a significant quantity of invalid mail in ballots....

Not sure this would have flipped the election here, but wouldn't be surprised if it caused a bit of an impact.

Additionally, it speaks to some of the challenges educating voters about VbM this coming November, many of whom are unused to the rules regarding mail in ballots.... (Obviously in Oregon we've been dealing with since the beginning as the first state to go all VbM, so generally most voters are pretty savvy about *how* to make sure one's ballot gets counted, and can even track the status online, etc....

Twitter keeps repeating a 6,000 figure for the amount of tossed ballots. McGrath is ahead by about 15,000 votes so I'm not sure it would change the outcome. That's also assuming all ballots would have gone to Booker, although I suspect a majority would.

https://twitter.com/srl/status/1278062232061034499

Jefferson has about 6k fewer absentees counted than reported received as well.

Wait---- grabs remote control, hits pause button and then rewind button....

So, there were 6,6k mail in ballots rejects because of signature issues, not sealing inner/outer envelope, or not including ballots within inner envelope?

If I'm reading this correctly a 7% reject rate of mail in ballots is "normal" in Fayette County, Kentucky!!!

Additionally it appears that there were an additional (600) ballots rejected because of not being post-marked the day of the election or received by the deadline to be received.

It appears that roughly 10% of mail-in ballots were tossed in Fayette County (Presumably overwhelmingly Democratic ballots considering the political make-up of the County, plus extremely high voter turnout levels.).

Aside from this particular election, where there is a decent chance this did not affect the actual outcome (Still raises my eyebrows looking at Jefferson County turnout numbers)....

1.) This is a complete disgrace, and in my mind tarnishes the reputation which KY had for holding a high-turnout election under extraordinary circumstances...

2.) *IF* 7% of mail-in ballots are routinely rejected for signature related items, envelopes not being properly sealed, etc, this raises the obvious question as to why there were not previous flags to help correct this from an "Engineering" perspective, Voter tracking perspective, Education perspective, etc....

3.) Although from what I have seen of the young KY SoS dude, he seems to be on the ball, this model will not be acceptable come November 2020 in Kentucky (or any other State within the US).

4.) Michael Adams has just recently been promoting expansion of Early Voting centers in KY for November, arguing that these are more "cost effective" than VbM and reduce the strain on County Level election offices.

Perhaps maybe he should also be looking at why 7% (or 10% in this particular County in the 2020 KY Primaries) effectively lost their right to vote, and proposing solutions to lower this number significantly.

***HINT***     Oregon, Washington, California, Colorado, and many other States might be able to offer some tips on how to do this better.

[GeneralMacArthur]

Honestly, as someone whose family runs ten generations deep in Magoffin County, this is one of the most inspiring results I've seen for the progressive movement. I have admittedly gotten sick of progressive's habit of only winning "moral victories," but if there is such a thing, this is certainly one.

Looking through the results I think that if Booker was from Lexington/east of it, or if this wasn't an election that had been wrapped up early because of mail-in voting, he would have won fairly easily. McGrath's campaign will be insufferable, but having seen the labor and environmentalist movement in Appalachia been cast aside for years, it's pretty inspiring to see the success of people like Booker and Swearengin, even if they won't end up in office. After years in the dark I think Appalachia is going to finally have an organized and vocal (and maybe even somewhat effective!) opposition party.

Is there any reason to believe this was a progressive-vs-not-progressive battle?  Was that highlighted in the ads, debates, local endorsements, etc.?

My perspective was that it was an insider-vs-outsider race, with McGrath being the outsider.  Booker was local to the state, got all the local endorsements, and was pretty well-known.  McGrath was not, and did not get those endorsements, but was heavily boosted by the DSCC and national party because they saw her conservative views as a good bet for pulling away right-leaning voters who hate McConnell, similar to Sinema in AZ.

[○∙◄☻¥tπ[╪AV┼cVê└]

Trash party nominates trash candidate.

[anthonyjg]

Honestly, as someone whose family runs ten generations deep in Magoffin County, this is one of the most inspiring results I've seen for the progressive movement. I have admittedly gotten sick of progressive's habit of only winning "moral victories," but if there is such a thing, this is certainly one.

Looking through the results I think that if Booker was from Lexington/east of it, or if this wasn't an election that had been wrapped up early because of mail-in voting, he would have won fairly easily. McGrath's campaign will be insufferable, but having seen the labor and environmentalist movement in Appalachia been cast aside for years, it's pretty inspiring to see the success of people like Booker and Swearengin, even if they won't end up in office. After years in the dark I think Appalachia is going to finally have an organized and vocal (and maybe even somewhat effective!) opposition party.

Is there any reason to believe this was a progressive-vs-not-progressive battle?  Was that highlighted in the ads, debates, local endorsements, etc.?

My perspective was that it was an insider-vs-outsider race, with McGrath being the outsider.  Booker was local to the state, got all the local endorsements, and was pretty well-known.  McGrath was not, and did not get those endorsements, but was heavily boosted by the DSCC and national party because they saw her conservative views as a good bet for pulling away right-leaning voters who hate McConnell, similar to Sinema in AZ.

Both can be true. Part of being an outsider in a place like Kentucky includes artificially shifting rightward because of a misunderstanding of the electorate while being an insider includes a more nuanced understanding that allows for select left-wing ideas. Of course not everything is a 2016 redux, but Booker's appeal definitely extends beyond his identity.

I think it's also important to note that there wasn't really and insider candidate in this race, save Mary Ann Tobin. Booker was a local prospect in Louisville, but definitely wouldn't be pretty much anywhere else. This is reflected in the results but where I would draw hope from is that it's not to the extent I believed it to be. Breaking 25/30 percent in places like Harlan, Pike, and Floyd as a black liberal from Louisville during this sort of moment for BLM is a much bigger accomplishment than people will give it credit for.

[Amenhotep Bakari-Sellers]

It's not imperative to beat McConnell,  its important to make him a minority leader without the filibuster, with 51 votes.

There arent many Minorities in KY,15 percent but lots of minorities in SC and TX over 30 percent

Royce White and Harrison can beat Graham and Cornyn

[free my dawg]

Between this and the Hickenlooper thing, words cannot describe my disgust with the DSCC right now. These people essentially bought a nomination for the most incompetent major candidate I've seen in my lifetime. There's disasters, there's Bruce Braley, and then there's whatever the **** this was. A Green New Deal isn't going to go over well in Kentucky, but cosmic-brain takes about how Mitch McConnell is Actually Not Helping Trump like McGrath would sure as hell won't either. Most importantly, Amy McGrath, and the DSCC (drunk on greed) forgot the first rule of politics: all politics is local.

I actually don't have an issue with a conservative strategy. You don't see me calling to primary Colin Peterson or Jared Golden, or backing Paula Jean Swearengin against Joe Manchin. Joe Manchin is a conservative, Trump-compromising Democrat. Normal logic would be to look at his strong grassroots presence, his long ties to the state, and his track record of winning campaigns, and to try to find a candidate with similar traits. And the sad thing is, we had one in our grasp.

Of course, this is the Democratic Party we're talking about. Democratic Party logic would be to crown a candidate the moment they announced because of how much money they raised, regardless of their ties to the state or their grassroots support. Regardless of their previous stances, they would act like a dollar store knockoff of Joe Manchin. After all, Joe Manchin is well-liked because he's a bipartisan Democrat.

The DC establishment had sent DC consultants to "power" a woman who moved from the DC metro to run for Congress's Senate run. The DC establishment, with the help low-information NPCs who Just Want To See Moscow Mitch Go Down, bought McGrath the nomination. It's especially sad for me, considering one of my political heroes is my former representative who rose to power in a similar way Booker's campaign did. It's safe to say that between Citizens United and social media giving the average American an investment in politics, the next Carol Shea-Porter couldn't rise up nowadays.

If you want to know why I don't identify strongly with the Democrats, it's things like this. I'm in a very strange place where I'm more attached to Biden himself than I am the party. You have a significant amount of the party who, for lack of a better word, thinks I should f*** off and join the Russians because I liked Bernie more than I did Hillary 4 years ago. You have an establishment that's obsessed with keeping the gravy train flowing to the point where they'll pick winners and losers, even if everything shows the "winner" as comically incompetent or is a Republican on environmental policy. You had a future progressive star in your grasp - dare I say, someone who had Presidential material written all over him - and these sons of bitches pissed it away for green pieces of paper.

[Chancellor Tanterterg]

Between this and the Hickenlooper thing, words cannot describe my disgust with the DSCC right now. These people essentially bought a nomination for the most incompetent major candidate I've seen in my lifetime. There's disasters, there's Bruce Braley, and then there's whatever the **** this was. A Green New Deal isn't going to go over well in Kentucky, but cosmic-brain takes about how Mitch McConnell is Actually Not Helping Trump like McGrath would sure as hell won't either. Most importantly, Amy McGrath, and the DSCC (drunk on greed) forgot the first rule of politics: all politics is local.

I actually don't have an issue with a conservative strategy. You don't see me calling to primary Colin Peterson or Jared Golden, or backing Paula Jean Swearengin against Joe Manchin. Joe Manchin is a conservative, Trump-compromising Democrat. Normal logic would be to look at his strong grassroots presence, his long ties to the state, and his track record of winning campaigns, and to try to find a candidate with similar traits. And the sad thing is, we had one in our grasp.

Of course, this is the Democratic Party we're talking about. Democratic Party logic would be to crown a candidate the moment they announced because of how much money they raised, regardless of their ties to the state or their grassroots support. Regardless of their previous stances, they would act like a dollar store knockoff of Joe Manchin. After all, Joe Manchin is well-liked because he's a bipartisan Democrat.

The DC establishment had sent DC consultants to "power" a woman who moved from the DC metro to run for Congress's Senate run. The DC establishment, with the help low-information NPCs who Just Want To See Moscow Mitch Go Down, bought McGrath the nomination. It's especially sad for me, considering one of my political heroes is my former representative who rose to power in a similar way Booker's campaign did. It's safe to say that between Citizens United and social media giving the average American an investment in politics, the next Carol Shea-Porter couldn't rise up nowadays.

If you want to know why I don't identify strongly with the Democrats, it's things like this. I'm in a very strange place where I'm more attached to Biden himself than I am the party. You have a significant amount of the party who, for lack of a better word, thinks I should f*** off and join the Russians because I liked Bernie more than I did Hillary 4 years ago. You have an establishment that's obsessed with keeping the gravy train flowing to the point where they'll pick winners and losers, even if everything shows the "winner" as comically incompetent or is a Republican on environmental policy. You had a future progressive star in your grasp - dare I say, someone who had Presidential material written all over him - and these sons of bitches pissed it away for green pieces of paper.

Booker was an abysmal candidate in his own right; he had “random sacrificial lamb with no future” written all over him.

[TiltsAreUnderrated]

Between this and the Hickenlooper thing, words cannot describe my disgust with the DSCC right now. These people essentially bought a nomination for the most incompetent major candidate I've seen in my lifetime. There's disasters, there's Bruce Braley, and then there's whatever the **** this was. A Green New Deal isn't going to go over well in Kentucky, but cosmic-brain takes about how Mitch McConnell is Actually Not Helping Trump like McGrath would sure as hell won't either. Most importantly, Amy McGrath, and the DSCC (drunk on greed) forgot the first rule of politics: all politics is local.

I actually don't have an issue with a conservative strategy. You don't see me calling to primary Colin Peterson or Jared Golden, or backing Paula Jean Swearengin against Joe Manchin. Joe Manchin is a conservative, Trump-compromising Democrat. Normal logic would be to look at his strong grassroots presence, his long ties to the state, and his track record of winning campaigns, and to try to find a candidate with similar traits. And the sad thing is, we had one in our grasp.

Of course, this is the Democratic Party we're talking about. Democratic Party logic would be to crown a candidate the moment they announced because of how much money they raised, regardless of their ties to the state or their grassroots support. Regardless of their previous stances, they would act like a dollar store knockoff of Joe Manchin. After all, Joe Manchin is well-liked because he's a bipartisan Democrat.

The DC establishment had sent DC consultants to "power" a woman who moved from the DC metro to run for Congress's Senate run. The DC establishment, with the help low-information NPCs who Just Want To See Moscow Mitch Go Down, bought McGrath the nomination. It's especially sad for me, considering one of my political heroes is my former representative who rose to power in a similar way Booker's campaign did. It's safe to say that between Citizens United and social media giving the average American an investment in politics, the next Carol Shea-Porter couldn't rise up nowadays.

If you want to know why I don't identify strongly with the Democrats, it's things like this. I'm in a very strange place where I'm more attached to Biden himself than I am the party. You have a significant amount of the party who, for lack of a better word, thinks I should f*** off and join the Russians because I liked Bernie more than I did Hillary 4 years ago. You have an establishment that's obsessed with keeping the gravy train flowing to the point where they'll pick winners and losers, even if everything shows the "winner" as comically incompetent or is a Republican on environmental policy. You had a future progressive star in your grasp - dare I say, someone who had Presidential material written all over him - and these sons of bitches pissed it away for green pieces of paper.

Booker was an abysmal candidate in his own right; he had “random sacrificial lamb with no future” written all over him.

Booker was doomed against McConnell but his late surge means he might well have a political future as he'll become the "one who got away" to too many within the "Kentucky is a tossup, we can beat Moscow Mitch" crowd (narrowly lost primaries do less for one's fundraising future than narrowly lost GEs tend to, but they're still usually better than nothing). If he's smart and wants a political future, he'll use that energy for other offices that are winnable within this political generation (and one can never rule out KY eventually trending Dem; most current trends aren't forever): he could take up a job in the Beshear admin, run for a statewide/municipal role or go for John Yarmuth's district if/when he retires.

[Chancellor Tanterterg]

Between this and the Hickenlooper thing, words cannot describe my disgust with the DSCC right now. These people essentially bought a nomination for the most incompetent major candidate I've seen in my lifetime. There's disasters, there's Bruce Braley, and then there's whatever the **** this was. A Green New Deal isn't going to go over well in Kentucky, but cosmic-brain takes about how Mitch McConnell is Actually Not Helping Trump like McGrath would sure as hell won't either. Most importantly, Amy McGrath, and the DSCC (drunk on greed) forgot the first rule of politics: all politics is local.

I actually don't have an issue with a conservative strategy. You don't see me calling to primary Colin Peterson or Jared Golden, or backing Paula Jean Swearengin against Joe Manchin. Joe Manchin is a conservative, Trump-compromising Democrat. Normal logic would be to look at his strong grassroots presence, his long ties to the state, and his track record of winning campaigns, and to try to find a candidate with similar traits. And the sad thing is, we had one in our grasp.

Of course, this is the Democratic Party we're talking about. Democratic Party logic would be to crown a candidate the moment they announced because of how much money they raised, regardless of their ties to the state or their grassroots support. Regardless of their previous stances, they would act like a dollar store knockoff of Joe Manchin. After all, Joe Manchin is well-liked because he's a bipartisan Democrat.

The DC establishment had sent DC consultants to "power" a woman who moved from the DC metro to run for Congress's Senate run. The DC establishment, with the help low-information NPCs who Just Want To See Moscow Mitch Go Down, bought McGrath the nomination. It's especially sad for me, considering one of my political heroes is my former representative who rose to power in a similar way Booker's campaign did. It's safe to say that between Citizens United and social media giving the average American an investment in politics, the next Carol Shea-Porter couldn't rise up nowadays.

If you want to know why I don't identify strongly with the Democrats, it's things like this. I'm in a very strange place where I'm more attached to Biden himself than I am the party. You have a significant amount of the party who, for lack of a better word, thinks I should f*** off and join the Russians because I liked Bernie more than I did Hillary 4 years ago. You have an establishment that's obsessed with keeping the gravy train flowing to the point where they'll pick winners and losers, even if everything shows the "winner" as comically incompetent or is a Republican on environmental policy. You had a future progressive star in your grasp - dare I say, someone who had Presidential material written all over him - and these sons of bitches pissed it away for green pieces of paper.

Booker was an abysmal candidate in his own right; he had “random sacrificial lamb with no future” written all over him.

Booker was doomed against McConnell but his late surge means he might well have a political future as he'll become the "one who got away" to too many within the "Kentucky is a tossup, we can beat Moscow Mitch" crowd (narrowly lost primaries do less for one's fundraising future than narrowly lost GEs tend to, but they're still usually better than nothing). If he's smart and wants a political future, he'll use that energy for other offices that are winnable within this political generation (and one can never rule out KY eventually trending Dem; most current trends aren't forever): he could take up a job in the Beshear admin, run for a statewide/municipal role or go for John Yarmuth's district if/when he retires.

He'd lose by 20-30% in almost any statewide race.  The "KY is a tossup, we can beat Moscow Mitch" crowd are McGrath's fundraising base and most of them aren't even from Kentucky.  Booker is not some sort of dynamic rising star who happened to get screwed over for reasons that weren't even his fault.*  If anything, someone foolish enough to believe KY isn't titanium Safe R will probably be foolish enough to believe Booker's primary campaign somehow cost McGrath the election

Until 1-2 weeks before the primary, Booker was a random backbencher AA State Rep. whom no one saw as anything more than a borderline some-dude level D-list also-ran.  For some inexplicable reason, the Berniecrats randomly started obsessing over this meaningless primary** and inexplicably decided that random backbencher State Rep. #408,938,098,255 is a political wunderkind with future President written all over him...you know, after he loses to McConnell by 35%. 

Now what Booker could do is try to take a greater leadership role in the legislature's Democratic minority.  I'd have voted for him if I lived in KY, no question.  You make a good point about Booker running to replace Yarmuth whenever the latter retires (which could be during the next decade), although I maintain Booker is pretty overhyped.  In any case, my issue is more with folks who act like he's the greatest thing since sliced bread and focused on this instead of the CO Senate primary (b/c Prickenlooper is the worst).

*I know you're not gonna like this, but whatever you think of Buttigeig, he's the only candidate this cycle whom one could really argue was an example of a rising star getting taken down by stuff that largely wasn't their fault.  Obviously, he's not a Berniecrat, but that's beside the point.

**I mean, even if he won the primary, are you really telling me you think defeating Amy McGrath in a primary no one except the Berniecrats cares about is a symbolic victory?  I mean, you can declare victory and leave, but it'd be like me saying Steny Hoyer winning renomination was a crushing blow from which Berniecrats may never fully recover.  You call a horse a lobster until you're blue in the face, but it's still a horse.

[TiltsAreUnderrated]

Between this and the Hickenlooper thing, words cannot describe my disgust with the DSCC right now. These people essentially bought a nomination for the most incompetent major candidate I've seen in my lifetime. There's disasters, there's Bruce Braley, and then there's whatever the **** this was. A Green New Deal isn't going to go over well in Kentucky, but cosmic-brain takes about how Mitch McConnell is Actually Not Helping Trump like McGrath would sure as hell won't either. Most importantly, Amy McGrath, and the DSCC (drunk on greed) forgot the first rule of politics: all politics is local.

I actually don't have an issue with a conservative strategy. You don't see me calling to primary Colin Peterson or Jared Golden, or backing Paula Jean Swearengin against Joe Manchin. Joe Manchin is a conservative, Trump-compromising Democrat. Normal logic would be to look at his strong grassroots presence, his long ties to the state, and his track record of winning campaigns, and to try to find a candidate with similar traits. And the sad thing is, we had one in our grasp.

Of course, this is the Democratic Party we're talking about. Democratic Party logic would be to crown a candidate the moment they announced because of how much money they raised, regardless of their ties to the state or their grassroots support. Regardless of their previous stances, they would act like a dollar store knockoff of Joe Manchin. After all, Joe Manchin is well-liked because he's a bipartisan Democrat.

The DC establishment had sent DC consultants to "power" a woman who moved from the DC metro to run for Congress's Senate run. The DC establishment, with the help low-information NPCs who Just Want To See Moscow Mitch Go Down, bought McGrath the nomination. It's especially sad for me, considering one of my political heroes is my former representative who rose to power in a similar way Booker's campaign did. It's safe to say that between Citizens United and social media giving the average American an investment in politics, the next Carol Shea-Porter couldn't rise up nowadays.

If you want to know why I don't identify strongly with the Democrats, it's things like this. I'm in a very strange place where I'm more attached to Biden himself than I am the party. You have a significant amount of the party who, for lack of a better word, thinks I should f*** off and join the Russians because I liked Bernie more than I did Hillary 4 years ago. You have an establishment that's obsessed with keeping the gravy train flowing to the point where they'll pick winners and losers, even if everything shows the "winner" as comically incompetent or is a Republican on environmental policy. You had a future progressive star in your grasp - dare I say, someone who had Presidential material written all over him - and these sons of bitches pissed it away for green pieces of paper.

Booker was an abysmal candidate in his own right; he had “random sacrificial lamb with no future” written all over him.

Booker was doomed against McConnell but his late surge means he might well have a political future as he'll become the "one who got away" to too many within the "Kentucky is a tossup, we can beat Moscow Mitch" crowd (narrowly lost primaries do less for one's fundraising future than narrowly lost GEs tend to, but they're still usually better than nothing). If he's smart and wants a political future, he'll use that energy for other offices that are winnable within this political generation (and one can never rule out KY eventually trending Dem; most current trends aren't forever): he could take up a job in the Beshear admin, run for a statewide/municipal role or go for John Yarmuth's district if/when he retires.

He'd lose by 20-30% in almost any statewide race.

 I agree he'd be doomed lose in the context of a federal, statewide race. For, say, state treasurer? It'd be another matter.

  The "KY is a tossup, we can beat Moscow Mitch" crowd are McGrath's fundraising base and most of them aren't even from Kentucky.  Booker is not some sort of dynamic rising star who happened to get screwed over for reasons that weren't even his fault.*  If anything, someone foolish enough to believe KY isn't titanium Safe R will probably be foolish enough to believe Booker's primary campaign somehow cost McGrath the election

The absentee voting that occurred at a much higher rate than normal because of coronavirus was probably what cooked his bid for the nomination. Regardless, whether or not he was screwed over by outside events isn't the point; what matters is that when a prominent candidate loses a primary and the winner of that primary goes on to lose the general election, a lot of voters are primed to think 'But what if we nominated Y instead?' and that boosts Y's chances in future races. It's no accident that the frontrunners in the 2020 presidential primaries were the runner-up of 2016 and the one whose entry into the 2016 contest was heavily speculated on but ultimately never realised.

Until 1-2 weeks before the primary, Booker was a random backbencher AA State Rep. whom no one saw as anything more than a borderline some-dude level D-list also-ran.  For some inexplicable reason, the Berniecrats randomly started obsessing over this meaningless primary** and inexplicably decided that random backbencher State Rep. #408,938,098,255 is a political wunderkind with future President written all over him...you know, after he loses to McConnell by 35%. 

It (sort of) worked for O'Rourke for a little while. I don't see him becoming instant presidential candidate material after just being a state rep, but a well-run race would have set him up nicely for future bids.

Now what Booker could do is try to take a greater leadership role in the legislature's Democratic minority.

Agreed that this is one of his most viable options. He'd need to run for his old seat (presumably still occupied) or carpetbag, though.

I'd have voted for him if I lived in KY, no question.  You make a good point about Booker running to replace Yarmuth whenever the latter retires (which could be during the next decade), although I maintain Booker is pretty overhyped. In any case, my issue is more with folks who act like he's the greatest thing since sliced bread and focused on this instead of the CO Senate primary (b/c Prickenlooper is the worst).

I 100% agree that CO-SEN was a recruitment failure for the left.

*I know you're not gonna like this, but whatever you think of Buttigeig, he's the only candidate this cycle whom one could really argue was an example of a rising star getting taken down by stuff that largely wasn't their fault.  Obviously, he's not a Berniecrat, but that's beside the point.

I think you can argue that for a lot of candidates, including most of the presidential field that simply failed to get media exposure because they weren't sitting US Senators/Governors of especially large states.

**I mean, even if he won the primary, are you really telling me you think defeating Amy McGrath in a primary no one except the Berniecrats cares about is a symbolic victory?  I mean, you can declare victory and leave, but it'd be like me saying Steny Hoyer winning renomination was a crushing blow from which Berniecrats may never fully recover.  You call a horse a lobster until you're blue in the face, but it's still a horse.

I'm saying that if he'd won the primary, he'd have even more name ID in 2022 than he's going to have a result of his failed primary bid. Look, for instance, at Jon Ossoff - the splash he made in 2017 gave him a support and fundraising network which propelled him to the front of the GA-SEN pack even though he wasn't too great a candidate and eventually won him the nomination. Alternatively, look at McGrath herself - if Jim Grey had beaten her in the KY-06 primary, would she really have gotten so far in the Senate race?

[free my dawg]

* I would argue that was due to factors outside his own control (mainly the state that he lived in). I'm not gonna sit here and argue that he'd make it close. That'd be absurd. What I will argue is him outperforming McGrath. I think you'll see some sort of run for statewide office in 2023.

* Again, I'm not the type of guy to deny reality. Buttigieg couldn't get ahead with black voters primarily because their minds were already made up. I'm not convinced his sexuality was as relevant as Biden having the hearts and minds of older black Americans.

* Buttigieg was a mayor of a college town in Indiana. Sure, he had a bit of a national profile there, but the guy certainly wasn't a paragon of experience. I actually think experience isn't very relevant, given the rise of said college town mayor. Personality and campaign structure are more important, and Buttigieg and Booker had both.

* Defeating Amy is a victory. Sure, some of the Resistance NPCs will donate money to Harrison instead, but some of that money goes to the viable Democratic challengers (mainly Gideon).

[TiltsAreUnderrated]

* I would argue that was due to factors outside his own control (mainly the state that he lived in). I'm not gonna sit here and argue that he'd make it close. That'd be absurd. What I will argue is him outperforming McGrath. I think you'll see some sort of run for statewide office in 2023.

* Again, I'm not the type of guy to deny reality. Buttigieg couldn't get ahead with black voters primarily because their minds were already made up. I'm not convinced his sexuality was as relevant as Biden having the hearts and minds of older black Americans.

* Buttigieg was a mayor of a college town in Indiana. Sure, he had a bit of a national profile there, but the guy certainly wasn't a paragon of experience. I actually think experience isn't very relevant, given the rise of said college town mayor. Personality and campaign structure are more important, and Buttigieg and Booker had both.

* Defeating Amy is a victory. Sure, some of the Resistance NPCs will donate money to Harrison instead, but some of that money goes to the viable Democratic challengers (mainly Gideon).

And Harrison has been considerate enough to set up a joint fundraising committee with Cal Cunningham.

[DINGO Joe]

Fun fact--2008 D primary
Oldham (suburban Louisville)  6900 votes Hillary wins 56-41
Pike (largest coal county) 14200 votes Hillary wins 91-7

2020 D primary
Oldham 8300 votes McGrath 47-46
Pike 5500 votes McGrath 50-30

Oldham > Pike

[Rookie Yinzer]

It is pretty pathetic that McGrath couldn’t even break 50 with all that money she had. I hope she does worse than ALG so she can go away forever.

[Calthrina950]

Data Progress put out a poll today showing McGrath trailing McConnell by 19 points, 52-33%. It is very possible that she may do worse than Jim Gray did in 2016 against Rand Paul, when he got 43%. I don't think McGrath will sink to Hillary Clinton's lows, but a McConnell victory of say, 60-36% or something along those lines wouldn't surprise me at this juncture. I'm pretty certain, given last year's results, that McGrath will still carry Elliott County, in addition to the three (Jefferson, Fayette, Franklin) that will be carried by Biden.

[TiltsAreUnderrated]

Data Progress put out a poll today showing McGrath trailing McConnell by 19 points, 52-33%. It is very possible that she may do worse than Jim Gray did in 2016 against Rand Paul, when he got 43%. I don't think McGrath will sink to Hillary Clinton's lows, but a McConnell victory of say, 60-36% or something along those lines wouldn't surprise me at this juncture. I'm pretty certain, given last year's results, that McGrath will still carry Elliott County, in addition to the three (Jefferson, Fayette, Franklin) that will be carried by Biden.

Is that a new poll or a repost of this June 13-15 survey commissioned by them and conducted by Civiqs? http://filesforprogress.org/datasets/2020/6/ky/Civiqs_DataforProgress_KY_banner_book_2020_06.pdf

[Calthrina950]

Data Progress put out a poll today showing McGrath trailing McConnell by 19 points, 52-33%. It is very possible that she may do worse than Jim Gray did in 2016 against Rand Paul, when he got 43%. I don't think McGrath will sink to Hillary Clinton's lows, but a McConnell victory of say, 60-36% or something along those lines wouldn't surprise me at this juncture. I'm pretty certain, given last year's results, that McGrath will still carry Elliott County, in addition to the three (Jefferson, Fayette, Franklin) that will be carried by Biden.

Is that a new poll or a repost of this June 13-15 survey commissioned by them and conducted by Civiqs? http://filesforprogress.org/datasets/2020/6/ky/Civiqs_DataforProgress_KY_banner_book_2020_06.pdf

You're right. It's actually the June 13-15 survey. The poll was mentioned on the front page of RRH Elections, and they described it as "new." A misleading headline, I would say. But that's still only a few weeks ago, and I can't imagine that McGrath's situation has improved since then.

[Ferguson97]

So are we gonna do the thing where we pretend that a progressive is somehow more electable than a centrist in a red state?

[Epaminondas]

Good thing McGrath has her 40M dollars, she should coast on that until E-day and not drain funds from actual electable Senate candidates.

So are we gonna do the thing where we pretend that a progressive is somehow more electable than a centrist in a red state?

There's a thing called turnout, that a certain centrist in 2016 didn't get in red states in her general election. Nor in purple states either.
Labels are pointless - what matters is activating a solid base.

[Amenhotep Bakari-Sellers]

This race is over, McConnell wins

[DINGO Joe]

Good thing McGrath has her 40M dollars, she should coast on that until E-day and not drain funds from actual electable Senate candidates.

So are we gonna do the thing where we pretend that a progressive is somehow more electable than a centrist in a red state?

There's a thing called turnout, that a certain centrist in 2016 didn't get in red states in her general election. Nor in purple states either.
Labels are pointless - what matters is activating a solid base.

Just like Bernie did?

[Amenhotep Bakari-Sellers]

Congress needs to freeze campaign contributions during this time and allow the Federal Government to use tax payers money to fund campaigns, hopefully Citizens United is overturned next year.


With a D Congress and Robert's reverses himself

[free my dawg]

So are we gonna do the thing where we pretend that a progressive is somehow more electable than a centrist in a red state?

Are we gonna do the thing where we pretend McGrath is electable to dunk on the left?