AR-ARG: Cotton +11
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ON Progressive
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« on: October 10, 2020, 02:27:23 PM »

https://237995-729345-1-raikfcquaxqncofqfm.stackpathdns.com/wp-content/uploads/2020/10/Arkansas-Senate-Frequency-Counts.pdf

Tom Cotton (R-inc) 49
Ricky Harrington Jr. (L) 38
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andjey
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« Reply #1 on: October 10, 2020, 02:31:06 PM »

Too bad that Democrats haven't a candidate here
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TiltsAreUnderrated
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« Reply #2 on: October 10, 2020, 02:36:29 PM »

600 likely voters
MoE: 4%

Undecided 13%

The release claims the poll was taken "October 14-16, 2020". The Oracle of Delphi probably has better things to divine than ARSEN polls.
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President Johnson
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« Reply #3 on: October 10, 2020, 02:43:13 PM »

Too bad that Democrats haven't a candidate here

Agreed, but it would be a waste of time.
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ProgressiveModerate
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« Reply #4 on: October 10, 2020, 02:44:05 PM »

It would be funny if we actually got a Libertarian in the senate. Anyways, still Safe R. Pretty cool that they are time travelers
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Calthrina950
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« Reply #5 on: October 10, 2020, 03:05:30 PM »

It would be funny if we actually got a Libertarian in the senate. Anyways, still Safe R. Pretty cool that they are time travelers

At least this poll indicates that Harrington is getting the Democratic vote, so he should at least be able to keep Cotton to a "normal" winning margin for a Republican (which, using 2016's presidential and Senatorial results as a baseline, and excluding other options, would be something like 60-40% or thereabouts). Cotton's not going to get >80% like his predecessor Mark Pryor did in 2008.
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Hope For A New Era
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« Reply #6 on: October 10, 2020, 03:06:58 PM »

Might be worth it for Democrats to throw some ad money Harrington's way. You never know.
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Left Wing
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« Reply #7 on: October 10, 2020, 05:19:55 PM »

Beebe should have run
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TiltsAreUnderrated
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« Reply #8 on: October 10, 2020, 05:38:00 PM »


He would not have been able to beat Tom Cotton so he should only have run if he was going to avoid McGrath-esque grifting and had no further political ambitions. If he wants a job, he should run for a row office (he's term limited from seeking the governorship again) or Congress.
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« Reply #9 on: October 10, 2020, 05:40:32 PM »

Hopefully we get some yellow counties on the map, those are always cool.
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S019
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« Reply #10 on: October 10, 2020, 05:41:36 PM »


He would not have been able to beat Tom Cotton so he should only have run if he was going to avoid McGrath-esque grifting and had no further political ambitions. If he wants a job, he should run for a row office (he's term limited from seeking the governorship again) or Congress.

Yeah Cotton is hated, so Beebe would have raked in lots of money just like McGrath, which would have been not good....

Hopefully we get some yellow counties on the map, those are always cool.

Probably Pulaski and some in the Delta
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TiltsAreUnderrated
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« Reply #11 on: October 10, 2020, 05:56:25 PM »

It turns out this is an internal conducted "late last week": http://independentarkansas.com/libertarian-harrington-cotton/
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Alben Barkley
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« Reply #12 on: October 10, 2020, 07:55:19 PM »
« Edited: October 10, 2020, 08:07:25 PM by Alben Barkley »


He would not have been able to beat Tom Cotton so he should only have run if he was going to avoid McGrath-esque grifting and had no further political ambitions. If he wants a job, he should run for a row office (he's term limited from seeking the governorship again) or Congress.

Tbh I think he’d have had a much better shot at actually winning than McGrath. Mike Beebe is actually popular in his state, where he has actually won, and big, even in a Republican wave year. A campaign (accurately) painting Cotton as a dangerous radical and Beebe as a sensible Blue Dog might have hd a shot. Still likely would have been the underdog, but would be more comparable to the position Harrison or Bullock is in than McGrath.

I mean, if even some random libertarian can pull it almost within 10, better than McGrath is polling, I don’t see why Beebe couldn’t have made this competitive. Beebe would be like Rocky Adkins or Steve Beshear running in Kentucky rather than McGrath.

Also, I don’t think he would suck up donations the way McGrath has. Cotton is not as nationally known or hated as McConnell, and Beebe doesn’t have the national “star power” McGrath has inexplicably built
up due to her fighter pilot ads.
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Alben Barkley
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« Reply #13 on: October 10, 2020, 07:58:07 PM »

Hopefully we get some yellow counties on the map, those are always cool.

If Harrington’s getting 38%, he might win some of the black belt counties and even Pulaski (Little Rock). Of course, more as an anti-Cotton protest vote than a vote for him.
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TiltsAreUnderrated
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« Reply #14 on: October 10, 2020, 08:07:39 PM »


He would not have been able to beat Tom Cotton so he should only have run if he was going to avoid McGrath-esque grifting and had no further political ambitions. If he wants a job, he should run for a row office (he's term limited from seeking the governorship again) or Congress.

Tbh I think he’d have had a much better shot at actually winning than McGrath. Mike Beebe is actually popular in his state, where he has actually won, and big, even in a Republican wave year. A campaign (accurately) painting Cotton as a dangerous radical and Beebe as a sensible Blue Dog might have hd a shot. Still likely would have been the underdog, but would be more comparable to the position Harrison is in than McGrath.

No. Graham has much more of a base problem than Tom Cotton (or Mitch McConnell, for the matter) and the base is all that's needed for a Republican in a federal, statewide race in Arkansas. He might end up with a better margin than McGrath but the state was fundamentally unwinnable whereas SCSEN and KYSEN were plausible reaches with the right candidates.

Just look at what is happening to Doug Jones as an incumbent: Trump's 2016 margin in AL was only 1% better than his margin in AR in 2016. Their positions are likely to swap this year at the presidential level and Jones is getting blown out by Tuberville.

Quote
I mean, if even some random libertarian can pull it almost within 10, better than McGrath is polling, I don’t see why Beebe couldn’t have made this competitive. Beebe would be like Rocky Adkins or Steve Beshear running in Kentucky rather than McGrath.

This is an ARG poll (already to be taken with a grain of salt) and an internal; in addition, Libertarians potentially have access to crossover support that no Democrat could ever get (because of muh courts, among other issues).

At least one credible candidate ran statewide in 2018 in Arkansas for the Lands Commissioner's seat. All of them got blown out by 25+%. At least in KY, there is a Democratic coalition at the local level and the challenge is keeping enough of that together to survive federal contests; in AR, the path to winning a local race (let alone a federal one) appears to be much harder these days. The state party's infrastructure also appears to be a wreck: among other issues, they only got one candidate into the primary and this guy promptly withdrew at the first hint of opposition research. In winnable AR02, the current Democratic nominee filed only a day before the deadline and was also the only candidate to do so. This would all need to change very quickly for AR candidates to succeed and that's just not credible, so I'd rate this titanium R.
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Crane
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« Reply #15 on: October 10, 2020, 08:16:19 PM »


He would not have been able to beat Tom Cotton so he should only have run if he was going to avoid McGrath-esque grifting and had no further political ambitions. If he wants a job, he should run for a row office (he's term limited from seeking the governorship again) or Congress.

Tbh I think he’d have had a much better shot at actually winning than McGrath. Mike Beebe is actually popular in his state, where he has actually won, and big, even in a Republican wave year. A campaign (accurately) painting Cotton as a dangerous radical and Beebe as a sensible Blue Dog might have hd a shot. Still likely would have been the underdog, but would be more comparable to the position Harrison is in than McGrath.

No. Graham has much more of a base problem than Tom Cotton (or Mitch McConnell, for the matter) and the base is all that's needed for a Republican in a federal, statewide race in Arkansas. He might end up with a better margin than McGrath but the state was fundamentally unwinnable whereas SCSEN and KYSEN were plausible reaches with the right candidates.

Just look at what is happening to Doug Jones as an incumbent: Trump's 2016 margin in AL was only 1% better than his margin in AR in 2016. Their positions are likely to swap this year at the presidential level and Jones is getting blown out by Tuberville.

Quote
I mean, if even some random libertarian can pull it almost within 10, better than McGrath is polling, I don’t see why Beebe couldn’t have made this competitive. Beebe would be like Rocky Adkins or Steve Beshear running in Kentucky rather than McGrath.

This is an ARG poll (already to be taken with a grain of salt) and an internal; in addition, Libertarians potentially have access to crossover support that no Democrat could ever get (because of muh courts, among other issues).

At least one credible candidate ran statewide in 2018 in Arkansas for the Lands Commissioner's seat. All of them got blown out by 25+%. At least in KY, there is a Democratic coalition at the local level and the challenge is keeping enough of that together to survive federal contests; in AR, the path to winning a local race (let alone a federal one) appears to be much harder these days. The state party's infrastructure also appears to be a wreck: among other issues, they only got one candidate into the primary and this guy promptly withdrew at the first hint of opposition research. In winnable AR02, the current Democratic nominee filed only a day before the deadline and was also the only candidate to do so. This would all need to change very quickly for AR candidates to succeed and that's just not credible, so I'd rate this titanium R.

You would think the state that produced a Democratic president in the last 30 years wouldn't have seen it's party infrastructure collapse so hardcore. I guess that's because it's a very depressed and marginalized place. Walmart likes it that way I guess.
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Dr. MB
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« Reply #16 on: October 10, 2020, 08:24:15 PM »


He would not have been able to beat Tom Cotton so he should only have run if he was going to avoid McGrath-esque grifting and had no further political ambitions. If he wants a job, he should run for a row office (he's term limited from seeking the governorship again) or Congress.

Tbh I think he’d have had a much better shot at actually winning than McGrath. Mike Beebe is actually popular in his state, where he has actually won, and big, even in a Republican wave year. A campaign (accurately) painting Cotton as a dangerous radical and Beebe as a sensible Blue Dog might have hd a shot. Still likely would have been the underdog, but would be more comparable to the position Harrison is in than McGrath.

No. Graham has much more of a base problem than Tom Cotton (or Mitch McConnell, for the matter) and the base is all that's needed for a Republican in a federal, statewide race in Arkansas. He might end up with a better margin than McGrath but the state was fundamentally unwinnable whereas SCSEN and KYSEN were plausible reaches with the right candidates.

Just look at what is happening to Doug Jones as an incumbent: Trump's 2016 margin in AL was only 1% better than his margin in AR in 2016. Their positions are likely to swap this year at the presidential level and Jones is getting blown out by Tuberville.

Quote
I mean, if even some random libertarian can pull it almost within 10, better than McGrath is polling, I don’t see why Beebe couldn’t have made this competitive. Beebe would be like Rocky Adkins or Steve Beshear running in Kentucky rather than McGrath.

This is an ARG poll (already to be taken with a grain of salt) and an internal; in addition, Libertarians potentially have access to crossover support that no Democrat could ever get (because of muh courts, among other issues).

At least one credible candidate ran statewide in 2018 in Arkansas for the Lands Commissioner's seat. All of them got blown out by 25+%. At least in KY, there is a Democratic coalition at the local level and the challenge is keeping enough of that together to survive federal contests; in AR, the path to winning a local race (let alone a federal one) appears to be much harder these days. The state party's infrastructure also appears to be a wreck: among other issues, they only got one candidate into the primary and this guy promptly withdrew at the first hint of opposition research. In winnable AR02, the current Democratic nominee filed only a day before the deadline and was also the only candidate to do so. This would all need to change very quickly for AR candidates to succeed and that's just not credible, so I'd rate this titanium R.

You would think the state that produced a Democratic president in the last 30 years wouldn't have seen it's party infrastructure collapse so hardcore. I guess that's because it's a very depressed and marginalized place. Walmart likes it that way I guess.
Arkansas unlike the rest of the deep south is only 15% black so that doesn't provide it with much of a base. Add in the lack of major cities and once the wave finally came to flip southern whites, that doesn't leave them with much of a base left.
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Alben Barkley
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« Reply #17 on: October 10, 2020, 09:18:56 PM »
« Edited: October 10, 2020, 10:20:27 PM by Alben Barkley »


He would not have been able to beat Tom Cotton so he should only have run if he was going to avoid McGrath-esque grifting and had no further political ambitions. If he wants a job, he should run for a row office (he's term limited from seeking the governorship again) or Congress.

Tbh I think he’d have had a much better shot at actually winning than McGrath. Mike Beebe is actually popular in his state, where he has actually won, and big, even in a Republican wave year. A campaign (accurately) painting Cotton as a dangerous radical and Beebe as a sensible Blue Dog might have hd a shot. Still likely would have been the underdog, but would be more comparable to the position Harrison is in than McGrath.

No. Graham has much more of a base problem than Tom Cotton (or Mitch McConnell, for the matter) and the base is all that's needed for a Republican in a federal, statewide race in Arkansas. He might end up with a better margin than McGrath but the state was fundamentally unwinnable whereas SCSEN and KYSEN were plausible reaches with the right candidates.

Just look at what is happening to Doug Jones as an incumbent: Trump's 2016 margin in AL was only 1% better than his margin in AR in 2016. Their positions are likely to swap this year at the presidential level and Jones is getting blown out by Tuberville.

Quote
I mean, if even some random libertarian can pull it almost within 10, better than McGrath is polling, I don’t see why Beebe couldn’t have made this competitive. Beebe would be like Rocky Adkins or Steve Beshear running in Kentucky rather than McGrath.

This is an ARG poll (already to be taken with a grain of salt) and an internal; in addition, Libertarians potentially have access to crossover support that no Democrat could ever get (because of muh courts, among other issues).

At least one credible candidate ran statewide in 2018 in Arkansas for the Lands Commissioner's seat. All of them got blown out by 25+%. At least in KY, there is a Democratic coalition at the local level and the challenge is keeping enough of that together to survive federal contests; in AR, the path to winning a local race (let alone a federal one) appears to be much harder these days. The state party's infrastructure also appears to be a wreck: among other issues, they only got one candidate into the primary and this guy promptly withdrew at the first hint of opposition research. In winnable AR02, the current Democratic nominee filed only a day before the deadline and was also the only candidate to do so. This would all need to change very quickly for AR candidates to succeed and that's just not credible, so I'd rate this titanium R.

You’re going into details about state party organization, fundamentals, etc. Fair enough. But I highly doubt many voters gave a f—k about who the Land Commissioner was in 2018, probably just checked straight ticket R. Mike Beebe is a different story because he is a known brand in Arkansas who was highly popular, has been governor fairly recently, etc. He’d be about as strong a candidate as Democrats could field in Arkansas. In the South, when split-ticket voting still occurs, it’s generally because people know and like a particular candidate and don’t see him as “like the other Democrats.” Pretty sure this is about as true of Beebe as it is Beshear, Bel Edwards, Manchin, etc. Beebe is a moderate to conservative Dem who would likely come out in favor of Barrett’s nomination if he was running, so I don’t think the courts would necessarily be a huge deal. Also libertarians don’t exactly have conventional/evangelical Republican stances on the courts, and there’s no way you can convince me that a libertarian would do better than a Blue Dog Dem who was a popular former governor; lingering party loyalty among ancestral Dems alone is greater than any “crossover appeal” a libertarian could get.

At worst, I see this as highly similar to Phil Bredesen’s run in TN in 2018. He didn’t win, but it wasn’t a “Titanium R” race. And it was a very expensive one.

And the fact that a Democratic candidate for AR-02 could win despite it looking impossible at first, and polls have shown even the presidential race may be closer than expected (never mind the polls suggesting a national Democratic wave), suggests it wouldn’t be totally impossible for Beebe to keep it reasonably competitive. Worst case scenario? We force the GOP to spend money in Arkansas. I don’t see that as bad at all.

Kentucky’s long had the “federal statewide candidate” problem you describe too, by the way, especially against McConnell. He was vulnerable in 1996 and 2008, both years when KY was less R-leaning and in the former Bill Clinton won and McConnell’s opponent was in fact a younger Steve Beshear. He still won both years. So no, I’m not really convinced KY was substantially more winnable this year even with a strong candidate than AR with Beebe. Both would have been longshot reaches.

TL;DR: I don’t really think you have a great argument that Beebe shouldn’t have run, even if you’re correct that the race was unwinnable. You admit it may have been closer than McGrath’s race, which by itself means it’s more likely to force the GOP to spend there, which is better than nothing.
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« Reply #18 on: October 10, 2020, 09:25:23 PM »

I can't wait til Election day when all the votes are casted, we will have a D Trifecta
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« Reply #19 on: October 10, 2020, 09:28:31 PM »

ARG isn't the best pollster. But it would be amazing if some Libertarian does better than the incumbent did 6 years ago.
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« Reply #20 on: October 10, 2020, 09:39:30 PM »


He would not have been able to beat Tom Cotton so he should only have run if he was going to avoid McGrath-esque grifting and had no further political ambitions. If he wants a job, he should run for a row office (he's term limited from seeking the governorship again) or Congress.

Tbh I think he’d have had a much better shot at actually winning than McGrath. Mike Beebe is actually popular in his state, where he has actually won, and big, even in a Republican wave year. A campaign (accurately) painting Cotton as a dangerous radical and Beebe as a sensible Blue Dog might have hd a shot. Still likely would have been the underdog, but would be more comparable to the position Harrison is in than McGrath.

No. Graham has much more of a base problem than Tom Cotton (or Mitch McConnell, for the matter) and the base is all that's needed for a Republican in a federal, statewide race in Arkansas. He might end up with a better margin than McGrath but the state was fundamentally unwinnable whereas SCSEN and KYSEN were plausible reaches with the right candidates.

Just look at what is happening to Doug Jones as an incumbent: Trump's 2016 margin in AL was only 1% better than his margin in AR in 2016. Their positions are likely to swap this year at the presidential level and Jones is getting blown out by Tuberville.

Quote
I mean, if even some random libertarian can pull it almost within 10, better than McGrath is polling, I don’t see why Beebe couldn’t have made this competitive. Beebe would be like Rocky Adkins or Steve Beshear running in Kentucky rather than McGrath.

This is an ARG poll (already to be taken with a grain of salt) and an internal; in addition, Libertarians potentially have access to crossover support that no Democrat could ever get (because of muh courts, among other issues).

At least one credible candidate ran statewide in 2018 in Arkansas for the Lands Commissioner's seat. All of them got blown out by 25+%. At least in KY, there is a Democratic coalition at the local level and the challenge is keeping enough of that together to survive federal contests; in AR, the path to winning a local race (let alone a federal one) appears to be much harder these days. The state party's infrastructure also appears to be a wreck: among other issues, they only got one candidate into the primary and this guy promptly withdrew at the first hint of opposition research. In winnable AR02, the current Democratic nominee filed only a day before the deadline and was also the only candidate to do so. This would all need to change very quickly for AR candidates to succeed and that's just not credible, so I'd rate this titanium R.

You’re going into details about state party organization, fundamentals, etc. Fair enough. But I highly doubt many voters gave a f—k about who the Land Commissioner was in 2018, probably just checked straight ticket R. Mike Beebe is a different story because he is a known brand in Arkansas who was highly popular, has been governor fairly recently, etc. He’d be about as strong a candidate as Democrats could field in Arkansas. In the South, when split-ticket voting still occurs, it’s generally because people know and like a particular candidate and don’t see him as “like the other Democrats.” Pretty sure this is about as true of Beebe as it is Beshear, Bel Edwards, Manchin, etc. Beebe is a moderate to conservative Dem who would likely come out in favor of Barrett’s nomination if he was running, so I don’t think the courts would necessarily be a huge deal. Also libertarians don’t exactly have conventional/evangelical Republican stances on the courts, and there’s no way you can convince me that a libertarian would do better than a Blue Dog Dem who was a popular former governor; lingering party loyalty among ancestral Dems alone is greater than any “crossover appeal” a libertarian could get.

At worst, I see this as highly similar to Phil Bredesen’s run in TN in 2018. He didn’t win, but it wasn’t a “Titanium R” race.

And the fact that a Democratic candidate for AR-02 could win despite it looking impossible at first, and polls have shown even the presidential race may be closer than expected (never mind the polls suggesting a national Democratic wave), suggests it wouldn’t be totally impossible for Beebe to keep it reasonably competitive. Worst case scenario? We force the GOP to spend money in Arkansas. I don’t see that as bad at all.

Kentucky’s long had the “federal statewide candidate” problem you describe too, by the way, especially against McConnell. He was vulnerable in 1996 and 2008, both years when KY was R-leaning and in the former Bill Clinton won and McConnell’s opponent was in fact a younger Steve Beshear. He still won both years. So no, I’m not really convinced KY was substantially more winnable this year even with a strong candidate than AR with Beebe. Both would have been longshot reaches.

iirc the dem against mcconnell in 2008 was just a random businessman so mitigating circumstance on that loss. not that ky was winnable in the long-term at all

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Ⓐnarchy in the ☭☭☭P!
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« Reply #21 on: October 10, 2020, 10:45:19 PM »

If negative partisanship keeps increasing it's not inconceivable that third party candidates running in places where the local Reps or Dems didn't bother could actually do better than the major parties otherwise would have even with considerably fewer resources. It's not like it's totally without precedent; in Canada the Liberals intentionally withdrew from a race to let the Greens try to take a Conservative seat (they failed, but they probably did better than the Liberals would have).

Of course, the likes of the Republican Party of Hawaii and the Democratic Party of Tennessee have dozens of political climbers and staffers who don't want to lose their prospects and salaries over living in the wrong state so there's no way they'd risk getting displaced by the local Greens or Libertarians, but if that wasn't an issue it could be a viable way to force the national parties to invest resources in otherwise safe seats.
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« Reply #22 on: October 10, 2020, 11:02:34 PM »

If negative partisanship keeps increasing it's not inconceivable that third party candidates running in places where the local Reps or Dems didn't bother could actually do better than the major parties otherwise would have even with considerably fewer resources. It's not like it's totally without precedent; in Canada the Liberals intentionally withdrew from a race to let the Greens try to take a Conservative seat (they failed, but they probably did better than the Liberals would have).

Of course, the likes of the Republican Party of Hawaii and the Democratic Party of Tennessee have dozens of political climbers and staffers who don't want to lose their prospects and salaries over living in the wrong state so there's no way they'd risk getting displaced by the local Greens or Libertarians, but if that wasn't an issue it could be a viable way to force the national parties to invest resources in otherwise safe seats.

I agree with the conclusions in this analysis, and it certainly is an indicator of how intensely polarized federal and state races have become that voters are no longer as willing to give an overwhelming or unanimous mandate to a major-party candidate facing no major-party opposition.
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TiltsAreUnderrated
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« Reply #23 on: October 11, 2020, 06:43:15 AM »
« Edited: October 11, 2020, 06:50:14 AM by TiltsAreUnderrated »

You’re going into details about state party organization, fundamentals, etc. Fair enough. But I highly doubt many voters gave a f—k about who the Land Commissioner was in 2018, probably just checked straight ticket R. Mike Beebe is a different story because he is a known brand in Arkansas who was highly popular, has been governor fairly recently, etc. He’d be about as strong a candidate as Democrats could field in Arkansas. In the South, when split-ticket voting still occurs, it’s generally because people know and like a particular candidate and don’t see him as “like the other Democrats.” Pretty sure this is about as true of Beebe as it is Beshear, Bel Edwards, Manchin, etc. Beebe is a moderate to conservative Dem who would likely come out in favor of Barrett’s nomination if he was running, so I don’t think the courts would necessarily be a huge deal. Also libertarians don’t exactly have conventional/evangelical Republican stances on the courts, and there’s no way you can convince me that a libertarian would do better than a Blue Dog Dem who was a popular former governor; lingering party loyalty among ancestral Dems alone is greater than any “crossover appeal” a libertarian could get.

At worst, I see this as highly similar to Phil Bredesen’s run in TN in 2018. He didn’t win, but it wasn’t a “Titanium R” race. And it was a very expensive one.

And the fact that a Democratic candidate for AR-02 could win despite it looking impossible at first, and polls have shown even the presidential race may be closer than expected (never mind the polls suggesting a national Democratic wave), suggests it wouldn’t be totally impossible for Beebe to keep it reasonably competitive. Worst case scenario? We force the GOP to spend money in Arkansas. I don’t see that as bad at all.

Kentucky’s long had the “federal statewide candidate” problem you describe too, by the way, especially against McConnell. He was vulnerable in 1996 and 2008, both years when KY was less R-leaning and in the former Bill Clinton won and McConnell’s opponent was in fact a younger Steve Beshear. He still won both years. So no, I’m not really convinced KY was substantially more winnable this year even with a strong candidate than AR with Beebe. Both would have been longshot reaches.

TL;DR: I don’t really think you have a great argument that Beebe shouldn’t have run, even if you’re correct that the race was unwinnable. You admit it may have been closer than McGrath’s race, which by itself means it’s more likely to force the GOP to spend there, which is better than nothing.

I would dispute the extent to which federal ticket-splitting is achievable in Arkansas relative to KY, WV, etc., but Beebe is indeed the strongest candidate Democrats could have run and forcing the GOP to spend without also committing a similar proportion of resources that would otherwise to more winnable Democratic races is a good thing (although these doomed candidacies becoming resource sinks for the challenger's faction is one of the biggest issues with them, as  we've seen with McGrath, so he'd have to fundraise carefully and probably do it jointly with candidates in competitive races). Given the hit to his political capital from a general election loss, however, I don't think even wave insurance bid would have been worthwhile for Beebe unless he didn't actually intend to serve in public office again, which is why I said he should only have run if he had no further political ambitions.

TNSEN is a decent comparison, although that's still a state with a significantly more Democratic baseline and one with significant areas in which trends weren't too bleak. Despite Bredesen saying he'd vote for Kavanaugh, the courts still proved to be a huge issue for him. I maintain that if everything had gone right (including a much less drawn-out Kavanaugh fight), he could have won, although 2018 was the last year in which TN could have flipped D federally, in my opinion. AR is just that much more Republican and Beebe might be able to do more good flipping an otherwise unflippable row office or House seat.

The younger Steve Beshear was, I hope we can agree, much less electable than the post-governorship Steve Beshear who might have toppled McConnell this year had he chosen to run. The Senate Majority Leader isn't popular but has always endured in recent years with massive pork barrelling and appeals to the culture war and the power he can wield for KY in the Senate - as we saw with Grimes, he was legitimately behind earlier in the race even in a terrible cycle for Democrats, but pulled ahead late. KY is still substantially more winnable for a Democrat whose candidacy can stay credible in spite of McConnell on the basis of a preexisting record - we know they can get a majority of voters behind them for most of the cycle, at least, and we know that Democrats could win the state as late as 2019. That is part of why I was of the opinion KYSEN was initially a better target and what I mean by 'titanium R' in Arkansas' case is not that it's forever destined to elect Republicans by blowout margins but that there isn't a realistic path to a plurality of the vote for a Democrat no matter how close they might keep it.

Incidentally, the lands commissioner candidate was a former longtime county executive. I could find almost zilch about the rest of the candidates (they weren't even state legislators), to say nothing of the handful of Arkansas row offices Democrats simply didn't contest in 2018. The poor Lieutenant Governor candidate was called Anthony Bland, which about sums it up.
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TiltsAreUnderrated
Junior Chimp
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« Reply #24 on: October 11, 2020, 11:59:37 AM »

538 says the sampling period was actually October 7-9
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