PA-SN 2022 megathread: Shrek vs. The Wizard of Oz

[Southern Senator North Carolina Yankee]

Easy to say Lamb would beat Oz when he hasn't faced negative press since the primary.

One grows weary of the "x Dem candidate would be unbeatable" on this forum.

So many of them turn out to have a scandal, get washed out in a wave or just don't match the hype they received.

At the end of the day this is 50-50 state in a Democratic midterm for a Federal office and we live in a polarized society. If it weren't for Oz's weaknesses, the Democrats would be in a much worse position then they are right now in PA Senate.

This isn't 2006 or 2008 anymore. And after 15 years of hearing the same lines about "suburbs gonna make it even more Dem" and "growing part of the state, versus shrinking part of the state", it gets rather old. In fairness, many of the younger posters both from and not from PA probably weren't around to see the longer term backdrop of this analysis, and thus the perspective to be somewhat dubious about it.

The math for the GOP runs through PA, unlike before and that alone means it gets a lot more money and lot more prioritization and the GOP is a better fit for a larger proportion of the state than it was back then. I don't even think Fetterman's health would have much changed the trajectory and if it does end up being decisive, its only because it counter acted for Oz's weaknesses.

[ProgressiveModerate]

Easy to say Lamb would beat Oz when he hasn't faced negative press since the primary.

One grows weary of the "x Dem candidate would be unbeatable" on this forum.

So many of them turn out to have a scandal, get washed out in a wave or just don't match the hype they received.

At the end of the day this is 50-50 state in a Democratic midterm for a Federal office and we live in a polarized society. If it weren't for Oz's weaknesses, the Democrats would be in a much worse position then they are right now in PA Senate.

This isn't 2006 or 2008 anymore. And after 15 years of hearing the same lines about "suburbs gonna make it even more Dem" and "growing part of the state, versus shrinking part of the state", it gets rather old. In fairness, many of the younger posters both from and not from PA probably weren't around to see the longer term backdrop of this analysis, and thus the perspective to be somewhat dubious about it.

The math for the GOP runs through PA, unlike before and that alone means it gets a lot more money and lot more prioritization and the GOP is a better fit for a larger proportion of the state than it was back then. I don't even think Fetterman's health would have much changed the trajectory and if it does end up being decisive, its only because it counter acted for Oz's weaknesses.

I largely agree with this in that no matter what, it's impossible for Dems to truly pull away in a federal Senate race like this given polarization and the national environment. If this race was a more "normal" D v R matchup it would almost certainly be Lean R.

I think the flaw of analysis from like 10 years ago is that they did not account for just how much Democrats would collapse in rural parts of the state. The suburbs did end up shifting hard left and population shifts are towards urban areas in PA, but that doesn't matter if you have rural counties swinging 40 points rightwards.

Going forwards, I think people need to try to consider the ways both parties could see gains and collapses, and that "shifts" and "trends" do not inevitably favor one side till the end of time.

I'm pretty sure Trump 2020 was getting quite close to the GOP's ceiling in much of rural PA though. The only places where we see the GOP consistently win large swaths of rural whites by like 80-18 or more is the deep south and no matter what PA is never going to be the deep south, the same way Madison and Tampa will never be equivalent

[wbrocks67]

Easy to say Lamb would beat Oz when he hasn't faced negative press since the primary.

Exactly. Once Lamb got hit with $60M+ of negative ads, it would've been at least the same thing.

Notable that in their Oz/Lamb match-up, Lamb is 51, Oz 42. Fetterman is 50. So the Ds are essentially still consolidated, it's just a higher number of undecided (7%) compared to Fetterman/Oz (3%). Those people would've came home for Oz in the end just like they are now.

[Penn_Quaker_Girl]

Easy to say Lamb would beat Oz when he hasn't faced negative press since the primary.

Exactly. Once Lamb got hit with $60M+ of negative ads, it would've been at least the same thing.

Notable that in their Oz/Lamb match-up, Lamb is 51, Oz 42. Fetterman is 50. So the Ds are essentially still consolidated, it's just a higher number of undecided (7%) compared to Fetterman/Oz (3%). Those people would've came home for Oz in the end just like they are now.

Not to stoke the whole "Lamb vs. Fetterman" thing, but for as much as I like Lamb, I can already see the accusations of him being "too moderate", "too corporate" (politically speaking) and "too boring".  If you can say one good thing about Fetterman, it's that he's not boring (though he has a number of other flaws that Team Oz has capitalized on). 

I'd generally agree that things probably wouldn't look too drastically different for the Democrats at this point.  It would just be for different reasons. 

[DaleCooper]

Easy to say Lamb would beat Oz when he hasn't faced negative press since the primary.

It's ridiculous. Fetterman is a great candidate aside from the health issues, sadly. Lamb's only advantage over Fetterman is that he didn't have a stroke, but he's worse on everything else. My instincts are wrong plenty of times, so take this with a grain of salt, but I strongly suspect that if Fetterman didn't have the health concerns at such a bad time, this election wouldn't even be competitive.

[Ferguson97]

Easy to say Lamb would beat Oz when he hasn't faced negative press since the primary.

Yeah but you could say this about any primary-->general. Lots of Bernie people claimed he would've won, but nobody knows what a Bernie v Trump general election coverage of Bernie would look like.

[wbrocks67]

We're nearly 2 weeks out and have yet to have a major Shapiro/Fetterman rally. I would suspect one has to be on the way at some point (not doing it would be a very stupid decision imo, and would make me get kind of bugged with Shapiro lol)

Given the possible ticket splitting is likelier higher in suburban areas, if they do do one, I'd imagine it would be in Pittsburgh or Philly or like Montco/Chester/Bucks.

[Tekken_Guy]

Easy to say Lamb would beat Oz when he hasn't faced negative press since the primary.

It's ridiculous. Fetterman is a great candidate aside from the health issues, sadly. Lamb's only advantage over Fetterman is that he didn't have a stroke, but he's worse on everything else. My instincts are wrong plenty of times, so take this with a grain of salt, but I strongly suspect that if Fetterman didn't have the health concerns at such a bad time, this election wouldn't even be competitive.

Without Fetterman’s health concerns I’d think Oz would be seen as no more of an underdog than Masters is now.

[Tekken_Guy]

Is PA-SEN showing similarities to NC-SEN 2020? Where a flawed R candidate narrowly beats a D candidate due to a late-breaking scandal?

[MikeIrvine]

Is PA-SEN showing similarities to NC-SEN 2020? Where a flawed R candidate narrowly beats a D candidate due to a late-breaking scandal?

What scandal could Fetterman have that's worse than anything Oz did? "Dr. Oz kills puppies" is bumper sticker friendly and not entirely inaccurate.

[Southern Senator North Carolina Yankee]

Going forwards, I think people need to try to consider the ways both parties could see gains and collapses, and that "shifts" and "trends" do not inevitably favor one side till the end of time.

Most of these analysis expected all other factors to remain constant. In a polarized environment, there is always some group of people that is going to be alienated by the governing party and thus cause the 50-50 states to flip one way or the other on that basis. But barring a major break in the polarization or a shift to a different issues set, the geography doesn't change much, especially in the low growth states.

[NewYorkExpress]

Honestly, it's reminding me right now of WI-2016, with the differences being that Fetterman was never as strong a candidate as Russ Feingold, and Dr. Oz isn't the incumbent.

[Penn_Quaker_Girl]

Is PA-SEN showing similarities to NC-SEN 2020? Where a flawed R candidate narrowly beats a D candidate due to a late-breaking scandal?

What scandal could Fetterman have that's worse than anything Oz did? "Dr. Oz kills puppies" is bumper sticker friendly and not entirely inaccurate.

I think Tekken is saying that any sort of scandal could sink Fetterman considering his apparently tenuous hold on the race right now (rather than saying that he could face a scandal that's worse than Puppygate). 

[Tekken_Guy]

Honestly, it's reminding me right now of WI-2016, with the differences being that Fetterman was never as strong a candidate as Russ Feingold, and Dr. Oz isn't the incumbent.

Except Johnson was seen as a heavy underdog all the way up to Election Day.

[NewYorkExpress]

Honestly, it's reminding me right now of WI-2016, with the differences being that Fetterman was never as strong a candidate as Russ Feingold, and Dr. Oz isn't the incumbent.

Except Johnson was seen as a heavy underdog all the way up to Election Day.

Johnson literally got carried over the line by Trump. If Trump had lost Wisconsin, he would have also lost.

[Penn_Quaker_Girl]

Going forwards, I think people need to try to consider the ways both parties could see gains and collapses, and that "shifts" and "trends" do not inevitably favor one side till the end of time.

Most of these analysis expected all other factors to remain constant. In a polarized environment, there is always some group of people that is going to be alienated by the governing party and thus cause the 50-50 states to flip one way or the other on that basis. But barring a major break in the polarization or a shift to a different issues set, the geography doesn't change much, especially in the low growth states.

Thus explaining why states like PA and WI so rarely break for the winning candidate by more than five points (even during wave years), no?

[ProgressiveModerate]

Going forwards, I think people need to try to consider the ways both parties could see gains and collapses, and that "shifts" and "trends" do not inevitably favor one side till the end of time.

Most of these analysis expected all other factors to remain constant. In a polarized environment, there is always some group of people that is going to be alienated by the governing party and thus cause the 50-50 states to flip one way or the other on that basis. But barring a major break in the polarization or a shift to a different issues set, the geography doesn't change much, especially in the low growth states.

I think in many places the GOP is getting pretty close to their realistic max with white working class voters, especially in rural areas.

I think minorities have potential to be next. Probably not voting for the gop outright but there is a lot of evidence to suggest younger blacks and Hispanics lean less overwhelmingly D than there parents and in 2020 we already saw a bit of these shifts.

While I don’t think we’ll see a situation where the gop is locked out of power for an extended period of time, they do need to make a greater effort to expand their base imo. The overall demographic changes are favorable to Dems and they’ll have to be able to appeal to urban voters to stay viable down the road. We see a few example of gop getting urban support (Cuban areas of Miami, Jewish parts of Brooklyn, ect) but those are all pretty fringe cases that are due to very specific circumstances. I mean we already seem like we’re in a time when Dems should win the PV about 75% of the time which isn’t exactly normal.

[ProgressiveModerate]

Honestly, it's reminding me right now of WI-2016, with the differences being that Fetterman was never as strong a candidate as Russ Feingold, and Dr. Oz isn't the incumbent.

Except Johnson was seen as a heavy underdog all the way up to Election Day.

Johnson literally got carried over the line by Trump. If Trump had lost Wisconsin, he would have also lost.

Not entirely true given he did a few point better than Trump. There def was a theoretical window for a Clinton-Johnson split in WI

[Minnesota Mike]

What scandal?

[Tekken_Guy]

What scandal?

Not really a scandal but the health concerns.

Also the jogger incident.

[Minnesota Mike]

What scandal?

Not really a scandal but the health concerns.

Also the jogger incident.

Neither of those are close to being a late breaking scandal. There is no comparison to NC 2020.

[jamestroll]

Comparison of past elections to current elections is always stupid and worthless discussion.

[Mr. Smith]

Honestly, it's reminding me right now of WI-2016, with the differences being that Fetterman was never as strong a candidate as Russ Feingold, and Dr. Oz isn't the incumbent.

Except Johnson was seen as a heavy underdog all the way up to Election Day.

Johnson literally got carried over the line by Trump. If Trump had lost Wisconsin, he would have also lost.

Not entirely true given he did a few point better than Trump. There def was a theoretical window for a Clinton-Johnson split in WI

Feingold took a higher raw percentage than Hillary.

[SnowLabrador]

Even if it's decided by a similar margin, NC-SEN 2020 was a very specific set of circumstances. That said, I do think Oz is favored now.

[jamestroll]

lol! Thank you for being so much much civil in this thread compared to the VA Gov 2021 thread.