Washington 2020: The Calm Before the Drizzle

[Sam Spade]

Y'all think you could go any slower in counting votes.  thanks!

[Sam Spade]

Is the ballot counting for the primary going to last another two weeks?

[Sam Spade]

Oh geez.  Thanks.  Yet another reminder of how much I despise Washington - when New Mexico does this it's funny, when Washington does it, it's annoying...

[Sam Spade]

What are the odds that the Dems ever get a good candidate against Reichert? (not that this means they would win, which might depend a lot on the environment)  Burner performed worse than Ross did, which is hilarious in many ways.

[Sam Spade]

That Reichert seat reminds me of my own district the 11th, a mix of wealthy social liberals and more conservative exurbians. But I guess Reichert isn't a total sh**t for brains like Pombo was. If the dems couldn't win that seat this year, they probably aren't winning it against Reichert.

Reichert is definitely not Pombo.  Pombo used to fit that CD decently, but it trended left and he was a standard conservative Republican.  Reichert is much closer to the middle, and fits this CD a good bit better, which is one of the reasons why I wonder how he'd fare should a decent environment arise (which he hasn't had since running, except 2004, but he wasn't an incumbent then).  Granted, Burner was always a terrible challenger, but still..

My comparison here is Kirk (IL-10) who pulled over 60% in the Republican favorable environments of 2002 and 2004 as an incumbent.  Not that I necessarily think Reichert could get there, as Kirk has pulled 53% and 55% these last two years against a Burner-like opponent, but it's something to think about.

[Sam Spade]

http://seattletimes.nwsource.com/html/localnews/2013103785_felonsvoting08.html

In short:  En banc review of the 9th Circuit's ruling that Washington's prisoner voting ban was unconstitutional has overturned that ruling in full.  The decision was unanimous.

[Sam Spade]

Do you guys get any idea of what the generic swing is to the Pubbies in WA in this election, versus 2008?

Almost certainly not as much as the national swing, but probably not as weak as CA.  I haven't really gone hardcore through the numbers though.

You must be logged in to read this quote.

Yep.  It is rather clear what was going on, where and why.  Not that this wasn't foreseen by a number of posters on this forum, although often in quite vague pronouncements

You must be logged in to read this quote.

[Sam Spade]

The flip side of the dramatic change in MI in 2010 was how the Republicans completely collapsed there in 2008 when McCain pulled out... MI is one of those states like CA where I don't trust PVIs because the Republicans absolutely cratered there two years ago. No doubt there was also a big drop in Dems, but they had further to fall.

Don't disagree at all.  Added to that is the fact that many of those MI CDs have normally been more GOP at the Congressional level than at the Presidential level and you have problems.  Of course, some of the states where Dems fell further were not exactly predictable based upon PVI, rather upon other factors.

In CA, the PVIs worked pretty well.  If anything, Dems overperformed with a few interesting exceptions.