GOP Breaks Special Election Losing Streak

Republican Debbie Lesko won the House special election in Arizona Tuesday night, holding off a closer-than-expected Democratic challenge in a district that President Donald Trump won by 21 points in 2016.

Lesko had 53 percent of the vote when The Associated Press called the race an hour after the polls closed, with over 155,000 early votes tallied. Democrat Hiral Tipirneni had 47 percent of the vote.

https://www.politico.com/story/2018/04/24/gop-looking-to-break-special-election-losing-streak-550112

GOP underprformed by a solid 15 points, WITHOUT the Roy Moore excuse. A loss is still a loss for the dems, but the tea leaves here still point in their favor.

Copying this from Nate Cohn on Twitter:

“It probably won't get covered this way, but this is arguably the worst special congressional election result yet for the GOP

There just aren't any excuses. The Republican wasn't Roy Moore. The Democrat wasn't Conor Lamb. The turnout wasn't low. The district doesn't have, say, a latent Democratic tradition. It oddly has the effect of making all the prior excuses seem less relevant, too.“

Democrats really need to stop celebrating near-wins. Just makes them look unfocused and low on expectations. It's like someone almost surviving a surgery...they're still dead but at least they almost made it.

@korvus: Dems are celebrating the spread, not the winner of this election.

They are trying to anticipate how well they'll do in the general election this November. The idea is that with these huge dem swings (win or lose...just total voters), there's a greater chance of them taking the house, or even the senate.

Dems are over performing, in relationship to the 2016 election, around 15/20 points higher in these areas that voted trump by a huge margin. So if Trump won an area by 30 points, and a special election has a Republican win by only 3 points, it's a grave concern for those in the majority, even though they won.

@demi0227_basic: I understand the concept, just think they need to shut up and keep working. Get happy after the mid-term IF they manage to go all the way.

Arizona is pretty deep red. I'd like to see the dems win everything, but it's just not a realistic expectation. Still though, it's not fun to celebrate a near win. As Korvus said, they need to keep working.

@korvus: Nothing to celebrate, just watching trend lines.

Frankly, I'm holding my breath until the 2020 results are in. I don't want to see Redmap 2.0, and the next two cycles are critical in that effort.

Do you know of specific places that republicans must lose to prevent this?

@Serraph105: It's all about who controls the redistricting process in each state. If an elected official has control, their seat is a target.

https://ballotpedia.org/State-by-state_redistricting_procedures

Gerrymandering? Why that is legal and common thing in US is something I will never understand.

@horgen: It's an argument in favor of federalism. The theory goes that the federal government dictates how many "votes" each state gets, but states can choose how to apportion their own votes.

Oh I know that, I just thought that there's gotta be really key states in mind to really make it stick.

@Serraph105: Nah, standard electoral strategy applies outside of the states that are redistricted differently.

Don't lose your strongholds, reach into swing States as far as possible, and any red states you get are gravy but don't waste a lot of resources on them.