A response to David (I’m a conservative, dang it!) French and the squishy milquetoasters at the Wall St. Journal Editorial Board, and the NTer Nate Silver….
Reality is not on your side, so put down the pearls and face reality.
Without him in some capacity to turn out voters, Dems win again. Which is French, Silver, and the WSJ’s intent.
But folks keep falling for it.
“No, Trump’s Presence In The Midterms Is Not “Risky” For The GOP
Without Trump, The GOP Struggles To Turnout Voters”
“How short our collective political memories are. Here we are in September, and many of the same arguments we’ve heard for the last three cycles are resurfacing just in time to influence the narrative before the pivot to the post-Labor Day period.
Unsurpringly, it’s coming from the usual suspects.
Let’s address some of those specifically, most notably a few arguments outlined by Nate Silver.
“Upset Democratic special election wins in Alaska and New York over the past two weeks are the latest sign that the political environment might be unusual for a midterm election.”
Nonsense. Total nonsense.
In the Alaska at-large special election, the advantage in Republican primary vote share was twice the margin Trump won the state with in 2020, and dwarfed the 36.8% total Democratic primary share of the vote.
As all these “forecasters” know, this was the first time the state implemented rank choice voting. The referendum was pushed by a coalition of Democrats and Establishment Republicans desperately manuevering to insulate incumbent Senator Lisa Murkowski from certain primary defeat at the hands of Trump-endorsed Kelly Tshibaka.
It worked, plain and simple, and more than 60% of Alaskan voters will now be representated by someone they otherwise never would’ve voted for, even if it is only for a few months.
It might be convienant for a liberal analyst cheering on Democrats to cite Mary Peltola’s win as an example of “Republicans losing steam” or Trump being “risky for the GOP”, but it’s also extremely dishonest.”
—-
“For the last three cycles, we’ve had to suffer through similar narratives disguised as election analysis. Without Trump, the GOP would’ve lost their majority in the U.S. Senate in the last midterm election cycle. Judging by primary and special election paritcipation rates when he’s not holding their hand, it’s become crystal clear they are unable to motivate key voting blocs without him.
Perhaps that’s what Nate Silver and others hope to help Democrats accomplish.
Nevertheless, in comparing congressional vote shares to presidential vote shares in Minnesota, ignoring entire key races and engaging in other statistical contortions, the left-leaning forecast crowd is hoping we don’t notice they’re falling back on apples to oranges because it’s convienant, not because it’s predictive.”
We clearly have some diversity of views on this blog. But I’d say on the issues (leaving aside candidate personality preferences), there’s also quite a bit of agreement.
Wandering Views 
A response to David (I’m a conservative, dang it!) French and the squishy milquetoasters at the Wall St. Journal Editorial Board, and the NTer Nate Silver….
Reality is not on your side, so put down the pearls and face reality.
Without him in some capacity to turn out voters, Dems win again. Which is French, Silver, and the WSJ’s intent.
But folks keep falling for it.
“No, Trump’s Presence In The Midterms Is Not “Risky” For The GOP
Without Trump, The GOP Struggles To Turnout Voters”
https://peoplespundit.locals.com/post/2692052/no-trumps-presence-in-the-midterms-is-not-risky-for-the-gop
“How short our collective political memories are. Here we are in September, and many of the same arguments we’ve heard for the last three cycles are resurfacing just in time to influence the narrative before the pivot to the post-Labor Day period.
Unsurpringly, it’s coming from the usual suspects.
Let’s address some of those specifically, most notably a few arguments outlined by Nate Silver.
“Upset Democratic special election wins in Alaska and New York over the past two weeks are the latest sign that the political environment might be unusual for a midterm election.”
Nonsense. Total nonsense.
In the Alaska at-large special election, the advantage in Republican primary vote share was twice the margin Trump won the state with in 2020, and dwarfed the 36.8% total Democratic primary share of the vote.
As all these “forecasters” know, this was the first time the state implemented rank choice voting. The referendum was pushed by a coalition of Democrats and Establishment Republicans desperately manuevering to insulate incumbent Senator Lisa Murkowski from certain primary defeat at the hands of Trump-endorsed Kelly Tshibaka.
It worked, plain and simple, and more than 60% of Alaskan voters will now be representated by someone they otherwise never would’ve voted for, even if it is only for a few months.
It might be convienant for a liberal analyst cheering on Democrats to cite Mary Peltola’s win as an example of “Republicans losing steam” or Trump being “risky for the GOP”, but it’s also extremely dishonest.”
—-
“For the last three cycles, we’ve had to suffer through similar narratives disguised as election analysis. Without Trump, the GOP would’ve lost their majority in the U.S. Senate in the last midterm election cycle. Judging by primary and special election paritcipation rates when he’s not holding their hand, it’s become crystal clear they are unable to motivate key voting blocs without him.
Perhaps that’s what Nate Silver and others hope to help Democrats accomplish.
Nevertheless, in comparing congressional vote shares to presidential vote shares in Minnesota, ignoring entire key races and engaging in other statistical contortions, the left-leaning forecast crowd is hoping we don’t notice they’re falling back on apples to oranges because it’s convienant, not because it’s predictive.”
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Conservatives can and do disagree. It’s OK. It’s how political coalitions work. No one gets everything they want in politics.
We’ll wait to see how the midterms actually play out, we’ll all have a better idea of the larger national landscape at that point.
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We clearly have some diversity of views on this blog. But I’d say on the issues (leaving aside candidate personality preferences), there’s also quite a bit of agreement.
LikeLiked by 3 people