In 2012, Obama won Miami-Dade 540,776 (62%) to 332,602 (38%). This year, Hillary did even better than Obama did-- 623,006 (63.7%) to 333,666 (34.1%). Even the hapless Patrick Murphy-- the worst possible Senate candidate the DSCC could find-- won in Miami-Dade (Rubio's home base) 528,555 (54.6%) to 419,623 (43.3%).
Obama beat Romney in FL-26 53-46% and beat him in FL-27 53-47%. I don't have the final numbers for the presidential campaign by congressional district but Hillary did better than Obama did in winning both FL-26 and FL-27. Although the Democrats had a fatally-flawed candidate-- corruption mired conservative Joe Garcia-- they fought hard and the DCCC and House Majority PAC wasted $6,101,294 in the district, one of their top spends of 2016. They spent nothing at all in FL-27. That may seem odd, considering it's right next door and just as blue as FL-26, perhaps bluer now.
But that's easily explained. FL-27's Republican incumbent, Ileana Ros-Lehtinen, is under the protection of Debbie Wasserman Schultz. She makes sure no viable opponent is ever nominated against Ros-Lehtinen and that no money is ever spent against her. Washerman Schultz has gotten away with this for a full decade, even though she was caught doing it and publicly chastised (or gentled wrist slapped anyway). This time the opponent was Scott Fuhrman, a worthless millionaire who self-funded $694,718 into the race but brought in only $7,488 in small contributions, and had nothing whatsoever to offer working families. But he still managed to do substantially better than the Blue Dog/New Dem-endorsed Garcia who the DCCC spent all those millions of dollars on. Fuhrman got 129,548 votes (45.1%) and Garcia got 115,348 votes (41.2%). That can of thing only makes sense in DCCC-world. The DCCC will do the same thing next cycle as well, throwing away two prime pick-ups because no one wants to get in a mud-wrestling match with a disgusting, vicious animal like Wasserman Schultz.
And here's another chart, this one showing the two sprawling congressional districts in northern Wisconsin, WI-07 and WI-08. Trump surrogate and former reality TV actor Sean Duffy represents WI-07 to the west and Reid Ribble retired, leaving an open seat in WI-08 to the east. Obama won both districts against McCain (with 53% in WI-07 and with 54% in WI-08) and then lost both districts against Romney, 51% to 48%. The DCCC decided to go for what looked like the easier district, WI-08, which had no incumbent. So they threw $551,076 for garden variety moderate Democrat Tom Nelson. They gave exactly zero to progressive Berniecrat Mary Hoeft, by every standard (except the DCCC's), the far better candidate. A half million dollars for Nelson bought him 135,648 votes (37.3%). Mary would probably have won with any reasonable amount of support. She managed to raise $105,417 from the grassroots-- to Duffy's $2,155,137. (She received a modest boost from the Working Families Party, which spent $128,528 against Duffy independently.) She got more raw votes than Nelson and a greater percentage of the vote to boot-- with zero investment from the DCCC or House Majority PAC. Her total was 137,910 (38.2%).
Instead of trying to figure out what went wrong, they just deny anything went wrong, pat each other on the back, find someone or something else to blame and declare it could have been worse if not for their own brilliance. If they don't even recognize that going from 257 seats in 2008 to 193 seats in 2010 and to 188 in 2014 (a loss of 69 seats) is a disaster, how will they ever deal with the core philosophy, strategy and tactics that have the House Dems sink lower and lower?
2018 could be a banner year for House Democrats-- but not with this turgid DCCC that is incapable of winning. Remember, in 2010, 65,237,840 Americans voted for Democratic House candidates (and 52,249,491 voted for Republicans). This year just 35,624,357 Americans bought the DCCC's non-message, while 40,081,282 Americans voted for Republican candidates. The Democrats had a net gain of six seats this year where they needed 30 and the bar for success was a minimum of 15-20. But even where the Democrats had 4 of their most important successes in building a worthwhile team for the future-- WA-07 (Pramila Jayapal), CA-44 (Nanette Barragan), MD-08 (Jamie Raskin) and NH01 (Carol Shea-Porter), the DCCC had no involvement whatsoever and spent zero dollars. If you would like to help Blue America congressional recruiting efforts for 2018, this is the place.
We'll be ready for them in the next election cycle & boy are they in for a surprise.
ReplyDeleteI see where Tim Ryan is challenging Nancy for leadership. We can only hope they wake up and kick her out. She has served her purpose (well, not really.)
ReplyDeletewho's this "we" kimo sabe?
ReplyDeleteIt's been clear for a while now that the money considers a win as getting their wholly owned $hill elected regardless of "party".
Their tools in the D "party" have been enforcing this selectively, but this cycle it's been more plainly extensive. Scummer hand-picked losing senate candidates all over the nation. and Pelosi/hoyer hand-picked a lot of losers also. Both groups were sucked down the $hillbillary vortex. But if they'd been elected, we'd be no better off.
The senate now will have about a 97-3 money majority and the house looks like 370-65. R and D are kind of archaic labels. Bills that bugger the poor, nonwhite, nonchristian, women and gays will pass easily with some giving the pretense of some level of altruism because of the certainty of passage. Most Rs are safe in regressive states/districts so no pretense will be needed, but Ds still need to fool their rube voters. But for how long?
I'm remembering how the industrialists hated communists and trade unions in Germany in the late '20s, so they funded and supported hitler and his national socialists to keep those other hated groups out. Worked pretty well, for a time.
This isn't all that dissimilar. With the accelerating erosion of the middle creating a soon-to-be majority in poverty (it's currently 47%), the money might have problems keeping their near-unanimity in congress. But drumpf won't be hard to prod into declaring martial law over just about anything... and then we'll be where Germany was in '33. And we'll have several targets for our scapegoating to pick from instead of just the jews.
It's time for Pelosi to stand aside and let someone else have the reins. The voters want change, and she sided with Hillary. This only shows that she isn't what the people want.
ReplyDeleteI agree with anonymous at 6:59: this will not end well.
ReplyDeleteKim Kaufman