In 2016 Hillary scored 32.4% in UT-04. Last month, McAdams took 50.1%Last week, the National Journal's politics editor, Josh Kraushaar, tweeted about the DCCC' post-election analysis by Greenberg Quinlan Rosner. The report-- which, remember, is written by a firm with it's head so far up the DCCC's ass that there is almost not differentiation between the two organizations-- attributes a great deal of the anti-red wave that netted the Democrats at least 40 seats and the biggest national House vote ever to 3 factors:
• Late Deciders- Democrats outperformed partisanship markedly among the 16% of voters who made their decision in the final week. These voters identified as Republicans by a substantial margin (R+16), yet Democrats won this group 48-45%.• "Persuadables"- Similarly, Democrats did extraordinarily well among the 27% of voters who changed their mind (or considered doing so) over the course of the campaign-- another sign of the strength of Democratic candidates and campaigns. These 'persuadables' leaned Republican in party identification by a 14-point margin, yet ended up voting for the Democrat 52-48%.• Ticket-splitters- Eleven percent of voters report splitting their votes evenly between the two parties in major elections over the past few years. Trump won them by 12-points in 2016, but they went for Democrats 50-39%.
The report also attributes the success of the DCCC to "incredibly strong candidates who fit their districts and brought character and compelling narratives to their races;" candidates with disciplined and broadly appealing messages;" and claims "Democratic candidates and the DCCC ran extremely effective field efforts that produced greater engagement in their base, while also persuading the swing blocs of voters in the middle of the electorate." Very pleasing to the ears of the organization that writes millions of dollars in checks to... Greenberg Quinlan Rosner. Still, despite all self-congratulatory the ass-kissing, the data points noted by Krashaar, are worth keeping in mind.Also keeping in mind that the DCCC theory of the race was to go for the lowest-hanging fruit-- putting all their resources into the swing seats where Hillary had beaten Trump in 2016-- I put together what I believe is a list of the 10 reddest districts (by PVI) won by a Democrat last month. Hillary had won in only two and those were both places with significant DCCC/House Majority PAC investment
• UT-04- R+13- Blue Dog Ben McAdams beat Mia Love• Trump beat Hillary 39.1% to 32.4%• DCCC + House Majority PAC spent $213,334• OK-05- R+10- Democrat Kendra Horn beat Steve Russell• Trump beat Hillary 53.2% to 39.8%• DCCC + House Majority PAC spent ZERO• SC-01- R+10- Democrat Joe Cunningham won an open seat• Trump beat Hillary 53.5% to 40.4%• DCCC + House Majority PAC spent ZERO• GA-06 R+8- Democrat Lucy McBath beat Karen Handel• Trump beat Hillary 48.3% to 46.8%• DCCC + House Majority PAC spent $135,000• TX-07- R+7- New Dem Lizzie Fletcher beat John Culberson• Hillary beat Trump 48.5% to 47.1%• DCCC + House Majority PAC spent $2,451,863• NM-02- R+6- Blue Dog Xochitl Small won an open seat• Trump beat Hillary 50.1%to 39.9%• DCCC + House Majority PAC spent $1,912,649• NY-22- R+6- Blue Dog Anthony Brindisi beat Claudia Tenney• Trump beat Hillary 54.8% to 39.3%• DCCC + House Majority PAC spent $4,694,462• VA-07- R+6- Blue Dog Abigail Spanberger beat Dave Brat• Trump beat Hillary 50.5% to 44.0%• DCCC + House Majority PAC spent $1,453,491• TX-32- R+5 New Dem Colin Allred beat Pete Sessions• Hillary beat Trump 48.5% to 46.6%• DCCC + House Majority PAC spent $4,345,183• IL-14 R+5- Democrat Lauren Underwood beat Randy Hultgren• Trump beat Hillary 48.7% to 44.8%• DCCC + House Majority PAC spent $1,605,162
Bitter and nasty in her well-deserved and fairly massive defeat, right-of-center Missouri Senator Claire McCaskill has been on an anti-Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez media tour, ranting and raving like a rabid animal that the future of the Democratic Party is with conservatives like herself, not with progressives like Ocasio-Cortez, whose forward-looking ideas McCaskill dismisses contemptuously, the same way vision-free conservatives of the past dismissed Social Security, Medicare, free education, emancipation of the slaves, independence from England, etc. Oddly, McCaskill has been offering as proof of her case the defeats of conservative Democratic senators Joe Donnelly (IN), Heidi Heitkamp (ND) and herself, while not mentioning the powerful victories of Trump-state Democrats of a more progressive bent-- Tammy Baldwin (WI), Sherrod Brown (OH), Bob Casey (PA) and Debbie Stabenow (MI). McCaskill is living in a bygone era with a political vision more akin to Eisenhower Republicans than to Franklin Roosevelt and Bernie Sanders. Senate Democrats are lucky to be rid of her and her personal self-righteousness and reactionary ideas. On NPR this week, she insisted Democrats pay no heed to the Alexandria Ocasios and Rashida Tlaibs of the new Congress and instead follow backward and defensive freshmen like Ben McAdams and Abigail Spanberger, each of whom is likely to disappoint their districts' Democratic bases and disappear onto the trash heap of history-- as McCaskill is about to-- in 2022.
