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U.S. House Win in Arizona for the (R)
So Republican Debbie Lesko has won a special election for Arizona’s 8th congressional district over Dem. Hiral Tipirneni.
Lesko, a former state lawmaker, will head to Washington to replace Franks, who resigned his seat in December midway through his eighth term over sexual-misconduct allegations. She will complete his term, which expires in January, and run for a full two-year term of her own in the fall elections.
Meanwhile, Democrats will point to an unbroken string of nine special federal elections now in which they have improved over their 2016 showing. That performance has the party looking ahead to the November elections with an eye toward regaining control of one or both chambers of Congress.
To do that, they still need to win a net 23 seats in the House after falling short in Arizona’s 8th Congressional District.
Moments after winning, Lesko gave an emotional talk to supporters at the home of a neighbor who hosted her victory party.
“It’s very surreal,” she said. “Twenty-five years ago, I left an abusive husband. And I sure as heck, never would have dreamt in a million years that I would be running for Congress, be a congresswoman.”
I thought that the Elephants would never win again and we were facing a never-ending onslaught of Blue Wave. The Mainstream Media is talking about the narrow margin of victory for Lesko and why it portends disaster for the party of Donald Trump in the fall. But just maybe, maybe, that won’t be the case.
Published in General
Romney won AZ-8 by 25 points. Trump won by 20 points. Debbie Lesko won by 5 points, despite outspending the Democrat by 4 to 1. Debbie Lesko is a well known Republican who had served in the Arizona Legislature for years. The Democrats did not nominate a Conner Lamb who would have better fit the district. And yet Debbie Lesko won by only 5 points.
On the same day, a Democrat won a seat in the New York Assembly that the Democrats had not won since 1978, forty years ago, even before the Presidency of the Greatest President of the United States, Ronald Reagan.
As long as we identify with Trump, we are going to be beaten. Not in every race, but enough races to lose control of the House.
We should be going for a filibuster-proof Senate. Instead we may even lose the Senate. So my question to my fellow Republicans is if having Trump instead of Cruz is worth a dozen Senators and forty Congresspeople? Because that is what the swing is going to be.
Are you suggesting we vote for Democrats, Gary?
I think he likes Romney. So, yes.
Let me get this straight … you believe that the voting populace in November, 2018 will be very similar to the voting population in these special elections?
Where did the 124,000 voters go? How many of them will be back in November, 2018?
What if Trump is exonerated by Mueller and McCabe, Comey and others are under investigation or in jail before November?
It’s what we’ve got, Gary. When I find a politician without flaws I’ll let you know, but in the meantime the question is now what? Saying “I told you so”, putting my head in my hands and moaning “woe is us” are not winning strategies for anyone. Instead of talking might-have-beens, let’s negotiate (hear that? negotiate!) a war strategy. Because that’s what it is, a war. Some think we’ve got it won, but any good general thinks contingencies – but what if: Some think we’re doomed – maybe so, but how to pull victory from the jaws of defeat. You guys are the brains, not me: C’mon! Stop picking fights with your associates and work together. And stop rising to the bait! Please!
No, he is just trying to point out the huge downside of Trump’s consistently high negatives.
Romney is more traditionally Republican than Trump.
This was a long shot for any Democrat to win this district. It’s like R+21 or something.
That a Republican won is not surprising. That a a Republican won by five points should set off alarm bells for people.
Fine. But what does he propose doing about it? When he asks “So my question to my fellow Republicans is if having Trump instead of Cruz is worth a dozen Senators and forty Congresspeople?” he’s implying an action there. Because if the answer is “no,” then what’s the solution?
If Gary wants us to vote for Democrats then he should say so clearly.
That’s true. Ricochet members are astute people.
The traditional impulse of any intelligent politician is to emphasize his strengths and to criticize his opponent’s weaknesses. Its an asymmetrical approach and geographically speaking looks at the local (Candidate X doesn’t care about local important industry but I do and propose to do Y to help it). The issue for Republicans is that this traditional, and effective approach, is being offset by the President who, along with the Democrats, has to a considerable degree tried to make every issue about himself (thus making any local race about a national issue, the President).
It is a similar scenario to 2010. Like Barack Obama Donald Trump likes to make every issue about himself. This could be a good thing for a local candidate if the President is a positive figure and the President’s policies have had positive effects on the local candidate’s district or state. However, Donald Trump has had low polling numbers, has an extremely poor character, and in some states his policies have had a negative impact, think states that benefitted from high SALT deductions (New York or California, and yes there are Republicans in those states) or those that benefitted from the previous tax regime.
This combination has thus far had a similar effect to the Democrats back in 2010, having a weaker electoral performance that at times has resulted in losing seats and weaker margins of victory.
The solution, as some have mentioned before, is for Donald Trump to shut up (thus lessening his public image as an issue on the campaign trail) but that is not in his nature. The scorpion cannot help but strike the frog on its back.
So you’re assuming that a nominated Cruz would be in the White House? That is a very large leap of faith, and makes the other assumptions hard to discuss. The chances that Republicans would ever get a filibuster proof Senate are slim and none. I agree that a loss of the House is likely and am hoping it will be less severe than what Saint Barack inflicted on his party in his first off year election. Unfortunately, it’s the cost of the presidency.
I ask again:
Were there special elections in 2005/2006 where Republicans won most of them? Any evidence that special elections, where it’s known the turnout does not mimic regular elections, are a harbinger of the regular elections? Any research that shows this?
I wish to associate myself with the prescient statements of Josh Farnsworth, Fred Cole, Valiuth and James Lockett.
The scant margin of victory should send off alarm bells all over America. Debbie Lesko was a good candidate, and her opponent was too liberal for that district. But Debbie should have won by the 25 points that Romney won the district with, and she didn’t. She won only after the Republican Party dumped over a million dollars into the district.
Republican Governors like Doug Ducey (AZ) and Scott Walker (WI) are now at risk, given that they are now tarred with the Scarlet Letter of “T” for Trump.
Here is great analysis by 538.
https://fivethirtyeight.com/features/arizona-8-special-election-result/
So Trent Frank’s sexual misconduct had nothing to do with this?
That was already the Blue Twitter narrative before the polls closed.
Those statements, as well as your own, are, with all respect, sufficiently prescient to be the conventional wisdom. As I noted above with regard to Cruz, there is absolutely no certainty that any Republican other than DJT would have won the White House in ’16. I’m certainly willing to discuss the costs/benefits of a Clinton White House and a Republican controlled Congress because that’s essentially what you’re advocating if you think keeping the House is so important. Making unfounded suppositions about another Republican in the WH is just shooting fish in a barrell of your own creation.
Debbie Lesko had nothing to do with Trent Franks. In fact, if memory serves, Trent Franks endorsed her chief opponent in the primary. Nominating a woman was the best step the Republican Party could have taken in the days of “Me Too.”
Since the 22nd Amendment was adopted, the American Party have alternated between the two parties every 8 years, with the sole exception of Reagan beating Carter and H.W. winning Reagan’s third term. Any Republican would have won in 2016. Cruz was the last candidate standing, so I used him as an example; Kasich also would have beaten Clinton.
Jennifer Rubin has hit the nail on the head. She writes:
Cook Political Report congressional guru David Wasserman tweeted, “There are 147 GOP-held House seats less Republican [the Arizona 8th]. It’s time to start rethinking how many of those are truly safe in November.” He notes that in the past eight special elections, Democrats have overperformed by anywhere from 6 percent to 12 percent (15 percent in the Alabama Senate race). To win the House, Democrats need to overperform by only 4 percent compared with their 2016 results.
Moreover, if Democrats can do this well in a deep-red district after the GOP poured in more than $1 million,the Senate seat opened by retiring Sen. Jeff Flake (R-Ariz.) looks altogether winnable. Likewise, other Senate seats with strong Democratic candidates — especially Tennessee, where Democrats got their ideal candidate in former governor Phil Bredesen, are surely within their reach.
Meanwhile, the Hill reports, “Democrats in New York flipped a New York Assembly seat on Tuesday, winning a seat that has been in GOP hands for nearly four decades. Democrat Steve Stern, a former Suffolk County legislator, beat out Janet Smitelli (R) for AD-10, a Long Island seat with 59 percent of the vote. … The district has been represented by a Republican since 1978.” The win is the 40th state legislative seat that Democrats have flipped since President Trump took office.
https://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/right-turn/wp/2018/04/25/republicans-lose-even-when-they-win/?utm_term=.0b3f01b42438
The range of possibilities outlined at the end of the article show we can escape with a narrow victory. If we want the GOP to withstand the brewing blue storm, we need Trump’s approval rating, ideally, to tick up to at least 45 percent, since it is correlated so strongly with the generic ballot. Right now his RCP average is 41 percent. So for all us GOP #NeverTrumpers, we need him to win
https://www.realclearpolitics.com/epolls/other/president_trump_job_approval-6179.html
Which is why any means to repudiate, rescind, repeal in part, shatter, dismantle this progressive regulatory authoritarian abomination should be the first main course on the menu for les chefs republicain.
Well except for the parts that are extremely popular.
This is the problem with any repeal of any problematic program. People are always against awful big government in generic terms. In specific terms is where it gets murky.
False choice. You know Cruz, who I supported from his Senate run through primary day in AZ, was not going to beat Hillary. He did not speak effectively to the forgotten men and women in the crucial states.
You also know that McCain is a key player in harming NRSC chances with his gloating betrayal of the 7 year fundamental promise to repeal Obamacare. And no one is fooled by McConnell and the gang’s feigned outrage and impotence at confirming nominees and at returning to regular order on appropriations.
If Republicans majorities survive in November it will be thanks to the same coalition that elected President Trump, not to the “conservative” legislators whose 7 year scam was exposed in 2017.
As to the AZ-8 race, let’s talk apples to apples. The seat has been uncontested by Democrats since 2012. They finally ran a viable candidate in an off off year election with all the voter and activist energy they could muster. We’ll see the same candidates and same outcome again in November, with a larger margin of victory.
Likely dead wrong but sufficiently in the realm of speculation that it’s hard to argue. I suspect that you haven’t looked too closely at the districts that gave Trump the presidency. You’re creating a counterfactual to suit your purpose when the likelihood is that the only way one gets a Republican House in ’18 is with Clinton in the WH.
I think that the Democrats will run candidates in most of the 147 Republican districts that are not as conservative as AZ-8. (If the runner-up in the Republican primary had won in the primary, he would have lost in the general election after the controversy of a female lobbyist sexting him.) Real Clear Politics again has an insightful column.
“Debbie Lesko’s five-percentage-point victory over Hiral Tipirneni marks a significant narrowing of traditional GOP margins in a place Donald Trump won by 20 points, and reflects the opposing party’s over-performance in the majority of congressional elections held during the president’s tenure. The Phoenix-area district had been so reliably Republican that Democrats weren’t even able to field a candidate in the past two elections there. In 2012, Republican Rep. Trent Franks, who resigned in December after allegations he offered a staffer $5 million to carry his child, beat a Democratic challenger by nearly 30 points.”
/www.realclearpolitics.com/articles/2018/04/25/gop_concerns_mount_in_arizona_despite_8th_district_win_136906.html
I recommend the entire column.
Do tell, did Donald Trump win the Presidential election by 10 million votes? Did he win by 1 million votes?
Can you tell me how many of these “new” blue collar voters compared to the regular republican voters in the general election?
I doubt those “forgotten” men and women that did vote were motivated by Trump as much as they were by Clinton’s deplorable campaigning. Given the polling prior to the general election there were several possible candidates that could have beaten Clinton, it was a low bar.
I mean not even Cruz had the negative polling that Trump or Clinton did.
Thanks. It’s always good to hear even more conventional wisdom from a Hall of Fame (shhhh) n e v e r t r Wait, I just can’t say it.
I am glad to see that you share my high esteem for Jennifer Rubin. She does a great job of pointing out conservative values to the readers of the Washington Post.