by wj
Yesterday saw the first special Congressional election since the November general election. First, let's look at the district.
Kansas 04 is a very strongly Republican district. It last elected a Democrat in 1992 -- and that Democrat an exception to its historical pattern. In November, Mike Pompeo (now CIA Director) won with 60% of the vote, as did Donald Trump. (in 2012, Mitt Romney managed 62%.)
The Democrats' House Campaign Committee made minimal effort this time. (One last minute burst of get-out-the-vote calls.) But mostly, the Democratic candidate was on his own -- with whatever external funding he could raise on his own.
Before the vote, on of the DC political pundits (David Beard, Washington Post) gave this analysis:
KS-04 results:
>30: Good for Rs
20-30: Normal given Ds out party
10-20: Good for Ds,Trump a factor
0-10: Amazing! Bback killing Rs
Win: !!!!
And the actual results? Republican win . . . with a 7% margin (52-46).
Sure, any win is good, if you are thinking about your margin in the House. And Governor Brownback is a serious negative for someone who is part of his cabinet (State Treasurer).
Still, if you are brave enough to extrapolate from a single data point, this looks significant. If I was a Republican looking to the Georgia 06 election next week, this definitely would not have improved my overall happiness with the world.
So an unforced foul on the part of the Dem party at the national level--they should have sunk resources into this race, seems to me.
Posted by: wonkie | April 13, 2017 at 10:48 AM
A bit of good news: the Fexas voter suppression alw was thrown out in court.
Posted by: wonkie | April 13, 2017 at 10:49 AM
Estes is gonna have to run again, next year. And everybody knows who Thompson is now.
He (Thompson) got $50 from me this time around. He (or whoever runs against Estes) will get my money again about a year from now.
If nothing else, I'll be happy to help make the (R)'s pay through the nose to hold that seat.
Posted by: russell | April 13, 2017 at 11:02 AM
Well there was no real question that their prospects are better in Georgia. Which is where they have been focusing.
So rather than an un-forced error, say it was insufficient optimism about just how badly the Republicans in Kansas were hurt. (Whether by Trump or by Brownback is still an open question.) Plus, it's not entirely clear whether allowing the Republican candidate to scream "nationalize" would have had more impact than the additional funding would have helped.
Posted by: wj | April 13, 2017 at 11:06 AM
We've done well in the Kansas election, and also in a California.election, but both of those were in elections where it didn't matter (safe R and safe D, respectively). GA-06 will tell us what's happening in elections that matter.
Posted by: Fair Economist | April 14, 2017 at 01:38 AM