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1. Getting a lot of Qs about these questions raised by @GrassrootsSpeak in terms of the KY senate race. She has genuine questions about numbers that appear disconnected to public opinion about McConnell.
I realize the #'s seem odd, but the answer is not fraud or corruption. https://twitter.com/GrassrootsSpeak/status/1336713647050153984
I realize the #'s seem odd, but the answer is not fraud or corruption. https://twitter.com/GrassrootsSpeak/status/1336713647050153984
2. So why DID McConnell win his race handily in KY. The main driver of vote choice & for those that have followed me for any length of time will already know this answer, is party ID & this includes Independent-leaners, Indies that asked by pollsters if they lean towards the D
3. or R parties, confess that they do, in fact, "lean" to 1 of them. Decades of political science research/public opinion research shows that these so-called "leaners" are closet partisans: they vote for the party they lean with candidates at nearly the same rate as "admitted"
4. partisans, & bc of polarization, the last decade esp, that rate has grown to be very, very high (this is known as a party loyalty score or metric). In terms of vote choice- partisans are voting w their own party's candidates at, or above, 90% of the time. Even if the candidate
5. that is running under their party's label is a known child predator or Donald Trump or maybe got off on a technicality for some white collar crime or cheated on their wife. It happens on both sides, but like everything else THE PROBLEM IS MUCH, MUCH, MUCH WORSE ON THE REP SIDE
6. SO BAD THAT IT MUST BE TALKED ABOUT IN THIS MANNER BC ON THE REP SIDE, PARTY LOYALTY HAS GROWN SO BAD THAT IT ENDURES EVEN AS TRUMP TRIES TO EXECUTE A COUP. IN PLAIN SITE. BY DISENFGRANCHISING HUNDREDS OF THOUSANDS OF VOTERS. WHICH, IF IT ACTUALLY HAPPENED, WOULD MEAN THE END
7. DEMOCRACY IN AMERICA. SO ITS KIND OF A BIG DEAL. So yeah, although Ds are willing to look away now if Cal Cunningham can't keep it in his pants for a 3 month general election cycle, there is NO BOTH SIDES to the polarization/hyperpartisanship problem. Even the most radical
8. element of the Dem's caucus, The Squad in the House & Sanders/Warren in the Senate observe bright, red lines of decency, truth-telling, social norms, rule of law constraints, & societal mores that in no way puts them anywhere CLOSE to the Matt Gaetz' of the world even if they
9. DO share the characteristic of representing "far" left/"far" right ideologies. This is not a subjective matter- which is to say it is objective, it is something that is verifiable. It can be examined, tested, measured, & either confirmed or rejected. And if I wasn't a jobless
10. loser, I'd be able to hire some research assistants and empirically demonstrate this, as well as many other imp works (fear not, once the Pac launches and my podcast/The Cycle writing stuff gets going, I hope to be gainfully employed again just in the nick of time!) How does
11. all of this relate to the KY election results question raised by @GrassrootsSpeak? Here's how. As of now, the GOP holds a decisive party adv in KY which is why its very hard for Ds to win statewides there. The adv Rs enjoy is "hidden" somewhat by two imp things. The first is
12. In the "rim" South states (NC, VA, KY, WVA, TN, AR, FL panhandle) when the South realigned (white conservatives left/were generationally replaced from the D Party to the Rep Party) many of them never changed their party reg from Dem to Rep even though they stopped voting for
13. Ds. K.I.M. some people register once, and they never move so they keep that voter reg for 30, 40, hell 50 years! These folks we call heritage Ds. And it makes electioneering harder down there bc you have to account for the fact that on paper, Ds look a lot stronger than they
14. are, and as you do what Abrams did (bc for god's sake- what she did should be done everywhere, not nec, in the South, but in every competitive state & it was for the prez race bc again folks, y'all really want to be thanking your Dem state party chairs in MI, WI, PA, & AZ bc
15. if you take those 4 individuals out (and their teams of course!) and put 4 other individuals in, 4 individuals that don't open up the state party coffers to pay for in-person canvassing really smart & respected people are telling them they don't need while the crazy lady on
16. on twitter is begging, BEGGING, any Dem candidate that sees her message to run in-person field any way they can. Nope, Biden, and we, us, America- we get those 4 state party chairs & with them chairs that asked Stacey Abram's org Fair Fight to teach them their method of voter
17. mobilization, which just freaking flipped Georgia! So, in places like GA where you have these big efforts to register actual Dems you need to know how to discern whose new and real versus whose old and fake. In KY, as with WVA, & TN, the "historic D" process has been more
18. enduring than in the Deep South: GA, MS, AL, LA. And its created some interesting outcomes- for example last year's KY Gov race where @AndyBeshearKY managed to win which in KY can only be done by getting significant portions of at least Rep-leaning Indies to cast ballots
19. for you. That's hard! But we know they did bc they also cast ballots for the GOP's other statewide candidates for LT Gov and Atty Gen, and although some actual Rs are likely part of the crossover group- my guess is its largely R-leaners that did it. That McConnell isn't well
20. loved among general voters there is no doubt. All 30-40% of American voters who know who he is. Without running a poll though- and eliminating the 60% of respondents who have no idea who in the hell Mitch McConnell is, I am guessing his approval among Rs and right-leaning Rs
21. is very high, esp after a couple of weeks of campaign treatment effects where the campaign reminds them of Mitch's stellar performance saving America's courts from those liberal activist judges. And then you have heritage Ds who are actually Rs. As this excellent and very
22. handy analysis from @kkondik & @Center4Politics shows- KY appears to be a wonderful place for Ds. But it is not! The heritage effect is VERY distortive. So these precinct/district level looks are going to be picking up a ton of the heritage D issues. https://centerforpolitics.org/crystalball/araticles/registering-by-party-where-the-democrats-and-republicans-are-ahead/
23. Finally, and this is really imp, @AmyMcGrathKY ran a really long-shot strategy down there that clearly failed terribly. I'm planning to write about it, but I'm saving it for my new substack project. So that is something to look forward to!