Home stretch for a cluster of special elections coming up between now and November, including the governors of Virginia and New Jersey, and the mayor of New York City. Registration deadline in New York is October 13th, Virginia on October 16th and New Jersey on October 17th. Virginia and New Jersey are also picking their entire state legislatures. Also several state legislative special elections in Georgia, Maine, Massachusetts, Michigan, Missouri, Mississippi, New Hampshire, Oklahoma, South Carolina and Washington. These tend to be low turnout affairs that don't flatter Democrats. But this is an opportunity for Democrats to put some points on the board. These elections will grab national headlines for a couple of cycles. Hopefully a strong Democratic showing can restore some confidence, and send a warning to those Republicans that continue to tie their fortunes to Trumpism.
I'm not liking the latest polls in Virginia. I'm not feeling the anti Trump wave. I'm no expert on these two candidates, I honestly haven't been following closely enough. But from a distance it feels like Dems running another establishment candidate on a Trump sucks platform. The Republican seems to be using a much simpler formula ... crime and terrorism hysteria. Predictably Dems don't seem to have an answer except "stronger together" I hope I'm getting a bad read here, because losing this would be the biggest disaster since last November. This is a statewide race, so you can't use gerrymandering excuse. It's an educated state, so you can't just say they're inbred morons. And this is a state that Clinton won. Even a narrow Dem win would feel underwhelming to me.
The Dems have doubled down on more of the same.... Actually, as long as their donations/funding streams remain, I think, ultimately, winning is a secondary priority for them. Oh DNC you and your dirty tricks. What are they afraid of? These are actual democrats. #burnitdown Subj: Voter Access Network
Yeah the most lefty wing candidate lost the primary so many on that side including the Sanders PAK is not endorsing the Democratic candidate. That may help the republicans pull this off. To be fair, It may have been the same if a Sandernista had won, moderate democrats may have been turned off/unmotivated to vote.
They're both establishment. Gillespie can't get more establishment although his recent push has been an attempt to shed that. I don't feel good about the race either. It's a largely red/rural state that has populations that are very blue. The areas around Washington, DC are solidly blue and that reach is steadily growing into what were red counties. Likewise, there is blue in and around Richmond and then some of the Tidewater/7 cities area (some college towns also go blue... Blacksburg in red Montgomery County). The largest population is northern Virginia and specifically Fairfax County. If the turnout happens, it shouldn't be a race, but that's always a big if. Northam moved a little more left prior to the primary, but he's largely not running a campaign against Trump. He's kept that out of most of it and has emphasized that he will work with him to do what is best for the Commonwealth although he is currently doing things that will hurt the state. On the other hand, since Corey Stewart unexpectedly did well in the Primary and due to general lack of enthusiasm, Gillespie is now pivoting much more to the extreme in his advertising in hopes of getting supporters of Stewart while supporting Confederate statues and claiming Northam supports child sex predators (by way of supporting returning citizens rights and ability to vote) and gangs (because Northam supported sanctuary cities in theory while proclaiming that VA has zero) including MS-13 (ads have featured jails in El Salvador). The latest ads from Northam are direct counters to the claims from Gillespie and question what kind of person would run those ads about a man who went to VMI before serving in the military and becoming a pediatrician (the cares about children thing), blah blah blah.... The Gillespie ads have been disgusting and feature a lot of dog whistles. It may actually be enough to energize voters who don't appreciate those ads. FWIW, Terry Mcauliffe was at my church on Sunday. I can count on two hands how many times he has come to my church since his run for Governor and getting into office. The get out to vote and push for certain populations to turnout is definitely increasing. President Obama was in Richmond about two weeks ago. There are plenty of morons who aren't inbred. It's worth mentioning that the Presidential general election ended up being tighter than most thought it would be too. Not all of the state is educated and turnout is the key. We all know how Dem turnout can be... education be damned. I don't think it would be the biggest disaster nationally, but it would suck for the Commonwealth especially with the census coming up.
Shit is getting real with the negative ads. The GOP using the slavadoreñan gangs, and a Latino group using the alt right marches. https://www.washingtonpost.com/loca...dab5a0ab381_story.html?utm_term=.05eac7c46bb9
I hadn't seen the sex offender ads until this morning when watching the local news in the morning when it was at least three ads for the race in a row. Two were from Gillespie, mentioned little platform and were negative and the other was from Northram and was some bio, refuted some ads, was positive and mentioned little platform. The sex offender ads may have disturbed me more than the other ads from Gillespie.
Not the one with the truck chasing minority children. Now that was not the Democrat party or candidate, it was a 3rd party Latino organization that paid for that ad. One of the reasons people probably hate election season, all thos fvcking tv adds.
Well the polls seem to favor Gillespie by well more than the margin of error http://thehill.com/homenews/campaign/357824-poll-northam-leads-gillespie-by-17-in-virginia-gov-race
Did you link to the wrong article, posted the wrong names or wishful reading on your part, error on the article? BTW, I don't buy the 17 point lead, but if he is getting over 50%, that is good.
misread it...good catch not sure what you mean by wishful reading....You ALL are probably right of me. LOL! (except when it comes to Snowden...he's a martyr, not a hero)
How about seeing ads when it is not your election season but you see the ads because you are in the same tv market?
Worth noting that Gillespie got 48% of the vote in a statewide election in 2014 against a popular Dem. Senator. I imagine that gives him a higher floor of support than would be the case for some other generic Republican - a lot of the people saying they'll vote for Gillespie in polls are probably people who already did vote for Gillespie, not that long ago. Even so, the race seems closer than it should be given the national context.
And going into Tuesday, I increasingly think that the Dems are gonna blow it. Because Dems are stupidly bad at politics.
At a national level they seem to have formed an unnecessary and stupid circular firing squad while the GOP is on the brink of a civil war. But, at least Donna will get paid. That seems to be what she was is in it for.
I laughed at this Josh Barro piece. Bill deBlasio is annoying, but effective. And will win easily on Nov. 7th: Like a lot of New Yorkers, I can't believe I'm going to vote for Bill de Blasio on Tuesday. But I'm going to, and so will most of you, whether you like him or not. Our widely grumbled-about mayor is cruising to reelection for a simple reason: He seems to be doing a very good job. Police-community relations are improved. Crime continues to fall. Universal prekindergarten has been implemented. Quality of life in New York City seems to be improving a little, or at least not getting worse. Rents are even falling a little bit, in real terms. Your stereotypical politician talks a good game and fails to deliver. De Blasio does the opposite: He spouts a bunch of annoying nonsense while surreptitiously doing his job well. http://www.businessinsider.com/bill-de-blasio-election-win-mayor-2017-11
Unfounded. I am not too concerned about Va. Looking at the early vote in Nova and the enthusiasm on the ground, Northam will win easily. I predict a 5 pt margin. He is not the most charismatic politician but he will get the job done. Kudos to Tom Periello, his rival in the primaries who has been working tirelessly to elect D's across the board. Embarrassed and pissed at the DFA and those "purists" who pulled out their support the last week or so. Utter stupidity.