Republicans had a lot riding on this seat, and it is a danger sign for the party’s prospects in other races next fall, including holding onto the governorship and challenging Democratic Sen.
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Democrat Margaret Good won the Florida House of Representatives District 72 special election on Tuesday, taking a seat that’s always been in GOP control and capping a campaign that attracted national attention and stronger-than-average voter turnout.
“It’s unbelievable what low expectations can do”, said Jose Felix Diaz, a former GOP state representative who in September lost to Democrat Annette Taddeo in a special election for a left-leaning Miami Senate seat. Beyond fiscal responsibility, the party’s commitment to family values is also suffering as Trump and some high-profile allies struggle under the weight of repeated allegations of sexual misconduct and abuse.
So every faction of the Democratic Party must for 2018 put aside attacks on each other and focus on the overriding issue: saving the nation, and the world, from what is being done to it by the man in the White House and his lackeys on Capitol Hill.
Good pulled out the seven-point win over Buchanan, also a first-time candidate, underscoring a major shift in voter preferences less than two years after the seat was last contested. The fit isn’t ideal; for example, a lot of the variance in how much special election results differ from the baseline goes unexplained in the model. But Republicans who control Congress have said they won’t support that much in new spending. For God’s sake, how many times do we have to snatch defeat from the arms of victory, Republicans?!
Further, a Morning Consult/Politico poll released Wednesday showed that Republicans have surpassed Democrats on the generic ballot, with economic policies being a driving factor.
Part of the issue may also be vote share.
USA satisfaction hasn’t been as high as it is today since November 2016, right before the presidential election, when Democrats’ satisfaction soared. Kamala Harris (D-Calif., shown above left), at 43 percent each. Now, with last week’s law, both parties have consented to burgeoning deficits that could soon approach $1 trillion again. Former State Department official Ed Meier contends the Democrat challenging Sessions has to both expand the base and appeal to Republican voters.
So should Republicans panic? However, Sarah Palin was coming onto the scene and then Sam Brownback and Kris Kobach emerged on the Kansas political scene and I gladly remained a Democrat to avoid being grouped in with them. The Trump plan would allocate at least $200 billion in federal funds over 10 years, from unspecified budget cuts, to spur at least $1.5 trillion in spending by states, localities and the private sector.
By this measure, the Republican advantage has probably dropped by about 2 percentage points since 2014, when Republicans won the party’s largest House majority since 1929. (Red dots represent a retiring Republican, and blue dots represent a Democrat).
The graphic doesn’t include all retirements; Pennsylvania retirements are omitted because the details of the map are up in the air.
The district’s voters are “old guard” Republicans and “less Trumpian” than other GOP voters, Schale, who ran President Barack Obama’s Florida campaign in 2008, told the News Service. And, as Dave Wasserman points out, a district doesn’t have to be chock-full of non-college-educated whites for a drop in their turnout level to make a difference.
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Long story short, despite Trump’s somewhat improved poll numbers, he remains historically unpopular for a president early in his second year, and Republicans are paying the price at the polls.
