Right. Provisionally I’d say Graham should be considered ex-officio favorite though not the ironclad don’t-even-bother shoo-in he was in 2014, all the way to the election.
And at least if the volume of e-mails asking for money in my inbox is any indicator there is a whole lot of push to go after him.
I watched a bit of the recent debate - Harrison was excellent and Graham…was Graham. As usual, debates won’t change any minds that are already made up, but this one won’t do Graham any favors. And it’ll be interesting to see if it has an effect on the polls.
The Lincoln Project should run that ad to death for the last two weeks of October.
Although polling numbers are encouraging and 2020 is definitely a year of “Holy Shit, didn’t see THAT coming!” I am also skeptical.
I was browsing my Facebook feed and one of those ads from Graham popped up where he is lamenting how liberals hate him and money is pouring in from around the country to support Harrison. I went into the comments (I know) and was shocked at how much vitriol he was getting from the Trumpers. Apparently old Lindsey hasn’t been dedicated enough to the President. That said, even if I took at face value the comments representing reality, as mad as they are at him what are they going to do? Vote for the black guy? Yeah, that won’t happen.
The Trumpers won’t vote for Harrison but they won’t feel driven to go out of their way to vote for Graham. And there will be at least some moderate Repubs who decide they aren’t voting for Trump or Graham, so they will just sit this election out. And Dems are expected to have incredibly high turnout this year; effectively none of them are voting for Graham. I don’t think Harrison is going to win but I really hope he does. I kicked in a couple hundred bucks to his election campaign a few months ago and I hope it was money well spent.
There’s no way the apparatus of state in South Carolina will allow Harrison to win. The cheating in this year’s elections will be unprecedented in modern times.
It’s hard to imagine Graham losing his seat. Graham is a seasoned politician who knows how to survive, much like McConnell and some of the other more senior senators who’ve withstood challenges. This will be a wake-up call, but the odds of Graham losing are long.
Well roughly 1 to 4 per 538. Nevertheless recent polls are close, like Quinnipiac’s recent tied. And I remain very uncertain about LV models in such unprecedented times.
You do realize that the other senator from South Carolina is Tim Scott, right? He handily won his election in 2016. Voting for a black candidate is not a problem.
The issue for Graham is more his perceived flip flopping of support for Trump. That will turn off some SC voters.
I know we hear this every year but this election really feels, more than any other I can remember, that it is all about turnout. Certainly on the Presidential level there can’t be very many potential voters who are honestly undecided regarding which candidate they prefer. They are undecided about whether they’ll vote or not. If Trump isn’t driving anyone beyond his hardcore base to the polls, and Graham is lackluster enough that fewer South Carolinians are actually enthused about voting for him, there could be enough of a difference in turnout that Graham could lose his seat. I’m not counting on it, but it is definitely in the realm of possibility.
I’m having a hard time thinking of things that either Graham or Trump could do with only 4 weeks to go that would significantly boost turnout for them, but I can think of lots of ways they could lose even more voters.
Graham left himself zero wiggle room on the Supreme Court promises he made. His only argument now is “I’m a hypocrite, but I’m your hypocrite.” Republicans will accept the flimsiest excuses from GOP politicians, but I wonder how they feel about one who doesn’t even try. There are no contortions of logic that allows a voter to vote for Graham without admitting that they themselves are a hypocrite and that a person’s word means nothing. I’m hoping a lot of South Carolina Republicans think that Graham can win without their vote, so they can still think they are honorable people.
Definitely, but there is another option: to prevent people opposing them from voting.
Yeah, I was trying not to think about that, but you are right, of course.
No need. Absolutely allowed, fine, justified and good as long as it propels the Ways of RIGHTeousness. They’re that way.
Is Lindsay Graham going to lose his seat?
YES
I’ve been trying so hard to ignore the obvious double entendre that I think my head might explode.
Well, if he doesn’t lose it, maybe he can at least have it handed to him.
What happened to the short-lived “Lady G” meme? Was that seen as too far below the belt?
Quite a bit on the Graham/Harrison race here:
Right now Gardner, McSally and Collins are in deep shit. The Pubbies will pull one back in Alabama but there are hotly contested races in NC, Georgia and Iowa and, astoundingly, in Kansas, SC, Texas and Mississippi.
Donald J. Trump’s incompetence and cruelty is killing the GOP in this election.