So that’s going down this week. Pence is there today, Trump’s there tomorrow. People are moving chips into the center of the table for this special election.
As you’ll recall, the prior NC-09 election was invalidated due to questionable activity regarding absentee ballots on the part of a consultant. Bad news and the Board ordered a new election. Dan McCready was the D candidate in the former election and the R candidate has been replaced with State Senator Dan Bishop. Bishop’s claim to national fame is as one of the sponsors of North Carolina’s ‘bathroom bill’.
So what do you think? The district was Trump+12 in 2016 but McCready lost in the original election by 905 votes. Will this one flip and go D for the first time in decades or will the R hold on? In either case, what - if anything - does it mean?
Even that is an interesting bit of information. Going from R+12 to even steven in North Carolina would be a pretty severe swing and possibly an indication that the swing that happened between the 2016 and 2018 elections is holding firm.
Special elections are often overrated for how they’re indicative of electoral behavior but I do find them interesting. Just how interesting is the question.
I agree they’re interesting – this seems like a particularly hard to predict race, both in that the last race was deemed to be unfairly decided, and that what limited information is out there right now looks very close. I look forward to seeing how it resolves (hopefully for McCready!).
I think they’re best looked at as a gauge of which side is more motivated to turn out. In 2017 there were a number of special House elections that were surprisingly close in deep red territory. In 2018, there was serious turnout from both sides, and the Dems won because there are more of us if we actually show up.
Trump’s going to be speaking in Fayetteville tonight. Wonder if that’ll rally his supporters or his opponents more. Guess we’ll know by tomorrow night.
I commend the election board for refusing to certify a fraudulent election. I think it’s kind of shady that anyone allows third parties to collect absentee ballots, they should go by US mail only. But the board had the integrity to recognize a fix when it saw it.
If the D wins this will be a great sign. I maintain that all elections hinge on Democratic turnout, since heavy Republican turnout is a given. Should D voters turn out in large numbers in an off year, great things happen in 2020.
I make no predictions. If Bishop wins by +12, I’ll be pretty doomsday. If he wins by +6, I’ll shrug and look at a silver lining. If he wins by +1, I’ll be pretty pleased. If he loses, I’ll be freakin ecstatic.
Don’t forget that it was the SON of the cheating candidate - don’t quibble, it happened by a guy he hired, he’s responsible - that laid the law down on his old man.
I read over the Dope thread on the case last week, and goddamn, dad’s chutzpah. The son had told his dad that the dude they’d hired was a huckster. According to the Washington Post,
The judge paused the proceedings at this point so that the son could nut-punch his dad. Not that the son asked to, but rules are rules.
Since the polling is saying 50/50, I’d say the odds of Trump claiming rigged election are similar and entirely dependent on who wins.
But that’s not really an over/under… so maybe it should be “What’s the Over/Under on how many days it’ll take Trump to claim rigged election if the Dem wins?”
Normally I would say its a long shot given that the district has gone Republican every year since the fall of the Dixiecrats, but I’ve got to believe that there are a bunch of Dems who are pissed off at the Republcans trying to steal the election and won’t want them to get away with it. Should be interesting.
I read this last night and was like, why on earth would anyone be so confident in their predictions, post-Trump? I’m glad I didn’t post about it last night, though, because I just reread it, and I agree.
Polls closed five minutes ago (1930 EDT). Results, I dunno – I expect at least preliminary indications by morning, but methinks there may be extra-scrupulous quadruple-checking before any given polling precinct’s results are reported, given the history. fnord
