Remember Mia Love? She the mayor of Saratoga Springs, Utah, a city of about 17,000 people. She became well known this past election cycle when she was the Republican challenger for a House seat and was called a rising star by many after her speech at the RNC.
She was anointed as a rising star for the party after her speech. She was also a Mormon in Utah, running as a Republican the same year the Presidential ticket featured a Mormon. Many expected her to become the first black woman Republican in Congress.
She had all of this momentum was the (R) candidate in a year where Romney won the state by the insane score of 73% to Obama’s 25% (a spread of 48 points, by far the largest margin of victory for any state for Romney and a larger spread than Obama got in any state at all, even his home state of Hawaii).
Yet… She lost. It was a close race, but she lost.
A Republican Mormon in Utah with a sparking national profile somehow lost the election where the Mormon Republican candidate for President won by nearly 50 points.
How the hell did this happen?
Okay, I’ll just come out and say it: Can it be anything other than either sexism or racism or both?
Any Mormon above the age of 45 spent with a decent chunk of their lives in a church that would not put a black man in charge and still won’t put a white woman in charge. You really think these people didn’t have second thoughts about putting a black woman in charge of representing them in Congress?
There could be a grain of truth to that, and not trying to apologize for it, but…
Her opponent was a well known incumbent and plus, she just seems plain weird. She seems to be a certain type of immigrant that one meets once in a while, who thinks that the quickest way to become a “real American” is to embrace the wackiest right-wing stuff they can find. It just reeks of insecurity.
It’s not such a freak occurrence either. Montana is as red as it gets and they just elected a female (!) Democratic senator.
Yeah, the guy who beat her was a 6-term Congressman. It was a newly created district, and I don’t know what the demographics are, but it looks to be more urban than the former 2nd district (where the Democrat who beat her had been elected before). Ultimately, she lost (presumably) partly because of the Libertarian candidate got a few thousand votes, and that was just enough to tip the balance.
About half the voters voted for her, so if you want to make a case of racism, it would seem to be a minority of the voters reacting that way.
How would that be “weird” to those who are right wing? I mean, look at the other three Utah House seats:
So I don’t see much evidence that Utah voters would be put off by “weird” right wing views. I do see that they might be put off with “immigrant,” however. Especially since the one candidate whose views aren’t mentioned in the above story, Jason Chaffetz, “channeled conservative discontent on issues like immigration to handily defeat then-Rep. Chris Cannon (R-Utah) in a June 2008 GOP primary.”
Montana has a Democratic governor, Jon Tester just won his fourth term in the Senate and Max Baucus has been there forever. Montana may be red for the Presidential elections but the state is quite mixed in just about every other race, the same of which cannot be said about Utah as far as I know.
An immigrant who suddenly decides to go to Utah and become a conservative Mormon as an adult would get a :dubious: response from a lot of people … what the heck are they up to? It is weird. I wasn’t referring to her stated views, which are typical for Utah as you said.
Granted on Montana but I’m sure there are other examples… Indiana perhaps.
How much of the new, 4th district was part of the district he had won in the past?
Looks like the 4th contains parts of two very different counties-- Utah and Salt Lake. The former is heavily Republican, but the latter is more mixed. It went for Romney in 2012, but for Obama in 2008.
Meh. You cherry picked a bunch of things to make it looks so.
She was running against a well established political figure in Utah, and she only recently moved there. She’s from New Fucking York City, fer Christ’s sake.
Her opponent was a Utah native son, born in Salt Lake City. His father was GOVERNOR OF UTAH. He had already won multiple elections to Congress in a heavily Republican district.
There was a “spoiler” Libertarian candidate who was able to just tip the balance in favor of the Democrat.