Quote:
Originally Posted by New Era
No, it really isn't. Losing a seat that has not seen a Democrat elected since 1981 is not bad news. The fact it was competitive at all is a good sign for Democrats. This is a seat that has seen a 66% of the vote traditionally go Republican. A split like this bodes well. But please, tell us why this is bad news for Democrats.
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https://fivethirtyeight.com/features...ction-matters/
Effectively if the results from the other special elections represented the national picture they should have won this seat. This is the worst democratic performance in a special election thus far.
You are correct that depending how you model the previous vote you can twist the result in a different manner but this is not a strong red district as your plus 33 number would indicate.
Optically though it is worse than the statistics show. A loss here presented a credible threat to republicans in what should be safe seats. Without that threat from the left the republicans will continue to follow Trump. Now this might be good for democrats in 2018 but certainly bad for America.