Why McSally lost and Sinema won in Arizona
It seems to boil down to the fact that McSally wasn’t a good candidate and ran a pretty poor campaign.
[NOTE: The linked article assumes that Sinema’s victory wasn’t the result of fraud. It’s always possible that it was, although on the whole I don’t think that was the case for Arizona. In Florida, however, so far I think there is a definite attempt by Democrat to win by fraudulent means, and that attempt may even be successful despite current legal challenges to it mounted by Republicans.]
“Tammy Baldwin, currently the out lesbian or bisexual woman in the Senate, welcomed Sinema on Twitter, writing, “Very happy to say I’m no longer the *only* openly LGBTQ U.S. Senator.”
Maybe the two of them will get married.
Openly transgender spectrum virtue signaling to complement diversity, political congruence, and selective-child.
That article makes some good points. I am still interested in why Ducey, in his race for governor got 1,241,028 votes and McSally got 1, 059, 124 votes. That’s almost 200,000 votes more for the GOP governor than for the GOP Senator. Some may well be crossover Democrat votes but I wonder how many Republicans voted for Ducey but not McSally ?
Here is a NeverTrumper local site that says Trump lost the race for McSally by campaigning for her. This is insane but might suggest some of what happened.
I blame McCain’s ghost.
I imagine it’s because McSally, early in the campaign, distanced herself from Trump rather than the other way around.
Poor Arizona. They’ve replaced one flake with another.
I was in Wisconsin this past summer. Tammy Baldwin’s campaign posters had a drawing of her which was downright scary.
Voter fraud is like steroid injecting in sports, you can’t win when everyone of your opponents use it but you don’t. You want Democrats to support anti voter fraud measures such as voter ID first GOP must start discovering lost ballots in favor of the GOP and flip close races that Dem initially won. Has GOP learned anything from Trump’s trade war yet? The only way you can make your opponents beating you with dirty tricks to play fair is to beat them in their own dirty game, then you have the leverage to force them to the negotiating table and promise to play fair in exchange for you to stop beating them so badly with cheating.
McSally was not a fighter pilot. I’ve heard that one repeatedly. Her plane was a close air support, ground attack plane.
They are also trying to steal Georgia. Miss. is being buried in racial language (I won’t say smears, yet).
I see Flake had “kind” words for Sinema, which is par for him. And he wants to challenge Trump?
Good cartoon this weekend, Pearls Before Swine. Yes, we are heading to Hell in a Handbasket, fast.
Won’t mention Accosta, that would be another thread.
Good grief. My husband had Fox News Special Report on, and Bret Baier referred to Sinema as a “moderate Democrat.”
McSally was not a fighter pilot. I’ve heard that one repeatedly. Her plane was a close air support, ground attack plane.
So were the F4s in Vietnam. So were the F 105s in Vietnam. It’s splitting hairs a bit to object that a single seat jet capable of attacking another single seat jet is not a “fighter plane.”
comments acting up.
McSally’s relationship to Trump is one issue, but I think the key question not quite answered is the 200k difference in votes for Rep gov over Rep senate.
My guess is that Reps who voted were looking for closer Trump support, rather than “moderate Reps”. This is the McCain hangover issue:
“McSally had been very friendly with McCain, many conservative Republicans were turned off from the start. Late in the campaign, McSally embraced Trump, so moderate Republicans were turned off.”
My guess is that most of the 200k who did vote for Rep Gov but not Senator were conservative Reps / accepting or enthusiastic Trump supporters.
The voting GOP is for strong border security (anti-illegals), tax cuts, lower regulation, America first for manufacturing, stronger military; and against PC culturer — Trump’s policy priorities.
Related to the McCain hangover is the first point – too much a defensive campaign. Tho McSally going from McCain friend to Trump friend is a reason to avoid being too clear on one’s personal friendships, she should have been clear on her issues and willing to respond in person.
I note that Trump has given far more time to press conferences and Q&A than scaredy cat Obama. That’s a “fighter” position which is pretty strong. I know I’m looking for Reps more willing to be real conservative fighters; I can easily imagine being uncertain of supporting “another McCain”. Tho I would have certainly voted for McSally — I’ve become a reliable NeverDem.
There are some other questions about voting in Arizona. I just moved here in 2017, January, so had not voted in a previous general election in AZ. I had voted absentee in CA for 40 years and never saw an issue with it. In Maricopa, the election included “Emergency ballot centers” set up before election day.
The chairman of the Maricopa County Board of Supervisors emailed County Recorder Adrian Fontes on the Monday before Election Day, expressing concern over the emergency voting centers Fontes established, according to the document that was obtained exclusively by the Washington Free Beacon.
Shortly before 6 p.m. local time Monday evening, the Associated Press called the Arizona senate race for Democrat Kyrsten Sinema over Republican Martha McSally.
As the election count for the closely contested seat progressed after November 6, Democrat Recorder Fontes and the actions of his office endured heightened scrutiny. Of particular concern were the “emergency voting” centers opened by Fontes that would operate the Saturday and Monday before Election Day.
Emergency voting centers are allowable by law, but both sides are debating what should count as an emergency, or if some emergency voting centers are “de facto” extensions of early voting.
My understanding was that absentee ballots had to be received several days before the election. There was a provision that voters who had gotten absentee ballots could take them to polling places on election day. I never saw that provision in California. Then, the Democrat official opened other “centers” before the election but after the deadline for absentee ballots to be returned.
Then, of course, we had the report that “99% of ballots had been counted” followed by another 600,000 ballots the next day.
Sinema is a known far left nutjob who ran on “pre-existing conditions” and “look, some normal people don’t hate me so now I must be a moderate.”
Why anyone who doesn’t vote Democrat straight tickets voted for her is a mystery.
The only plus side is that with Flake or McCain, you voted for Republicans and got weasels who would stab you in the back at inopportune moments. Residents of Arizona can count on Sinema acting against their interests, 100% of the time, so there’s no unpleasant surprises.
According to comments and articles here and there, Sinema campaigned in Arizona as a moderate Democrat, and she also was more polished in the televised debate between herself and McSally. Fox News was therefore not as much out of line as I thought in referring to Sinema as “moderate Democrat.” We’ll see what kind of senator she turns into. Her roots are radical.
MikeK on November 14, 2018 at 12:00 pm at 12:00 pm said:
There are some other questions about voting in Arizona. I just moved here in 2017, January, so had not voted in a previous general election in AZ. I had voted absentee in CA for 40 years and never saw an issue with it. In Maricopa, the election included “Emergency ballot centers” set up before election day.
* * *
J E Dyer got down in the weeds on this one.
It wasn’t exactly voting fraud but it rhymes.
All of the emergency voting centers were in known Democrat-leaning locales, and none in GOP areas.
Look at the maps here.
https://libertyunyielding.com/2018/11/13/arizona-mcsally-concedes-to-sinema-bonus-map-of-emergency-voting-concern-for-state-gop/
The 5 Reasons Why Sinema Won as listed at Reason may all have contributed, but this kind of “helping hand” was distinctly partisan. Republicans are going to have to try harder.
As to the fighting dirty — maybe not a plan conservatives will go for (else what’s the point of being conservatives), but it would be helpful if they would at least quit conceding elections while there are still questions about the legitimacy of the voting.
Meanwhile back in Florida, here’s some information about the third fraught race that I hadn’t seen elsewhere.
https://libertyunyielding.com/2018/11/14/the-reason-yes-you-want-to-know-this-why-the-recount-for-fl-agriculture-commissioner-matters/
“But a lot of Floridians recognize it as extremely important. Why does the agriculture commissioner’s race matter so much?
Because the agriculture commissioner administers concealed carry permits for the state of Florida.
Matt Caldwell is endorsed by the NRA in the commissioner’s race. Nikki Fried is not – and in fact is backed by Everytown, Michael Bloomberg’s gun-restrictions advocacy group, which is also, of course, a beneficiary of funding from George Soros. Everytown pledged a healthy $1.8 million to her campaign and the Democratic candidate for attorney general.
Fried isn’t just backed by Everytown. She’s plugged into the network, backed by Soros and progressive money man Tom Steyer, that has been pushing Andrew Gillum for governor and Sean Shaw for attorney general. Major PAC money has been presenting them as a slate of progressive candidates around the state throughout the 2018 campaign.
Fried filed to compete in the primary relatively late. And, like Gillum, she appeared in the primary to vault surprisingly over other candidates with more longevity and seeming likelihood of snagging the Democratic nod for the prospective office.
Fried is also plugged in to the reeking infrastructure of Broward County, through her own background as a lobbyist for the Broward County School Board, and her campaign consultant Matthew Botha, who has been the chief of staff for Broward County official Mark Bogen since 2015.”
The punishing of conservatives in news and on social media may have some influence in convincing better candidates that they just don’t need the headache and will go work for some cause instead. The field then narrows to 1. Those who will fight, perhaps too much, and 2. Those who will try to be nice and persuade, and perhaps cave.
AVI – this result is very likely one of the reasons for the punishing, if not the most important one. Deterrence like this also has been suggested as a motive, fo some, of the Mueller investigation. In criminal prosecutions & civil trials/lawsuits, it is called “the process is the punishment.”
See especially Mark Steyn’s travails with the DC courts on Michael Mann’s frivolous slander suit; it is to Mark’s credit that he refuses to cave and let the judge & Mann collude successfully in their harassment, but it is very costly and stressful.
Which is why Republicans are more prone to concede than to fight election fraud.
This may make some change (it should never have even been a factor), but as many people have said in Trump’s defense: at least he fights back!
I chose the Atlantic piece because it shows how the left views attempts to keep elections honest as “suppressing votes” — yeah, right.
I haven’t seen any stories about the consent decree from non-left media, so I don’t really know it the GOP was being discriminatory (which would be wrong) or rational (which curiously always looks to Democrats like discrimination), but notice that the Democrats have no compunctions against similar voter-limiting strategies, such as putting up emergency voter stations in Phoenix only in Dem-majority areas. And the New Black Panther / Eric Holder love-fest also fall under this rubric.
As usual, rules are only for Republicans.
https://www.theatlantic.com/politics/archive/2018/01/the-gop-just-received-another-tool-for-suppressing-votes/550052/