Maybe the corruption thing plays a small part but mainly it has to be the West Wing syndrome again, right? I think a sizable percentage of Democrats love the idea of voting for a "reasonable" Republican so they can tell themselves and their friends they aren't blind partisans.

Haven't read up about the other governor's, but Charlie Baker is more popular with Democrats than Republicans in MA. Read his positions and policies and I don't understand why he has an (R) next to his name.

Climate Change:
Abortion: Baker is pro-choice

Immigration:
I think a guy like that is a lot more likely to be honest and hard-working because of the legislative checks and balances in a blue state. They also have to be moderate and will have lots of cross-party appeal. So, in reality, the letter next to their name doesn't matter that much.

lol told ya

So we are just shifting back to the way things were before Obama with a few percentage points one way or the other?

That's probably a part of it, but a small part, at least for Vermont.

It's a small state, so name recognition supersedes anything. Incumbents pretty much never lose.

Phil Scott was born in Vermont, worked as a successful businessman here, was part of the state senate for a decade, and a lieutenant governor for 6 years. He's been here forever. That counts for a ton.

Also Scott a savvy politician. He's not going to do anything stupid that will put his job in jeopardy. I have no doubt that if Bernie or Leahy died, Scott would appoint someone who would caucus with Democrats. He'd get his ass booted out in 2020 if he did anything else.

As far as this election goes, Hallquist was a really weak opponent. Like historically weak. Never been in politics, and admitted she voted for Scott last election. I'm guessing that no prominent Democrat wanted to use up any political capital to oppose him in a bid that would probably fall short. We had a 14 year old in the Democratic primary, FFS.

Pelosi is ****ing worthless. We need more dems like Stacy Abrams who doesn't take any bull**** and makes it very clear.

Dems are no where near poised to take back their state house losses because those bodies were also badly gerrymandered. Hopefully Ds can gain in Governor's mansions again otherwise 2020 redistricting my still be in GOP hands in many, many states.

I showed up ready to vote straight D and the spineless pricks didn't even have anyone running for my district's state house seat. Rs win, unopposed. GJGE DNC!

It will never not blow my mind what a ridiculous, ridiculous parlor game American politics are, and also that this is so was solely to allow ratification of the Constitution and allow for slaves/slave states.

I guarantee you he would not generate even a fraction of the visceral hatred that someone like Nancy Pelosi does. The fact his name recognition among Republicans is probably near zero almost certainly does help.

Also USA #1 dislikes the Asians a lot less than other minorities. Even when Trump has **** to say about China he never goes after the Chinese. He's also never gone after the Japanese, the South Koreans, the Vietnamese, etc. nor their expat communities in the US.

i could live with this

Speaker becomes president if Trump and Pence get got

NM is blue.

You just revealed your own ignorance. MD has an amazing governor in Hogan who happens to be a republican. He replaced a horrible governor in O’Malley who happened to be a democrat MD should vote in a worse candidate because he is a dem?

yeah, i forgot about that.

nate silver basically did the same map this morning (without the NM mistake), but wrote a lot more words about it. i guess what i'm saying is that i could do nate's job.

https://fivethirtyeight.com/features...ng-about-2020/

This is exactly what Larry Hogan's record looks like in MD. People point to the same issues to show how he's actually really moderate.

The problem is that Hogan, at least, gets credit for a lot of things that were passed over his objection by our veto-proof democratic legislature. Stuff like paid sick leave, mandating that gambling funds supplement pre-existing education funding rather than replacing it, and free community college for low income people - he was initially against all of these, but relented and signed the bills rather than have the legislature pass them over his veto. Now people act like that proves he's moderate.

Meanwhile, he continues to gut public transportation and do everything in his power to **** over Baltimore city.

****ing elected democrats all over the state publicly endorsed him over our M4A, free preschool, legalize weed democratic candidate who was formerly the national president of the NAACP. It's a travesty. Democrats in wealthy areas like the DC suburbs are DYING to prove how smart and reasonable they are by voting straight ticket blue but also supporting the "moderate" GOP governor.

LOL no

Hogan wants to redraw the MD map in a way that would likely give at least two more House seats to R's. That alone is enough reason to oppose him.

I get that partisan gerrymandering is bad, but when one side is as unabashed about it as R's, D states playing fair isn't the solution.

True that, alternative/supplemental hypothesis is that middle to upper-middle class “liberals” elect R governors for the same reason they have been aggressively resegregating their schools.... when it gets local and push comes to shove, they are going to do everything they can to entrench their wealth and status.

It's the same bull**** with Charlie Baker in MA:

https://www.masslive.com/politics/in...toes_lift.html

https://www.masslive.com/politics/in...ld_veto_s.html

get the flying **** outta here, this guy along with all the other 'moderate' GOPers in blue states are just regressive bulwarks. They're exactly what they're supposed to be, the function as the last check against Democrats doing things. As I said, the galling thing is how many purported Democrats sign up for this **** and keep electing these people.

That map makes me nervous because I don't trust MN/MI/WI (and PA to a lesser extent) to vote blue after 2016.

Welfare is pretty unpopular even among many Democrats. Bill Clinton was not afraid to make gutting it one of the main accomplishments of his first term.

Yeah I think there's a lot of that too. Maryland is a weird state. It's got 4-5 liberal counties and the rest is hardcore deplorable. The issue is that those liberal counties are pretty evenly divided among minority voters/counties (Baltimore City & PG County) and yuppie rich white people liberals (Montgomery County, and occasionally Baltimore County/Anne Arundel County/Howard County).

The latter group, while nominally in favor of things like expanding public transportation, doesn't ACTUALLY care about it. Even the people in Montgomery County who use public transport are often times using DC's subway and bus system, not Maryland's. They're also all too happy to send their kids to 50k/year private schools, private daycares, etc.

I think these kinds of voters are especially difficult for Democrats. It's a lot harder to impart a sense of urgency for things like publicly funded pre-k and preschool among a group of voters who will never use those things. Same for universal healthcare, public housing, etc.

Yeah a map where losing any one of like 5 states that we failed to carry in 2016 would mean we lose again isn't exactly what we should be striving for.

Loosely related, Dems need to really increase their engagement with rural areas next cycle. Seemed like every god damn election map on Tuesday we'd outperform 2016 numbers in cities and suburbs, but do even worse than we did in 2016 in rural areas. We can't just write those places off as lost causes. Taking 5 rural counties from +35 R to +25 R is just as useful as picking up another 10k college voters in the cities.

I'm NOT advocating that we tailor our policies to moderates or even rural voters in general. But you can message to those people without compromising on your values.

in general, ppl get absolutely infuriated if they feel someone is getting something for free.

replace her with barbara lee, ainec.

pelosi can barely speak in coherent sentences and definitely needs to step down.

the map says you need to flip PA, MI and WI from 2016 and maintain the rest, and the midterms suggest that is doable. whoever runs in 2020 needs to spend a ton of time on the upper midwest.