Holy shit, this one’s close for a district that a Republican should normally win by 26 points:
Early votes in #AZ08 (likely 3/4 of all ballots):
Debbie Lesko (R) 82,294 (53%)
Hiral Tipirneni (D) 73,188 (47%)Lesko's got this, but a 6% margin in an R+13 seat is *terrible* for GOP.
— Dave Wasserman (@Redistrict) April 25, 2018
Relative to the district, this is as impressive as Conor Lamb’s showing. Let’s finish off the Balloon Juice fund that is split equally among all Democratic nominees in districts currently held by Republicans.
Mary G
Reposting two tweets I was putting in the last thread:
I think I’ll add Simena to my $5 a month donation list.
Platonailedit
fynyt has already declared the rethug as the winner.
Adam L Silverman
@Mary G: This was a huge swing to the Democrats. The President won the district by 21%. Tipirneni reduced that to 6%. That’s a 15% point swing.
Major Major Major Major
Good showing, I’ll allow a moral victory this once.
Mary G
@Adam L Silverman: Yep, lot of soiled red diapers tonight. I like Tipirneni; I hope she runs again.
TS (the original)
@tbonier
Keep in mind, the GOP vote share among early voters exceeded the Dem vote share by 20%, yet Lesko carried the early vote by just under 6%. This isn’t just a Dem surge, you are seeing GOP voters crossing over in droves. Likely not enough to win this Trump +21% CD though.
twitter link
rikyrah
Any news on the NY Senate?
Adam L Silverman
@Mary G: The seat will be up for election in November.
Mnemosyne
Since these threads require a cute baby or cute animal to be complete, please enjoy this video of Lincoln, Prince of Sea Pups, making a new friend. ?
Adam L Silverman
I highly recommend this thread:
Adam L Silverman
@rikyrah: This thread:
Another Scott
Donated. I’m glad she did well.
Dr. T had a 5x match going for a while – but 2 days before the election is kinda late (especially with lots of early voting). It would be great if matches like that could exist in the summer.
196 days to go.
Cheers,
Scott.
Yarrow
@Adam L Silverman: Thanks to that Twitter account I saw this:
Seriously?
kimp
From what I have read, the National Dem organization spent next to nothing, essentially giving up before we started. If we are failing to persuade new people to join this party, job one seems to me to be not to concede that a county or district is unwinnable. EVERY VOTE COUNTS. In every county, in every district, in every state.
Adam L Silverman
@Yarrow: Oy vey!
Mnemosyne
@kimp:
Links or STFU. The district swung by TWENTY POINTS in motherfucking MARICOPA COUNTY and you’re in here with this whiny bullshit?
Mrs. D. Ranged in AZ
Well I’m glad Dr. T did as well as she did. Maybe in the Fall we will see it swing even further. As I said in an earlier discussion, the AZGOP tried some last minute ratf*ckery per usual.
Omnes Omnibus
@kimp: Hi, new person with downer message. Cites?
Adam L Silverman
Ooopsie!
Major Major Major Major
@Yarrow: First reply is great though.
mai naem mobile
I hope Tipirneni tries again in November if she lost this race. She’ll get a better turnout in November because we have the gubernatorial and the senate races.
Yarrow
Some NY state Senate news:
What’s that all about?
Mary G
Only 92 of the Republican’s House seats are redder than this one:
Aleta
@Mary G: Thanks for posting those.
Major Major Major Major
@Yarrow: For fuck’s sake, they’re still doing that shit?
Yarrow
@Major Major Major Major: I don’t know. Guess so.
Mary G
@Yarrow: I don’t know a lot of the details, but my impression from what I’ve read is that Gov. Cuomo had 5 or 6 Democrats caucus with the Republicans, because reasons. There’s been a lot of noise on Twitter about Cynthia Nixon, the Sex and the City actress and according to, again, a Democrat ally of Cuomo, “an unqualified lesbian.” pushing him leftwards.
piratedan
@Mrs. D. Ranged in AZ: I have no worries that Lesko will manage to distinguish herself as being wondrously odious in short order and allow the good doc to have a fighting chance.
Would love to see her get a chance to dig into the border security and health care issues and would believe that she would have no issues cleaning Lesko’s political clock.
Suzanne
No Dem will ever win that AZ-08 seat as it is currently drawn. But in redistricting, if we get another seat next time, that district may get split. So.
I’ve got a sign for Deedra Abboud in my yard, but I’m preparing to vote for Kyrsten Sinema. Everyone, before you get too excited: remember that Kyrsten Sinema sucks. I don’t want that to come as news to anyone.
Mary G
@piratedan: Six months of Lesko standing next to Trump with her thumb up cheering on his latest crazy idea should provide lots of great ad material.
@Suzanne: Oh, well maybe I won’t contribute to her after all.
Aleta
@Yarrow:If he has mood swings, he might also have a lot of ideas that don’t work out. (So do mathematicians, musicians, writers, physicists.) I bet this is more grandiose than solid, long range. But then, so is T.
Adam L Silverman
@Yarrow: The last of the breakaway NY Dems. Basically shortly after Cuomo got elected he got a group of about 8 Democratic state senators to form the Independent Democratic Caucus. They then caucused with the GOP state senators creating a coalition majority and locking the Democrats from actually controlling the chamber they won. This allowed these breakaway “independent” Democrats to wield extraordinary power and get extra pay as legislators and it allowed Cuomo a back door method of preventing any really liberal or progressive legislation from passing that he didn’t want to. With Cynthia Nixon’s challenge to him, Cuomo broke the Independent Democratic Caucus up last month, but it looks as if one of these knuckleheads is going to hold out.
Suzanne
@Mary G: Kyrsten Sinema is a total weathervane. She is not principled or reliable or consistent.
She is, however, better than Ward or McSally.
There is an amazing Democratic candidate in the race (Abboud), who is an outspoken white immigration lawyer from Arkansas, who converted to Islam, wears a hijab, married an Arab dude, and is completely awesome and charming. It is a trip to hear Claree Belcher’s voice preaching real progressive things come out of a Muslim lady’s mouth. But she’s never held any office before and she doesn’t have a base of support or name recognition. And did I mention progressive Muslim lady from the South? In Arizona?
Adam L Silverman
@Mary G:
piratedan
@Suzanne: aye, she may not be optimal, but she’s no Jeff Flake…..
would she reliably vote with 80-85% of the Dem agenda, then she’s a yes for me because that’s a damn sight closer to reality than anyone from the GOP will trot out there.
?BillinGlendaleCA
@Mnemosyne: Only animals I saw on my hike today were birds, other humans, and a baby rattlesnake?.
dmsilev
@Mary G:
Of course, that’s like 40% or so of them. Sadly, there are a lot of wingnuts in this country.
Now, granted, cutting the GOP House delegation down to half of its current size (which would put it at …27%, roughly) would be an epic victory perhaps without equal, and we’d all be giddy with joy to see that.
Mary G
@Suzanne: I was reading the WaPo article from last June about Abboud, she does sound great. She says she’s starting the conversation the country needs to have, and I’m hoping she will keep putting herself out there.
This was a bit of a surprise:
I was surprised Flake would do that. Of course, then the cynic in me spoke up saying that of course he wanted his opponent to be a woman in a hijab.
Suzanne
@piratedan: She would prolly vote 55-60% of the Dem agenda. Look at her voting record. It is really shitty for a Dem. But this is AZ, and we don’t get to have nice things, so more-functional-than-not will likely have to suffice.
@Mary G: Jeff Flake, like some Mormons, has an idea of what it means to be a religious minority and is fairly chill. He is still boring AF, though, and I 100% stand by my previous comment about his orgasms.
T S (the dour one)
@?BillinGlendaleCA: Does that seem too early in the year for a rattlesnake, or is that normal for your neck of the woods?
Steeplejack
@Suzanne:
Had to look it up.
LanceThruster
Has the district been gerrymandered?
mai naem mobile
@Mary G: Sinema is my Rep and while she pisses me off plenty because I think she can vote more liberal for this district, I know she’s always been looking at bigger things for herself down the road. She sticks her finger in the wind etc. but I am sure she’s not going to be a Joe Manchin or Heidi Heidtkamp.
Achrachno
@T S (the dour one): @T S (the dour one): Yes, in S CA they come out of hibernation around April. But, I’ve seen them as early as January (rarely).
Suzanne
@LanceThruster: YAAAAAS. Phoenix is very intentionally cut up and some parts put in with rural areas to keep some safe GOP seats. Take a look at the exceedingly weird borders of that district.
mai naem mobile
@LanceThruster: no. This is probably the most conservative district in Metro Phoenix. You get all the planned old Fart areas on the far west end of metro Phoenix (Sun City). You have pockets of majority Hispanic areas but the high turnout GOP retirees are hard to beat. I think there’s newly populated areas in the far SW part of metro Phoenix that’s in this district which may dilute some of the NW retiree votes if you can get them out to vote in November. Teachers in AZ are walking out on Thursday over pay and conditions and I think that will impact Nov voting.
piratedan
@mai naem mobile: plus the fact that there wasn;t much time to enable a ground game here in the ramped up process since Franks resigned. More time, better ground game. Looks like with all of the ballots cast, Tipirnimi lost by less than 10k votes and pulled in 47+%, with a bit more time to organize, this seat could be in play again in November.
Mrs. D. Ranged in AZ
@piratedan: in a debate the good Doctor would clean Lesko’s clock. I hope she runs again in the Fall. My own calendar will have cleared by then and I might just volunteer my time.
DougJ
@rikyrah:
Easy win for Dems
Chyron HR
Yeah, well, a Berniecrat would have won AZ-08 easily, if Berniecrats ever actually ran in the deep-red districts where white working class voters allegedly yearn for democratic socialism instead of just primarying Democrats in safe blue seats.
(Apologies if Lance “Bernie only lost because 75% of blacks were too stupid to vote the right way” Thruster already said this unironically.)
opiejeanne
@Chyron HR: He’s yapping about pie again. I should make one tomorrow.. oh wait, it’s already tomorrow here. I should be asleep right now but I’m wound up for no particular reason. Probably allergies and the sudden shift to warm weather.
I have enough frozen cherries left from last year’s crop to make half a pie so that sounds like a plan.
Zinsky
Arizona may turn blue in the next 25 years, like Texas, due to the influx of and higher birth rates of Hispanics. That, and Trumpie might tarnish the GOP brand so badly that even red states can’t generate enough turnout to overcome their natural demographic minority.
Matt McIrvin
@Zinsky: Unless they can deport, detain and scare away enough people to reverse the trend. At this point I’m not convinced ICE won’t just start rounding up and deporting US citizens en masse.
Miss Bianca
Meanwhile, I am completely taken up, not with the results of the AZ election, but in ttying to decide whether DougJ is referencing “It’s a Long Way to Tipperary” or “It’s a Long Long Way to Tucumcari” in his post title.
david
This is great news for John McCain.