A special election to the State Senate in Iowa just concluded (it took place because the former State Senator, Marianette Miller-Meeks(R), won the race to Iowa's 2nd Congressional District at a margin of only 6 votes, though we all may speculate that Dem voter fraud may have reduced the margins there; she replaced David Loebsack(D) who won by a decent amount in 2018)
Her State Senate District (District 41) was won with a R+3.6% margin in November 2018, and an R+1.8% margin in November 2014.
https://ballotpedia.org/Iowa_State_Senate_District_41
Tonight, her successor Adrian Dickey(R) won the special election with a margin of R+10.6%: https://twitter.com/ChazNuttycombe/status/1354284448959885313
While good news, note that he underperformed Trump's margin over Biden: https://www.bleedingheartland.com/2020/12/30/first-look-at-the-iowa-senate-district-41-special-election/
Trump won SD-41 at an R+19% margin in 2016 and an R+21.1% margin in 2020.
However, in 2012, Obama won SD-41 at a D+8.1% margin. This district is saturated with Obama-Trump voters. In the Trump Era it was still open to electing Democrats downballot, however, so Dickey underperforming Trump is not a particularly bad sign. Take a look at this sheet from the DailyKos where a bunch of autists catalogued statewide race results by legislative district, you have some statewide Democrats winning SD-41 like the 2014 Attorney General race where the D won in a landslide: https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1YZRfFiCDBEYB7M18fDGLH8IrmyMQGdQKqpOu9lLvmdo/edit#gid=2097162789
My takeaways from this are the following:
-In 2017 and 2018 there were multiple state legislative special elections where the Democrat candidate outperformed expectations due to low turnout races where the Dems were more motivated. If your expectations for this race tonight were formed based on state-level results, which is the reasonable thing to do given that this is a local race where there are voters willing to elect a localized blue dawg moderate Democrat, then the Republican overperformed.
-There was a blizzard in Southeastern Iowa today, so it definitely depressed election day turnout. Apparently the Dem was favored in the absentee/early vote, but the Repub was favored in the election day vote so one may argue that the blizzard made the Repub do worse than he would have otherwise
-I don't know how many of those absentee Dem votes are legit, but nevertheless it's clear that the Democrats aren't going to cheat their way to a win in literally every single election. I can testify that as someone who paid attention to these kinds of races in 2018, if this race for Iowa SD-41 happened in January 2018, you would have seen the Dem win by a huge lopsided margin (e.g. D+25%). Instead, we're seeing the Repub outperforming expectations
and if you check out his campaign statements, he seems like a bog standard 'muh small government, lower taxes' kind of Repub, not a MAGA "let's make sure Dems can't cheat again" type. I was worried that the Repub base in SD-41 would be unwilling to turn out enough because "voting is pointless now" but apparently enough did to the point where the Repub OVERPERFORMED expectations which is a good sign for 2022.
tl;dr Republican candidate in special local races does BETTER than expected, which means that Repubs seem to have a great chance of doing well in the 2022 midterms (maybe in other 2021 elections as well), despite potential demoralization from D's successfully stealing 2020
One thing to note is that in January 2017, President Trump did not have the de facto powers that would typically be granted to a new President because the forces arrayed against him (GOP establishment, Dems, Deep State) were strong enough to utterly flount multiple laws and constrict his movements (e.g. Russiahoax, Paul Ryan Congress being a do-nothing congress), despite the fact that he was rightfully elected via the True Will of the American Electorate.
I view January 2021 in contrast as a time where those same forces escalated further and are constructing a giant illegitimate LARP in the form of a geriatric child groper from Delaware and an expert sucker from California in order to constrict the true President's ability to enact change. President Trump was still rightfully elected via the True Will of the American Electorate and I consider this to be the first few hours of his second term, and like his first term there are still many positive changes that can be made despite these extra constraints on his power. For instance - he still has a bully pulpit, and we still face the same enemies we did at the start of the First Term - only they will be even more paranoid, more desperate, more overreaching, and now are in a position where it will be even harder for them to gain organic support.
GOPe is arguably our weakest and most vulnerable enemy. They're already crippled.
2022 GOPe Incumbent Senators to Primary: Richard Shelby (Alabama), John Boozman (Arkansas), Marco Rubio (Florida), Mike Crapo (Idaho), Todd Young (Indiana), Chuck Grassley (Iowa), Jerry Moran (Kansas), Rand Paul (Kentucky; did not vote to object to results, therefore he must go), Roy Blunt (Missouri), Richard Burr (North Carolina, retiring), John Hoeven (North Dakota), Rob Portman (Ohio), James Lankford (Oklahoma), Pat Toomey (Pennsylvania, retiring), Tim Scott (South Carolina), John Thune (South Dakota), Mike Lee (Utah), Ron Johnson (Wisconsin)
That's a long list, and some of them deserve being primaried more than the others. It's much longer than the list of Democrat Senators successfully primaried by progressives in 2018 (zero, only a small handful of House seats were taken over by Justice Dems). Thing is, one saying that applies in the 2020s is "Republicans fall in love, Democrats fall in line" (a reversal of this quote has been a cliche for years, but it no longer applies).
Imagine the glory of seeing all those Senators get primaried out by a true MAGA candidate. I haven't made the list of House incumbents to primary (basically all the ones who didn't object), but I'm confident that more GOPe House members will be primaried out in 2022 than Dem House members were primaried in 2018.
I'm not aware of who to replace all those candidates with, but hopefully by the start of 2022 we will have a strong idea. One pitfall is that there are too many anti GOPe challengers and they end up splitting the anti GOPe vote.
It's in our hands...and that should make you so much more optimistic! Because everything is clear and everything is simpler and fulfilling our objective is EASIER
I'm not in DC right now, I'm in another city, but....I swear
...If the patriots in DC storm the Capitol and bring the traitors to justice, I swear that for the rest of my life, I will go out of my way to do every favor I can for those who had the courage in this once in a lifetime moment to do what is necessary to save us all.
If I manage a restaurant? Free food for anyone who is verified to have taken part.
If I'm someone who sells merchandise? Discounts, free items, etc for anyone verified to have taken part.
If I'm an educator? Free time to teach them any valuable skill I can.
The list goes on. And no matter the profession, I swear to give them all the emotional support, kudos, congratulations, gratitude, love, high fives, free drinks on the house, etc etc etc etc
I would treat them the same way I would treat ANYONE who saved my life and saved the lives of my loved ones.
I swear this vow. Do you swear it with me?
Sure, hopefully January 6 is a grand victory. Sure, hopefully we manage to decertify enough states. Sure, hopefully the traitors get purged and the enemies get vanquished very, very soon. I prefer things to be as clean as possible.
But no matter what, I think that Trump should treat January 20 as the start of the next four years. He is the legitimate winner of the 2020 Presidential Election, and therefore is entitled to a swearing in ceremony. Every sane person should act as if we're in the second Trump term and that the Joepedo Kameltoe admin is illegitimate.
The Powers That Be need to be undermined in every possible way. I'm personally going to refer to Joepedo as "his fradulency." Instead of using the word 'President,' use the word 'Fraudulent' - because he symbolizes fraud on every level, even before the Big Steal of 2020 (e.g. "Joe is a decent man... who just happens to grope kids live on television and send older kids to die in the middle east").
edit: this is under the assumption that Joepedo does have his own swearing in ceremony on January 20, obviously I'd prefer something historically unprecedented to happen before then. If the traitors are in a cell then Trump will naturally have a swearing in ceremony. But I'm saying he should have one even if they aren't in cell.
I DID IT. FIRST EVER PRESIDENTIAL VOTE after becoming a citizen
For the first President from Queens
Arrived at 9:30AM thinking it was smart to be thirty minutes early because place opened at 10:00AM. Nope, I should have arrived at 8:00AM
Took around four hours because Cuomo and De Blasio can't run an election right. Sealed the deal for the Don at around 1:25PM.
As I walked out, I was shouting "TRUMP 2020" and "I voted for Trump I voted for Trump I voted for Trump"
I heard the voice of this one catlady who I didn't even see (so I don't know her look) go "Ooough!"
so I shouted it even louder
and as I was coming out, I was also shouting "Man I gotta go use the bathroom, it took me over FOUR HOURS to wait in line"
yfw I may have demoralized a few would-be Biden voters to just go "you know what? fuck it I'm gonna go home, screw waiting that long"
First things first, there is no practically 0 chance that any Dem candidate who isn't Bernie will get a plurality. Bernie is doing well enough that he is practically guaranteed to attain at least a plurality of delegates, if not a majority.
I've narrowed it down to three outcomes barring any Black Swan scenarios.
- Bernie Sanders wins a majority of delegates
- Bernie Sanders wins a plurality of delegates, then becomes the nominee anyway after a contested convention
- Bernie Sanders win a plurality of delegates, then gets denied the nomination at the convention.
In the 3rd scenario, Trump is practically guaranteed a victory so we won't have to really worry. In the first two scenarios, it's Bernie vs Trump, and I think there's a legitimate chance that Bernie wins, even though it's moreso a measly ~20% chance.
Ergo the only scenarios where we have a race on our hands involves Bernie as the opponent, so it's time to kick the war against "democratic" socialism into overdrive.
Are you ready to campaign against "Democratic" socialism for the next eight months?
Get ready to give retorts to all the most common talking points
"b-but if we just cut down on military spending we can give everyone quality health care and a quality education"
"b-but the republicans just support socialism for the rich!"
"b-but it's more like DENMARK AND NORWAY AND SWEDEN, not the Soviet Union"
"b-but medicare4all will actually lead to us paying LESS"
"b-but Bernie is authentic and consistent and genuinely cares!"
and all the others I haven't mentioned.
DON'T BE COMPLACENT. It's likely that Bernie loses to Trump but DON'T TAKE THAT FOR GRANTED! Be ready to persuade people on the fence - and there will be people on the fence who can be tricked into voting Bernie - that Trump is the way to go
