U.S. Senate
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(D) J. Hickenlooper*
(R) Somebody
80%
20%
Governor
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(D) Phil Weiser
(D) Joe Neguse
(D) Jena Griswold
60%
60%
40%↓
Att. General
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(D) M. Dougherty
(D) Alexis King
(D) Brian Mason
40%
40%
30%
Sec. of State
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(D) A. Gonzalez
(D) George Stern
(R) Sheri Davis
50%↑
40%
30%
State Treasurer
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(D) Brianna Titone
(R) Kevin Grantham
(D) Jerry DiTullio
60%
30%
20%
CO-01 (Denver)
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(D) Diana DeGette*
(R) Somebody
90%
2%
CO-02 (Boulder-ish)
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(D) Joe Neguse*
(R) Somebody
90%
2%
CO-03 (West & Southern CO)
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(R) Jeff Hurd*
(D) Somebody
80%
40%
CO-04 (Northeast-ish Colorado)
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(R) Lauren Boebert*
(D) Somebody
90%
10%
CO-05 (Colorado Springs)
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(R) Jeff Crank*
(D) Somebody
80%
20%
CO-06 (Aurora)
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(D) Jason Crow*
(R) Somebody
90%
10%
CO-07 (Jefferson County)
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(D) B. Pettersen*
(R) Somebody
90%
10%
CO-08 (Northern Colo.)
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(R) Gabe Evans*
(D) Yadira Caraveo
(D) Joe Salazar
50%
40%
40%
State Senate Majority
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DEMOCRATS
REPUBLICANS
80%
20%
State House Majority
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DEMOCRATS
REPUBLICANS
95%
5%
March 12, 2014 06:30 AM UTC
41 Comments
The Canary in the Coal Mine?
Last night the results of the house race in Florida became known. The Republican candidate, Jolly, defeated the Democrat candidate, Sink, 48-46.
The Dem candidate had held statewide office, was the Dem nominee for Governor and had won the district in 2010. Obama won the district in 2008 and 2012. The party split was 37% Republican, 35% Dem.
Both candidates were flawed. The Republican had never held office before and had worked as a lobbyist. The Dem was not exactly charismatic and said a couple dumb things, as did the Republican.
The Dem candidate outspent the Republican on the airwaves about 3:1, most of which was made up for by Republican outside spending.
The Dem candidate did not vote for Obamacare but said she supported it, but wanted to make it better. The Republican candidate was not in favor of Obamacare. Much of the outside spending was national testing for Obamacare advertising.
I get that all politics is local, but 2014 appears to be a toxic environment for Dems associated with Obamacare and even those that were not. There is the usual spin from the dishonest partisans, as in Debbie Wasserman Schultz, but at least Paul Begala is acting like an adult.
Paul Begala ✔ @PaulBegala
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Congratulations to David Jolly and the @NRCC. No spin, important win.
8:30 PM – 11 Mar 2014
Here is what the Tampa Bay newspaper had to say:
If I'm a Democratic House member in any competitive district in America or a Democratic incumbent senator up for re-election this year in a moderate-to-conservative state like North Carolina, Arkansas, Colorado, Alaska or Louisiana, I'm waking up more than a little anxious about what happened in Pinellas County on Tuesday.
In Alex Sink, Democrats had a better-funded, well-known nominee who ran a strong campaign against a little-known, second- or third-tier Republican who ran an often wobbly race in a district Barack Obama won twice. Outside Republican groups — much more so than the under-funded Jolly campaign — hung the Affordable Care Act and President Obama on Sink.
It worked.
http://www.tampabay.com/news/politics/local/adam-c-smith-column-david-jolly-victory-spells-trouble-for-democrats/2169745
Doug Schoen, Dem polster chimes in:
The Democratic pollster and Fox News contributor also predicted that “Obamacare will be a millstone around every Democrat’s neck” in November, and said “rhetorical games and niceties will not solve the problem.” He also expects Democrats will be much more apt to criticize President Obama’s policies on the campaign trail.
“Right now, if you said to me: Will the Senate going to go Republican, I would say yes,” said Schoen. “Tuesday morning, I would have said probably it’s a 50-50 proposition.
“Now I’d say we are looking at the prospect of a tide election, where even less well known, less popular Republicans could win seats that are now distinctly unlikely,” he said.
http://www.newsmax.com
FL-13 in one set of numbers:
Dem precinct turnout: 30%
GOP precinct turnout: 50%
Results: GOP candidate by 1-2%.
This is the story of special elections for Dems – we just don't turn out for these off-cycle races. It's a definite problem.
But if Republicans are looking for an Obamacare horror story here, they're not going to find one. If this had been a blowout loss for Alex Sink, perhaps it might have been a story; less than two points isn't that story.
BTW, Sink is now a two-time campaign loser, both in competitive races. First against a scandal-ridden government-scamming insurance exec (now Gov. Rick Scott) and this time against a relative nobody (Sink was State Treasurer, Jolly was a DC lobbyist). I bet a lot of Florida Dems are thinking it's time she retired from politics.
There it is. Just slightly more Ds turning out, and today's headline would have been "Jolly's Folly."
Sink's loss only further energizes me to work that much harder to turn out the D vote and defeat the enemy decisively and permanently.
May they be utterly crushed!
Good news.
Dems also don't show up in non-Presidential year general elections.
If each of 12 Dem Senators lose by one vote, guess what?
There are 12 less Dem Senators.
Jolly was severely underfunded in relation to Sink. The Republican third party advertising was about Obamacare.
If you want to pretend Obamacare is not hurting your candidates, have at it. If you think we want to keep it just make it better is working, knock your socks off. It is not.
By the way, how do you make it better without making it not viable? Eliminate the unpopular funding mechanisms?
An interesting AP article about the future of natural gas development in the U.S.
The depletion profiles of "unconventional" gas wells (the kind drilled into harder rock strata which require fracking) tell a story no one in the natural gas industry wants to talk about. Supply projections are not reliable because fracked wells empty out rapidly. I heard, a while back, an expert at an event in Paonia refer to the current gas market as a "Ponzi scheme" that will fail to meet the expectations of the investors who have put their money into this rapidly expanding development schedule.
http://finance.yahoo.com/news/natural-gas-industry-struggles-keep-195212480.html
So you don't have to be a tree hugging climate change believing librul to have concerns? You might even be a Wall Street trader? Do tell.
It's a Ponzi scheme that is going to collapse unto itself.
Very interesting.
So we invest in a huge pipeline infrastructure and then the well supply collapses out from underneath it because fracked wells dry up much sooner?
And in the meantime, gas prices fluctuate not based on either supply or demand, but rather on transit between the two.
Remind me not to get into that investment minefield.
That doesn't bode well for the O&G "clean energy" campaign about natural gas helping to reduce emissions. Of course it does – and if we're really really lucky it will last us just long enough to get real renewable clean energy generation installed.
The rate of decline on unconvetional wells is at a magnitude signficantly greater than the rate for conventional wells meaning that thousands of new wells have to be drilled annually to keep the same amount of gas in the pipelines. The money seems to be in attracting gullible investors and dumping assets before that treadmill becomes too uneconomical.
Pointing out facts isn't attacking any poor brainwashed, exploited victims. The brain washing and exploiting is the real attack on the victims who are being steered away from better healthcare coverage that better meet their needs by completely heartless cynical righties hoping to use fear and misinformation to, once again, get people, very much including sick people, to vote against their own best interests. Pretty disgusting.
http://www.dailykos.com/story/2014/03/11/1283774/-Koch-brothers-fake-Obamacare-victim-Julie-Boonstra-made-to-look-even-more-foolish-and-exploited?detail=email
Where are the trolls to say how mean I'm being by posting this facty stuff?
Fascist!
That's better.
The trolls too busy copying down the next set of Fractured Fairy Tales from the Koch brothers.
When Ms. Boons tea cries, "I personally do not believe that" I have to wonder who is paying her bills. How can she not notice that's she is paying less for health care? Is she that brainwashed? Are the Koch brothers paying all her bills in exchange for saying it costs more under the AFA?
Doug Schoen, Newsmax (Buy Gold!) contributor: ROMNEY IN A LANDSLIDE!
Is there anything sorrier than a Fox pet Dem?
You mean like Pat Caddell?
Please don't bring up Caddel! That was the hardest thing for us Bennet supporters to forgive Romanoff for this go round. May his name never be spoken in Colorado Dem circles again. Please.
To the list of 'last refuges of a scoundrel' (i.e. patriotism), I think "fox news" should be added.
Neah. Fox news is the FIRST refuge of a scoundrel. Look at Sarah Palin.
Florida Republicans growing queasy over Gov. Rick Scott's poll numbers. Apparently being a Democratic gubernatorial candidate in Florida and an avid supporter of ObamaCare is a winning message in the Sunshine State.
Thanks. This definitely is making me feel just little bit better today.
I think it's useless for either party in a non-POTUS election year to call any House or race a "mandate". This had been a Republican district for decades. The race was more akin to the 2006 CD4 race in Colorado when Angie Paccione was trying to take out the queen of the "Gods, Guns & Gay" prom, Marilyn Musgrave. It took the Presidential wave of 2008 for candidate Markey Betsy to dethrone Marilyn. Any other possible scenario was going to keep Marilyn in office. The Florida dynamics, and the likely outcome, would have probably been different if it had been held in 2016. (and as one of my uncles once said, "if your aunt had a penis she'd be your uncle").
What an interesting saying.
…and should have read, "God, Guns & Gays" prom. Fat fingers and navigating a tractor down a county road at the same time makes me look like my edukashion failed me 😉
So Gov. Skeletor's dismal numbers MUST also be due to ObamaCare, as was Alex Sink's very narrow defeat, according to the rightie trolls.
Hasn't that seat been Republican since 1983?
FL-13 has been held by the now deceased Rep. Young for quite some time, yes. But Obama won the district narrowly in 2012, so it's looked at as a swing district.
If Florida Democrats can get a viable candidate on the ballot for the November election, it will be hotly contested again in a few months.
Pols, if you're not going to rein in the constant Bagger spamming of the comments sections as we see here above, could you please at least provise us with some sort of "ignore" function to remove/obscure the smelly stains they leave?
Yeah, GLWT — No really I mean GLWT . . .
I don't know what's up GD site today — I click on the open thread, and 29 comments evaporate and only 3 are showing — (. . . hmm, maybe the ignore is working?? . . .), then I get kciked out, try to log back in and find out I'm now an "undefined" user, refresh, close the browser — go through those same cycles two more times, and then when type http://www.coloradopols.com back into theweb browser I'm back in at the home page and logged in???
Hey Alva, why not hire one or two of those fantastic CBMS tools that DavidT's always raving on-and-on about? Or, god help us, even DaivdT hisself? . . .
These kind of continuing, systemic, chronic problems means that the most likely "ignore" that's most likely going to happen here, is going to be this whole damn blog by a whole lot of soon-to-become-former posters, ya know?
(thankfuckinggawd smileys are still working, though)
New lows in Congressional stupidity – Congresswoman Says The Constitution Is 400 Years Old
Ah, give her a break. Maybe she was thinking of the early English settlers in Jamestown or Plymouth Rock. The quote in your link didn't actually say the Constitution was 400 years old. That was just the interpretation by the reporter.
While there are days when I like her, she has a history of saying stupid things, and the Constitution seems to be her favorite subject for random expounding.
I would not generally categorize Sheila Jackson-Lee in the "Constitutional expert" category, despite her juris doctorate and political science degrees. (How is it that so many people with such lofty degrees manage to look this bad?)