Friday, June 6, 2014

While GOP fat cats fret and do studies on how to 'grow' the Republican Party, Chris McDaniel is actually doing it. McDaniel got 4300 more votes in Jones County on 6/3/14 than Republicans got in 2012 primary there-NY Times

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McDaniel got 4300 more votes in Jones County in 6/3/14 primary than Republicans received in the 2012 primary, per NY Times:

6/4/14, "Democrats Shouldn’t Dream in Mississippi, Where a Runoff Looms," NY Times, Nate Cohn

McDaniel supporters, 6/3/14
"After a night of surprising regional shifts in voter turnout Tuesday, neither Thad Cochran, an incumbent Republican senator in Mississippi, nor Chris McDaniel, a state senator backed by Tea Party groups, appeared to reach the 50 percent necessary to avoid a runoff in Mississippi’s Republican Senate primary.

Mr. McDaniel held 49.6 percent of the vote after a stupendous hometown turnout, which surged far ahead of the turnout for the 2012 Republican presidential primary and gave him a lead over Mr. Cochran, who is at 48.9 percent with 99 percent of precincts reporting."...

Per NY Times: "*Huge* turnout for McDaniel in his home, Jones County: 13000 votes destroys 8663 in 2012." 10:38pm

(continuing): "The contest is expected to be decided in a runoff election on June 24, assuming that the final votes, mainly in Rankin County, a suburb of Jackson, don’t break decidedly and unexpected toward Mr. McDaniel.

Democrats dream that a McDaniel victory would give them a chance of a surprise victory in one of the nation’s most conservative states. But they shouldn’t get their hopes up.

At first glance, President Obama’s strong performance in Mississippi, where he lost by just 11.5 percentage points in 2012, might suggest that the state is within striking distance for a strong Democrat against a Republican who may have weak appeal in the general election, like Mr. McDaniel. And Democrats have a potentially strong nominee, the former congressman Travis Childers.

But there is no state more polarized than Mississippi. Eighty percent of voters are black or white evangelical Christian. And the problem for Democrats is that they’re on the wrong side of the ledger. In 2012, 50 percent of voters were white evangelical Christians, and they voted 95 percent for Mitt Romney. They form a nearly unbreakable bloc, and they’re augmented by the state’s deeply conservative non-evangelical white voters. Over all, Mr. Obama barely exceeded 10 percent of white voters, if at all.

The complete absence of persuadable voters was on display in 2008. Then, Democrats believed they had a shot in an exceptional Democratic year, when a former Democratic governor, Ronnie Musgrove, fought for an open seat against Roger Wicker. Yet in defeat, Mr. Musgrove inched only two percentage points ahead of Mr. Obama, to 45 percent of the vote. There just might not be a road to victory for Democrats in Mississippi.

Nor is there a serious third-party challenge to split the G.O.P. vote. The filing deadline was March 1, and the only third-party candidate appears to be Shawn O’Hara, a reform party candidate who runs for office just about every year. He received 1 percent of the vote in the 2012 Senate race. Mr. O’Hara is not exactly positioned to siphon off moderate Republicans: He has said that abortion is like “giving the middle finger to God.”

Mr. Childers is an experienced candidate who even represented northern Mississippi, which is probably where there are the most persuadable voters. But he is not a former governor who has won statewide, like Mr. Musgrove. Mr. McDaniel may be a flawed candidate — he is generally thought to be gaffe pronebut 2014 will not be 2008, a fantastic Democratic year. Mr. Childers probably won’t benefit from historic black turnout, either.

Mr. Childers would probably need a historic drop-off in Republican turnout, allowing black voters to rise to a larger share of the electorate than in 2012. Then Mr. Childers would need to run a flawless campaign, and cross his fingers. Because even then, he might not have a pathway to victory."

Image above: 6/3/14, "On election night in Hattiesburg, Miss., supporters cheered Mr. McDaniel, who forced a runoff in the Senate primary. Credit George Clark/Associated Press"  

"Pictures don’t lie. The photo of the McDaniel’s supporters shows a vibrant crowd of young Americans eager to take back our country. This movement is far from dead. It is just beginning. In Mississippi, the Red State Strategy of bringing real conservative challengers to the campaign has worked."
  
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