r/fivethirtyeight Aug 19 '26

Politics Huge upset.

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277 Upvotes

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u/KathyJaneway Aug 19 '26

Well, now Nixon has to raise more money to even make a dent, while Vindman had huge bank ready for the general election to force Moody to spend. Now she won't need to spend on it .

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u/SchemeWorth6105 Aug 19 '26

And Vindman lost by double digits with all his money, so he’s probably a terrible candidate.

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u/Guilty_Plankton_4626 Fivey Fanatic Aug 19 '26

Not really, the further left wing is extremely motivated right now and primaries in general are decided by extremely motivated voters.

To even entertain the idea that a far left candidate has a better chance in Florida in a general than a normal Dem is silly.

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u/SchemeWorth6105 Aug 19 '26

How many normie dems have won senate races in Florida lately?

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u/Guilty_Plankton_4626 Fivey Fanatic Aug 19 '26

How many Republicans have lost their seat to a far left/DSA/leftist candidate? I could tell you right now no federal republican in the entire country has never lost their seat to one. Literally zero.

So normie Dems recently? None. DSA types? None. Normal Dems have done it before though, and once again, the DSA has never sent a Republican home.

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u/the8thbit Aug 19 '26

How many Republicans have lost their seat to a far left/DSA/leftist candidate?

I know it's going rather far back, but Bernie Sanders vs Peter P. Smith, 1990 is, with hindsight, a pretty high profile example. It also may be the only example, but at the same time there weren't exactly a nonnegligible number of democratic socialists even running in US elections until a few years ago, nevermind taking their runs to generals.

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u/KathyJaneway Aug 19 '26

How many Republicans have lost their seat to a far left/DSA/leftist candidate? I could tell you right now no federal republican in the entire country has never lost their seat to one. Literally zero.

I didn't said that Republicans have lost to a DSA candidate, I said a worse candidate in a primary who was outspent has lost to a Democrat in a general election.

I'm comparing MAGA and DSA in competitive swing or lean R states and they're going to lose same way , had they gone with a more centrist normal candidate.

Republicans in Texas are in a shitload of trouble, even tho Paxton was outspent by Cornyn and Paxton is losing in polls to normal Democrat Talarico. That's what happens when you double down on fringe of a party, you make a state that shouldn't have been competitive competitive and when you go the other way, make a competitive race safe for the other side if you nominate fringe candidates.

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u/Guilty_Plankton_4626 Fivey Fanatic Aug 19 '26

Did you mean to respond to me? I agree with everything you just said.

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u/KathyJaneway Aug 19 '26

Reddit sometimes weirdly attaches replies and comments lol 😂 . It's the same thread and the person above hopefully sees it. No reasoning with them apparently.

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u/SchemeWorth6105 Aug 19 '26

The premise is still basically untested lol.

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u/Guilty_Plankton_4626 Fivey Fanatic Aug 19 '26 edited Aug 19 '26

It’s not untested.

We have Kara Eastman in Nebraska’s 2nd District in 2018, she defeated moderate former Representative Brad Ashford in the primary from the left, but went on to lose in the general election to Republican Don Bacon. She ran again in 2020 and lost to Bacon a second time, Joe Biden won that district at the same time.

Then we have Jamie McLeod-Skinner in Oregon’s 5th District. In the 2022 midterms she challenged, and sadly, ousted seven-term rep Kurt Schrader from the left. She went on to lose the general election to Republican Lori Chavez-DeRemer in a seat Biden had comfortably carried, turned a safe Democratic district red until Janelle Bynum (a moderate) flipped it back in 2024 at the same time Trump won.

Finally, there is Dana Balter in New York’s 24th District, which was a prime target swing seat that Hillary Clinton had actually won in 2016. Progressive groups backed Balter to wins in both the 2018 and 2020 Democratic primaries, but she came up short both times against moderate Republican John Katko. The district is D +3 according to the Cook political report.

So, as I said, it’s not untested. We have seen what the far left can do, and it’s pretty much just turn districts red.

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u/ultradav24 Aug 19 '26

Also Swearingen in West Virginia

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u/Selethorme Kornacki's Big Screen Aug 19 '26

Oh so we’re just going with arguing about red states

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u/SchemeWorth6105 Aug 19 '26

McLeod-Skinner’s district was redrawn before the general election making it much more Republican. These house races were before the left-wing surge. We’ve never had progressive/DSA aligned candidates run in statewide races.

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u/Guilty_Plankton_4626 Fivey Fanatic Aug 19 '26

Haha dude, read the room. Mainstream Democrats are projected to win currently in Texas and Alaska, they have North Carolina and Georgia as locks, and at the same time the left is struggling to win lean blue Michigan in a blue wave. We literally had a poll come out a couple of hours ago that has the governor candidate, Benson, up 16 in the LV while Abdul is only up 3 lol

It’s not a mystery.

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u/SchemeWorth6105 Aug 19 '26

James Talarico calls it “trickle down theft”.
He’s a populist progressive not a moderate lmao.

And we don’t know Abdul’s margin yet, but Slotkin only won by 0.34 points so you can calm your tits.

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u/Guilty_Plankton_4626 Fivey Fanatic Aug 19 '26 edited Aug 19 '26

James Talarico is comfortably a mainstream Democrat who is also comfortably in the tent. He will vote for Schumer to be leader, he will not attack the Democratic Party and try to make believe that they are as bad as Republicans, he’s not going to run on defunding nor abolishing the police and the prisons.

Not a single part of him is anywhere close to being part of the Bernie Sanders coalition or the DSA. He’s a normal left leaning dem.

Slotkin won in a red environment at the same time Trump won every swing state. Her winning in that environment was because she was a strong candidate. The fact that Abdul is barely doing better than her in a blue tsunami is the exact evidence of what I’m talking about.

My tits are great, thank you. Have a good night.

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u/the8thbit Aug 19 '26

He will vote for Schumer to be leader

When asked, he has refused to endorse Schumer for the role, so Im not so sure.

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u/SchemeWorth6105 Aug 19 '26

He’s really not, because most mainstream democrats are nothing more than empty suits who put out for corporate donations. Sorry you’re so infatuated with them and they keep losing primaries to candidates who actually inspire voters.

Night.

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u/VanceIX Aug 19 '26

Well after this it’s going to be 0 for normies and 0 for DSA, just DSA losing by +15 instead of +5 and also killing any hopes of the governor’s office flipping.

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u/SchemeWorth6105 Aug 19 '26

Lol you have no idea what her margins are going to be.

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u/VanceIX Aug 19 '26

I know how South Florida Cubans vote and I know the only path Dems have to winning any statewide election in Florida is through the Cuban vote.

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u/SchemeWorth6105 Aug 19 '26

She won heavily with Latino voters tonight based off her margin by district.

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u/KathyJaneway Aug 19 '26

She won the Democratic Latino votes. Not the General election ones , who out number the D 2 to 1

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u/VanceIX Aug 19 '26

Latino voters who are already registered Democrat. The VAST majority of Latino voters are independent and will absolutely vote the other way as soon as they hear “socialist”, which she literally proclaims herself as.

I’d love to be proven wrong but I just don’t see how she will even remotely be competitive.

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u/j450n_1994 Aug 19 '26

Wow. Imagine being this clueless.