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Biden, Obama, Sanders, etc. are all politicians, as are Trump (now) and Pence. For them to stump for another candidate in their party is fairly typical. As you mentioned, the ultra progressive Booker and Warren also lent their support.
That is a good point that Trump is a politician now... Though it was not an image of being a conventional politician that propelled Trump into the White House. It was Trump's status and background as a celebrity who ran a Reality TV-style campaign that helped to propel him into the highest political office in the land.
Quote:
Originally Posted by markjames68
How Oprah approached it, to paraphrase - “I was minding my own business sitting at home in California and decided one morning sitting in my silk hand woven PJs (one of my favorite things) and after eating my vegan chef-prepared breakfast and drinking my fair trade hand ground espresso that I wanted Abrams to win. She would be the first female African-American governor in history, so I flew in on my private jet to use my star power to get minorities and women out to vote for her”.
Well, Oprah may be a multi-billionaire celebrity now, but one very important thing that should be noted is that Oprah was not always a multi-billionaire celebrity.
Oprah Winfrey was born into poverty in rural Mississippi and lived a highly transient life while growing up, being moved around to different places (around rural Mississippi; then to Milwaukee, WI; then to Nashville, TN; then back to Milwaukee, WI; then back to Nashville, TN), and being a victim and suffering from years of sexual abuse by different family members while a child.
Oprah Winfrey is not just any celebrity, but is an actual self-made multibillionaire who has a massive amount of pull with women (including the suburban college-educated white female demographic that the GOP seems to be struggling mightily with during the Donald Trump era).
Oprah likely was motivated to fly into to Atlanta and rally for Abrams because Oprah probably could relate to Abrams' background of being an ascendant black female who was born in Wisconsin, grew up poor in the South (in southern Mississippi and later in Atlanta) and still managed to work her way up into a high-profile position of leadership despite the odds against her success.
Oprah likely was also motivated to come to Atlanta and rally for Abrams before the election because of the very high-profile involvement in the race and support of Donald Trump (whom many women just absolutely cannot stand, or even stomach) for Brian Kemp on the Republican side.
I think that Oprah's desire to get involved in the race and express her open support for Abrams likely may have been personal and likely may have been motivated by seeing Brian Kemp be openly supported by a figure in President Trump whom many women view as being openly sexist and whom many minorities view as being openly bigoted and racist.
Many Georgia conservatives (who likely were not going to vote for a Democrat anyways, particularly a Democrat as liberal as Stacey Abrams) may have been angered by Oprah's open support and appearance at that political rally for Stacey Abrams in the days before the election... But there also were many progressives and moderates who were just as angered by Donald Trump's open support of Brian Kemp and Brian Kemp's open embrace of Donald Trump.
Quote:
Originally Posted by markjames68
Abrams came close, in a midterm where Trump is extremely polarizing and not exactly loved by the electorate. If he runs in 2020 that playbook may work again, but I’m not so sure that it will work for Abrams.
I agree that the extremely polarizing rhetoric potentially could work again for Donald Trump in 2020.
But if Donald Trump is still using the extremely polarizing rhetoric during a re-election run in 2020, chances are that a progressive figure like Abrams likely may also be able to get a lot of mileage out of being openly diametrically opposed to Trump's extremely polarizing rhetoric.
Running an unabashedly progressive base-plus statewide campaign that is diametrically opposed to Donald Trump's extremely polarizing rhetoric may not necessarily get Abrams over the top in 2020 in a state like Georgia where very loyal Trump ally David Perdue will be running for re-election to the U.S. Senate and in a state where there appears to be at least slightly more Republican and conservative voters than Democratic and progressive voters for the time being.
But running an unabashedly progressive base-plus statewide campaign that is diametrically opposed to Donald Trump's extremely polarizing rhetoric likely could help Democrats to continue to attract the massive amounts of money from out-of-state donors that Georgia Democrats will need to continue to build organization and voter turnout infrastructure for future statewide campaigns when there is likely to be more Democratic/progressive voters in the electorate and when Republicans and conservatives might not necessarily be as super-motivated to turnout without a Donald Trump as part of the political equation.
For Donald Trump may not exactly be loved by the entire electorate, but (judging by the results of the 2018 Georgia gubernatorial election which was won by Brian Kemp with just over 50% of the vote) Donald Trump does currently seem to be loved and adored by about just over 50 percent of the Georgia electorate.
I don’t think rallying the base on either side was the problem with Oprah. I think that the problem was with rallying the middle—the middle in Georgia is white, and for the most part probably do like Oprah, and are probably ok with Obama and Abrams. But the unintentional(?) optics of the (largely sympathetic) news media was to show Oprah, Obama and Abrams in the stumping for Abrams clips—Obama and Oprah eclipsed the optics of having major white figures supporting Abrams—I think that hurt her with a portion of whites that was considering her. She had done a good job with her ads, making the race less racial, but I think that the optics of her two most visible/famous surrogates being black hurt her.
Quote:
Originally Posted by markjames68
The press certainly made it an issue of “first woman black governor”, again, and again, and again. The articles focused more on that than her message.
It reminded me of the same treatment for Hillary.
Those are good points by both of you.
But one thing to keep in mind is that many (if not most) of the voters in the middle who are white in Georgia (as well as throughout most of the South, the Midwest and red-state America as a whole) are generally conservative voters (who would not be considered "middle" voters in many bluer areas of the country, but would be considered decidedly conservative in those bluer parts of the country) who appear to at least lean Republican in almost all cases.
The middle white voters that jeoff points out often might consider voting for a Democrat earlier in the gubernatorial campaign cycle but almost always swing completely towards the Republican candidate in the final month or so of the cycle.
Those middle white voters have done just that with in previous gubernatorial elections with Democratic candidates who were white and moderate... Most recently in 2014 where both Jason Carter and Michelle Nunn appeared to run pretty evenly and/or even slightly ahead of their GOP opponents (Governor Nathan Deal and David Perdue, respectively) in the top-of-the-ticket statewide races for governor and U.S. Senate, but lost after those middle white voters swung heavily in the direction of the candidates of a Georgia Republican Party that they appear to trust much more than the Georgia Democratic Party... A Georgia Democratic Party that has been completely out-of-power and that has often wandered around aimlessly in the wilderness of Georgia politics since 2002.
The middle white voters that were offended by the optics of Abrams appearing at political rallies with other black figures like Oprah Winfrey and former two-term President of the United States, Barack Obama, and the middle white voters that were offended and angered by the media's coverage of Stacey Abrams as the potential "first black female governor" were voters that most likely were not going to vote for a Democrat anyways, particularly a Democrat as openly and as unabashedly progressive as a Stacey Abrams.
Abrams and the progressive up-and-coming wing of the Democratic Party coalition seemed to know that those moderate/middle white voters most likely were not going to vote for her because of how they have seen those voters swing almost completely away from even moderate white Democratic candidates and towards Republican candidates late in the election cycle during the month of October.
Abrams' strategy of nationalizing the race with the open and high-profile support of both black and white progressive figures from Oprah Winfrey and Barack Obama to Bernie Sanders and Elizabeth Warren gave her and the Democrats their best chance of winning the Georgia governor's race since 2002.
If Abrams and/or any other Democratic gubernatorial candidate (like a Stacey Evans) had run a moderate 'middle-of-the-road' campaign meant to appeal to the middle of the political spectrum (a middle of the political spectrum in Georgia that is filled with and dominated by Republican-leaning voters), Georgia Democrats likely would have gotten their backsides handed to them on a platter yet again, while likely failing to clear 45% in a gubernatorial race for the fourth-straight gubernatorial election cycle.
Abrams had to run that type of campaign with endorsements from high-profile progressive figures that conservatives hate because she was aiming to energize and turnout lower-propensity voters that very rarely, if ever, participate in gubernatorial and midterm elections... A strategy that (seeing as though it generated nearly 800,000 additional voters for the Democrats over what they got in 2014) very nearly worked and a strategy that likely might have worked were it not for Brian Kemp running a not-too-dissimilar strategy on the Republican side where he (with the active help of Donald Trump) generated over 600,000 additional voters for the GOP over what they got in 2014.
Enjoy that ride...candidates will come nowhere close to GA (other than Atlanta metro) then when they can focus exclusively on the biggest cities and states.
But one thing to keep in mind is that many (if not most) of the voters in the middle who are white in Georgia (as well as throughout most of the South, the Midwest and red-state America as a whole) are generally conservative voters (who would not be considered "middle" voters in many bluer areas of the country, but would be considered decidedly conservative in those bluer parts of the country) who appear to at least lean Republican in almost all cases.
The middle white voters that jeoff points out often might consider voting for a Democrat earlier in the gubernatorial campaign cycle but almost always swing completely towards the Republican candidate in the final month or so of the cycle.
Those middle white voters have done just that with in previous gubernatorial elections with Democratic candidates who were white and moderate... Most recently in 2014 where both Jason Carter and Michelle Nunn appeared to run pretty evenly and/or even slightly ahead of their GOP opponents (Governor Nathan Deal and David Perdue, respectively) in the top-of-the-ticket statewide races for governor and U.S. Senate, but lost after those middle white voters swung heavily in the direction of the candidates of a Georgia Republican Party that they appear to trust much more than the Georgia Democratic Party... A Georgia Democratic Party that has been completely out-of-power and that has often wandered around aimlessly in the wilderness of Georgia politics since 2002.
The middle white voters that were offended by the optics of Abrams appearing at political rallies with other black figures like Oprah Winfrey and former two-term President of the United States, Barack Obama, and the middle white voters that were offended and angered by the media's coverage of Stacey Abrams as the potential "first black female governor" were voters that most likely were not going to vote for a Democrat anyways, particularly a Democrat as openly and as unabashedly progressive as a Stacey Abrams.
Abrams and the progressive up-and-coming wing of the Democratic Party coalition seemed to know that those moderate/middle white voters most likely were not going to vote for her because of how they have seen those voters swing almost completely away from even moderate white Democratic candidates and towards Republican candidates late in the election cycle during the month of October.
Abrams' strategy of nationalizing the race with the open and high-profile support of both black and white progressive figures from Oprah Winfrey and Barack Obama to Bernie Sanders and Elizabeth Warren gave her and the Democrats their best chance of winning the Georgia governor's race since 2002.
If Abrams and/or any other Democratic gubernatorial candidate (like a Stacey Evans) had run a moderate 'middle-of-the-road' campaign meant to appeal to the middle of the political spectrum (a middle of the political spectrum in Georgia that is filled with and dominated by Republican-leaning voters), Georgia Democrats likely would have gotten their backsides handed to them on a platter yet again, while likely failing to clear 45% in a gubernatorial race for the fourth-straight gubernatorial election cycle.
Abrams had to run that type of campaign with endorsements from high-profile progressive figures that conservatives hate because she was aiming to energize and turnout lower-propensity voters that very rarely, if ever, participate in gubernatorial and midterm elections... A strategy that (seeing as though it generated nearly 800,000 additional voters for the Democrats over what they got in 2014) very nearly worked and a strategy that likely might have worked were it not for Brian Kemp running a not-too-dissimilar strategy on the Republican side where he (with the active help of Donald Trump) generated over 600,000 additional voters for the GOP over what they got in 2014.
Kemp won by the slimmest of margins. It wouldn’t have taken a seismic change of the middle, just a little push. If the faces being shown stumping for Abrams had been Tom Hanks and President Obama, or even Biden and Oprah, that could have been enough. And it’s not that folks are offended, it’s that folks don’t feel that it’s about them, it is sort of like not being asked for your vote—and portions of all groups act that way — and for the most part Abrams did do a very good job of asking for everyone’s vote—but the unintentional images shown on the national news may have undone a lot of that. There is a reason why for years in Atlanta you would always see some combination of black/white, male/female co-anchors for the local news.
Kemp won by the slimmest of margins. It wouldn’t have taken a seismic change of the middle, just a little push. If the faces being shown stumping for Abrams had been Tom Hanks and President Obama, or even Biden and Oprah, that could have been enough. And it’s not that folks are offended, it’s that folks don’t feel that it’s about them, it is sort of like not being asked for your vote—and portions of all groups act that way — and for the most part Abrams did do a very good job of asking for everyone’s vote—but the unintentional images shown on the national news may have undone a lot of that. There is a reason why for years in Atlanta you would always see some combination of black/white, male/female co-anchors for the local news.
I definitely agree that Stacey Abrams could have used the help of a mega-celebrity figure like Tom Hanks.
But we need to keep in mind that it was Oprah Winfrey that approached the Abrams campaign with the offer to fly to Georgia to support and rally and campaign for Abrams, not the other way around.
Tom Hanks did not offer to rally, campaign and support Stacey Abrams as far as I am aware.
Abrams had the offer of help and support from Oprah Winfrey and one really cannot blame her for accepting help from a figure like Oprah who has proven to have so much pull with female voters, particularly female voters of color and including to a large extent, the suburban white female voters who have proven to play a major role in deciding the outcome of statewide races like these.
I also cannot blame Abrams for accepting help and support from Oprah when her opponent Brian Kemp openly embraced and ran extremely closely to a highly polarizing figure like President Donald Trump... Something that I also cannot really blame Kemp for doing, seeing as though the nearly 800,000 voters that Abrams and the Democrats picked up over 2014 likely would have meant certain defeat for Kemp had he not ran his exclusively rural/outer-exurban focused campaign that was closely aligned with Donald Trump.
One also cannot blame Stacey Abrams for not doing enough to reach out to white voters in the middle (voters who most often swing almost completely for Republicans in the final month of the race) when her opponent Brian Kemp was accused by prominent GOP figures like Newt Gingrich and Karl Rove was accused to doing almost completely nothing to reach out to the moderate suburban voters (particularly moderate suburban female voters) who have been a pillar of the GOP's 16-year dominance of Georgia politics.
That is a really good point about why there was almost always a combination of black/white, male/female anchors on local news broadcasts in an Atlanta TV market where both blacks and whites are strongly represented in the metro area.
But I still maintain the assertion that the middle white voters who may have been offended or angered by the sight of Stacey Abrams standing on stage with Oprah Winfrey most likely were never going to vote for a progressive black female candidate like Abrams anyways.
If it would not have been Abrams' appearance with Oprah then it would have been Abrams' taxes, or Abrams' background as a progressive activist, or the picture of the Black Panthers holding guns with an "Abrams for Governor" sign, or Abrams' burning the Confederate flag, or Abrams' proposal to blast the Confederate monument off of Stone Mountain, or Abrams misspeaking about agriculture, etc, etc, etc, that would have given those middle white voters the excuses they thought that they needed to give for not voting for a progressive black female candidate that they were never going to vote for anyways.
History has demonstrated time and again that it is a waste of time for even moderate white Democratic candidates to go after those middle white voters who basically always break heavily for Republicans in the last month of the gubernatorial/midterm campaign and have been doing so since 2002.
It really truly would have been a massive waste of time and financial resources for Abrams and the Democrats to yet again chase after the middle white voters who just simply are not going to vote for Democratic candidates and have not voted for Democratic candidates in a gubernatorial race since 1998.
If anything, the post-election autopsy may indicate that Abrams and the Democrats might have spent too much time and resources trying to persuade rural voters to support her and not enough time and resources getting out the vote in metro Atlanta and other major metro areas in the state where there more votes for Democrats to be had.
Kemp was able to win because he ran up the turnout margins with deeply conservative white voters in rural and exurban counties higher than Abrams ran up the turnout margins with progressive and progressive-moderate voters in metro Atlanta and other major metro areas in the state.
Kemp was able to run up those vote totals higher than Trump received in 2016 in many cases because he targeted all of his time and resources in those rural and exurban counties that Trump won big in 2016... A strategy that was heavily criticized by GOP figures like Newt Gingrich and Karl Rove because of how it appeared to leave the GOP extremely vulnerable in the Atlanta suburban counties that traditionally have been a pillar of GOP dominance in Georgia.
If Abrams had gone even further and heavier on the metropolitan progressive voter turnout strategy than she already did, Abrams likely might have had the votes she needed to beat out Kemp's strategy that focused almost exclusively on turning out large numbers of deeply conservative rural/exurban voters with the active help and support of Donald Trump.
I definitely agree that Stacey Abrams could have used the help of a mega-celebrity figure like Tom Hanks.
But we need to keep in mind that it was Oprah Winfrey that approached the Abrams campaign with the offer to fly to Georgia to support and rally and campaign for Abrams, not the other way around.
Tom Hanks did not offer to rally, campaign and support Stacey Abrams as far as I am aware.
Abrams had the offer of help and support from Oprah Winfrey and one really cannot blame her for accepting help from a figure like Oprah who has proven to have so much pull with female voters, particularly female voters of color and including to a large extent, the suburban white female voters who have proven to play a major role in deciding the outcome of statewide races like these.
I also cannot blame Abrams for accepting help and support from Oprah when her opponent Brian Kemp openly embraced and ran extremely closely to a highly polarizing figure like President Donald Trump... Something that I also cannot really blame Kemp for doing, seeing as though the nearly 800,000 voters that Abrams and the Democrats picked up over 2014 likely would have meant certain defeat for Kemp had he not ran his exclusively rural/outer-exurban focused campaign that was closely aligned with Donald Trump.
One also cannot blame Stacey Abrams for not doing enough to reach out to white voters in the middle (voters who most often swing almost completely for Republicans in the final month of the race) when her opponent Brian Kemp was accused by prominent GOP figures like Newt Gingrich and Karl Rove was accused to doing almost completely nothing to reach out to the moderate suburban voters (particularly moderate suburban female voters) who have been a pillar of the GOP's 16-year dominance of Georgia politics.
That is a really good point about why there was almost always a combination of black/white, male/female anchors on local news broadcasts in an Atlanta TV market where both blacks and whites are strongly represented in the metro area.
But I still maintain the assertion that the middle white voters who may have been offended or angered by the sight of Stacey Abrams standing on stage with Oprah Winfrey most likely were never going to vote for a progressive black female candidate like Abrams anyways.
If it would not have been Abrams' appearance with Oprah then it would have been Abrams' taxes, or Abrams' background as a progressive activist, or the picture of the Black Panthers holding guns with an "Abrams for Governor" sign, or Abrams' burning the Confederate flag, or Abrams' proposal to blast the Confederate monument off of Stone Mountain, or Abrams misspeaking about agriculture, etc, etc, etc, that would have given those middle white voters the excuses they thought that they needed to give for not voting for a progressive black female candidate that they were never going to vote for anyways.
History has demonstrated time and again that it is a waste of time for even moderate white Democratic candidates to go after those middle white voters who basically always break heavily for Republicans in the last month of the gubernatorial/midterm campaign and have been doing so since 2002.
It really truly would have been a massive waste of time and financial resources for Abrams and the Democrats to yet again chase after the middle white voters who just simply are not going to vote for Democratic candidates and have not voted for Democratic candidates in a gubernatorial race since 1998.
If anything, the post-election autopsy may indicate that Abrams and the Democrats might have spent too much time and resources trying to persuade rural voters to support her and not enough time and resources getting out the vote in metro Atlanta and other major metro areas in the state where there more votes for Democrats to be had.
Kemp was able to win because he ran up the turnout margins with deeply conservative white voters in rural and exurban counties higher than Abrams ran up the turnout margins with progressive and progressive-moderate voters in metro Atlanta and other major metro areas in the state.
Kemp was able to run up those vote totals higher than Trump received in 2016 in many cases because he targeted all of his time and resources in those rural and exurban counties that Trump won big in 2016... A strategy that was heavily criticized by GOP figures like Newt Gingrich and Karl Rove because of how it appeared to leave the GOP extremely vulnerable in the Atlanta suburban counties that traditionally have been a pillar of GOP dominance in Georgia.
If Abrams had gone even further and heavier on the metropolitan progressive voter turnout strategy than she already did, Abrams likely might have had the votes she needed to beat out Kemp's strategy that focused almost exclusively on turning out large numbers of deeply conservative rural/exurban voters with the active help and support of Donald Trump.
The Tom Hanks comment was just illustrating the same point as the newscaster comment, and even if he had campaigned for her, it still may have been President Obama and Oprah that made the 15 second “who-is-supporting-who” images that made the news everywhere. Kemp could win with minimal black support, the reverse was not true for Abrams—and she *did* get significant white support, and that was mostly because she worked for it (and Kemp had a lot of baggage that alienated a whole lot of people). I just think that there were more untapped votes to be found in the mooshy-middle than in the unmotivated base, and the news imagery didn’t help with the former. But, she really did run a good campaign, and if she didn’t hit the top of her potential votes, she was close to it.
The Tom Hanks comment was just illustrating the same point as the newscaster comment, and even if he had campaigned for her, it still may have been President Obama and Oprah that made the 15 second “who-is-supporting-who” images that made the news everywhere.
Oh, I definitely think that the (hypothetical) endorsement and campaign appearance of a celebrity as massive as Tom Hanks would have made the news, would it have happened.
Tom Hanks, former two-term President Barack Obama and media mogul Oprah Winfrey are each big enough names to get the attention of the news media when they come to town.
Quote:
Originally Posted by jeoff
Kemp could win with minimal black support, the reverse was not true for Abrams—and she *did* get significant white support, and that was mostly because she worked for it (and Kemp had a lot of baggage that alienated a whole lot of people). I just think that there were more untapped votes to be found in the mooshy-middle than in the unmotivated base, and the news imagery didn’t help with the former. But, she really did run a good campaign, and if she didn’t hit the top of her potential votes, she was close to it.
I definitely agree with you that there were more untapped votes for Abrams to be had in the "mooshy-middle"... That's as opposed to the 'hard-middle' of relatively more moderate independent voters who are center-right in their political leanings and most often (if not always) seem to swing heavily (if not completely) towards the Republican candidate in a still decidedly-red (though now purple-trending) state like Georgia.
But I think that the best way for a Democratic candidate like a Stacey Abrams to have tapped into that rich vein of votes in the "mooshy-middle" would have been to run as the unapologetic (but seemingly somewhat pragmatic) progressive that she is and give those "mooshy-middle" voters (who consist largely of disaffected suburban college-educated female voters who have been alienated by the increasingly angry tone and harsh rhetoric coming from many conservatives during the Donald Trump era) a truly progressive alternative to the hard-line Trump conservative rhetoric that was coming from the Kemp campaign and the Trump administration.
While Abrams clearly spent lots of time and resources getting out the progressive vote in the bluer parts of the state (most notably in metro Atlanta), I do not think that Abrams went anywhere nearly as far as she could have in exploiting Brian Kemp's virtually complete lack of campaign presence in the Atlanta suburbs... Where I think that Kemp made very few, if any, real campaign appearances and where there are lots of disaffected college-educated white female voters looking for a progressive governing option who have grown fed-up with the incendiary, divisive and demonizing rhetoric and undignified behavior emanating from the Trump White House and his disciples on a daily basis.
I do not think that Stacey Abrams really truly came anywhere near close to tapping into that disaffection of suburban voters (particularly college-educated female suburban voters).
I also do not think that Abrams spent as much time and resources energizing and turning out her progressive base voters in metro Atlanta as she could have.
Make not mistake, Abrams spent more time energizing and turning out those progressive base voters than probably any other Democratic statewide candidate in Georgia's history. But it still appears that Abrams could have (and apparently should have) gone even much further with that strategy than she did.
Abrams spent a lot of time attempting to attract voters in rural and exurban Georgia that were never going to vote for her and that voted for Kemp at even higher rates than they voted for Trump in 2016 in many places.
That time and energy that Abrams spent appealing to rural voters most likely should have been spent appealing to and turning out the disaffected "mooshy-middle" white suburban voters that you speak of, as well as even more of the progressive base voters that she built her entire GOTV strategy around.
Abrams' mistake was spending too much time attempting to appeal to the rural voters that often went for Kemp by margins of 85-15 and 90-10... That is instead of spending all of her time and resources running up the score even more than she could have in the 9 heavily-Democratic counties of metro Atlanta where it appears that Abrams left a lot of potential votes on the table while out ill-advisedly chasing votes in Kemp and Trump-dominated rural Georgia counties.
While some high-profile candidates that Obama campaigned for did lose their campaigns (like most notably, Stacey Abrams of Georgia, Andrew Gillum of Florida and incumbent Democratic U.S. Senator Joe Donnelly of Indiana), there were other high-profile candidates that Obama campaigned for that went on to achieve big wins (like incumbent Democratic Virginia U.S. Senator Tim Kaine; Nevada Democratic U.S. Senate candidate Jacky Rosen who defeated incumbent GOP U.S. Senator Dean Heller, a politician which Trump endorsed and held multiple campaign rallies for; and Virginia Democratic congressional candidate Jennifer Wexton, who flipped the long-time GOP-controlled Virginia 10th Congressional District from red to blue).
Obama also campaigned for Democratic congressional candidates in Orange County, California who went on to sweep the six congressional races in the historically and legendarily Republican-dominated county and flip the entire Orange County, CA U.S. House delegation from 4-3 GOP-controlled to 7-0 all-Democratic controlled.
There were also multiple candidates that Donald Trump campaigned and rallied for that went on to lose their races, like most notably:
> The aforementioned incumbent Republican U.S. Senator Dean Heller of Nevada who lost to the aforementioned Obama-endorsed and backed Democratic U.S. Senate candidate Jacky Rosen...
> West Virginia GOP U.S. Senate candidate and West Virginia Attorney General Patrick Morrisey, whom Trump campaigned very heavily for in his ultimately unsuccessful bid against incumbent Democratic U.S. Senator Joe Manchin in a state that Trump won by over 40 points in 2016...
> Arizona GOP U.S. Senate candidate Martha McSally, who lost to Democrat Kyrsten Sinema in a state where Republicans have increasingly dominated for much of the last 6 decades or so...
> Montana GOP U.S. Senate candidate Matt Rosendale, who lost to incumbent Democratic U.S. Senator Jon Tester in a decidedly red state...
> Minnesota GOP U.S. Senate candidate Jim Newberger, who lost by about 25 points to incumbent Democratic U.S. Senator Amy Klobuchar...
> Wisconsin GOP U.S. Senate candidate Leah Vukmir, who lost to incumbent Democratic U.S. Senator Tammy Baldwin...
> Incumbent Wisconsin Republican Governor Scott Walker, who lost his re-election bid to Democratic challenger Tony Evers...
> Rising GOP star Kansas Secretary of State Kris Kobach who lost his bid for Kansas governor to Democrat Laura Kelly in overwhelmingly-Republican Kansas.
It is very interesting (and somewhat ironic) that you accuse Stacey Abrams of having a campaign platform revolving around identity politics when Brian Kemp ran his campaign to appeal directly to the fears of conservative rural and exurban white voters that they would lose their historical dominance of Georgia's politics if a progressive black female candidate with heavy out-of-state backing like Stacey Abrams won the governor's race.
Your statement also overlooks the fact that Donald Trump (whom Brian Kemp was strongly endorsed by and very closely aligned with) has unapologetically campaigned and run his administration basically as a white nationalist who deals extremely heavily in white identity politics with his repeated attacks on immigrants and people of color.
Few things:
Immigrants are not the same as Illegal Immigrants. They are distinctly different.
Speaking of Identity Politics why is it ok for Abrams to get 95% of the black vote but not ok for Kemp to get 70% of the white vote?
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