GOP Senate hopefuls once dismissed as ‘fringe’ by elites are now in positions to win.

Republican outsiders written off by their own party leadership and considered easy pickings by Democrats have defied the odds to make their races highly competitive, with some now tipped to win.

Democrats were so confident that some of these candidates labeled "far-right" or "fringe" by the media wouldn't win that Democrat campaigns and outside groups actually funneled money to them, thinking they'd be easier opponents in a general election than Republican primary hopefuls deemed more moderate or part of the GOP establishment.

  • cityofengles [any]
    ·
    edit-2
    2 years ago

    Hilary loses to Trump with this exact strategy.

    Libs: “Shame there weren’t any lessons to learn here.”

    • Deadend [he/him]
      ·
      2 years ago

      Susan Sarandon somehow caused all of these as well.

  • yellowfattybean [he/him]
    ·
    2 years ago

    Dems prefer to campaign and fundraise from an underdog position, those people winning is good for their bottom line

    • Hoodoo [love/loves]
      ·
      2 years ago

      Imagine if the plan to beat slavery in the US was to let Slavery be legal in every state, so that anti-slavery politicians would get more funding to win elections... to undo slavery in every state.

      What the fuck is the end goal of this exactly

      • Azarova [they/them]
        ·
        edit-2
        2 years ago

        What the fuck is the end goal of this exactly

        :stonks-up:

      • FemboyStalin [she/her,any]
        ·
        2 years ago

        Libs have no end goal. It's all process and "the arc of justice". It's a perfect example of how capitalism gets in the way of everything

    • zifnab25 [he/him, any]
      ·
      2 years ago

      Beto's eclipsed Abbott in fundraising after Abbott began with a $40M head start. He's only fallen in the polls since he entered the race, but he's never had more money to spend.

      Democrats are moneyballing the fuck out of losing elections.

  • Wertheimer [any]
    ·
    edit-2
    2 years ago

    This article implies that the Democrats funded all of the fringe candidates they highlight, but that doesn't appear to be true. Here's a Washington Post article that actually lists dollar amounts . The only Senate candidate in this Just the News piece that appears to have received serious Democrat money is Bolduc, the New Hampshire guy. (Not Walker in Georgia, and not Masters in Arizona.) Most of the candidates the Dems funded lost.

    The Dems did help fund Mastriano in the Pennsylvania gubernatorial race, though, and he's one of the most dangerous people running this year.

      • Wertheimer [any]
        ·
        edit-2
        2 years ago

        I haven't found any info about direct money funneling, but the Democrats did intervene just before the primary vote by reminding everyone that Lake's opponent had previously donated to Democratic candidates.

        https://www.nbcnews.com/politics/2022-election/trump-backed-kari-lake-gets-hand-unlikely-source-arizona-democrats-rcna38084

        Edit - National Review piece highlighting the ad says the Dems didn't fund Lake, but they add more details and context to that story. Lake was also a former Democrat, but the party didn't mention that part. https://archive.ph/aZEbt

  • SacredExcrement [any, comrade/them]
    ·
    edit-2
    2 years ago

    "Look, listen, haven't we all decided on occasion that, rather than holding and fighting for objectively good things such as M4A, redacting border security and so on, the best approach is to signal boost right wing lunatics? It worked out for Hillary if you exclude the electoral college and Putinbot interference!"

    "And then hey, sometimes we lose to them, it happens; you just need to get over it!"

    -Some former bluecheck lib condescending to me about the state of affairs in 10 years when we're all sentenced to forced labor by President Mecha Hitler

    Also, I LOVE that liberal politicians and fundraisers are actually deliberately and openly making things skew waaaaaaaaayyyyy right. Almost like they don't actually care...

    :bean-think:

  • TerminalEncounter [she/her]
    ·
    2 years ago

    You know what's hilarious is I remember trawling through neolib reddit and Twitter and seeing this being hashed out, leftists/socdems/anyone an inch left of center telling them that giving money to GOP idiots wasn't a good strategy and neolibs and DNC lanyards insiting that it was a really good strategy because "no one would EVER vote for them in the general, it'll make us seem so strong in comparison." It's like they dug a pit trap for GOP people and then started walking over it and everyone told them and warned then it wasn't a good idea in the first place and now they're gonna break their legs at the bottom of the pit.

  • build_a_bear_group [he/him, comrade/them]
    ·
    2 years ago

    No, this time Pied Piper will work out. I swear, just one more round of Pied Piper. Swing voters don't want Qanon psychos, meaning we will win against them.

    • zifnab25 [he/him, any]
      ·
      2 years ago

      I only watched the first three seasons of Silicon Valley, but if there's one thing it taught me...

  • amyra [she/her]
    ·
    2 years ago

    can't wait for democrats to try it again next time :agony-minion:

  • Bnova [he/him]
    ·
    2 years ago

    I feel like if we accept that having more Qanon psychos in positions of power radicalizes their base further then maybe we shouldn't fund them. This somewhat hinges on the chicken and the egg scenario are psycho candidates radicalizing their base or does the bas radicalize the candidate. I think it's a little of A a little of B.

    • TreadOnMe [none/use name]
      ·
      edit-2
      2 years ago

      It's a synchronic phenomena. It's them looking at the racism dial, and the crowd seeing how far they will turn it, to a degree because neither of them think it's connected to anything.

      Expect the problem is that it is connected to stuff, just at the borders where nobody reports anything.