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naraburns  nihil supernum  1yr ago (text post)   Edited 1yr ago   18872 thread views

USA Election Day 2022 Megathread

Tuesday November 8, 2022 is Election Day in the United States of America. In addition to Congressional "midterms" at the federal level, many state governors and other more local offices are up for grabs. Given how things shook out over Election Day 2020, things could get a little crazy.

...or, perhaps, not! But here's the Megathread for if they do. Talk about your local concerns, your national predictions, your suspicions re: election fraud and interference, how you plan to vote, anything election related is welcome here. Culture War thread rules apply, with the addition of Small-Scale Questions and election-related "Bare Links" allowed in this thread only (unfortunately, there will not be a subthread repository due to current technical limitations).

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Did the GOP hurt their own election chances by downplaying COVID?

This tweet claims that Lauren Boebert may lose her race by less than 100 votes, in a district with over 2,500 covid deaths. While one can certainly argue over the effectiveness of various measures, I think a combination of masking, distancing, and (of course) vaccinating could easily be worth plus or minus 8% deaths (the vote is roughly evenly split, so if there would otherwise be about 1250 dead from each group, then we have 100/1250 = about 8%). And the elderly, who were disproportionately affected by COVID, tend to vote Republican.

Note, the original tweet is now out of date; https://elections.denverpost.com/ has Boebert ahead by just over 1,000 votes. The closest House race where the Dem is currently ahead, coincidentally also in CO, unfortunately does not appear in https://geographicinsights.iq.harvard.edu/coviduscongress because it's a new district (CO 8). CA District 13 is also very close, with the Republican ahead by 267 (according to https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2022/11/10/us/elections/results-house-seats-elections-congress.html, at time of writing) in a district with 945 covid deaths. If this race does flip, it could easily be by just a few hundred votes (currently only 58% counted though).

Another question: did they hurt their election chances by overplaying the trans issue?

Sure, I don't have anything to go for this one expect one tweet by an obviously hostile source, but still, it seems like an issue where a lot of normies are just going to be befuzzled by why this sort of a thing would even be worth an ad, or two.

FWIW, I don't think I saw a single mention of the topic in the Fetterman/Oz ad festival, or in any of Shapiros ads (I don't think Mastriano ever ran any at all).

I don't see how. Castrating children isn't that popular of a position (yet), so that why republicans mention it, and why democrats avoid it by sweeping under the "healthcare" umbrella.

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