Silicon Investor (SI) -- The First Internet Community

STOCKTALK

We've detected that you're using an ad content blocking browser plug-in or feature. Ads provide a critical source of revenue to the continued operation of Silicon Investor. We ask that you disable ad blocking while on Silicon Investor in the best interests of our community. If you are not using an ad blocker but are still receiving this message, make sure your browser's tracking protection is set to the 'standard' level.

Politics : View from the Center and Left -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: Alex MG who wrote (247269)	3/12/2014 12:04:10 PM
From: SiouxPal	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 542059

Daily Kos • FL-13: After an intensely hard-fought special election where total spending likely topped $13 million, Republican David Jolly defeated Democrat Alex Sink by a margin of 48.4 percent to 46.6 percentin Florida's 13th Congressional District on Tuesday night, holding the seat for the GOP. Libertarian Lucas Overby ended up with 4.8 percent of the vote. Even though Barack Obama narrowly carried the district in 2012 by about 1.5 points, it appears Sink couldn't overcome the troubling tendency for key chunks of the Democratic electorate to stay home during non-presidential elections. Republicans will crow that unhappiness with Obamacare, which was the focus of much of their advertising, led to Sink's undoing, and it's possible those attacks provided Jolly's winning margin—but of course, with such a tight outcome, anything could have been responsible, such as Sink's personal flaws as a candidate. And importantly, the November electorate will likely be less Republican, on a relative basis, than you'd find in a March special election, so Democrats should likewise exercise caution before panicking that the Affordable Care Act spells doom. Of course, a win is still a win, but there's a constant Beltway temptation to read far too much into a single special election. Close races also make for poor object lessons, as luck tends to play an outsize role, much like in a baseball game decided by a single run. But at the same time, even if this election augurs nothing for November, this was still very much the sort of district that Democrats need to capture in order to have a shot at some day taking back the House. They'll still have another chance in November, and ex-Gov. Charlie Crist (a native of neighboring Tampa) will be at the top of the ticket, running against unpopular GOP Gov. Rick Scott. But the Democratic bench here isn't especially deep, and after Sink couldn't convert despite her massive fundraising efforts, it will likely be hard for the party to recruit a strong candidate to take on Jolly a second time. As a result, Daily Kos Elections is moving this race from Tossup to Lean Republican, though we anticipate it will become less competitive and not more so in the future.