We ran a weak, non-native (a big deal in Maine) candidate, and Collins took Manchin's endorsement of her and ran with it to falsely boost her phoney bi-partisan act. Gideon did not move to Maine until the mid noughties, when she as already in her 30's. Collin's campaign tore into her for that as well.
Stephen King would have beaten that worm Concern Collins like a drum, he IS a native Mainer, and a legend. We did such a shit job at recruiting in so many states.
Let me just list them quickly (and the ones who refused to run who were our best hope, in some cases only hope, ie TN and KS.)
ME (Stephen King)
KS (Sebelius, our only hope and it was an OPEN SEAT. Multiple local experts said she would likely have won or come DAMN close.)
TN (Tim McGraw, twice (2018 especially, plus 2020) turned down running for OPEN SEATS after promising for years he would run when he was 50. He likely would have won, perhaps somewhat easily in 2018, and had a better shot than who ended up our nominee in 2020).
IA (Vilsack or Axne would have been stronger than Greenfield, especially Vilsack)
NC (the fool Cunningham with his sexting scandal late in the game killed us, he had a wee bit of lead (and growing) lead before, BUT there were far better candidates before that shit anyway as well, especially Jeff Jackson, but also Stein and Foxx.
AK (we did not even field a Dem candidate, a previous Dem US Senate winner, Begich, refused to run)
These last two (I deal with a 3rd, SC, below) were hopeless anyway:
KY (that goose was cooked when Beshear decided to run (at least he won! ) for Governor in 2019. No other candidate would have had a chance against McTreason.)
TX (did not matter, even Beto would have lost to the vermin Cornyn.)
Finally, we shit away over 300 million usd on fantasyland races in SC, KY, TX, and ME (to a point) and thus we ended with two cash-starved campaigns (MT especially, and also IA) who had leads, especially Bullock, but were BURIED by 200 million usd in RW dark money nuclear flame-thrower attack adverts, and neither MT or IA have the cash to counter.
The most egregious was SC, where Harrison took one (that was a huge outlier) poll over a month out that showed him tied with Graham, and then ran weeks of non stop adverts using just that poll. It convinced so many (falsely) that he had a shot (many Dem actually thought he was the clear favourite, smdh) when the reality was he was never in the hunt actually. Charlie Cook, a true hack, was all over hyping it up as a toss-up and said he was likely to put to lean Dem. I never put it on my possible list, and when pressed at my uni here in Stockholm by some fellow instructors, (these were from the Poli Sci department), I said Graham would win by 11 to 12 points. I was off, but not by much, he won by 10.5.
The poor, poor recruiting by Schumer and Cortez Masto really bit us in the arse, and also the poor money distribution. I am just furious at dick-texter Cunningham, and then pretty angry with Tim McGraw (especially for 2018! Blue Wave and him as candidate equals NO ultra MAGAtette Blackburn) and also Sebelius (all the KS newspapers said she was the only Dem in last 50 years with a chance, and it was an open seat, grr). Irritated, not furious (I like his novels, lol) with Stephen King. Disappointed that Jeff Jackson did not run (thus no Cunningham scandal), and now has dropped out for 2022 as well.
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