David Byler: “The wonkier parts of political media world spend a lot of time thinking and writing about how candidates win—what mix of positions fits a specific district or state, which candidates have demographic paths to victory and which don’t, how the math looks in a midterm versus a presidential year, etc. And political audiences seem to appreciate that—everyone wants to read stories about how their preferred candidate or party might end up winning in the next election.”
“But sometimes it’s worth thinking about how to lose—or at least how to turn a race that should be uncompetitive into a competitive one. Looking at these races can give us a window into what voters really love or hate—that is, the sort of stuff that makes people leave their partisan attachments or past voting patterns at home and cast their ballot, out of disgust or desperation, for someone else.”
Save to Favorites