[usafa92]

Here’s my one concern about 2020 coming out of last night. The three surprise states Trump won in 2016 (PA, WI and MI) all had statewide elections on the ballot and Republicans lost all including healthy margins in PA and MI. So they reverted to form as D states. The question for 2020 will be whether Trump can keep that coalition going in these states.

[rintintin]

Trump didn’t win those states as a Ryan Republican. Unfortunately, he governed as a Ryan Republican. Tax cuts for wealthy, no infrastructure, no wall. This claim of “promises delivered” wasn’t true, his populist promises weren’t delivered. He’s got to change that if he wants to win the rust belt again in 2020

[georgiarat]

McConnell made a decision NOT to contest Senate sears in PA, Mi, and WI. If we had then it would have limited our losses in the house and subiurbs. McConnell did not care about the house. In fact, he loves divided govt as it gives him an excuse not to move on legislation. He only has to deal with judicial and administrative appts while agreeing to continuing resolutions.

Paul Ryan’s cowardice was an albatross around house candidates and we had 40 retirements. Without those two events we could have held the House

[Alberta's Child]

I wouldn’t be too concerned about that just yet. All three of those states had been reliable Democrat states in presidential elections, but they’ve been supporting many GOP candidates in statewide races over the years. The other thing to remember here is that Trump won in 2016 with the support of a LOT of Democrat voters in those states.

[Hamiltonian]

In places like Pa. and Michigan a lot people will vote Dem by default unless the R's give them a reason not to. POTUS gave them a reason not to in 2016. In 2018, noone did. It would appear that GOP management did their usual job of trying a standardized 30 year old playbook and getting the expected results, this time adding the expenditure of resources on running "I'm Congressman McCarthy and I'm going to build a wall" radio ads that were three time zones away from McCarthy's district. That didn't didn't get the job done and hereditary Democrats went back to their default option.

Now that a lot of RINO's are being purged from Congress, it wouldn't hurt to start purging GOP management down to the state and county levels. RINO's can be replaced with deplorables, and the first to go need to be people that put self-interest ahead of the country's interests.

Its a shame, Barletta could have won if he'd had competent backing.