Well, that was a close loss, and it sucks to lose. Still it was an R+12 district and a remarkably close race.
With little time for punditry post-NC09 election, here is what we do have:
WaPo:
Six in 10 Americans expect a recession and higher prices as Trump’s approval rating slips, Washington Post-ABC News poll finds
The poll also shows a schism between Americans’ continued positive ratings of the economy and fears of a downturn, with far more saying Trump’s policies have increased chances of a recession than decreased it.
Trump’s approval rating among voting-age Americans stands at 38 percent, down from 44 percent in June but similar to 39 percent in April, with 56 percent now saying they disapprove of his performance in office. Among registered voters, 40 percent say they approve of Trump, while 55 percent disapprove.
Greg Sargent/WaPo:
Dig into the demographic breakdowns and it looks worse. The Associated Press reports that Trump advisers worry that support for Trump among moderate Republican and independent voters is very tenuous and could easily be ruptured by an economic slowdown — a reference to the more educated and suburban white voters Trump absolutely must win back.
And the Post-ABC News poll confirms those fears: Among both independents and college-educated whites, Trump’s approval is an abysmal 36 percent, and large majorities of both groups expect a recession and disapprove of Trump’s handling of China and trade. Remarkably, only 42 percent of college-educated whites approve of Trump on the economy, vs. 53 percent who disapprove.
David Byler/WaPo with a pre-election piece about NC09 that captures the zeitgeist:
What you can — and can’t — expect to learn from the North Carolina special election
The narratives are easy to predict. If Republican Dan Bishop handily wins, Republicans will be ecstatic. They’ll claim that the polls are wrong about President Trump, and that both his brand and the GOP’s are in good shape. Trump will write a tweet that simultaneously congratulates Bishop and takes credit for his win. And Democrats will worry that the polls are systematically underestimating the president’s strength.
And if Democrat Dan McCready wins or comes close, the blue team will see it as yet another sign that Trump is destined for a 2020 loss. Some Republicans will worry that they made a mistake by running a proponent of the state’s infamous “bathroom bill.” And others will panic about the party’s ability to win even light red states like North Carolina next November….
And we don’t really need to look at special elections to get a good read of the national political mood — the polls are all basically saying the same thing. Approval polls show that Trump is highly unpopular, and generic ballot polls (which correctly forecast the 2018 House results) show that down-ballot Republicans aren’t performing particularly well, either. Trump is behind most of his potential Democratic opponents in national and swing state polls of the 2020 race. He’s just not that popular.
Trump could still win reelection. Maybe his Democratic opponent will be too far to the left for swing voters, or maybe Trump will be able to damage them through personal and policy attacks. There’s a lot we won’t know until the fall of 2020. But the special election in North Carolina’s 9th District — no matter how many ways we dissect it — won’t tell us what’s going to happen.
Nate Cohn/NY times:
Moderate Democrats Fared Best in 2018. One Gets Another Chance Today.
A North Carolina election is also a chance to think about what kind of candidate might do best against President Trump.
In Republican-held congressional districts, the Democratic candidates who supported Medicare for all, for instance, fared as much as a net three points worse than those who did not, after controlling for other factors like recent presidential and congressional election results.
Candidates who supported Medicare for all probably differ in other ways from those who opposed it. But Medicare for all is a good proxy for a certain kind of candidate favored by the activist left, and that kind of candidate did a bit worse in last year’s elections.
Similarly, candidates who opposed Ms. Pelosi fared an additional 2.5 points better than those who did not, even after controlling for whether a candidate supported Medicare for all.
It is worth cautioning that the precise effects of moderation — here a cumulative five points compared with someone who supported Ms. Pelosi and Medicare for all — depend on several factors. It makes a difference whether you look at all congressional districts or just the relatively competitive ones (say, those Mr. Trump won by less than 20 points) where voters might have gotten to know the candidates. It also matters whether to include fund-raising success, because moderates tended to raise more money. But the advantage of moderation holds no matter the series of choices.
Jill Lawrence/USA Today:
Celebrate the diverse 2020 Democratic candidates and don't fret about 'electability'
But also ask why female Republicans are fading fast in Congress, and why black Republicans on Capitol Hill are one senator away from vanishing entirely. Ask how Donald Trump made it to the Oval Office and how on earth he could still be there and why his three challengers so far are a white man who served one term in Congress, another who was governor of Massachusetts in the 1990s, and a third who went AWOL as governor of South Carolina to meet his Argentine mistress. Ask how the Republican Party will ever recover from the hole it has dug with the growing Hispanic electorate.
Above all, be proud of this Democratic field. It shows that America has been doing its job and fulfilling its promise. Our country opened the gates of opportunity and all kinds of people have walked through them and succeeded. These candidates show we are in fact a nation of immigrants, Trump administration pronouncements notwithstanding. And not all were immigrants who could stand on their own two feet the day they arrived.
One of these Democrats could well be the next president...
Walter Shapiro/New Republic:
The Also-Rans Hoping for a New Hampshire Miracle
Do Klobuchar, Booker, and Bennet have a shot in hell at the nomination?
But the truth—even though it flies in the face of all the glib certainties TV pundits are fond of proclaiming—is that Klobuchar and Booker are right. It is too soon to be writing off anyone with a credible record and proven history of winning elections (with the strong exception of Bill de Blasio and Tulsi Gabbard).
Sure, many handicappers are peddling the notion that the Democratic contest is already winnowed down to a three-way race (Joe Biden, Warren, and Bernie Sanders) or that it could become a five-way contest (if you consider Kamala Harris and Pete Buttigieg serious contenders). But I recall pundits declaring with voice-of-God certainty in late summer of 2015 that the only Republicans who could plausibly win the 2016 nomination were Jeb Bush and Marco Rubio.
New Hampshire voters, in particular, are late deciders—and, even then, mercurial in their selections. Finding unswervingly committed Granite State primary voters is almost as hard as locating flood victims in Alabama.
Read this thread here:
"There is no pressure to change the way to forecast risk in the future. Nobody's job is at risk: not mine, not yours." ~Dr Jacobs #NWAS19
John Harwood/CNBC:
These are the three biggest warning signs for Trump’s reelection bid
- Vegas oddsmakers, shrugging off the House Democrats’ midterm election triumph, favor President Trump to win a second term in 2020. So do Wall Street insiders.
- It’s easy to understand why they would consider 2018 a temporary setback. Republican routs in 1994 and 2010 didn’t keep Bill Clinton and Barack Obama from subsequently winning reelection.
- But a closer look at those lopsided midterms suggests a different conclusion. For three overlapping reasons, 2018 sent a stronger-than-usual signal about the upcoming White House contest.
As 2016 proved, Trump could win with well under 50% of the vote. Since many voters Trump has turned off live in states whose electoral votes won’t be in doubt, analyst David Wasserman of the Cook Political Report says he could garner a second term while losing the popular vote by even more in 2020.
One massive unknown is the identity of the Democratic nominee with whom Trump can draw a contrast. Wasserman still considers the incumbent an even-money bet to win.
Wasserman’s boss does not, reflecting divisions on the question inside and outside the political parties.
“President Trump is facing a very, very difficult reelection challenge,” says Charlie Cook, editor and publisher of the Cook Political Report. “If this thing is a referendum on Donald Trump, he’s going to lose.”
Even money bet is not ‘he’s favored to win”. Overseas oddsmakers are even money as well (here is your odds converter).
Retiring Speaker John (Ordeeeeeeer) Bercow’s greatest hits:
Good discussion in that thread.