Why the GOP Failed to Take Back the Senate

Aaron Flint posted on November 07, 2012 12:11 :: 873 Views

If you want to know why the GOP lost the US Senate race here in Montana, look no further than the libertarian candidate who, as of Wednesday morning when the AP called the race, was garnering more than 6% of the vote.  Rather than Senator Tester delivering a victory speech today, that duty should fall to the environmental groups which spent $500,000 in the closing days of the race getting the libertarian candidate on the airwaves.    

(Note: I should add an amended point to my initial blog post that it is too early to pinpoint an “Aha” factor, as other factors are also at play.  However, there is no question that the libertarian candidates presence on the ticket is a major factor)

Seperately, to the question of why the GOP failed to capture the US Senate  in general- The Daily Caller has this:

Many fingers are pointing at two Republican Senate candidates in particular: Missouri Rep. Todd Akin and Indiana Treasurer Richard Mourdock, both of whom made particularly tin-eared comments when explaining their opposition to abortion, even in cases of rape.

Those comments are largely credited with the GOP’s failure to pick up Missouri, which seemed to be “set up perfectly” for a Republican win, as one Republican insider put it to National Journal, and forfeiting Indiana, a state that wasn’t supposed to be on the table in the first place.

But, don’t blame pro-lifers just because a couple pro-life candidates said something stupid, says Erick Erickson with RedState.com:

Todd Akin lost because he swallowed his foot and kept gagging on it, not because he is pro-life.  Richard Mourdock was beaten by a Democrat who ran as a pro-lifer.  As for the so called “war on women,” there is no war on women and women did not abandon Mitt Romney for Barack Obama because of their love of killing kids in the womb.

In fact, if you pull out black female voters, the Democrats and Republicans are tied among women. Are black women voting Democrat because they are women or in a consistent pattern with black voters in general.

Meanwhile, Sen. Jon Tester (D-MT) gave his victory speech at 9:30 AM Wednesday in Great Falls.  Click below to watch video of his full speech, courtesy of KRTV.

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