Shontel Brown defeated Nina Turner in the primary for OH-11. Turner represents the "politics by division" wing of the Left. She throws more bombs at Democrats than Republicans. She was able to outraise Brown, because she could tap into a national network of Sanders' donors. Brown simply had Democrats on her side.
As we approach yet another critical midterm election, hanging on to every House seat is important. What's more, it's important that Democrats in Washington ultimately are all pulling in the same direction. I think that's something AOC ultimately gets, but I'm not sure Ilhan Omar does.
In an unlikely endorsement of David Brooks, Martin Longman points out that a certain cultural leftism has taken root. On the one hand, Turner seemed to represent the class and economic issues that would resonate with WWC voters. Where I differ with Longman is that I don't think a policy portfolio is going to shift the needle much. There's a pundit's fallacy that the arcane details of policy move voters. The sort of voters who get moved by that are already committed ideologically. Only a few voters are moved at the margins, and that is often for more generalized "feelings" about the state of the country or the candidate.
Turner was a candidate for the Angry Left, petulantly relitigating the fact that Sanders lost. The reason Sanders and Turner lost is that they tended to attack other Democrats. For the Twitterati, Brown represents the dreaded "establishment Democrats." To the bulk of the party, she's just a team player.
You need those.
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