It was a tight race for a House seat in Kansas on Tuesday between Republican Ron Estes and Democrat James Thompson. But in the end, a narrow margin led to a victory for Estes. However, The New York Times is celebrating it as a “loss for the GOP.”
Estes only beat Thompson by seven points, despite Democrats feeling optimistic they would sweep the special election with all of the anti-Trump sentiment going around. But a win is a win, unless you’re the liberal media.
Nate Cohn of the NYT writes:
This season’s special congressional elections are being heralded as a test of whether newly energized Democrats will fare better with an unpopular Republican president.
So far, the Democrats are passing the test.
On Tuesday, Republicans won an unexpectedly close race in Kansas’ Fourth Congressional District. The Republican Ron Estes won by seven points over James Thompson, even though President Trump won the district by 27 points in November. No Democrat holds a House seat as Republican as this one, so it’s startling that the seat was even competitive.
In general, it’s a mistake to read too much into a single special election. They are more prone to weird results. That’s because there’s less time for recruitment, fund-raising or even opposition research. There isn’t a national campaign going on at the same time. The turnout is often low and variable.
But the Kansas result is not a great sign for the Republicans, and it’s hard to dismiss.
Pretty positive coming from the losing team.
“The small and imperfect lesson of Tuesday’s special election in Kansas is that the Republicans might be in quite a bit of trouble,” Cohn surmised. “Mr. Estes’s seven-point victory is extremely poor for this district, whether under politically neutral circumstances or an environment deeply unfavorable to the president’s party. Even with Mr. Trump’s approval rating around 40 percent, Mr. Estes should have still been considered a 20-plus-point favorite in the district.”
Yet, this is just one election of many forthcoming; the next one in Georgia. But perhaps the NYT can just rely on the same pollsters who had Hillary Clinton winning by a long shot and gliding into the White House. Leftists are still having trouble accepting defeat, shouting “Not my president!” at Trump, and living in a fantasy world where they continue dreaming of ways Clinton should’ve won.
Oh, the agony of defeat.
