this post was submitted on 29 Aug 2025
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Leopards Ate My Face
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A lot of these seats are gerrymandered. A lot of the turnout is abysmal. Roughly 30-40 Congressfolks run completely unopposed year to year, with another 370 typically considered "Safe" seats thanks to incumbency, partisanship, and superior fundraising.
Only around 30 House seats a year are considered meaningfully competitive. And that's assuming the candidate on the other side of the ballot is meaningfully distinct from the incumbent. Quite a few Blue Dog Democrats have been more than happy to embrace "Entitlement Cuts" and "Welfare Reform" when they come paired with kick backs to corporate donors and boosted military spending in their districts.
Voters in these areas are the ones I don't understand..I'd vote for anyone "not incumbent" so the electorate has a reset for that very reaon. It wouldn't really matter who the incumbent is nor how deep their pockets...if you don't, you're stuck in the rut you point out here
with no way out and end up with MJT representing you.
Vote 1 "Tim Bim Bustop Phatang Ole Biscuit Barrel"
That's part of the problem. You would vote for "anyone" but you can't find a coalition (much less a majority) to back "a specific someone".
By contrast, the incumbent proved that they could find a majority to back them. And every subsequent election involves going back to that winning base and saying "pick me again". That's a lot easier than building up a new unknown candidate from scratch.
I'm not sure who MJT is. But a lot of these candidates have to win hotly contested primaries. It isn't like the voters just don't have options. It's that the options they have build voting coalitions by making common cause with some really shitty media moguls and money men.