Senate 34: Anatomy Of An Upset

Dossett defeats Mclain, in special election.

Adventures In Poll Running.

  Tonight I called the McLain campaign consultant and offered to do some poll-running for the team. Samantha Jones eagerly accepted my help and emailed a list of heavily populated Owasso precincts. I routed my Google map and left my South Tulsa location around 6:45pm

  My first precinct numbers were posted at the Owasso Recreational Center.

  Wow! getting beat, nearly 3 to 1. I don't know the demographics of this rapidly-growing northern suburb of Tulsa County. I figured I was in a neighborhood that either included Dossett, or had some unique connection to him.

  I proceeded to the Baptist Retirement Center. Okay, this has a good number of elderly baptist (I presume). McLain edges out Dossett! That's better news but not all that good for a city known for sending her Republican sons to the capitol.

  Off to First Baptist Church... oops, this bunch of poll judges forgot to post their report on the glass near the entry.

  The presbyterian church numbers showed the same bad news as my first stop. Hmm. Maybe Dossett has connections in this neighborhood, too?

  Let's go down to the Assembly... 

BAM! Another heavy hit to the gut!

This night is starting to go from tough to ugly!

Now I'm getting that nauseous ache in my gut.

I wish I'd eaten a dinner meal.

Then First Church showed a massive Dossett landslide!

I finally got to St. Mary's and more bad news. This whole town was voting Democrat at a 3 to 2 margin!

Each stop of the night I took a pic of the precinct judges' report and sent it via text, to the candidate's watch party.
I told them I was heading to the Whirlpool factory; but Sam replied;

"Yeah, you can come back.

We're done."

Musings About A Loss

  I was more than happy to take the country roads out of Owasso and make the 20 minute drive to Skiatook.
  Maybe that's part of it? Owasso has a huge advantage on all the other small cities in this northern Tulsa County Senate district? Maybe Dossett identifies more with Owasso? But McLain defeated Feary in the primary? And Feary is from Owasso? Maybe Dossett stirred up the Owasso homies better than Feary?
  When I drove into the quiet little town of Skiatook (on the edge of Osage Territory), I started seeing the blue McLain signs. Hmmm, I recall that Owasso was a flood of Red Dossett signs. Obviously Dossett had a much bigger sign budget. But while money gets the word out, it's people who vote.
  I walked into a quiet watch party. McLain had already conceded. The election board was fast this time. It wasn't even 8:30pm.  Several friends and activists were enjoying a time of visiting and encouraging each other. These were the people who walked the precincts. No mink coats. No power ties.

Seeking Sam

  I tried to get away to go find Sam. The Rogers County Chairman joined our conversation.
I asked if she'd done any internal polling. She said that they were focusing on identifying the Republicans and not polling per-se.
She mentioned  that of a list of 3000 Republicans canvassed, they only identified 1% who were going to vote for Dossett. That's not what would lose this election. this is not the same scenario as OKC North, where massive numbers of Republicans defected to give Munson a historic win.

"When a Republican politician embezzles nearly 2 million and wears the tag of 'president of the BBB', 'Senator', and 'Reverend'; it's hard to sell the GOP as being the party of moral responsibility."

Seeking Answers

  No, this is a district where the Reverend Senator Brinkley was disgraced and disgracing the GOP brand. When a man embezzles nearly 2 million and wears the tag of 'President of the BBB', 'Senator', and 'Reverend'; it's hard to sell the GOP as being the party of moral responsibility.

  These people are living more ethically than their elected leaders. And their leaders have all been GOP, lately.

  Perhaps the Democrats are more hungry? Perhaps the Republicans have no sense of urgency? Or perhaps the people no longer see the GOP as the rallying cry that it once was?

Let's wait until the Election Board releases the full internals, before we draw conclusions? I think it has plenty to tell us, I just don't know if we will listen, yet.

 1/13  UPDATE:

  The election board's unofficial results are here: https://goo.gl/ZWgO4S

Apathy won this election. Dossett came in 2nd, so he gets sworn in.

  If just 1% more registered voters had been mobilized for McLain, he would have won by 6% (53%-47%).  It is reported that their are 70k registered voters in the district.

J. J. DOSSETT (DEM)										2,173	56.31%
DAVID L. McLAIN (REP)										1,686	43.69%

•   Further reports from OKC media claim that Tulsa County Republicans alone, made up for more than 2300 of the voters. That means about 700 voted for the other party's nominee. So 30% defection is a big part of the equation.
•   The Democrat leadership also claims that the Owasso area is the most union-rich section of the state. The American Airlines maintenance facility is the largest employer in metro Tulsa. Democrats were very effective in getting union funding of this Democrat.
•  School teachers rallied to Dossett's effort and networked heavily.
•   I think the Republicans lost the claim to be defenders of morality, because disgraced former senator, Brinkley, is a crook.

  Nixon's failures sent aftershocks into every campaign in the mid 70s I remember that my Minnesota Republican party even changed the name to Independent Republican Party of Minnesota, to try to distance ourselves from the last Republican crook. If we don't call out our own crooks, they will take us down with them. Democrat thieves may wear hoodies, whereas Republican thieves might wear business suits.