(PatrioticPost.com)- Glossy magazine profiles and soft press coverage haven’t aided Beto O’Rourke and Stacey Abrams in winning over voters in their respective red-leaning states.
The two erstwhile Democratic superstars, despite media help, are lagging their Republican opponents in the next November election, when O’Rourke will face Texas Gov. Greg Abbott. Abrams will face Georgia Gov. Brian Kemp again.
O’Rourke hasn’t led in a single poll since announcing his candidacy in November, and Abrams is hardly doing better,” Politico’s deputy editor Calder McHugh reported. McHugh suggested that this was part of the problem.
Their selection as the Democratic Party’s future — young, dynamic, and erudite — resulted in media coverage that may have burnished their national profiles but did little to advance their prospects among voters who weren’t already inclined to support them.
When Abrams was angling for Joe Biden’s vice presidency in 2020, the Washington Post dressed her up as a superhero in one of those over-the-top glossy magazine articles.
Furthermore, the outspoken liberals may have alienated voters in red-state states by taking unpopular positions on contentious matters. O’Rourke said during a 2019 presidential debate, “Hell yes, we’re going to take your AR-15, your AK-47.”
That view didn’t resonate nearly as well back home in gun-friendly Texas.
Abrams’ refusal to recognize she lost her 2018 campaign against Kemp cost her politically.
Abrams was tormented by the outcome of the 2018 governor’s race, which she initially refused to accept, claiming voter suppression and that the result did not correctly reflect the people’s will. She’s been justifying herself since then, attempting to distinguish her viewpoint from former President Donald Trump’s charges of electoral fraud.
“O’Rourke and Abrams are now attempting to re-capture the genie,” McHugh said, referring to the efforts made by each Democrat’s campaign to appeal to independent voters.
On Thursday, Glenn Kessler of The Washington Post suggested that Abrams’ history of exaggerating “stolen election” accusations after the 2018 election was hurting her because of Trump’s 2020 election rhetoric.
“But what appeared to be a shrewd appeal to voters who felt disenfranchised at the time appears to have changed now that Trump and his GOP allies have taken election denialism to a dangerous new level,” he said.
