Oh absolutely. But you only get so many options for each position, so it’s best to maximize the utility of each of those votes.
In my case, pretty much every office will go to the GOP by a 20%+ margin. We used to have a competitive House district, but they gerrymandered that away and now every House seat is uncompetitive. In fact, many seats have no competition at all (my State House rep seat hasn’t been contested since I moved here, and the State Senate seat has been contested once). So I leave those uncontested seats empty or write-in (if write-in is an option), and I vote for the best candidate for the job for the other seats. What ends up happening is that my ballot looks something like this:
50% - biggest third party
25% - Democrat - occasionally a decent candidate runs
The rest are uncontested (e.g. State House) or non-partisan seats (e.g. school board).
And yes, it’s a long game, hence why I refuse to vote for the lesser of two evils when that lesser evil has zero chance to win.
Sure, I know Texas could be more competitive, and there may be others. That’s why I point out the vote spread, if it’s bigger than 10% in the past few elections, it’s not going to flip this year.
Oh absolutely. But you only get so many options for each position, so it’s best to maximize the utility of each of those votes.
In my case, pretty much every office will go to the GOP by a 20%+ margin. We used to have a competitive House district, but they gerrymandered that away and now every House seat is uncompetitive. In fact, many seats have no competition at all (my State House rep seat hasn’t been contested since I moved here, and the State Senate seat has been contested once). So I leave those uncontested seats empty or write-in (if write-in is an option), and I vote for the best candidate for the job for the other seats. What ends up happening is that my ballot looks something like this:
The rest are uncontested (e.g. State House) or non-partisan seats (e.g. school board).
And yes, it’s a long game, hence why I refuse to vote for the lesser of two evils when that lesser evil has zero chance to win.
I wouldn normally agree with you, but I think there are several red states that could be a lot more competitive this year.
Sure, I know Texas could be more competitive, and there may be others. That’s why I point out the vote spread, if it’s bigger than 10% in the past few elections, it’s not going to flip this year.