stumping for the south.....

I see three lessons here. One is, as FH said, that it's about the candidates; but the other is how the country is feeling about Republicans in office overall. The Louisiana Dem Gov who just won is an anti-abortion/ conservative Democrat which tells me that:

1. People will vote for those who have policies they support. Political parties should not force their individual members to adhere to a national party platform - it's an ill-fitting box that does not serve the disparate communities of this nation.
2. People are fed up with Trump and his extremism and will vote for a Dem over a Republican who aligns themselves with Trump so long as that Dem is still mostly in line with their values - even in a red state.
3. Extremism is not a winner. Moderate candidates are still preferred.

A growing number of Republicans in Congress have announced plans to retire or simply not run for office when their term is up next year. That's quite the canary in the coal mine. This past weekend, Rep. Stefanik's opponent Tedra Cobb raised $1M dollars in 2 days time after Stefanik's stunt in the impeachment hearings willfully violating the rules of the hearings.

Both Pelosi and Obama have spoken out cautioning candidates about pushing policies that are not in line with what the majority of the country wants. It's a shot across the bow to Sanders, Warren, and The Squad that they are too far left. And they are. Biden, Klobuchar, and Bennett are far more sound candidates who are likely to win because Independents and moderates are sick of Trump and anyone who defends him, but they aren't bought into things like open borders, M4A, the Green New Deal, across-the-board college debt forgiveness or anything else that doesn't make sense fiscally. Our country is in a huge hole thanks to Republican tax cuts and other legislation that favors the rich and corporations, and we need to address that.

Not spoken of nearly as much is that we also need to start addressing climate change mitigation and Republicans in Congress are still in the dark ages of denial on this topic, and out of touch with the majority of the country who are already facing the effects of climate change, so they need to be voted out if we're going to get anything effective done on that front.