Elon Musk's nearly half a billion dollars in midterms spending was a flop

Posted by Alien1Being 16 hours ago

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Comments

Comment by austin-cheney 16 hours ago

That spending may not have resulted in the intended outcome, but its influence was very real. As a person living in Texas getting not quite a dozen texts and postal mailers every single day I absolutely felt the influence. If it wasn't for this constant reminder continually reinforcing the failures and non-issues from a single party I don't think I would have felt as strongly about voting as I did.

You have to understand Texas received almost as political spending as the rest of the country combined. The result is that Texas flipped in a historically significant manner. Every single state-wide race was won by the Democrats and the Democrats did not win in every county, but they did have positive influence in every single one of the state's 254 counties. None of the polls predicted anything close to this.

Tarrant county was the largest Republican county in the country, and that is gone. Democrats won every campaign in the county except for one US congressional seat.

It is also important to note that Texas Republicans received the same number of votes as they did in 2024, but the total vote was something like 1.5-2 million votes higher than 2024 with all that increase going to the Democrats. Yes, Texas is growing its population super fast, but that vote increase is more than the population increase.

Comment by blisterpeanuts 1 hour ago

I find this quite interesting, particularly the disparity in voter enthusiasm.

I wonder if this experience (and massive expenditure) has taught Elon to maybe back out of politics for a while and focus on his many businesses.

Among other things, he needs to face up to the fact that his politics have turned off some percentage of potential customers. A voice of reason might say, it's time to quiet down a little, spend less time on X, and get Starship working.

I would also advise him to come out with an economy car to address the upcoming Chinese car invasion, but that's a topic for another time....

Comment by murtazayusuf 15 hours ago

Elon moved to Texas just to die it blue, the final boss of titration, haha

Comment by duxup 1 hour ago

The depth of the sweep reaching well past national offices and even state leadership offices and local legislators is pretty amazing.

Comment by DivingForGold 16 hours ago

4th gen Texan. My grandfather rolls in his grave. Louisiana and Florida still red, may just sell out and go to greener pastures..

Comment by Alien1Being 16 hours ago

Don't pollute the other states. Putin's Russia might welcome you.

Comment by clipsy 14 hours ago

One less Republican voting in Texas next election, the Democratic party thanks you for your contribution!

Comment by Danox 14 hours ago

The Cubans are keeping it red. But I think that’s gonna change. I don’t like his politics but Ricky Rubio should have stayed far away from Trump.

Comment by SilentM68 14 hours ago

Yup, Cubans are keeping it Red, and will always fight to keep it Red. Trump should actually pay more attention to Rubio and the Red Florida Cubans because 2028 is the year in which the direction the world will take will be decided.

I foresee Communism spreading throughout the US and the rest of the world, if there is another Blue Wave.

Thanks to this last blue wave, that scenario may have started: https://www.msn.com/en-us/news/other/migrant-caravan-bets-on...

Comment by SilentM68 14 hours ago

Democrats may have gained seats but they don't have a majority to block a veto by the Executive branch, unless RHINOs help. On the other hand the Executive branch will not be able to pass any measures they want without the cooperation of both houses, unless DINOs help. This is basically a stalemate which means that everybody needs to work together to get stuff done or get nothing done. Classic check & balances, I suppose.

Comment by austin-cheney 3 hours ago

Kind of.

Several of the new Democrat senators that flipped a seat are moderates who ran on a campaign to represent their state over their party. So, expect at least of couple of the incoming senators to not vote with their party on controversial issues.

On the contrary, though, there are still some moderate Republicans in the senate who are now freed from the insanity of the current executive that may side with the Democrats on major Democrat sponsored issues that benefit their respective states.

Comment by toomuchtodo 14 hours ago

They have enough to eliminate the Electoral College and to pack the Supreme Court. Current president is out of office in two years no matter what, and is already beyond male life expectancy.

Comment by defrost 14 hours ago

... already beyond _USofA_ male life expectancy.

He's still shy of, say, Australian male life expectancy.

Comment by toomuchtodo 13 hours ago

Ship him to Australia, I suppose? I don’t think they’ll have him, if I’m being frank.

Comment by defrost 13 hours ago

I don't think a day on Bondi in budgie smugglers is going to roll back decades of Trumpian fast food indulgence, but by all means send him over - I doubt he'll last too long and exit in a hurry, Australians aren't backwards in coming forward about shortcomings of glorious leader types.

Comment by fuzzfactor 15 hours ago

Musk has got to be misguided about this.

After all he has proven to be a complete failure at getting his own promised political party off the ground.

Complete failure and Musk, undeniably in the same sentence whether it's actually always been true or not.

Well he should have known better with his unmatched inside experience.

Anyway, regardless of how long he's been visiting Texas, it shouldn't take 4 generations to know what it was like if Sam Houston was still running the place, the Texas Rangers would have been putting the handcuffs on Paxton and Abbott a long time ago.

Comment by Danox 14 hours ago

I donated $50 every month for the last six months to Talarico and Ossoff, one of them Ossoff has a real good chance of being the next president. The Democrats seem to have elected several people that just might have a chance of going further than just being a senator or a governor.

Comment by krapp 16 hours ago

Cool. Don't let the door hit you in the ass on your way out.

Comment by jqpabc123 3 hours ago

My grandfather rolls in his grave.

I suspect he may be rolling over from your comment.

You were promised more high paying jobs.

What you got instead was higher prices and more air, water and noise pollution from data centers intent on eliminating high paying jobs.

Did your grandfather like being conned?

Comment by Alien1Being 16 hours ago

"Of the 43 candidates for the House of Representatives supported by the businessman, only three won, while 33 lost their races. "

Comment by rsynnott 7 hours ago

Couldn’t happen to a more deserving person.

Comment by nicce 16 hours ago

Nobody knows how much they would have lose even more without that half billion.

Comment by JumpCrisscross 16 hours ago

At least in Texas, there is a good chance Musk's backing increased Democrats' margins.

Comment by 1659447091 14 hours ago

> good chance Musk's backing increased Democrats' margins

I don't think Musk was even relevant in that it being Musk specifically.

In the post election analyses only a few stories are looking at how it was done. People didnt simply go to the polls and blindly vote Democrat. Look at the candidates and the platform they ran on, they all sidestepped culture war distractions, they didnt lean into divisiveness or the childish name calling -- no one wants to listen to that shit anymore. Even the victory speeches in Texas were about Texas and working for Texans. Same for the guy in Kansa and the ones in Iowa. They got back to real interaction with real people in the real world.

Oh and ICE killing a US citizen in south texas and covering it up for a year, then killing a Mexican citizen (who was in the process of immigrating) and then wildly lying about it -- among other things like raiding US citizen small businesses because the owners look Mexican -- doesn't win a lot of votes for the party doing it. They woke up the non-voting US citizen latino/hispanic population in Texas and other places.

Comment by rsynnott 7 hours ago

It’s complicated, because corruption became a big issue in the election. The spectacle of that wannabe-oligarch spending half a billion may have encouraged some to vote, and/or turned off traditional/non-Trumpy republicans.

Comment by murtazayusuf 16 hours ago

also deleting half a billion of his tweets too

Comment by jqpabc123 4 hours ago

Musk's support unintentionally served a good purpose --- it was a near perfect indicator of who sensible little people should vote against.

Do you think moneyed interests need more tax breaks and control over government? Do you think giving them more influence and control will make life better for you? Is higher prices, fewer jobs and more air, water and noise pollution working for you now?

If so, then Musk has picked the *right* candidates for you.

Comment by gnabgib 16 hours ago

Discussions yesterday:

BBC Elon Musk's millions fail to deliver Texas for the Republicans in fierce midterm (52 points, 18 comments) https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=50369201

Wired Voters Set $400M of Elon Musk's Money on Fire (18 points, 13 comments) https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=50368522