Election results?
nohero said:
Florida ballot measure passed, for restoration of voting rights to people who were convicted of felonies but served their time. It was a vestige of the Jim Crow era of voter disenfranchisement. It will change results in Florida going forward.
Certainly this was the right thing to do, but can you imagine the GOP sound bites over 1.5M new democratic felon voters? This may supplant Pelosi as their #1 rallying cry.
DaveSchmidt said:
Red_Barchetta said:A caveat about comparing 2010 and 2018: Congressional redistricting after the 2010 census raised the bar that Democrats had to clear, starting in 2012.
Trump is on track to lose about 35 house seats. Obama lost 60+ in his first term. Trump will claim victory.
I get that but it certainly won't matter to Trump or his supporters.
Truest thing the guy ever said: "I could shoot ... ." They're that morally damaged.
GL2 said:
Here's yer GOP: two under indictment win races.
Tell me that, if his trial had been delayed another year and a half, Menendez wouldn’t have been re-elected.
DaveSchmidt said:
GL2 said:Tell me that, if his trial had been delayed another year and a half, Menendez wouldn’t have been re-elected.
Here's yer GOP: two under indictment win races.
I guess that pretty much excuses a guy who stole money from his campaign and blamed it on his wife; and an inside trader stealing from other investors.
Think there were many "nose-holders" in the two GOP cases, as there clearly were in the Menendez case?
Maybe it was naive, but I was looking for a more thorough repudiation of Trump, for something to happen to enable us to say, "Wow, he now has no chance in 2020," for something to happen to show that what happened in 2016 was an insane blip and will never happen again. That didn't happen. Even if he loses 20 or so electoral votes in 2020, he still wins, and that's at least another Supreme Court seat and many federal-level seats, more inaction on climate change, more of his blatant lies and sexism and racism and so on. And we have at least two years of McConnell, who really doesn't have to worry as much about possible swing votes such as Murkowski and Collins.
It is encouraging to see somewhat of a new generation of Democrats in office, but the possibility of Trump in office for six more years is real.
It's never boring, so that's something. 
Does anyone have a source for voting statistics yet? What was the national turnout? Blue vs red, etc. Not just for a state. I am very curious.
Hey Dave, I'll see your Menendez and raise you one dead GOP pimp from NV. 
GL2 said:I guess that pretty much excuses a guy who stole money from his campaign and blamed it on his wife; and an inside trader stealing from other investors.
Think there were many "nose-holders" in the two GOP cases, as there clearly were in the Menendez case?
No excuse intended. As for nose-holding, that seems like a rather unscientific, not to mention ineffective, measure of a party’s tolerance for indictments.
Red_Barchetta said:
R governors in FL and OH (huge swing states) will be a problem in 2020.
Trump is on track to lose about 35 house seats. Obama lost 60+ in his first term. Trump will claim victory.
He already did through mouthpiece Sanders. I listened to her last night on TV where she was crowing Trump's victory having won more senate seats. Today McConnell thanked the president "who was very helpful to us."
I'm sure we'll be hearing from Trump on how wonderful and bigly great he is.
I look a lot at local races and did see a blue wave. For years the NY Senate was controlled by Republicans with the help of an "independent" caucus of some Democrats. Six of the seven caucus members were primaried out and even if they weren't there was a tectonic shift to the Democrats making that caucus powerless. The Democrats will control the Senate by about 40 to 20. We also have the unexpected election of a Democrat in the Staten Island house race, a district that was always reliably Republican.
I see NJ where most Republican house races were flipped to the Democrats.
We see many races won by Republicans but by much smaller margins. Fr example, Mimi Walters won by 17% two years ago. This year she's ahead by only 3%.
There is also a major shift in governorships to the Democrat side. Seven, so far.
There are disappointments, Texas, Florida, Steve King. I'm sure Steve King was re-elected because he's an open racist with Nazi views. Sad.
But the trend is towards Democratic, which may continue into 2020. That is if the Gerontocracy as represented by Pelosi, et al, don't screw it up.
GL2 said:
Hey Dave, I'll see your Menendez and raise you one dead GOP pimp from NV.
I fold.
DaveSchmidt said:
GL2 said:No excuse intended. As for nose-holding, that seems like a rather unscientific, not to mention ineffective, measure of a party’s tolerance for indictments.
I guess that pretty much excuses a guy who stole money from his campaign and blamed it on his wife; and an inside trader stealing from other investors.
Think there were many "nose-holders" in the two GOP cases, as there clearly were in the Menendez case?
So only a Supreme Court nominee is entitled to the presumption of innocence?
I wonder about people who live close to the Canadian border, like those in Montana, who can be swayed by fear of some refugees in the middle of Mexico.
FilmCarp said:
Does anyone have a source for voting statistics yet? What was the national turnout? Blue vs red, etc. Not just for a state. I am very curious.
Tweet from Nate Cohn of NYT at 12:45 a.m.:
Our current turnout estimate is 114 million votes cast in the House, breaking even our high expectations (we started at 102 iirc) and shattering the turnout of 83 million in 2014
FilmCarp said:
Does anyone have a source for voting statistics yet? What was the national turnout? Blue vs red, etc. Not just for a state. I am very curious.
Heard Michael Moore on TV say that Dems received 10 million more popular votes for Senate nationwide. Of course that is irrelevant.
In any event this Election went pretty much as predicted. Dems running for House seats in suburban Districts that went for Clinton or even for Trump by relatively narrow margins won. Dems running for re-election to the Senate in strong Trump States lost.
The Government will be divided, but wasn't that the intention of the Framers of the Constitution. The House is elected every two years, a Senator serves 6 years and one-third are elected every two years, and the President's term is 4 years.
Trump is about to have a presser - what are the chances that he'll brag that his house loss wasn't as big as Obama's?
LOST said:
DaveSchmidt said:So only a Supreme Court nominee is entitled to the presumption of innocence?
GL2 said:No excuse intended. As for nose-holding, that seems like a rather unscientific, not to mention ineffective, measure of a party’s tolerance for indictments.
I guess that pretty much excuses a guy who stole money from his campaign and blamed it on his wife; and an inside trader stealing from other investors.
Think there were many "nose-holders" in the two GOP cases, as there clearly were in the Menendez case?
That's right but you have to be GOP.
LOST said:
FilmCarp said:Heard Michael Moore on TV say that Dems received 10 million more popular votes for Senate nationwide. Of course that is irrelevant.
Does anyone have a source for voting statistics yet? What was the national turnout? Blue vs red, etc. Not just for a state. I am very curious.
it's not relevant to the makeup of Congress. But estimates are also that the Democratic House candidates will poll 7-9% more than Republicans. That is a landslide in terms of House elections,
There was a blue wave. It just wasn't the tsunami that would have been necessary to win the Senate or flip even more House seats. It's just one more indication that between the structural advantages the GOP has with regard to self-sorting of voters, the Constitutional apportionment of Senate seats, and gerrymandering, it's really, really difficult for the Democrats right now to gain majorities across the board in Congress.
My interpretation of the results is that first of all, it's great for Democrats to have taken the House. A year to 18 months ago, there was no thought that the Democrats could ever retake the Senate, defending 25 seats to only 9 for Republicans. To think it was possible was to give in to over enthusiasm. To say the day was a failure because it didn't result in a very unlikely scenario is to ignore some very impressive results in the House. Who expected a blue district in Oklahoma? Who expected an 11 term Republican to go down in Texas?
The other result that should be worrying to Trump is that the Republicans didn't have many big wins outside of states he won in '16. He doubled down the last few weeks on all the issues that motivate his base but turn off suburbanites. The Democrats had very good nights in PA, WI, and MI. If Trump can't win those states again in '20, he has almost no road to reelection. On the flip side, if a Democrat gets PA, WI and MI, in addition the Clinton states, he/she can still lose FL, OH, AZ, NC, ME and be elected.
There will be a lot of spinning by the president and even the mainstream pundits that this was a bad day for Democrats. It wasn't. It was a very good day, and a bad day for Trump. It just wasn't an amazingly good day. But that shouldn't have been expected.
jamie said:
Trump is about to have a presser - what are the chances that he'll brag that his house loss wasn't as big as Obama's?
The great Jeff Greenfield.
(this is a blog post from www.ginandtacos.com, but the website appears to be down right now)
I know why you're sad
On paper, Tuesday was a good day for Democrats. They took the House for the first time in eight years. Several important Governorships (in advance of post-Census 2020 redistricting battles) were won. Notably vile Republicans like Kris Kobach, Scott Walker, and Dana Rohrabacher lost. The high-visibility Senate races Democrats lost (Missouri, Tennessee) were pipe dreams anyway. You already knew that Florida sucks, hard. So you're not sad because "The Democrats did badly."
You're also not sad because Beto lost, or Andrew Gillum lost, or any other single candidate who got people excited this year fell short. They're gonna be fine. They will be back. You haven't seen the last of any of them. Winning a Senate race in Texas was never more than a long shot. Gillum had a realistic chance, but once again: It's Florida.
No, you're sad for the same reason you were so sad Wednesday morning after the 2016 Election. You're sad because the results confirm that half of the electorate – a group that includes family, neighbors, friends, random fellow citizens – looked at the last two years and declared this is pretty much what they want. You're sad because any Republican getting more than 1 vote in this election, let alone a majority of votes, forces us to recognize that a lot of this country is A-OK with undisguised white supremacy. You're sad because once again you have been slapped across the face with the reality that a lot of Americans are, at their core, a lost cause. Willfully ignorant. Unpersuadable. Terrible people. ********, even.
You were hoping that the whole country would somehow restore your faith in humanity and basic common decency by making a bold statement, trashing Republicans everywhere and across the board. You wanted some indication that if you campaigned hard enough, rednecks and white collar bloodless types alike could be made to see the light that perhaps the levers of power are not best entrusted to the absolute worst people that can be dredged up from Internet comment sections running on platforms of xenophobia, nihilism, and racism. In short, you wanted to see some evidence that corruption, venality, bigotry, and proud ignorance are deal-breakers for the vast majority of Americans.
And now you're sad because it's obvious that they aren't. Even where horrible Republicans like Walker or Kobach lost, they didn't lose by much.
So I get it. It's depressing. There's no amount of positives that can take away the nagging feeling that lots and lots of people in this country are just…garbage. They're garbage human beings just like the president they adore. These people are not one conversation, one fact-check, and one charismatic young Democratic candidate away from seeing the light. They're reactionary, mean, ignorant, uninteresting in becoming less ignorant, and vindictive. They hate you and they will vote for monsters to prove it.
Remember this feeling. Remember it every time someone tells you that the key to moving forward is to reach across the aisle, show the fine art of decorum in practice, and chat with right-wingers to find out what makes them tick. Remember the nagging sadness you feel looking at these almost entirely positive results; it will be your reminder that the only way to beat this thing is to outwork, outfight, and out-organize these people. They are not going to be won over and they will continue to prove that to you every chance they get.
jamie said:
Trump is about to have a presser - what are the chances that he'll brag that his house loss wasn't as big as Obama's?
One of the first items on his list of boasts.
This paragraph defines my Wednesday morning feelings precisely. Thanks for the post.
No, you're sad for the same reason you were so sad Wednesday morning after the 2016 Election. You're sad because the results confirm that half of the electorate – a group that includes family, neighbors, friends, random fellow citizens – looked at the last two years and declared this is pretty much what they want. You're sad because any Republican getting more than 1 vote in this election, let alone a majority of votes, forces us to recognize that a lot of this country is A-OK with undisguised white supremacy. You're sad because once again you have been slapped across the face with the reality that a lot of Americans are, at their core, a lost cause. Willfully ignorant. Unpersuadable. Terrible people. ********, even.
They're reactionary, mean, ignorant, uninteresting in becoming less ignorant, and vindictive. They hate you and they will vote for monsters to prove it.
Yes. This is different from whether or not it was a good day for the Democratic Party. Because it was good for the Democrats, but it wasn't so good for anyone who was hoping that the 2016 was an anomaly because a lot of people didn't know how horrible Trump and Trumpism really was. Now everyone knows, and not a whole lot of people changed their minds about it. Some moderate Republicans in suburbs, who were enough to flip the House and some governorships.
But there are lot of people out there who hate us and want to own us more than they want anything better for themselves or their children. They are clinging hard to what they have, figure it's the best they can do, and hope they can take down some of the people they see gaining on them.
There's a way out, but it's going to be a long, hard road. Because even the first steps only mean getting rid of the most horrible people in office. Even if Trump is sent packing in '20, it's virtually certain the Senate will either still be majority Republican or will have enough Republicans to filibuster everything. Anyone who's hoping for a country that will pursue less economic inequality, universal access to health care, more affordable higher education, protection for the environment, and attention to climate change has to know we're not even close to advancing on those issues.
Why is Trump praising Nancy Pelosi? Is she softening her rhetoric ahead of being named Speaker? I don’t trust him.
ElizMcCord said:
Why is Trump praising Nancy Pelosi? Is she softening her rhetoric ahead of being named Speaker? I don’t trust him.
It's BS. She's second only to Hillary in the GOP's hate locker.
while there were a few gains, this election was a huge disappointment. FL said screw you to gun control. The state where they Orlando massacre happened, where Parkland happened. They said screw you to the environment as red tide ravages the gulf coast. We couldn’t flip a senate where the leader of the GOP is the pig that he is. A smart, supported, charismatic guy couldn’t beat the lowlife that is Ted Cruz. Nothing he does matters to his constituents. Lie, cheat, treat women like dogs, be a racist- they don’t care! To me, this election meant there is a very strong possibility that Trump will be a two-term President. I don’t know if I (we) can bear that.
You are missing the gains. A whole lot of local offices in Texas switched over to Democrats. We never had a shot at the Senate but people chose to hope that the numbers were wrong. Florida is a drag, but it means that half of the voters there were willing to vote Democratic. Wisconsin is a gain, and getting the NY Senate helps. Remember, redistricting is soon. These gains matter.
GL2 said:
ElizMcCord said:It's BS. She's second only to Hillary in the GOP's hate locker.
Why is Trump praising Nancy Pelosi? Is she softening her rhetoric ahead of being named Speaker? I don’t trust him.
To the ginned up base she is a demon. To big corporate it's we can work with her.
Trump realizes Pelosi will do anything to get to be speaker. Many young or middle aged Democratic Turks want her out. Its not a secret that she plays very hard ball against those who did not support her in leadership. Loss of good committee assignments, lousy office space, etc. They're extremely frustrated.
If the Turks they move against her if she gets Republican also support against new young dynamic leadership. She'll be indebted to Trump.
Pelosi being big money corporate would make Trump and Republicans a lot more comfortable with her than some real progressive.
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You're right about the dribble. Depressing, but right. After two years of this scumbag-in-chief, the best we can do is dump Scott Walker and Kobach, and win the House. Sad.