Board 8 > Politics Containment Topic 205: A House Divided Senate Stand

(+) Yeah! (+)

I think its a pretty good sign that if the democrats can find a good fucking candidate they have a solid path to victory

That's a huge if though. Colossal, even.
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Lower voter turnout is severely hurting tester
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In other news, seems saudi arabia killed another journalist

Lovely
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pxlated posted...

In other news, seems saudi arabia killed another journalist

Lovely

Did they at least get a better body double this time?
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https://www.middleeastmonitor.com/20181105-saudi-journalist-tortured-to-death-in-prison/
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pxlated posted...

In other news, seems saudi arabia killed another journalist

Lovely

Link?

whoops 8 second late
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Dem's flipped NV gov

Also it looks like the media might have called a house district incorrectly:

https://twitter.com/PoliticsWolf/status/1060074908405940224

(Will Hurd from TX-23, who as I said before is probably one of the most reasonable Republicans)
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pxlated posted...

xp1337 posted...

Sorry, ducked out much earlier in the night because it was becoming extremely bad for my health to be watching all this live. Had to completely disconnect and just come back later after it was mostly over and deal with the results then.

Skimmed what I missed here. There are 3 different media counts going on. There was a tweet explaining which outfits were using which ones, but that might explain why you guys have different places with different numbers.

Huh. Do you have that link?

...Apparently not. Just spent a bunch of time looking for it, but can't. Sorry.
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LordoftheMorons posted...

Dem's flipped NV gov

Also it looks like the media might have called a house district incorrectly:

https://twitter.com/PoliticsWolf/status/1060074908405940224

(Will Hurd from TX-23, who as I said before is probably one of the most reasonable Republicans)

That one will definitely be a recount right?

Still, it's good that tonight is finishing better than it started
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xp1337 posted...

pxlated posted...

xp1337 posted...

Sorry, ducked out much earlier in the night because it was becoming extremely bad for my health to be watching all this live. Had to completely disconnect and just come back later after it was mostly over and deal with the results then.

Skimmed what I missed here. There are 3 different media counts going on. There was a tweet explaining which outfits were using which ones, but that might explain why you guys have different places with different numbers.

Huh. Do you have that link?

...Apparently not. Just spent a bunch of time looking for it, but can't. Sorry.

No worries. Doesnt matter much ultimately, there's only one number at the end
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NV governor is another great, semi-unexpected flip.
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Why the hell has CT not been called yet? Are they expecting 20k unanswered votes for Lamont or something?
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What are the big uncalled races?

AZ senate (republican probably)
MT senate (republican leaning but toss up)
Alaska governor (republican probably)
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Why do so many people in this topic that have nothing to do with Wisconsin hate Walker?
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Cruz currently projected to win with only +2.6

Even though Beto lost, that's really an amazing result for a Democrat in Texas. Perhaps most importantly, it could break the normal assumption that a Democrat can't win in Texas which contributes to the typically abysmal D turnout in the state.
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Makes you wonder how much of an effect thr veritas nonsense had
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Anyone who listens to veritas was already voting for Cruz.
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I suppose
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I really hope he continues to work in politics though.

Hell, even just as an organizer. Maybe he isnt meant to be a candidate himself. But he did great work in his campaign and dems need that.
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Anyway, I may have more to say on this tomorrow when I/we have a better grasp on all the results since there are still a number of races outstanding/I'm still playing catch-up a bit on the time I missed.

But the Senate is really disappointing. Which seems kind of weird given the House is mostly performing within expectation. With the Senate results as it is, it does feel hollow to say "blue wave" but then you look at the popular vote and the House and historically I mean.. it technically is? I don't think I'm in favor of using the term (except mocking "RED WAVE" which is always okay.)

While I've backed away from the ledge I was nearing around 8:30 or whenever I made the decision to check the **** out of this topic, election coverage, and being awake I gotta say I still feel disappointed. Part of that is surely because as we all know (do we? Maybe not, I'm probably overestimating my own notability) I was high up on the optimistic end for how the night would turn out and we definitely didn't get there. We're hovering around my "Cynicism" forecast (which was around/slightly above Suprak's predix IIRC) so like... this outcome wasn't outside my range of expected outcomes but it still hurt to see it happen, especially since it felt kind of front-loaded with the Indiana and Florida (always florida) one-two punch.

But also because I think the Senate results - whatever reason you attribute to them - will be seen by Trump and the GOP (and make no mistake they are one-and-the-same and have been since 2016) will see it as validation for the appeals to race and fear that he was going hard on in the final weeks. And in certain areas that might not even be the wrong calculation, at a certain point the results just speak for themselves. And so I think they'll double-down on that strategy going forward. 2020 is going to be dark. And it's just so depressing to me to see that's where this country is heading. I've always thought - and said both before, during, and after - that Trump winning in 2016 meant we were heading down this path and that was probably the last real chance to change course... but a blue tsunami in 2018 was the secret emergency last resort breaks on that and even with a good night in the House, the Senate results keep it from being an indisputable repudiation. So here we go.

On a slightly more positive note (whatever I can muster of it, this was an alarmingly dark night for me) is that taking the House is significant going forward. We'll finally have oversight on this administration. The GOP committees have been a joke on this front (in the House at least, the Senate was more legit) and that has been remedied. Any of the worst legislative agenda from Trump will be halted. Though it was always a running joke, there will be no Wall. The ACA is safe... well, what still stands of it (barring lame-duck shenanigans and tbqh I'm not sure what goes on there. Maybe nothing, maybe chaos.) Social Security, Medicare, and Medicaid are safe and the House originates all spending so budgets should be saner. The Mueller investigation is safe because even in the worst case scenario (and I legit think it was plausible if the GOP held both chambers) that he is fired/Rosenstein is replaced the House can hire him and keep it going.

All things equal (i.e. ignoring the implausibility), I'd prefer the Senate over the House because of its power for confirmations, but gaining the House is still a huge deal.

Think I had something else to say, but Walker was just called as having lost and I lost my train of thought so let's cut it here for now.
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MasterZeldaGuy posted...

Why do so many people in this topic that have nothing to do with Wisconsin hate Walker?

He sucks.
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Yeah even though gaining the House is a huge deal and I think I probably should be happy overall with the results, the fact is that the Republicans need to lose big and, importantly, unambiguously for Trumpism to start to die and for the GOP to start the long process of regaining its sanity. I don't see any reason to think that Rs won't double down on it after tonight (e.g. there's gonna be a ton of bullshit claiming that the Kavanaugh vote doomed Senate Dems, even though there's no way in hell it makes sense that it would swing races the 7-9 points needed for it to have been fatal).
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Not all of those Senate losses are surprising though, or should be.

Indiana went to democrats in 2012 because a tea party republican primaried out a popular republican senator and the democrats managed to swoop into the void. McCaskill only won in 2012 because Todd "legitimate rape" Akin became a thing. North Dakota was never going to the democrats.

The governor losses hurt more, particularly Ohio and Florida. Those were within reach and the Dems blew it there. They picked up some really nice wins and the house went much bluer than I thought, so overall it was still a good night. Would've loved either Ohio or Florida though.
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Suprak the Stud posted...

Not all of those Senate losses are surprising though, or should be.

Right, right, I get you. Like I said, I acknowledged this outcome was possible. (Though I think I did say -4 would surprise me and that's a very plausible outcome atm)

It's less that any particular race is surprising (except maaaaaybe Florida, but it's Florida so... Florida) and more that they'd all go that way. The races aren't independent and all that, yeah, but still given the other metrics it just feels weird, to me at least, to see them all go that way.
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Looks like McBath may have succeeded where Jon Ossof failed and defeated Karen Handel in GA-6 (up by 1400 with 100% in per CNN, but not officially called yet)
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I was just about to post that.

Maybe the way for Dems to win in Georgia is to be more liberal?

That's a surprising result and that run-off/general pairing is going to get SO MANY poli sci papers written about it. Maybe even a PhD Thesis or two
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Looks like Tester is gonna pull it out. They just lowered the % reporting from Missoula which should be enough to take it.
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Interesting to see the difference between NYT and 538's forecasts right now.

NYT and THE NEEDLE are pointing at 53-47. Says Montana is 88% for Tester. McSally at 62% and Scott at 54%.

Meanwhile 538 is way down on them all (from the Dem's perspective) and predicting 54-46 in the livecast.

The Tester difference is the most intriguing IMO, wonder what drives that. (538 says Tester has a 43% chance)

Notably, if you take NYT's favorite in those 3 races you get to 54-46 too, but still.
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Hope you're right

And ughhhh McSally's NYT estimated final vote share is decreasing a tiny bit, but it's not happening fast enough. She probably doesn't even need to win tonight! I'm like 95% confident that if she loses Kyl will step down and McSally will be appointed to the other seat.
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I don't think 538's takes into account where the remaining votes are, but I could be wrong.
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Oh the 538 livecast is a fraud

last updated 3:43

That explains that.
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Outside perspective coming in: these seem like good results for the Democrats overall despite the Senate. The nationwide swing is hugely significant since it shows a clear lack of trust in Trump and his government. Regaining the House is huge. And even with the Senate, the individual nature of the races means it doesn't reflect badly on the democrats as a whole - they were always going to have a tough time given how many seats they were defending. Beto doing so well in Texas is hugely significant, that state could easily go Democrat in the near future. His loss reminds me of over in the UK when Roy Jenkins of the newly formed Social Democrats narrowly lost an election in the ultra-safe Labour seat of Warrington. "This is my first defeat, but in many ways my greatest victory".

For me though, Florida voting to restore voting rights to felons is a tremendous decision. From the outside, felony disenfranchisement has always been utterly vile, and I can't believe a major democracy does it. Glad to see the back of it in Florida.
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xp1337 posted...

Interesting to see the difference between NYT and 538's forecasts right now.

NYT and THE NEEDLE are pointing at 53-47. Says Montana is 88% for Tester. McSally at 62% and Scott at 54%.

Meanwhile 538 is way down on them all (from the Dem's perspective) and predicting 54-46 in the livecast.

The Tester difference is the most intriguing IMO, wonder what drives that. (538 says Tester has a 43% chance)

Notably, if you take NYT's favorite in those 3 races you get to 54-46 too, but still.

Tester and Sinema losing makes 55-45.
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According to politicos live tracking based on apnews. McSally has pretty much alrdy won Arizona. And tester should come back and win Montana.

Based on CNN, McSally and Sinema are still way too far away from being done and tester very well could lose Montana but it will be a squeaker either way.
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If the Democrats can hold this to R+2 in the Senate I'll be... well, not happy, but I'll be mostly okay with calling this a good night. If it's R+3 (probably the most likely) I'll be kinda grumpy but that doesn't diminish what was accomplished in the House and Governors' races (even if some of the losses there also hurt). If MT does a heel-turn and we end at R+4 I'll hate life. Well, even more.

The thing about the popular vote is that while yeah, Democrats are crushing it, it's no surprise that they are - they're the party that enjoys the support of the majority, but the political system here is atrocious and it simply doesn't matter between gerrymandering and the Senate being anti-democratic as f***.

For comparison, the Democrats here are winning the popular vote more now than the Republicans did in 2010.. and in that election Republicans won 60+ House Seats and 6 Senate seats. The Democrats win by even more than that and it's ~35 House Seats and losing ~3 Senate Seats. It's a farce and anti-democratic as all hell and there's no simple solution to it.

Winning governor races is big because they're the ones who will draw the new House districts for the next decade but the Senate itself is just a problem that can't be easily solved because like hell will the Republicans give up their built-in advantage regardless of how anti-democratic it is. Abolishing it would be the ideal solution but lmao that's not happening. A short term band-aid would be granting statehood to places like DC, Puerto Rico, Guam but... you need the Senate to do that.

The US has some real anti-democratic systems built deep into it, and it was all done intentionally by design and I'm not sure how sustainable it is in the long run.
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Corrik posted...

xp1337 posted...

Interesting to see the difference between NYT and 538's forecasts right now.

NYT and THE NEEDLE are pointing at 53-47. Says Montana is 88% for Tester. McSally at 62% and Scott at 54%.

Meanwhile 538 is way down on them all (from the Dem's perspective) and predicting 54-46 in the livecast.

The Tester difference is the most intriguing IMO, wonder what drives that. (538 says Tester has a 43% chance)

Notably, if you take NYT's favorite in those 3 races you get to 54-46 too, but still.

Tester and Sinema losing makes 55-45.

I know?

538 is still probability based. Even if it had the Rs favored in all those races, that it had MT at close to 50/50 means that in about half of its simulations it'll have him winning so the actual projection is still R+3.

And NYT has as favorites Tester/McSally/Scott so that gets you to 54-46 right there. But since it has Tester hanging around 90% and McSally and Scott around 60% again the probability leads the needle to point at 53-47. If one of those two moves more solidly towards winning the needle should shift to 54-46 but that has yet to happen.
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It could technically be R+1...!

Not really because LOL at winning the MS runoff. I am pretty confident in Tester pulling through though.
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Sucks depending on different results here. If politicos results are right, McSally I don't think can lose. And testers odds are getting bleaker but still very possible.
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Why does NYT still have FL as uncertain anyway? I thought Nelson conceded.
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LordoftheMorons posted...

Why does NYT still have FL as uncertain anyway? I thought Nelson conceded.

Gillum did. Don't think Nelson has.
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Like cnn has Montana with rosendale with a 1500 vote lead with 94% in. Most remaining in Democratic areas. But is enough left?

Politco has rosendale with a 2600 vote lead with 84% in but in areas for both candidates.

CNN has McSally up 15k with 75% in and no real idea of where the votes come from.

Politico has McSally up 15k with 99.3% reported. With 7 Dem precincts and 4 republic precincts left. And no real viable way to make up the 15k.
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xp1337 posted...

LordoftheMorons posted...

Why does NYT still have FL as uncertain anyway? I thought Nelson conceded.

Gillum did. Don't think Nelson has.

Nelson has conceded alrdy. CNN refuses to acknowledge it.

https://www.miamiherald.com/news/politics-government/state-politics/article220988810.html

Conceded after midnight.
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Ohhh seems like it was mistakingly reported that Nelson conceded, but his campaign clarified that they actually hadnt. That said, I think that race is pretty much over.
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Anyway, Im going to bed now. Hopefully Ill wake up to some good news.
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Yeah, I'm reading that it was mistakenly reported that Nelson conceded but his campaign has said otherwise. Unless you have something more recent. (Your Miami Herald article is not.)

https://thehill.com/homenews/campaign/414104-scott-ousts-nelson-in-florida-senate-race
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bill nelson is so completely senile that he probably doesn't remember conceding

Assuming Missoula and Gallatin keep coming in as they are Montana should go to tester. Gallatin is a lot higher than it was in 2012 for tester so it could even out some. We will see. Gonna be razor tight tho.
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wow spreading fake news and shading cnn for not acknowledging said fake news and when confronted with the facts refusing to acknowledge it
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Well, looks like the big picture went basically exactly as all the projections said they would.

My district did good in kicking out the trash House rep. Beto came closer than anybody who wasn't overrun with blind optimism expected. Happy with both of those results.

Kansas of all places also did well, as did Wisconsin. Also looks like Dana "Putin literally pays me" Rohrabacher is out, though Nunes isn't.

Disappointed that it looks like Florida elected the racist pig and the blatantly corrupt fuck though. Also that Georiga elected the criminal cheating fuck for Governor.

xp1337 posted...

The US has some real anti-democratic systems built deep into it, and it was all done intentionally by design and I'm not sure how sustainable it is in the long run.

I can tell you: it isn't. Though as a British guy I would like to thank the US for being one of the few democracies with a worse electoral system than ours. You guys took the worst thing about FPTP then somehow added on a whole lot of extra nonsense.
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