2014 Midterm Elections: Aftermath/Recounts

enlightenedbum

So we're six months away from a major American election, so it's probably time to start talking about it. Even though that's actually quite insane.

The Situation

The Republicans control the House, while the Democrats continue to maintain a moderate sized majority in the Senate. Because of the 2008 Obama coattails, the Senate map appears at first glance to be advantageous for the Republicans:



Dark blue = incumbent D
Light blue = retiring D
Pinkish = retiring R
Dark red = incumbent R

Notably, Democrats are defending in states like Alaska, Arkansas, Louisiana, West Virginia, Montana, and South Dakota, while having Maine as a traditionally Democratic state in Presidential elections with a Republican incumbent (Susan Collins).

Nate Silver agrees and the last time he did a forecast (~a month ago), he makes the GOP a narrow favorite to take the Senate.

Of course, as has been customary lately, a number of relatively safe Republicans are facing primary challengers from the (far) right. These include, but are not limited to, Lindsay Graham in South Carolina and Mitch McConnell in Kentucky.

Current Happenings

The most relevant recent development has been the increased popularity of the Affordable Care Act. Of particular note is a poll (pdf) finding that it has a 50-43 approval/disapproval rating in Republican districts. Because the Republican plan for the fall to this point has been: "1. criticize ACA 2. win" this is a fairly major development. With these numbers, at House press briefings, Obamacare has been mentioned with less frequency, though Eric Cantor tried to release a fraudulent study this week.

Meanwhile, in related happenings, some of the theoretically endangered Democrats have gone on the offense on health care. For example, Mary Landrieu in Louisiana or Mark Pryor in Arkansas. Also worth noting is Mark Begich of Alaska, who is campaigning on expanding social security instead of cutting it and also on the benefits of ACA.

The House

The House is probably going to remain in GOP control for a couple reasons, one of which I'll get into momentarily. But mostly because the map was drawn after the 2012 census in such a way to make things very difficult for the Democrats. They need to win nationally by something like seven points to actually win back the majority.

The Mansions



There are also a large number of gubernatorial races to be decided. A number of deeply unpopular Governors from the 2010 elections are up for re-election and face uphill battles. Pennsylvania and Florida in particular are probably going to change hands, with Maine, Ohio, and Michigan also entirely possible. Scott Walker is somehow favored in Wisconsin, because cheese clogs your brain, apparently.

The Demographics

As we're all fairly familiar with at this point the GOP is largely made up of white people (especially men) who skew older. While Democrats are younger and more diverse. Historically speaking, the poor, minorities, and the youth vote turn out less frequently in midterm elections, which is another hurdle for the Democrats to overcome. There have been some signs that the Democratic Party has started to realize this and is focusing more of their energy on get out the vote operations than they have in past years, but personally I believe that pans out when I see it.

The Money
Holy hell is there a lot of it. The Koch Brothers alone spent $400 million on the 2012 election, and so far this year it appears they're planning on spending about that on the midterms. My state's been bombarded with ads for months, and we're a pretty solidly Democratic place, in terms of federal elections. Granted that Carl Levin is retiring, so it's an open seat, but still. And every time a group I don't recognize runs an ad I go find the board of directors and they're all Koch employees. A total coincidence, I'm sure.


Races to Watch
Kentucky Senate - Mitch McConnell vs. Allison Lundergen Grimes (probably). The Minority Leader is facing a primary challenge, but the dude is very good at political infighting and will almost certainly come through that to face the popular Secretary of State. Current polling has this race pretty much dead even, which it has been for several months.

Alaska/Arkansas/Louisiana Senate - Three Democrats in Republican states running in favor of the ACA, with particular focus on the Medicaid expansion. Begich in particular is interesting to watch, with his additional campaign to expand social security. Could be a populist model for the Dems to build on in the future if it's successful.

Florida Governor - Because watching Lex Luthor lose should be fun, even if it is to Charlie Crist.

Georgia Senate - The Democrats are nominating a legacy, Michelle Nunn (daughter of former Senator Sam Nunn), while the GOP is... well here. There's a lot of um, interesting characters in that field. With the way Georgia is trending, demographically (younger, more metropolitan in Atlanta, and with a sizable proportion of minorities) this could be an interesting fight. Polling has this about even as well, though Nunn has led more than she's been behind in the polls I've seen. That probably changes when the GOP selects a candidate, but they're all capable of Todd Akin-ing it.

Probably a bunch of others, but let's go with those for now.

PantsB

It should be noted that while I like Nate Silver's overall methodology, his initial Senate rankings are more guesswork than normal.

In contrast to the forecasts we’ll begin issuing sometime this summer, which are strictly algorithmic based on our senate forecast model, these are done by hand. However, they’re based on an assessment of the same basic factors our algorithm uses:

In the past these have been pessimistic for Democrats for the Senate. He has predicted Republican takeovers of the Senate in 2 out of the last 3 cycles initially IIANM

For example he gives Mark Pryor a 30% chance of retaining his seat. Two polls have subsequently put him up 1 and 10 (RV)

enlightenedbum

Oh I agree, but tried to keep that only sort of hilariously biased. Except against Walker and Scott, because fuck those guys.

Doodmann

With the exit of Waxman I actually have something to pay attention to/participate in. I'm kind of excited!

enlightenedbum

Doodmann wrote: »

With the exit of Waxman I actually have something to pay attention to/participate in. I'm kind of excited!

Do not vote for horrible person Matt Miller

The Ender

I sort of wonder if the ACA might have a positive impact for Democrat candidates this year.


Probably not.

And I'd never argue against Mr. Silver. Enjoy your senate sweep, Republicans.

AresProphet

Here's the thing about ACA support in the South: voters in southern Democratic districts have tilted toward favoring repeal of the ACA

Curious about what might account for this movement, I asked Erica Seifert, who directed the survey for Democracy Corps, if she could look into the cross tabs a little deeper and explain what was going on. What she found is interesting. Southerners—no big shock here—are not fans of Obamacare. But opinion toward the law in Southern districts represented by Republicans has not changed. What accounts for the shift toward repeal, Seifert said, are attitudes in Southern districts represented by Democrats. “All of the shift against implementation is in the Democratic districts,” she said. “In the GOP districts, it’s stagnant.”

this bodes poorly for Democratic Congressional incumbents in the south.

More cynically, it seems that peak derp amongst rural GOP voters might be starting to subside, and primaries might stop getting more batshit crazy. which will, if nothing else, wind down a source of amusement.

fortis

Kasich's already started running TV ads here in Ohio, which (re?)introduce himself via his life story. Not sure how common that is, but his favorables don't look particularly great against a candidate whom is a large unknown outside of Cleveland. He's been trying to mold himself as the compassionate conservative by expanding Medicaid and putting more money into drug addiction and mental health programs, although it remains to be seen if that'll stick. He obviously never mentions Medicaid being a part of Obamacare and tries to avoid actually saying Medicaid for fear of alienating the Tea Party. JobsOhio was his big initiative to bring companies to the state, but mostly it's talked about as being very secretive with it's books, being that it's a private non-profit that's funded with state liquor bonds. There have also been a couple of times where they've given out a million plus to companies to build new headquarters and those companies have gone on to actually lay off workers and scale back their plans.

I guess what I'm trying to say is, despite the horribly gerrymandered legislature, it's going to be a very close race. Kasich didn't even get 50% in 2010, and that was when the economy was completely tanked. Since then, his resume isn't particularly good with a lot of Ohioans still unemployed and unhappy.

Rchanen

The Ender wrote: »

I sort of wonder if the ACA might have a positive impact for Democrat candidates this year.


Probably not.

And I'd never argue against Mr. Silver. Enjoy your senate sweep, Republicans.

It is a little too early to worry yet. The nicest thing about Nate is that he is willing to modify that prediction as new evidence/polls come in. Its his initial prediction, but not his final prediction.

The initial factors do not look good for Dems. But we will see how things go as time goes by.

Doodmann

enlightenedbum wrote: »

Doodmann wrote: »

With the exit of Waxman I actually have something to pay attention to/participate in. I'm kind of excited!

Do not vote for horrible person Matt Miller

Interesting, I was actually interested in him since he's mostly running on an education platform (which as I'm writing that I'm realizing is stupid on a congressional level). Fuck. Time to find a new candidate.

Mill

Yeah, House isn't looking promising. In addition to the BS gerrymandering, there is also the issue where a bunch of GOP seats aren't being contested by the democrats. So even if someone could organize and rally a large enough block to beat the republican running in a district, there aren't any good choices.

This is the issue I'm currently facing with the district I live in (VA-7). We had someone run against Can'tor in 2012 on the democratic ticket, but the guy saying he'd do it this time, failed to turn in the registration paperwork (though I'm hearing that is just as well because he leaves much to be desired and would have been wasting money).

So that left me in the awkward position of seeing if there were any third parties that might be worth a damn. Unsurprisingly, we have our rightwing parties, which probably are worse than Can'tor, though these days, it might not be by much. The only one that might be worth considering is Independent Green, but I'm disappointed with the amount of info they are providing and I'm little concerned reading up on how the party came into existence. What little info I do have looks promising, I can agree with their stances, but I'd like to see their stances on issues beyond alternative energy and light rail. IIRC the candidate they are putting up against Can'tor is Joseph Oddo, but again, I'm not seeing much info on the guy. Interesting enough, wiki seems to take people to a facebook page for Joe Oddo and not the Joseph Oddo fb page that is relevant (pretty sure someone was just lazy).

My normal stance is that in most places, if you have a democrat on the ticket and can't support the GOP period. Then you're better off voting democrat because even if they aren't leftist enough, they usually have a better shot at beating the republican and are better than the republican for a progressive (even if it's marginal). I do get there are some places, where the third party vote isn't helping the republican because the republican doesn't have a fucking chance in hell of winning. That said, if there is no democrat on the ticket, I don't mind looking into progressive third parties and possibly finding ways to point others in my district towards their stuff because even if they don't win, if that results in the republican winning by a smaller margin. Then maybe the dems will get someone on the ticket next time around or the republican will beh hahahaahahaha . . . who am I kidding, most of the elected republicans won't do anything to not be as bad as they are and will probably think they aren't being conservative enough.

Anyways, VA-10 might be a fun race to watch on the House side of things. IIRC the dems might have a shot at picking it up; especially, now that the GOP has gone full derp in their primary. Comstock isn't a moderate, despite why she and GOP want to claim and she had to compete with Bob Marshall in the primary, to see who was the most derpy one in the field. The democrats on the other hand, got their shit together, opted for a quick convention, so that they wouldn't tear each other down or waste a bunch of money because they knew they were likely facing Comstock and that oligarchs like the DoucheKoch Brothers would be backing her with money.

Also glad to see that some are learning the lesson that McAuliffe learned with ACA. Yeah, the dude isn't the best democrat, but he did prove that the ACA could be used to win an election against a republican that tries to use opposition against it as a "IWIN" card.

Roz

Rchanen wrote: »

The Ender wrote: »

I sort of wonder if the ACA might have a positive impact for Democrat candidates this year.


Probably not.

And I'd never argue against Mr. Silver. Enjoy your senate sweep, Republicans.

It is a little too early to worry yet. The nicest thing about Nate is that he is willing to modify that prediction as new evidence/polls come in. Its his initial prediction, but not his final prediction.

The initial factors do not look good for Dems. But we will see how things go as time goes by.

Well, we knew that, and the general contours of the races haven't been altered substantially. I am really interested to see how the ACA plays for Dems, and whether the debt ceiling votes (or lack of votes) will be ammunition by challengers.

Chanus

It's interesting to me that a lot of the predictions being thrown around (I don't know enough about Silver's, specifically) seem to rely on looking at trends of past elections in similar situations, and totally disregard the dramatic demographic shift going on in the country right now.

Like, just because the party that isn't of the President tends to win in 6th-year elections may not mean as much compared to the Republican's rapidly shrinking base.

I'm not saying that means the Democrats are going to take the House. That's pretty much impossible because they lost in 2010.

I just don't know how convinced I am that losing control of the Senate is a foregone conclusion.

AManFromEarth

I am not convinced Rick Scott is going to lose, even if the polls do have him ten points behind.

Six months is plenty of time for people to remember why they hate Charlie.

The Ender

Chanus wrote: »

It's interesting to me that a lot of the predictions being thrown around (I don't know enough about Silver's, specifically) seem to rely on looking at trends of past elections in similar situations, and totally disregard the dramatic demographic shift going on in the country right now.

Like, just because the party that isn't of the President tends to win in 6th-year elections may not mean as much compared to the Republican's rapidly shrinking base.

I'm not saying that means the Democrats are going to take the House. That's pretty much impossible because they lost in 2010.

I just don't know how convinced I am that losing control of the Senate is a foregone conclusion.

Well, past elections + polling are the best predictors (or have shown themselves to be the best predictors we currently know of) for upcoming elections. Sometimes a wild card event comes up and impacts the outlook, but not very often.


Republicans have traditionally mopped the floor in the mid terms. That's just how it goes. It could be that things like the ACA and demographic swings will buck this trend, but... probably not.

Krieghund

AManFromEarth wrote: »

I am not convinced Rick Scott is going to lose, even if the polls do have him ten points behind.

Six months is plenty of time for people to remember why they hate Charlie.

Course, every Dem I know hates Scott insanely more than they hate Crist. So who do you hate less, I guess?

enlightenedbum

this bodes poorly for Democratic Congressional incumbents in the south.

Are there any outside of majority-minority districts anymore?

Kaputa

It seems inevitable that Susan Collins will be reelected here in Maine. Her campaign is making a lot of noise about getting endorsed by the various workers' unions of Bath Iron Works, who regard her as more likely to vote in favor of higher military spending than her Democratic opponent, Shenna Bellows. It's unfortunate, because Bellows is pretty much my ideal Democratic candidate

edit - in terms of stated positions anyway

Drakeon

AManFromEarth wrote: »

I am not convinced Rick Scott is going to lose, even if the polls do have him ten points behind.

Six months is plenty of time for people to remember why they hate Charlie.

I was under the impression that Crist left office relatively well liked. Maybe not beloved, but not hated either. Is that not the case?

Captain Marcus

I liked Crist, if he had stayed in office he would have bought the rest of the Everglades sugar land. Scott plans to sell off land in conservation areas.

The reason I think Crist might not win is I haven't seen a single ad for him outside of emails, and I signed up for those.

Mill

We're on the first day of May, many primaries are schedules for I think early and mid-June. So it's not terribly surprising that there aren't many ads out, so I wouldn't be too worried about that. Hell, we're like six months out from elections, which is fucking eternity for modern politics.

The Ender

...Does anyone know where I can go to see an up to date map of ACA enrollment on a state by state basis?

MKR

Georgia has a Dr. Rad running for the Senate.

enlightenedbum

http://kff.org/health-reform/state-indicator/state-marketplace-statistics/

Not a map, but Kaiser's info is pretty good, most of the time.

Mild Confusion

There was an interesting piece on Maddow the other night in how a procedural time line means that the legalization of marihuana will be on Alaska's ballot this year, potentially increasing voter turnout.

I'm not sure of the odds there, but it's an interesting development.

Phillishere

My understanding is that mj is de facto decriminalized in Alaska right now.

TheCanMan

Mild Confusion wrote: »

There was an interesting piece on Maddow the other night in how a procedural time line means that the legalization of marihuana will be on Alaska's ballot this year, potentially increasing voter turnout.

I'm not sure of the odds there, but it's an interesting development.

This came up in the War on Voting thread, so I went and dug up the Maddow segment in question. In short, since Alaska is so freaking huge, their legislative session is really short. Even with one final all-night session they couldn't get to pot legalization or raising the minimum wage. So both of them will be on the mid-term ballot.

Veevee

Phillishere wrote: »

My understanding is that mj is de facto decriminalized in Alaska right now.

Having watched a lot of Alaska state troopers, this isn't true.

AngelHedgie

WaPo's Greg Sargent discusses how Reid is using Senate votes to build the 2014 campaign :

So Senate Republicans just successfully filibustered the Dem push for a minimum wage hike to $10.10 per hour, blocking it from even proceeding to debate. Every Senate Republican except for Bob Corker voted No, and every Dem except for Mark Pryor voted Yes…

… [E]very red state Dem — aside from Mark Pryor — voted Yes, despite predictions of possible defections. Dems are united behind the idea that the push for a minimum wage hike is a political plus in red states. And even Pryor is today circulating an op ed he wrote for Arkansas papers in which he called for a hike in the state minimum wage and excoriated opponent Tom Cotton for opposing it.

Dems see the minimum wage hike as not just good politics for swing voters in general, but also specifically in appealing to women. It is central in the push to win over downscale women in the Kentucky Senate race. Incumbent Senator Mitch McConnell, of course, is the leader of the Senate GOP that just refused to allow the issue to be debated, and Alison Lundergan Grimes’ campaign is out with a web video hitting him over today’s vote. And more broadly, the minimum wage hike, when packaged with other proposals such as pay equity, is about appealing to unmarried women, a crucial Dem constituency that tends to fall off in midterms…

This is what Harry Reid’s vow to use Senate votes to create a campaign blueprint looks like in practice. This notion has been greeted with a great deal of cynicism about how Dems know none of these things can pass and therefore are engaging in empty election year messaging votes. But in an election year, it’s good to have the two parties’ priorities set forth with as much clarity as possible. And that’s what we’re now getting.

Mill

Irony is that the people complaining about those votes being politics, are the very people that are A-OK with the like 55 different House votes to repeal ACA, that weren't going to fucking do anything.

Reid is adding in quite a bit of variety and giving people a better idea where the various Senators stand on various issues. IMO that's how things should be done, nothing wrong with doing a vote on something that won't pass, just so you can have a record; however, only have enough votes to get a record. So probably beyond three votes in a session, is a huge fucking waste of time; especially, when one is probably sufficient in most cases.

Fakefaux

This is extremely concerning.

A new national poll of America’s 18- to 29- year-olds by Harvard’s Institute of Politics (IOP), located at the John F. Kennedy School of Government, finds low expected participation for the midterm elections as less than one-in-four (23%) young Americans say they will “definitely be voting” in November, a sharp drop of 11 percentage points from five months ago (34%). Among the most likely voters, the poll also finds traditional Republican constituencies showing more enthusiasm than Democratic ones for participating in the upcoming midterms, with 44 percent of 2012 Mitt Romney voters saying they will definitely be voting – a statistically significant difference compared to the 35 percent of 2012 Barack Obama voters saying the same.

Doodmann

So if matt miller is my turd sandwich whose the douche in this contest @enlightenedbum?

enlightenedbum

I just know Matt Miller is an asshole, there are lots of other candidates! Try to find one who is actually a liberal, considering the district. Or at the very least, is actually a Democrat.

enlightenedbum

Fakefaux wrote: »

This is extremely concerning.

A new national poll of America’s 18- to 29- year-olds by Harvard’s Institute of Politics (IOP), located at the John F. Kennedy School of Government, finds low expected participation for the midterm elections as less than one-in-four (23%) young Americans say they will “definitely be voting” in November, a sharp drop of 11 percentage points from five months ago (34%). Among the most likely voters, the poll also finds traditional Republican constituencies showing more enthusiasm than Democratic ones for participating in the upcoming midterms, with 44 percent of 2012 Mitt Romney voters saying they will definitely be voting – a statistically significant difference compared to the 35 percent of 2012 Barack Obama voters saying the same.

By concerning you mean a historical expectation? I mean, yes, it's concerning, but also everyone could have predicted. Frankly, the five months ago number is a crazy historical outlier.

Chanus

enlightenedbum wrote: »

Fakefaux wrote: »

This is extremely concerning.

A new national poll of America’s 18- to 29- year-olds by Harvard’s Institute of Politics (IOP), located at the John F. Kennedy School of Government, finds low expected participation for the midterm elections as less than one-in-four (23%) young Americans say they will “definitely be voting” in November, a sharp drop of 11 percentage points from five months ago (34%). Among the most likely voters, the poll also finds traditional Republican constituencies showing more enthusiasm than Democratic ones for participating in the upcoming midterms, with 44 percent of 2012 Mitt Romney voters saying they will definitely be voting – a statistically significant difference compared to the 35 percent of 2012 Barack Obama voters saying the same.

By concerning you mean a historical expectation? I mean, yes, it's concerning, but also everyone could have predicted. Frankly, the five months ago number is a crazy historical outlier.

How do these numbers compare to normal midterm turnout? 35% seems frankly high for Obama supporters.

enlightenedbum

Chanus wrote: »

enlightenedbum wrote: »

Fakefaux wrote: »

This is extremely concerning.

A new national poll of America’s 18- to 29- year-olds by Harvard’s Institute of Politics (IOP), located at the John F. Kennedy School of Government, finds low expected participation for the midterm elections as less than one-in-four (23%) young Americans say they will “definitely be voting” in November, a sharp drop of 11 percentage points from five months ago (34%). Among the most likely voters, the poll also finds traditional Republican constituencies showing more enthusiasm than Democratic ones for participating in the upcoming midterms, with 44 percent of 2012 Mitt Romney voters saying they will definitely be voting – a statistically significant difference compared to the 35 percent of 2012 Barack Obama voters saying the same.

By concerning you mean a historical expectation? I mean, yes, it's concerning, but also everyone could have predicted. Frankly, the five months ago number is a crazy historical outlier.

How do these numbers compare to normal midterm turnout? 35% seems frankly high for Obama supporters.

Depending who you ask young voters are 20% or high 20s.

Minority turnout (pdf, page 6) is a little better, especially black turnout (44%) which is close to white turnout (49%). Hispanic and Asian not so much though, at least in 2010 (both 31%). But basically if you work out the minority turnout numbers you get what the Harvard poll finds. Politics: still surprisingly static.

joshofalltrades

I'm... cautiously pessimistic about the midterm elections.

I want to be jazzed and excited but every bit of evidence is pointing at things not going the Democrats' way. I will still vote, and I hope I'm wrong, but at best I see some deck chairs getting moved around and the Democrats losing some (hopefully not critical) seats. So, status quo at best.

At worst, the Republicans will eke out a victory in the Senate and Obama will just have to sit on his hands for 2 years. I hate that idea, there's shit that needs doing, and the Senate is the only reason shit didn't get really crazy during the last shutdown (as much as I am loathe to admit to the Senate doing much of anything proactive).

It just sucks that everything is so skewed towards the right. Democrats have to work twice as hard just to be on equal footing.

enlightenedbum

And without the Senate can't confirm people. I tend towards thinking the Democrats keep the Senate, if just barely.

Chanus

Ironically that's from not voting in midterm elections.

Hedgethorn

At least as things seem to me on the ground, the fact that Scott Walker is favored here in Wisconsin is due to two factors:

(1) The recall election poisoned the well for Democrats with many independent / right-leaning voters. A number of people I've talked to who were sort of on the fence about Walker rallied behind him due to the perception that recalls should be reserved for cases of egregious abuse of power. (And in the eyes of the general public, Wisconsin Democrats never successfully made the argument that the union-busting was an egregious abuse of power, as opposed to just an unpopular way of cutting state spending.) For well-known sociological/psychological reasons, once these voters rallied to him in 2010, a lot of these people have been fairly strong Walker supporters ever since.

(2) The Democratic contender here is rather invisible. Mary Burke is a fine candidate, but so far her campaign has seemed largely nonexistent.

nexuscrawler

Mill wrote: »

Irony is that the people complaining about those votes being politics, are the very people that are A-OK with the like 55 different House votes to repeal ACA, that weren't going to fucking do anything.

Reid is adding in quite a bit of variety and giving people a better idea where the various Senators stand on various issues. IMO that's how things should be done, nothing wrong with doing a vote on something that won't pass, just so you can have a record; however, only have enough votes to get a record. So probably beyond three votes in a session, is a huge fucking waste of time; especially, when one is probably sufficient in most cases.

Reid's next one should be forcing the Senate to vote on the Ryan budget