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2014 Midterm Elections: Aftermath/Recounts
enlightenedbum
Registered User regular
Registered User regular
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.
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.
The idea that your vote is a moral statement about you or who you vote for is some backwards ass libertarian nonsense. Your vote is about society. Vote to protect the vulnerable.
enlightenedbum on
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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)
QEDMF xbl: PantsB G+
Do not vote for horrible person Matt Miller
Probably not.
And I'd never argue against Mr. Silver. Enjoy your senate sweep, Republicans.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
Six months is plenty of time for people to remember why they hate Charlie.
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.
Course, every Dem I know hates Scott insanely more than they hate Crist. So who do you hate less, I guess?
Are there any outside of majority-minority districts anymore?
edit - in terms of stated positions anyway
I was under the impression that Crist left office relatively well liked. Maybe not beloved, but not hated either. Is that not the case?
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.
Not a map, but Kaiser's info is pretty good, most of the time.
I'm not sure of the odds there, but it's an interesting development.
Battlenet ID: MildC#11186 - If I'm in the game, send me an invite at anytime and I'll play.
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.
Having watched a lot of Alaska state troopers, this isn't true.
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.
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.
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.
(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.
Reid's next one should be forcing the Senate to vote on the Ryan budget