Did I say "eight is enough?" At this writing, it looks like nine Senate seats will be the basement.
Here's a comment from earlier today:
Only two races need to be watched: Mia Love in Utah, and Scott Walker in Wisconsin. All others are pendulum.Uh-oh.
If a black female Republican wins in Utah, and a Union-busting governor wins in a blue state like Wisconsin, it’s Katie bar the door for Democrat Doom.
6 comments:
Still waiting for the Debbie-bot to weigh in and explain how these election results were business as usual, and don't mean anything except to portend doom for Republicans in 2016.
It's sweet that you think of me and give me cute pet names, but your challenge is silly. It was a great night for the GOP, nearly perfect. Sifting the rubble for good news for Democrats is like counting how many punches Apollo Creed landed in his fight with Ivan Draco.
But it was also business as usual. This was the 18th midterm election since World War Two. That covers six Democratic presidents and six Republican presidents. Presidents with strong approval ratings, with awful approval ratings, and with blah approval ratings. Good economies, bad economies, wars, peace. All kinds of "playing fields" and "voter moods" and “waves” and "messages."
This is the combined total for all sitting presidents' parties across 18 midterm elections:
Seats lost: 558
Seats gained: 21
Adding nine Senate seats is very good. The 13 or 14-seat House swing is below average. Senate wins are more important.
Last night had nothing to do with laying the groundwork of doom for Republicans in 2016. The doom comes in an upcoming slate of Senate elections that's unusually brutal and one-sided. The thorough 2014 result means that when the Dems take the Senate in 2016, the Republican minority will be 2 or 3 seats more than it would have been. And of course they’ve got these two years to play with. It’s good news for the GOP.
Conservatives are correct to savor yesterday's ass-whipping. It won't happen again until 2018, assuming Clinton wins. If the Republicans reclaim the White House, then the Democrats will win the '18 midterm. That's how midterms work. It's not personal. It's "business as usual."
The elections were good for America. The GOP is now moving away from its lurch to the far right. GOP establishment money being used to squash Tea Party candidates in primaries...Paul saying the GOP's brand 'sucks' and reaching out to minorities rather than supporting Jim Crow laws...McConnell making tentative statements about working with the administration and recognizing public dissatisfaction with the status quo.
The strategy of relentless obstructionism/opposition appears to be on the wane.
Those who have invested a lot of personal energy in rationalizing the aforementioned strategy as something more than cynical politics *ahem* will probably continue to do their thing in the virtual world, but out in the real world the pendulum has reached its maximum point and will continue its swing leftward (for now).
Thank you for your opening admission. I do have one question though.
This was the 18th midterm election since World War Two. That covers six Democratic presidents and six Republican presidents. Presidents with strong approval ratings, with awful approval ratings, and with blah approval ratings. Good economies, bad economies, wars, peace. All kinds of "playing fields" and "voter moods" and “waves” and "messages."
With all that varied, cyclical history, something has to account for the fact that at this particular, singular midterm, Republicans managed to forge their largest House majority since before the Great Depression. In other words, it stands out from all their other midterm wins "since [well before] World War Two".
Why?
The simplest answer is that in a 70-year period there's going to be a Republican high point, a Republican low point, a Democratic high mark and a Democratic low mark. And each of them is probably going to come after a midterm, which on average have more dramatic shifts. (It's more common for the winning party to pick up 40+ House seats in a midterm than it is for them to get fewer than 10.) So the odds that the GOP's post-WW2 peak in the House would happen to come in 2015 are 1-in-18.
Redistricting and population shifts also play big roles. There's increasing liberal "clumping" and "wasted votes" in big cities, and ever improving computer precision in mapping 65/35-type red districts. The structural complexities of House representation have favored Republicans for more than 20 years, and the party has smartly exploited and expanded that advantage. The GOP has had a lot of trouble winning the presidential popular vote in the last 25 years, but they've been beating the Democrats' butts at playing the state legislature long game.
Although the factors you cite are influences determining which side wins a midterm, an historic blowout of this proportion cannot be attributed to a lucky roll of the dice. There has to be a galvanizing factor that is very fundamental in the minds of the voters.
I know what that factor is. The voters expressed a visceral rejection of the Democrats and how they've been behaving in recent years. Liberals will run from that truth, and that will prevent them from adapting to it. Which will continue to be good news for Republicans, if they can dare to courageously lead (they probably can't).
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