Good attitude. Up 10 and 12 is not nearly enough. Keep fighting back.
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Washington Post Poll: Dems up 10 nationally, 12 in battleground states.
- Thread starter VectorPrime
- Start date
Good attitude. Up 10 and 12 is not nearly enough. Keep fighting back.
There will be an attempt, but it probably won't be successful. The public can be ignorant on many topics, but it understands what the last two years being R/R/R means if the economy goes south.
I think people are so traumatized by what happened in 2016 they will refuse to believe it until after election night. As long as people get out there and vote, I guess it doesn't matter if they want to be negative. Personally I love seeing these numbers, it's looking historic.
Man, y'all are always ready to take a positive and turn it into a negative, huh.
"People will see this and stay home."
Nah, there's two facts to keep in mind here.
1. 95% of voters neither see nor care about polls.
2. Voter enthusiasm numbers heavily favor Democrats. Consistently.
Lighten up a bit, for Christ's sake! Focus on getting as many people out to vote as possible. Hell, volunteer with Indivisible or Swing Left if you're that worried.
"People will see this and stay home."
Nah, there's two facts to keep in mind here.
1. 95% of voters neither see nor care about polls.
2. Voter enthusiasm numbers heavily favor Democrats. Consistently.
Lighten up a bit, for Christ's sake! Focus on getting as many people out to vote as possible. Hell, volunteer with Indivisible or Swing Left if you're that worried.
I hope what everyone's saying is true and the margins are too high to be ignored. Then again Hillary was up very high in some of the polls the week before. Never take anything for granted,
It wasn't just 4chan trolls. It was Russian botnets as well as advertisements and faked news content shared across social media platforms.
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I guess I dreamed 2006, 2008, and 2012, when Democrats likely would've reclaimed the House under the old lines.
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Polls were right in 2016. The myth of the ashamed Trump supporter was just that, a myth.
Awesome, thanks. So in terms of Florida, Bill Nelson's needed onboard to achieve a D senate majority?
https://ballotpedia.org/United_States_Senate_election_in_Florida,_2018
State polls were crap, national polls were pretty OK.
Also, nobody's embarrassed to admit voting for the dude now that he's president. Fox News has successfully normalized his every action.
House I'd peg at around 70% chance, Senate somewhere between 30-40%.
The problem with the House is that most states are so heavily gerrymandered that Democrats would need to way overperform to break even. There is a sort of natural gerrymandering effect (the cities tend to be far more Democratic than the rural areas are Republican, think of the difference between 80-20 and 60-40), but under neutral maps a D+2 result would probably be sufficient for Democrats to claim the majority. As it is, Democrats could win the popular vote by 8 points and still not win the majority, though most analysts disagree on where the turning point actually is and obviously their odds get better the bigger their lead is.
The Senate is a tougher nut to crack because there's an exceptionally narrow path to victory. We only need two seats, but because the 2000, 2006 and 2012 cycles were so good to us in Senate elections (the last time this group was up) that leaves us with very few pickup opportunities as we've nearly maxed ourselves out. Nevada and Arizona both look fairly likely to flip our way, and Tennessee looks surprisingly competitive (it's a deep red state, but the Democrat, Phil Bredesen is a beloved former governor who won every county the last time he was up, and the Republican is unpopular). But even if we win two of those states, there are five Democrats defending seats in Romney-Trump states - West Virginia, Indiana, Missouri, North Dakota, and Montana - and Florida is looking competitive. We need to win all of those and pick up two more to win.
It's doable - Jones winning in Alabama was a huge lift - but I'd say at this point winning the House is much likelier.
I like the sight of this :)
Keep up the energy Dems & Independents! (and anyone with principles really)
Every D Senate incumbent will need to survive in order to win the majority, yes. If we manage to pick up three seats (NV, AZ and TN) that gives us just enough wiggle room to lose one.
To simplify the Senate- we're likely picking up NV/AZ, but holding EVERYTHING else and/or picking up TN while losing 1 is the problem.
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https://ballotpedia.org/Elections
https://ballotpedia.org/Elections_by_state_and_year
This far out though your local issues might not be as fleshed out there as it would be in Oct or early Nov.
"I guess I just won't go vote since the GOP is winning, anyway."
the best part will be Trump losing his mind. It will be amazing. "Republicans didn't want to make America great again so the people voted them out. Sad!"
Hope it holds or grows larger.
Russia interfering in the 2016 election was a major event, but Democrats need to be weary of not putting all of their woes on Russian interference, or even thinking that Russian interference was a primary reason Trump won in 2016 -- it wasn't. A false narrative has been cast that Hillary had an insurmountable lead in the polls, and Russian interference threw that off to give Trump the victory, but that wasn't how it played out. Most of the polls were fairly accurate, with the majority falling in the 2-4% popular vote for Clinton, which the actual results were in that range within the margin of error.
The lead in 2016 for Clinton was never massive, and in the final weeks, momentum had swung away from her to Trump, as the gap narrowed every week when new polls were posted.
It's also not true that there have been "0 repercussions," for Russian interference... I think the news cycle moves so fast it's easy to miss major stories and forget about them, but in April the US passed a sweeping new round of sanctions against Russia, and prior to that the US expelled 60 Russian diplomats from the US. Expelling diplomats was immediately after Russian had poisoned those people in Britain, but the events are all related to each other.
But, to your larger question, 'what will happen,' if that event plays out -- that there's a significant lead for Democrats and they lose bad, then ... It would be much more than Russian interference at play. If Democrats lose seats in the house, no amount of foreign interference could lead to that, and it would be indicative of something else happening. If Democrats gain seats, but don't gain a majority in the House, is antoher question. Even with the 10+ favorability in polls, it's very unlikely that Democrats take the senate because the seats up for re-election in the Senate favors Republicans this time around.
But, "what will happen" if it is demonastrably proven that Russia interferes and influences the election in a major way? Probably nothing significant beyond what the US has done already... Sanctions and diplomatic expulsions where applicable.
Russia interfering in the 2016 election was a major event, but Democrats need to be weary of not putting all of their woes on Russian interference, or even thinking that Russian interference was a primary reason Trump won in 2016 -- it wasn't. A false narrative has been cast that Hillary had an insurmountable lead in the polls, and Russian interference threw that off to give Trump the victory, but that wasn't how it played out. Most of the polls were fairly accurate, with the majority falling in the 2-4% popular vote for Clinton, which the actual results were in that range within the margin of error.
The lead in 2016 for Clinton was never massive, and in the final weeks, momentum had swung away from her to Trump, as the gap narrowed every week when new polls were posted.
It's also not true that there have been "0 repercussions," for Russian interference... I think the news cycle moves so fast it's easy to miss major stories and forget about them, but in April the US passed a sweeping new round of sanctions against Russia, and prior to that the US expelled 60 Russian diplomats from the US. Expelling diplomats was immediately after Russian had poisoned those people in Britain, but the events are all related to each other.
But, to your larger question, 'what will happen,' if that event plays out -- that there's a significant lead for Democrats and they lose bad, then ... It would be much more than Russian interference at play. If Democrats lose seats in the house, no amount of foreign interference could lead to that, and it would be indicative of something else happening. If Democrats gain seats, but don't gain a majority in the House, is antoher question. Even with the 10+ favorability in polls, it's very unlikely that Democrats take the senate because the seats up for re-election in the Senate favors Republicans this time around.
But, "what will happen" if it is demonastrably proven that Russia interferes and influences the election in a major way? Probably nothing significant beyond what the US has done already... Sanctions and diplomatic expulsions where applicable.
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Dems somehow winning both houses with these maps would be *historic*.
Thanks for this tidy summary. I'm optimistic about the Senate. The electricity of regret and those who were complacent in allowing Trump into office feels like it's at a fever pitch and only climbing at this rate.
Dems need to have a huge lead because the GOP is all-in on voter suppression via any means available. They've basically maxed out what ridiculously undemocratic structural advantages (the ancient and stupid electoral college, gerrymandering, etc) can do for them, the next stage is all about disqualifying likely Dem voters any way they can.
Also, as Aaron said, the fears about gerrymandering are well-founded but are still a matter some speculation.
We've only been using these House maps since 2012. Here are the popular vote margins and seat counts for each of those elections:
2012: D+1.2, with a Democratic gain of 8 seats
2014: R+5.7, with a Democratic loss of 13 seats
2016: R+1, with a Democratic gain of 6 seats
As you can see, Democrats have only ever managed a one-point popular vote victory on these maps so far. They've never been tested by even a D+5 or 6 result, and we're likely to do better than that if the polls hold.
We've only been using these House maps since 2012. Here are the popular vote margins and seat counts for each of those elections:
2012: D+1.2, with a Democratic gain of 8 seats
2014: R+5.7, with a Democratic loss of 13 seats
2016: R+1, with a Democratic gain of 6 seats
As you can see, Democrats have only ever managed a one-point popular vote victory on these maps so far. They've never been tested by even a D+5 or 6 result, and we're likely to do better than that if the polls hold.
On top of that Republicans have a lot of bad candidates and an even more unpopular platforms they are running on. They can't even run on tax cuts because of how unpopular that was.
Don't just vote though, drag your democratic friends and family and coworkers and neighbors to vote.
Don't just vote though, drag your democratic friends and family and coworkers and neighbors to vote.
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Gerrymandering is also not some magic cheat code. It works when opposition turnout is down and you can win more areas by slimmer margins. But if opposition turnout is higher than normal the gerrymander breaks and you'll lose areas that would normally be safe in a fair map.
A double digit Dem win in November would in all likelihood break most gerrymanders and thus carry a significant majority of seats.
As a rough estimate there is a natural gerrymander that favors Republicans by 2 points on a fair map. Natural meaning the simple distribution of demographics across the country. So on a fair map Dems would need to win by 2 points to have a 50/50 shot at taking the House. Now as we all know the maps aren't fair, and nationwide they give the Republicans another 3 to 4 point advantage. So on the current maps the Dems need to win by 5 or 6 to have a 50/50 shot at the House.
But starting at 6 the odds for Dems quickly increase and winning by 8 gives about a 75/25 chance. Once you get to 10+ the chances basically become guaranteed AND the number of seats taken explode.
A double digit Dem win in November would in all likelihood break most gerrymanders and thus carry a significant majority of seats.
As a rough estimate there is a natural gerrymander that favors Republicans by 2 points on a fair map. Natural meaning the simple distribution of demographics across the country. So on a fair map Dems would need to win by 2 points to have a 50/50 shot at taking the House. Now as we all know the maps aren't fair, and nationwide they give the Republicans another 3 to 4 point advantage. So on the current maps the Dems need to win by 5 or 6 to have a 50/50 shot at the House.
But starting at 6 the odds for Dems quickly increase and winning by 8 gives about a 75/25 chance. Once you get to 10+ the chances basically become guaranteed AND the number of seats taken explode.
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It always has been to some degree but its not like the party is strongly united around a central message beyond "not Trump." The grassroots movement is damn strong right now though, and people are motivated the nation over
That's all you need in a midterm election. Let the cyclical nature of American politics do the rest of the work.
It's probably too early to tell how likely it is the Senate will flip, but it'll be a greater than zero percent chance, and the idea of it happening is amusing and terrifying. How in the world would Donald Trump react to having that much more political "obstruction?"
Things seem to point to this presidency continuing to escalate things with its dramatic narratives until the 2020 election.
Things seem to point to this presidency continuing to escalate things with its dramatic narratives until the 2020 election.
The party should get a strong platform and message together for 2020 but arguably for the midterms local people can run on local issues and be fine as long as they're mostly-unconditionally well-supported by the national party.
