No doubt kaylasdad99 will be along presently to thank you for those exceedingly kind words.
But in the meantime:
Picture Desperate Donnie agreeing to some false-flag operation that he believes is the ONLY way to get out of his mountain of troubles–some of which threaten to actually impoverish him as well as put him in jail after his term is over.*
So he agrees to this operation that will kill a lot of Americans. And his agreement–making it clear he knows exactly what will happen–is taped. Film and sound. No way it could be faked–multiple recordings from several angles and vantage points, and witnesses.
Say this happens before the midterms, on dates early enough to allow someone else to run for a vacated seat.
Would a lot of GOP senators decide that the better part of valor would be to stop being part of Trump’s party? Would they decide to regroup, form a new party—Conservatives for Decency, maybe—and just sit out the term? Maybe their GOP governors would play along, and have some seat-warmer take over for a year only, so that the formerly-GOP senators could be reappointed by their governors when the seat-warmers declare they must resign early.
There would be an incoming flood of former-GOP, now-CFD-party Senators. They would be in a good position to deal with traitor Trump, while still advancing their conservative agenda.
I’m not saying this will happen.
I’m just saying that, knowing Trump, does anyone believe it’s impossible?
Who voted for three independent senators? I don’t see who did in a cursory scan of your compiled results. I did place any independents with the Dems though.
I am wondering whether I added things up right though for the House projections. Before I went and looked at polls and projections, I thought the GOP would lose the House. 227 looks a lot better than I would have guessed, and I wonder if I screwed up assessing Florida’s elections, as well as some other toss-ups. OTOH, I live in TX district 7, which realclearpolitics lists as a toss-up, and I just can’t see that happening. So who knows?
I voted three percent independent in the national vote because, historically, that’s how it’s shaken out if Wiki is to be believed. There’s always about 3-5 percent of people voting for someone other than the Repub/Dem candidate:
Percentage of popular vote, House of Representatives Elections
Current aggregate Trump approval and congressional generic is moving away from the Republican Party.
Trump is underwater now by 14%. This is up from 12.5% on March 23.
Congressional Generic is underwater for the Republicans by 8.6%. This is up from 5.5% on March 24.
Two questions, then.
What accounts for the two to three week shift?
Does it change your prediction for the contest? There’s a lot of baseball still to play, here. It’s a long way to November, but every day the polls look bad is one day closer to E-day.
Return to baselines. The atypical bit was the blip two three weeks ago. Trump underwater 14, or more more often than not, and the Congressional Generic running D+ 8 to 9 has been pretty much the long term center of gravity.
Hence it does not change my predictions at all. The big question remains which of the Congressional Generic or the Special Election numbers (averaging D+17) will be the better predictor. I’ve split the difference with a D+12 and see no reason yet to change that wild assed guess.
Separate question - how would the contest rule Collins (or more long shot, Murkowski) winning as an R and then, before the Congress takes session, in what would otherwise be a 50/50 Senate switching parties, either completely or by becoming I and caucusing with Ds?
Neither Collins nor Murkowski has their term expiring. The question still arises — they can switch whenever they want — but these ladies are not the breath of sanity some like to pretend. Most (R) Senators vote 99% Trumpist; these ladies vote 98.5%. The confused idea that there’s some sensible wing of the GOP not beyond salvage is an idea that even well-informed conservatives are trying to stamp out.
Those betting that the Senate will become (D) after this election will probably be wrong. Of 9 (R) seats up for election, in only 2 or 3 (AZ, NV, maybe TN) will (D) have a good chance; (R) has an excellent chance in at least five (FL,IN,MO,ND,WV) of the 26 (D) seats up for election, and a fair chance for upset in another 4 (MT,OH,WI, and MN-Franken’s seat).
IOW, the D’s must win all 11 out of 11 close races to win the Senate. (Or 11 out of 12 if Tennessee is in play.)
Is there any chance that his not running helps the R side?
Sure it puts WI-1 even more in play, but nationally Ryan is no more loved than is Pelosi and represents the dysfunction of the House perhaps even more. Lamb’s tactic in PA was to turn the attempt to tie him to Pelosi back and tied Saccone to Ryan. One suspects that others in similar sorts of districts were planning to try the same approach. Ryan stepping down removes that play.
**septimus/B] good points all. I’m at Senate 49D myself. I’ll be happy to lose to someone predicting 51 though!
I think people expected Ryan to run, win, and then resign. The fact that he’s bailing will, I think, be a big knock to R morale. It feels symbolic when the leaders walk away, even if it’s really just a single seat that’s in play.
Now they have another Speakership fight before the midterms, between the same factions as after Boehner left. Those factions may figure it out, but there’s no reason to expect that it will be without political bloodshed.
Mmm. I don’t think they’ll have this fight before the midterms. Unless I missed something, Ryan’s staying in place until his term expires. He’s savvy enough to get people to hold off any internecine fight until it can’t impact the midterms.
Plus, doing it beforehand could poison the well. Imagine a fight for the speakership that ends in, say, September. The new guy comes in and might immediately lose the majority? Come Jan 2, 2019, the D’s would be putting someone else in his shiny new office. Were I an R representative with ambitions, no way I’d want that problem.
Do I think Ryan’s announcement is bad for the R midterms? Sure, but I also think it’s a marginal bad. It won’t be a game changer. It just shows a bit of weakness to the public for the R majority - though not a lot - and it gives the R’s one more race to play defense on. That’s not fun, but it’s a problem that can be dealt with.
I think it’s more a symptom than a cause for R losses. The effect IMO will be just one more congressional district in play without the GOP advantage of name recognition, and they will need all the name recognition they can get to counteract the 10% or more nationwide swing that is upcoming. I suspect the swing will be more like 5% or so than the 15% or so seen in the special elections once you factor in said name recognition, an evening out of voter participation, and the fact that the incumbent has already been vetted by the district as being acceptable and so is less likely to be seen as a bad fit for that district.But this is likely to be enough to swing the House especially if it is closer to 10% than 5%. I doubt that unless something major changes that the nationwide swing will be less than 5%, but I don’t want to hold myself to anything yet.
I came to a similar conclusion, though my numbers were that the Dems would have to win 12 of 13 races rather than 11 of 12. Personally (as my prediction shows), I expect the Dems to lose a couple of seats in the Senate.