Of course if there’s a total sweep by your party you’ll be happy, but that’s not what I’m going for here. What’s the minimum result where you’d think, “Okay, we did all right, had a good night.”
I don’t have much of a stake in the Presidential race, but I do care a lot about Congress and governors’ races. If the GOP ends up keeping the Senate, losing less than 10 seats in the House, and gains a governor, ya gotta admit, that’s not a bad day for Republicans, at all, given what they were up against. From Trump, to defending 24 of the 34 Senate seats, that would actually be a great night all things considered.
President and Senate as D wins would make me content, and meet my expectations from a while back. President but not Senate would make me somewhat disappointed.
As long as a single Republican wins any election anywhere I will not be satisfied. Marginally acceptable progress would be winning the Senate, acceptable progress means adding the House as well.
You’ll be quite unsatisfied then because all the tea leaves point to if not a hugely successful night for the GOP, at least a better night than four years ago. Of course, it’s also still possible that the GOP has a worse night than 2012, but that’s only about a 20% chance at this point.
Predictwise shows a 68% chance of Democratic control of the Senate. That’s all we can realistically hope for — A Pelosi Speakership is less likely than a Trump Presidency.
I’d love for 50 Senators to stand up and override the filibuster rule so Ms. Clinton will be allowed to appoint a Cabinet and judges but I don’t expect that to happen. Instead the partisan shrillness will get even worse; but utter deadlock is still much better than letting a Trump or Pence have their short fingers on the nuclear button.
A decisive result in the presidential election, so that no matter which way it goes, Trump doesn’t have a leg to stand on to contest it <-- that’s what’ll be the minimum acceptable.
Reasonably better would be D control of Senate and President and a large gain on the number of House seats.
Thanks for a thread that reflects exactly what I was just thinking about. And my answer takes a somewhat different tack than expressed so far.
I want a result whereby the grave risk to my good neighbors south of me is eliminated once and for all, because once the Orange Doofus loses and Republicans, breathing a sigh of relief, start repudiating him, and some serious analysis gets underway about how the US dodged a bullet, I think that may be the last we see of him in politics. I want to never, ever again have to put up with seeing him bloviating his despicable lies and utter bullshit in any serious context, or have to hear that whiny voice ever again, or ever again see that pie-hole in his face that bears such a startling resemblance to a baboon’s asshole.
That said, it would be nice to have a Senate makeup that allows Hillary to nominate a decent Supreme Court Justice – and hopefully more than one down the road – without major political obstructionism.
Absolute bare minimum: Clinton winning the Presidency.
Acceptable: Clinton wins by enough that no one swing state flipping would change the outcome. The Senate shifts to the Democrats, and the Democrats gain seats in the House.
Great: Clinton curbstomps Trump with 400 EVs, at least two of Georgia, Arizona, Texas, and Alaska go blue, we get a slight majority in the House, and Trump takes third place in Utah (it matters little to me whether it’s Clinton or McMullin who ends up on top)
First Trump must not be president and second I’d like the Libertarians to clear the 5% threshold so they can run a more serious canidate next time and get some support federally.
You’re more optimistic than I am. That would be the last we see of Trump in politics, but it wouldn’t end what Trump represents. When Bush the Younger crashed the economy[sup]*[/sup], we thought Republicans would learn from it. When McCain chose Sarah Palin as his running mate and then lost, we thought Republicans would learn from it. When Romney lost and the post-election analysis looked at the reasons why, we thought Republicans would learn from it. Whatever they learned, it caused them to nominate Trump. Do you really think they’d learn anything useful from a Trump loss?
An oversimplification, but it did happen on Bush’s watch and after a period of largely Republican policies
