Who do you think will do well in the debate tonight (8/6/15)?

Politics & Elections
381

They don’t. It’s quite simple: your party’s voters come out in both midterms and presidential years, while our party’s voters tend to take the midterms off. So when you look at these demographic breakdowns, you’re not seeing the same group of people alternate between voting more Republican and voting more Democratic. (Edited to add: you seem to have some understanding of this in subsequent posts, which makes it strange that you framed it as though the same voters are voting differently in midterms.)

Voter turnout in…

2008: 61.6% (highest since 1968)
2010: 40.9%
2012: 58.2% (still plenty high, despite your claim about the “last three elections”)
2014: 36.4% (lowest since 1942)

(Source: TIME magazine)

And yes, it’s frustrating that we can’t get our people out when there’s not a president on the ballot. It’s especially damaging in the Senate, where each seat alternates between midterm and presidential cycles (which, combined with your structural advantage in the sparsely populated Western states, makes it all the more amazing that we held the Senate for a good portion of the past decade).

But at least I actually understand what’s going on, instead of repeatedly thinking the public at large is shifting to my side as most of your base did in 2010 and 2014. But that’s good: conservatives learning the wrong lessons from every midterm makes our job easier. And our folks will be back next year, you can count on it (and then, alas, gone again in 2018…rinse, repeat).

With this kind of dynamic, what we as a party have to do is get the occasional “surge” as in the first two years of Clinton and first two years of Obama (with the help, hopefully, of a change in rules to eliminate the cloture rule in the Senate), pass a bunch of stuff during that time, and then after those two years, fight a holding action until our next shot comes around. And this, while not ideal, will slowly ratchet up progressive government as you guys are unlikely to get enough of your own “surge” to actually repeal anything (not to mention the fact that it’s always harder to undo programs once people get comfortable sucking on the teat of government, LOL).

Keep dreaming. From a November 2012 Politico article, emphases mine:

This was such a cherished belief you clung to, I *almost *feel bad for dashing your hopes. Almost. :stuck_out_tongue:

382

If you read more than that statement, my reasoning about Perry comes earlier. I just wasn’t prepared to call Perry as first until a little later.

But it’s funny that we’ve moved from making fun of my predictions to explaining why I’m still bad at it even though I’ve gotten more right than anyone else here ever since I came back from my hiatus.

383

Nothing wrong with that. Means that we gained among millenials without them just staying home.

384

The GOP won the MD Gov election last year basically due to a stealth campaign on a bogus issue: the ‘rain tax.’ Like the ‘death tax,’ it was a renaming of a tax (the runoff tax, designed to disincentivize excessive paving resulting in heavy runoff that dumps shit in the Chesapeake Bay) to make it seem like it applied to everyone when it only applied to a few.

As politics, it was doubly brilliant because a ‘rain tax’ sure sounds like a really stupid tax, doesn’t it?

But the thing is, wins based on plays like that aren’t replicable, because they’re not based on what the parties are actually for and against. You can steal the occasional election based on made-up bullshit, but it’s not going to be a successful approach in the longer term.

385

That’s what I tried to say about bursting into tears for Clinton, but there are people who still think she can win NH again.

386

Oh yeah, and one of the two I got wrong in 2014? Predicting Democrat Charlie Crist would beat Rick Scott. Wishful thinking, indeed. I didn’t know the running joke was so important to you guys that you’d be so desperate to rationalize a way to keep it.

387

Bzzzt, still wrong. Looks like you didn’t click my Politico link. The lede in that article:

Those voters will be back, along with another four years’ worth of kids who were in high school last time, bolstered by a complement of millions of naturalized immigrants who have become citizens over the past few years. And we’re not just talking Latinos: Republicans’ xenophobic tendencies have, awesomely, radically repulsed Asian-Americans, the country’s most rapidly growing ethnic group. A paltry 32% of Asian-Americans supported Bill Clinton in 1992, but 20 years later 73% voted to reelect Obama in the last election.

Meanwhile, four years’ worth of your voters will have died off.

Our voters are a sleeping giant that you can tiptoe past in midterms, but who reliably wakes up, bigger and stronger, every presidential year. (Another prediction: Democratic House candidates will get more votes in 2016 than Republican ones, although you guys will still keep the House thanks to the way the districts are drawn.) Whistle past that graveyard at your own peril.

388

I’m not the one assuming that people will just vote based on their identity in a never changing way. My guys are fighting for every vote. Your’ guys are just assuming you’ll get certain votes and not get other votes because science or something.

389

Because you guys reliably repel them, and my guys do a good job getting them out in presidential years. But go ahead and keep on hoping 2016 is going to magically be different from all the other presidential elections in the past thirty years (yes, you won in 1988 and 2004, and “won” in 2000, but if the demographics are adjusted for what we have now, those all become losses). We’ll see how that works out for ya. :wink:

390

In Presidential years. Your best case scenario isn’t all that rosy, is it? So you get to keep the Presidency, and we continue to take one step back in Presidential years, then two steps forward in midterm years, until we have our 38 state governments and 67 Senate seats and however many House seats it takes to make a President irrelevant. Figure we can get that done by 2024.

391

Right. And by 2040, Republicans will control 125% of the House and Senate, and 59 state governments. Because that’s how trends work.

392

I’m not that ambitious.:slight_smile:

But we’re not too far off. The 2018 map looks absolutely miserable for Democrats. 10 seats at risk in states where the Republicans have taken midterm seats in either 2010 or 2014. If we have a decent 2016, we can be between 62-64 seats heading into 2019.

393

As mentioned above, people don’t vote more Republican in midterms, more Republicans vote in midterms. This has been especially true in 2010 and 2012, as thoughout the red states you heard “Tarnation, Billy Joe Jim Bob! There’s still a black guy in the White House!”. Stirred up by horror stories about Obamacare, Sharia law, and hordes of Mexicans streaming across the border to take their guns, these voters came out to vote against Obama, even though his name wasn’t on the ballot. From noon till six across the nation, Hate Radio stirs the embers of white resentment and great herds of Republican dinosaurs dutifully march to the polls to vote against their economic self interest. But the great asteroid is coming and its effects are even now starting to be felt. The nation is becoming more urban every year, reducing the Republican edge even in red states slowly but surely. The nation is getting younger, and each election is the last for many more Republican voters than Democratic ones. The nation is getting less white and more diverse. Homosexuality is becoming less of a stigma every year. Despite the best efforts of Fox and Hate Radio, people just aren’t as afraid of others as they used to be. The last refuge of the dinosaurs, the gerrymander, will itself become threatened as the 2020 census will be in a presidential election year, unlike the 2010 census. Should the Republicans lose the 2016 race because “they weren’t conservative enough”, they could go full batshit in 2020, nominating a simp like Cruz, with predictable disastrous results. You can deny the slow death of the dinosaurs, but it’s just whistling past the graveyard.

394

Yes, but this has nothing to do with demographics. It’s not that young people and minorities vote less in midterms, it’s that DEMOCRATIC young people and minorities vote less in midterms. And old white Democrats as well, of course.

In 2016, we find out if that’s actually a midterm problem, or an Obama problem. We didn’t see such huge discrepancies in turnout under GWB or Clinton. I suspect they are just a part of the Obama coalition. A once in a generation candidate brings out one-time voters. They won’t be there when he’s not at the top of the ticket.

I seem to recall not too long ago that the elderly voted Democrat. Things change. Your side is taking voters for granted, so obsessed with charts and data and diagrams that they’ve forgotten that you win elections by asking people for their votes. Nate Silver’s analysis is awesome, but it’s not the complete story. If it was, Nate Silver would never have had a career as a political pundit. He’d be a major league baseball manager or GM guiding his team to their 10th straight championship.

395

You’re close, but not quite there. There’s a reason it was a problem for Obama and not Chimpy or Clinton. Hint- what is the most obvious difference between Obama and the others? Think it might have something to do with the number of people turning out to vote against his party?

396

I don’t think Republican turnout increased. Democratic turnout just went up more in general elections when Obama was on the ballot, and dropped more precipitously when he wasn’t.

If anything, Republican turnout was a little disappointing in both 2008 and 2012, possibly due to Republican dissatisfaction with McCain and Romney. That’s less likely to be a problem in 2016 as well.

In 2016, the GOP has a few things going in its favor:

  1. No Obama on the ticket= the voters who only vote for Obama stay home
  2. It’s really hard to succeed a two term incumbent even when the incumbent is popular. Obama does not suffer from excessive popularity.
  3. The GOP candidate is likely to be more exciting to Republican voters, which should push Republican turnout higher, at least to GWB 2004 levels.
  4. Both of the plausible nominees for the Democrats have extremely serious baggage. Clinton is perceived as dishonest a time when voters say that honesty is the most important attribute in a candidate, and Sanders is too far left to win unless the Republicans respond with someone far enough right to neutralize that problem. Joe Biden will probably sell better in the current environment.
397

I agree with adaher’s analysis here. Dems can’t simply rely on demographics to win.
People who are not really “into” politics, but still vote in Presidential elections, tend to vote for the candidate they find most “likable” regardless of Party. If there isn’t a black or Hispanic name on the ballot, don’t expect huge turnout from those respective constituencies. Don’t know if Hillary would have enough sway with women voters…

398

You don’t need a black or Hispanic on the ballot to get their votes. These voters need only look to the open hostility and contempt shown to them by the GOP to keep marking those Ds on the ballot. Hillary will benefit from the Republican war on women and will be competitive in many otherwise red states because of it.

399

Statistically, once people start voting they keep voting, in general (at least in Presidential elections). We’ll see, but I think it’s very likely that the Obama coalition will have pretty good turnout in '16 (maybe not as high as '08 or '12, but it won’t need to be quite that high to win for the Democrats).

400

No he isn’t. I’m surprised you don’t know that. :wink:

Seriously though, are you already counting your Bernie Sanders NH 2016 prediction as a a correct prediction? That seems mildly premature as a few precincts still haven’t reported results yet.