Will Republicans win a veto-proof Senate majority?

Great Debates
21

Of the 33 Senate races next year, 7 of these are rated as “5-Star” by www.dcpoliticalreport.com, 3 are rated as “4-Star”, and there are two others that I feel should be exciting. These are in:

Alaska
California
Illinois
Georgia
Kentucky
Nevada
South Carolina
Colorado
North Carolina
Pennsylvania
Florida
Washington

Of these, the Alaska seat is quasi-open (Frank Murkowski was elected Governor, and appointed his daughter), and has a strong Democratic challenger, former Governor Tony Knowles. In California, Barbara Boxer always has a strong challenge every 6 years, and, this year, the challenge is by US Treasurer Rosario Marin. In Illinois, the incumbent, Peter Fitzgerald, is retiring, and each party has a large number of candidates. In Georgia, Zell Miller is retiring, and there are 3 strong Republican candidates, but, so far, no strong Democrats. Jim Bunning was barely elected to the Senate in 1998, but, so far, there are no notable Democratic challengers. Nevada has been trending Republican, but no Republicans seem to have entered the race yet. In South Carolina, Fritz Hollings retires, leavng a four-way Republican brawl. In Colorado, Ben Nighthorse Campbell may retire, resulting in a wide-open election. It is not certain if John Edwards will run for re-election in North Carolina, and there is already a Republican challenge. In Pennsylvania, Arlen Spector’s renomination is challenged, and Congressman Joe Hoeffel is waiting in the wings for the result. It appears that Bob Graham’s retiring in Florida, and each party has several candidates. Finally, in Washington, Congressman George Neandercutter is challenging incumbent Senator Patty Murray.

My Predictions:

Probable Republican Pick-up:

Georgia
North Carolina
South Carolina

Probable Democratic Pick-up:

Alaska
Illinois

Possible Republican Pick-up:

California
Nevada
Washington

Possible Democratic Pick-up:

Kentucky
Pennsylvania

Wide-Open:

Florida

Uncertain:

Colorado
If you would like a longer explanation, please post below. Be sure to specify state.

22

Arlen Specter won’t lose. He is as close to a shoo-in as there is anywhere. And the guy running against him in the primary, Pat Toomey, has no chance, not even in good ol’ conservative Pennsylvania. His advertisments actually say that Specter sides with the Democrats too often. :eek:

23

You mean the jobless recovery? With consumer spending account for two-thirds of the economy, at some point all those unemployed folks – those in the unemployment figures and all those others who are not – will have a major negative impact on the economy. With the Republicans firmly in control of this country, all facets of an economic plunge will truely belong to them.

A Republican majority in 2004 will result in a massive Democratic landslide in 2006, providing civil unrest caused by the Republicans doesn’t tear apart this country, with a bit of help from the terrorist propoganda wing of the Republican party.

24

I think though the question is how many of those people who said they approve of Bush actually approve of him? Funnily enough Bush’s reelect numbers are probably a better indicator of his approval rating than his approval rating. Recently his reelect numbers went down to 46 and against went up to 47. Unless you want to argue that the 50+ number just means that people approve of the job Bush is doing, but want someone else.

Of course irony is a big part of the Bush administration. Every time Bush says “hey the economy is going to recover” that just makes it a little more unlikely that it will. Because the economy needs some kind of stimulus and every time Bush says that he says that he signals that he wont give it.

On another point of irony probably the best chance of getting free healthcare for everyone would be under a Bush administration. Bush shows that he is quite willing to support whatever polls well and well he doesn’t exactly have to pick and choose if he is willing to just run up a bigger deficit.

25

Now, you realize that every time I start to sympathize with liberals and their beliefs for even the briefest moment, someone comes along and posts stuff like this.

The “terrorist propaganda wing of the Republican Party”? Do you have any idea how ridiculous you sound when you say stuff like that? That “terrorist propaganda wing” was, whether you like it or not, elected by their constituents. Therefore, the conclusion can be drawn from that that the voters disagree with you. Further, since the Republicans have control of both the House and Senate, it can also be said that this is what the majority of the people in this country want.

For all of the bluster from you liberals about the will of the people being thwarted in 2000 with Bush, I don’t see any of you acknowledging that the people have definitely spoken since then in both the House and the Senate by giving the Republicans a majority in both chambers. Unless, of course, you think it’s all a big conspiracy. Which of course you do.

26

Oh, sorry. My failure to define it. With the regular terrorist warnings coming out from the government, I think Americans will become numb to any warnings unless and until it happens again.

The problem is we will never know how much terrorism is thwarted in America as a result of our government, and their warnings, and the terrorism which doesn’t exist, warnings to the contrary.

Whatever the case, Americans will eventually vote with their wallets as long as the recovery doesn’t include putting people back to work. Any terrorism in this country will be a boon for the Republicans. Hence my comment about the “terrorist propaganda wing of the Republican Party.” Terrorism is good for the Republicans.

27

OK, that makes more sense. But the main point still stands, that the voters have spoken and that’s why there’s a majority for the Republicans right now.

28

Correct. So Bush gets re-elected and the Republicans sweep both Houses. They get to do what they want. But without putting people back to work in real jobs with real money by 2006 means the Democrats will sweep both Houses, providing civil unrest caused by bad economic policies and/or another terrorist attack doesn’t tear apart this country before then.

29

So? Clinton had some of his highest approval ratings during the impeachment debacle. Does that mean that America embraces the things alleged in the Starr report?

30

You do know that the Bush re-election campaign is already gearing up to make Terrorism and the War On Terror the election topic numero uno for 2004, don’t you? And with Bush amassing a $200 million war chest, I fully expect to see this country wallowing in “terrorist propaganda” within the next 12 months.

31

The people in Texas spoke and elected a 17-D 15-R group for congressional representation. They also spoke and elected a majority of Republicans for local state offices. Republican officials are claiming the election of the congressmen was not actually the will of the people. They went to court to try to prove it. The court told them to get bent. Now the Republicans are trying to use their majority in the state legislature to re-district the state so a good number of those 17 Democrats won’t get a chance to run again for the constituents who voted them in last time.

It seems that the idea of letting the people vote for who they want and stop all the second guessing of the voters is a Republican virtue when they hold a majority and is thrown to the wayside when they don’t. Not applying this viewpoint to you in particular Airman, (for all I know you think what they’re trying to do in Texas is absolutely reprehensible and they should shut the fuck up and try to win seats the old fashioned way, with votes) just found your remark a convenient springboard to use to get this little factoid into the discussion.

Enjoy,
Steven

32

Oh, and I should mention, the Republicans pushing for re-districting in Texas believe it IS all a big conspiracy.

Enjoy,
Steven

33

Well, redistricting is done fairly often in an effort to maintain or to grab power, so it’s not a big surprise to me that they’re trying to do it.

What I would like to see, from a less biased source than the one you linked to, that a majority of people voted for Republicans in the last election. If that’s the case, then I’d say the Republicans make a pretty compelling argument. If, as you guys have been saying for three years now, every vote should count, and the will of the people should be taken into account, then it’s silly for the Democrats to control the legislature when the Republicans received a preponderance of the votes. Wouldn’t you agree?

Now, if that is not the case, and the Republicans are truly going to great lengths to thwart the will of the voters, then yes, I say screw 'em. But I’d have to see some proof one way or the other.

34

What do you think about South Dakota?

35

I was thinking about the states I already listed, but I’ll field this one.

The incumbent is Tom Daschle. South Dakota is a state that is notable for its’ tendency to elect Republican state officials and Democratic Senators. The belief is that, given the right candidate, Daschle can be defeated. There are two probable candidates: John Thune, who nearly beat Sen. Tim Johnson in 2002, and Bill Janklow, currently the Congressman-At-Large, and a former 4-term Governor.

Of these candidates, Thune’s failure to beat Johnson (who had been elected in the first place mainly because of the personal eccentricities of Republican incumbent Larry Pressler) probably hurts his chances. Janklow, on the other hand, is a highly popular figure, and has a chance to do well.
My View: If Janklow enters the race, it may be Too Close To Call, if not, it Leans in Daschle’s favor.

36

Really? It came as a hell of a suprise to most people. The fact is redistricting outside of a census year without a court mandate is almost unheard of. It has literally not been done, in any state, in modern history(since the reconstruction era, IIRC).**

No, I wouldn’t agree. There is a fundamental assumption in the arguement that voting trends in local, state, senate, governorship, presidential, et al, races means something regarding the congressional elections. The assumption is that voters don’t split tickets. I don’t buy that assumption. In fact, I find that assumption offensive. It does a great disservice to the voters to assume this kind of rigid party loyalty. It does a disservice to the individual candidates in each election and the platforms and issues they ran on. If each voter is nothing more than the “D” or “R” on their voter registration card, then why bother even having elections? Just have everyone re-register every election year, then split the representatives that way.

No, in my mind, a “D” or an “R” on a voter’s registration card is not meaningful and certainly not binding. In my mind, a voter casting a vote in a state election for a Republican has absolutely no bearing on any other election. At a very high level, abstracted away from things like individual issues, campaigns, and individual candidates, people can make statements like “Texas is 56% republican with a 47% republican represenation! There’s something wrong!” but when you drill down into the individual campaigns, the issues, and the candidates, those kinds of statements start to lose their power.

I did my own analysis of the election results from 2002, focusing on the congressional races, and the kind of distribution you’d expect in a gerrymandered situation just didn’t appear. In a gerrymandered map, the party being supressed typically wins their districts by huge landslides and the party benefitting from the gerrymandering win by small margins. There were exactly three races in 2002 where any candidate, of either party, won by less than a 10% margin. Two Democrats and one Republican won by a thin 4% margin. If the districts are gerrymandered, how is it that so few races(less than 10%) are close? Most congressmen won their elections by landslides and a fair number(5-D 4-R) were unopposed. Five Democrats were completely unopposed by Republicans, two completely unopposed by ANYONE(even those plucky libertarians)! If we take the assumption that the Democrats have the districts gerrymandered, then we would expect small margins of victory in their wins and I can see absolutely no reason for ANY of them to ever run unopposed. They’ve had to spread their voters out so thinly to preserve their bare majority in other areas that there shouldn’t be a single district where a Democrat is completely untouchable. If the Republicans are so completely convinced this is a Republican state, then why didn’t they even try to fight for those seats?
The Fairvote.org summary page for Texas(note that the page title “Dubious Democracy” is not a value judgement on this particular set of results, it is what Fairvote calls all their summary pages, no matter which state or timeframe the page is for) provides these statistics. They correlate well with my independent research into the voting results. I posted my analysis in a pit thread about the redistricting some time ago if anyone is interested.

Enjoy,
Steven