Look at state boundaries. States are obviously not gerrymandered; their boundaries were made long before the current political climate.
The Democrats are more highly concentrated in highly populated states and the Republicans are more disperse.
Look at This chart showing the popular vote shift by state for the 2012 and 2016 elections
Look at the very Democratic states. There’s a lot of population there. Look at the very Republican states. There’s not a lot of population there. Look at the slightly Republican states. There’s a lot of population there. Look at the slightly Democratic states. There’s not a lot of population there.
Look, you view the Bengazhi and Email thing as partisan hackery, do you not? I’m just saying I think it would be tactically smarter to wait on Mueller’s report (which shouldn’t be long now), before going full bore investigation mode against Trump. Maybe he’ll do their job for them.
Half the voters in this country are women. Something a lot of conservative men seem to ignore.
In exit polls, women voted 59% for Democrats and 40% for Republicans. That’s a significant shift; in the midterm elections of 2010 and 2014, women split pretty much equally on party lines.
Mueller’s job is very limited in scope. His mission is purely to find out crimes that he can prove beyond a reasonable doubt in a court of law.
Congress’s job is much broader than that. There are legitimate reasons, besides partisan hackery, for Congress to investigate Russian interference in the election. For example, they may find it wise to draft legislation to combat further interference. Personally I’d prefer an independent commission, like the 9/11 Commission, to thoroughly investigate and issue recommendations for lawmakers. I have doubts that that the Republicans in the Senate would pass it, or that Trump would sign it. In the absence of that, the Democrats in Congress should do their own investigation.
Dave Wasserman is the House editor of Cook’s political report, which has handicapped elections for decades. He’s calling it a wave: In 2006/2010, the party “riding the wave” won an average of 57% of Toss Ups, 19% of opposite Leans, & 9% of opposite Likely races per @CookPolitical ratings. In 2018, Dems won/are leading in 57% of Toss Ups, 7% of Lean R races & 3% of Likely races. In the House, this was a wave. https://twitter.com/Redistrict/status/1060584485408923648 We’ll see if it holds up. In terms of the OP, this looks like less than a big wave and more than a small wave. IOW: a wave.
Independent investigation and oversight, which used to bipartisan responsibility, is the only responsible course of action. As for tactics, the Dems don’t take over until January.
I don’t see a conflict (there are many potential areas of wrongdoing outside the scope of Mueller’s probe), but I don’t have a problem with this if the Mueller report comes soon. And if it does, it’s likely to reveal things that Congress ought to further investigate. And if Mueller is fired, then of course the House should find out why, and find out what Mueller’s investigation learned.
Not necessarily. Kavanaugh was replacing Kennedy, a centrist, and so his appointment wasn’t that great a shift in the court’s balance. If Ginsburg (a far-lefty) departs and her Trump-nominated appointee is a far-right judge, there will be an even more intense firestorm. It would represent a massive shift in the court’s balance, one that pro-choicers Collins and Murkowski might oppose.
The newly expanded Senate majority would allow McConnell and Co. to ram such a judge through no matter what Collins and Murkowski might say or do.
Good map here from the NY Times, using arrows to show which parts of the US shifted toward the Democrats and which toward the Republicans, and by how much:
It confirms what I’d noticed on Election Night – that the Great Plains was where much of the larger shifts toward Democrats occurred.
Tues night maybe it looked like a small wave, but right now it looks like a very solid wave, with at least a 35 seat gain likely. If they win the AZ and FL recounts, then I’d definitely call it a big wave.
There are a few oddities in that map, though. My district in Wisconsin is shown as shifting FAR to the right – yet my rep Ron Kind, a Democrat, won easily (again). Huh?
Turns out he was unopposed two years ago. There’s probably a few such situations sprinkles across that map.
I think that those who thought this was trickle or small wave were a bit premature what with Sinema leading, and maybe even Nelson prevailing in recount, plus house seats left over continue to flip seats to Dems to where 35 to 38 seat win is very possible, clearly this was a big wave election.
37 seats is the average loss of an incumbent president’s party in a first mid-term in the modern era. That’s pretty skewed by some very big and very small numbers mucking up the average, so perhaps it isn’t worth much. But +37 House, +7 governor seats and -2 Senate( a likely outcome )is a good night. Nobody( on the left )should be depressed about it.
But a BIG wave would have been +50-60 House, +8 or more governor seats and 0 to +2 Senate - basically the far end of the 80% confidence margin on 538 curve. This ain’t that, IMHO.
Let’s review what’s happened over the past few days:
Democrats won a huge victory in the House. Even with all the gerrymandering and voter suppression that Republicans put in place, they won by a popular margin of 7-8 percent. When all the counting is done, they will probably have won about 35 new seats and Nancy Pelosi will be Speaker of the House. This ends Trump’s legislative agenda for good.
Trump immediately responded by holding an obviously unhinged press conference in which his nervousness and fear were plain to see. …
Overall, Republican flipped seats in North Dakota, Indiana, and Missouri. Democrats have flipped a seat in Nevada and are quite possibly going to flip a seat in Arizona. In Florida, they may well prevent Republicans from flipping another seat. Altogether, if the best case works out for Democrats, they will lose only a net of one seat, leading to a 52-48 Senate. That’s not much. It makes Mitch McConnell’s job easier, but it also means that Democrats have an excellent chance of winning back the Senate in 2020, when Republicans have 21 senators to protect while Democrats have only 14—all but one of whom is pretty unbeatable. Republicans, by contrast probably have 5 or 6 vulnerable seats. …
Altogether, the Democrats won a big victory in the House, suffered a small loss in the Senate, and won a big victory in the states. They also seem to be doing very well in court cases around the country, and public opinion is very much on their side. Meanwhile, Trump’s ability to win races is getting weaker, but Republicans are stuck with him anyway. More about that in the previous post I wrote this morning.
