What wil the next Senate look like?

[(Still) muted by Kalwejt until March 31]

BS as covered here the dems have only 3 seats in trouble. Nelson/Brown/Manchin/Casey are not in trouble and even Baldwin who could be doesn't have a heavy opposition as the Wisconsin GOP bench isn't that strong.  Also TX is trending an Ted is not liked in an anti-Trump wave he could loss to Beto or Catsro.

Mhm.

[(Still) muted by Kalwejt until March 31]

YT's equating "Dems have few opportunities for gains and can't gain the seats needed to retake the senate" (which I agree with) with "Expect big gains for the Republicans." This is a total non-sequitur. The GOP isn't guaranteed anything in a Trump midterm when their party's President has never been popular. Dems have few opportunities for pickups, but they also have a lot of incumbents and the advantages that come with it, incumbents who were last elected in 2012 in Romney states. Hietkamp, Tester, Donnelly, Manchin, and McCaskill all won their races while on the same ticket as Mitt Romney who went on to easily win their states.  Yes, McCaskill faced a terrible opponent, as did Donnelly, but they both still got majorities, meaning that their wins cannot be solely attributed to bad opponents. Brown, Baldwin, Stabenow, Casey, and Nelson represent Obama-to-Trump states, (so they're probably more vulnerable than Tester and company) but they will be aided either by a weak GOP Bench or simply by the fact that it's going to be a Trump midterm, these states all voted for Obama, and the people most motivated to vote are going to be the ones opposed to the incumbent President.

I will eat those words if most of the aforementioned incumbents go down to defeat in 2018, but I'm confident that most will keep their jobs. One or two might fall through the cracks; maybe ND trended too far right, or maybe Donnelly was a one-trick pony, or maybe McCaskill really did only get people to vote for her instead of skipping the race because Akin was bad. But Dean Heller is much, much more vulnerable, and Jeff Flake is only strong if he survives his primary. I will not be surprised if the senate numbers are unchanged (net neutral) in 2019 from 2017, or if Pence will actually have to start casting some tiebreaking votes in 2019.

Here's a comparison, with the same Class 1, no less: in 1982, the GOP had come off of a landslide victory in 1980 (that Trump didn't have) with a charismatic president who was popular for most of his tenure and was a good communicator. (none of which applies to Trump) They only had to defend 11 seats, and the Dems had to defend 22. 22 Senate seats from mostly Reagan states, like Montana, Wisconsin, Ohio, Tennessee, and Florida. In that midterm election, Democrats walked away with a net gain of one seat while the GOP broke even. I don't expect 2018 to be any harsher on the Democrats

-Different party system.

[(Still) muted by Kalwejt until March 31]

YT's equating "Dems have few opportunities for gains and can't gain the seats needed to retake the senate" (which I agree with) with "Expect big gains for the Republicans." This is a total non-sequitur. The GOP isn't guaranteed anything in a Trump midterm when their party's President has never been popular. Dems have few opportunities for pickups, but they also have a lot of incumbents and the advantages that come with it, incumbents who were last elected in 2012 in Romney states. Hietkamp, Tester, Donnelly, Manchin, and McCaskill all won their races while on the same ticket as Mitt Romney who went on to easily win their states.  Yes, McCaskill faced a terrible opponent, as did Donnelly, but they both still got majorities, meaning that their wins cannot be solely attributed to bad opponents. Brown, Baldwin, Stabenow, Casey, and Nelson represent Obama-to-Trump states, (so they're probably more vulnerable than Tester and company) but they will be aided either by a weak GOP Bench or simply by the fact that it's going to be a Trump midterm, these states all voted for Obama, and the people most motivated to vote are going to be the ones opposed to the incumbent President.

I will eat those words if most of the aforementioned incumbents go down to defeat in 2018, but I'm confident that most will keep their jobs. One or two might fall through the cracks; maybe ND trended too far right, or maybe Donnelly was a one-trick pony, or maybe McCaskill really did only get people to vote for her instead of skipping the race because Akin was bad. But Dean Heller is much, much more vulnerable, and Jeff Flake is only strong if he survives his primary. I will not be surprised if the senate numbers are unchanged (net neutral) in 2019 from 2017, or if Pence will actually have to start casting some tiebreaking votes in 2019.

Here's a comparison, with the same Class 1, no less: in 1982, the GOP had come off of a landslide victory in 1980 (that Trump didn't have) with a charismatic president who was popular for most of his tenure and was a good communicator. (none of which applies to Trump) They only had to defend 11 seats, and the Dems had to defend 22. 22 Senate seats from mostly Reagan states, like Montana, Wisconsin, Ohio, Tennessee, and Florida. In that midterm election, Democrats walked away with a net gain of one seat while the GOP broke even. I don't expect 2018 to be any harsher on the Democrats

-Different party system.

An on schedule the "the dem party is now the party of terrorist and anti-American so they can never win again" shows up

-No. It's just that people who voted Trump are a lot less likely to vote for downballot Dems than in 1982.

[(Still) muted by Kalwejt until March 31]

Here's a comparison, with the same Class 1, no less: in 1982, the GOP had come off of a landslide victory in 1980 (that Trump didn't have) with a charismatic president who was popular for most of his tenure and was a good communicator. (none of which applies to Trump) They only had to defend 11 seats, and the Dems had to defend 22. 22 Senate seats from mostly Reagan states, like Montana, Wisconsin, Ohio, Tennessee, and Florida. In that midterm election, Democrats walked away with a net gain of one seat while the GOP broke even. I don't expect 2018 to be any harsher on the Democrats

Not to mention that in 1982, of all the Republicans who won reelection or picked up a seat, 7 races were pretty close, some very much so:

Missouri (John Danforth)   50.8% - 49.1%
Minnesota (David Durenberger)   52.6% - 46.6%
Nevada (Chic Hecht - Rep pickup)   50.1% - 47.7%
Rhode Island (John Chafee)   51.2% - 48.8%
Vermont (Robert Stafford)   50.3% - 47.2%
Virginia (Paul S. Trible Jr. - Rep pickup)   51.2% - 48.2%
Connecticut (Lowell Weicker Jr)  50.4% - 46.1%

-

@Eharding  - if you think it's impossible for Republicans to come up short in 2018 with that map, consider that Democrats won those races once before in the first place, and that a map that was supposed to be gold for Democrats last year didn't work out as well as it looked on paper. Sure, some Democrats in 2012 got real lucky, but now they have some more luck of their own by running as incumbents in a midterm of who will probably be an unpopular incumbent president. A large net gain is likely not in the cards for Republicans if what we've seen so far continues into the future.

For as bullish as people accuse us Democrats of being now, you guys sure have some hyper-optismistic views on your side, despite history showing time and again the pains an unpopular president inflicts on their party. They aren't running against an equally unpopular Clinton next time. There won't be a single target for deflection anymore.

-This entire post is projection.

[(Still) muted by Kalwejt until March 31]

Jerry, of course:

https://uselectionatlas.org/FORUM/index.php?topic=257481.msg5494116#msg5494116

[(Still) muted by Kalwejt until March 31]

-This entire post is projection.

You can call it what you want, but at least I'm going off of history and known issues with midterms and not just the idea that my candidate is the second coming of Jesus, and he'll bring unprecedented gains to his party because he's going to, uh, make America great again.

-A two-seat gain in the Senate in a midterm is not "unprecedented". What were you going off of here?
https://uselectionatlas.org/FORUM/index.php?topic=225412.msg4844270#msg4844270
Florida was known to be trending GOP since 2000 when this was written.

[(Still) muted by Kalwejt until March 31]

-A two-seat gain in the Senate in a midterm is not "unprecedented". What were you going off of here?
https://uselectionatlas.org/FORUM/index.php?topic=225412.msg4844270#msg4844270
Florida was known to be trending GOP since 2000 when this was written.

Not what I was talking about.

-But that is my prediction for now.

[(Still) muted by Kalwejt until March 31]

No one knows how 2018 will turn out in states like WI, MT or FL. I'm pretty sure that Republicans will gain seats in the Senate but lose seats in the House. However.. can I just say that Republicans actually underperformed on the Senate level both in 2010 and 2014?

2010, sure, but idk how you can really say they underperformed in 2014. Gillespie, Ernst, Tillis, Cotton, and Rounds all ran ahead of polling. And NH was always a leans D affair. No one really called it a tossup at the time. They basicaly swept all competitive races and almost brought down Warner, so no, I wouldn't really say that.

They were forced to spend millions in red states like KS, KY and GA.  On election day, they only won Senate races in the Romney states and Iowa (which is trending R anyway) and Colorado (which the Democrats threw away). They lost in VA, NH, MI, MN, IL, etc. and their margins of victory in LA, AK, CO and NC were very narrow and hardly signs of a "wave". Had the Class 3 Senators been up for reelection in 2014, Democrats probably would have gained 1-3 seats.

Not denying that it was a very good night for them, though.

-That was probably due to the good economy in 2014.