Election 2018 Open Thread - Part 1

[Former Dean Phillips Supporters for Haley (I guess???!?) 👁️]

LOL @ tossup Nevada and tossup New Jersey

[Former Dean Phillips Supporters for Haley (I guess???!?) 👁️]

F*** that. Democrats have to get over trying to win Miss Congeniality or be happy with the silver medal. Go for the win. This is why people have trouble taking the Democratic party seriously.

Democrats need to understand that it is perfectly okay to adopt Vince Lombardi's motto that winning isn't the most important thing, it's the only thing! And yet at the same time not be some date raping Joc from like for example grab a 15 year-old girl in a party cover her mouth keep her against her will while squee turns Up the Volume so others can't hear her struggling.

I mean, Dems won the national popular vote by something like 10 points, right? What do you want? How much do Dems have to win by and still lose for you to stop blaming voters for voting for Dems and start blaming the system for not reflecting the will of the voters?

If Dems won by 15 and lost seats in the Senate, would you blame the voters for not voting strongly enough Dem?

If Dems won by 20?

Should Dems need to win by 25?

What would be the appropriate threshold?

[Former Dean Phillips Supporters for Haley (I guess???!?) 👁️]

And remember without the Senate the GOP owns the courts--unlikely as it was I would've taken it over the House which doesn't stop Trump's long term damage.

Rs do own the courts for the moment, yes. But this result just makes it all the more inevitable that by the time Ds finally do win back the Senate (which could well take a decade or possibly even more), there will be Court packing and fundamental reform of judicial nominating process in a way that is more legitimate and democratically representative of the people's votes.

But it's a self-perpetuating cycle! The court will viciously and ruthlessly exploit every chance of voter suppression through Republican favorable rulings on gerrymandering, voter ID laws, limitation of voting times and places, any and all other administrative measures to interfere with voter registration in Broward County, etc etc etc.

People complained about democracy being broken since the 60s. However, we have never been in such a. Since the Civil War were an extremist minority has crammed its views down the majority of Americans throats.

It is a problem, to be sure, but Dems also made a lot of gains to help offset this sort of thing. In the case of FL, the outcome is hardly ideal (FL is definitely the #1 low point for Dems), but nonetheless the felon anti-disenfranchisement amendment passed.

There is still the redistricting constitutional amendments in FL as well, though of course they probably won't be enforced as well as we would like, they probably also won't be at least entirely ignored either. And in various other states such as MI, WI, and probably VA (NY? NC?), redistricting will also be better.

I do agree with you very much that these things are problems, but they are less of a problem now than they were yesterday.

[Former Dean Phillips Supporters for Haley (I guess???!?) 👁️]

F*** that. Democrats have to get over trying to win Miss Congeniality or be happy with the silver medal. Go for the win. This is why people have trouble taking the Democratic party seriously.

Democrats need to understand that it is perfectly okay to adopt Vince Lombardi's motto that winning isn't the most important thing, it's the only thing! And yet at the same time not be some date raping Joc from like for example grab a 15 year-old girl in a party cover her mouth keep her against her will while squee turns Up the Volume so others can't hear her struggling.

I mean, Dems won the national popular vote by something like 10 points, right? What do you want? How much do Dems have to win by and still lose for you to stop blaming voters for voting for Dems and start blaming the system for not reflecting the will of the voters?

If Dems won by 15 and lost seats in the Senate, would you blame the voters for not voting strongly enough Dem?

If Dems won by 20?

Should Dems need to win by 25?

What would be the appropriate threshold?

Dems should never have failed to take back the senate in 2016 in the first place. That whole election was unforgivable as we're still paying for it.

2016 was not the voter's fault either. It was the electoral system's fault.

The voters voted for Democrats in 2016 just as they voted for Democrats in 2018 (although they voted more for Dems in 2018 than 2016).

Dems won more votes in the Senate in 2016. Dems won more votes for the Presidency also.

If America had a legitimate representative democratic Goverment, Dems would have won in 2016. Just like Dems would have won the Senate elections in 2018 if the U.S. Senate were a legitimate institution worthy of our respect.

And despite lack of a legitimate representative democratic government in the House (gerrymandering), Dems nonetheless won the House.

Don't blame the voters for not being represented by the system. Blame the system for not representing the voters.

[Former Dean Phillips Supporters for Haley (I guess???!?) 👁️]

Posters have not come to terms with how undemocratic the senate is.

Yeah, it will take some time for people to come to terms with it. In a way, given that Dems lost a good # of seats, it almost would have been better if Dems had also lost WV (and MT assuming Tester pulls it out). That would make no immediate difference in terms of policy, since nothing will get passed anyway, but might quicken the process of people realizing that something has to change in the Senate.

I am not happy about the Dem Senate losses, but I do hope that it helps to clarify the problem to more people. To anyone who is still not clear on it, just consider that WV, for example, is certainly going to be lost in 2024 regardless of whether Manchin is still around or not. AL will likewise basically for sure be lost in 2020, unless maybe Rs make a really huge own goal.

And Dems are not going to ever compete for Senate seats in states like TN etc again any time in the reasonable future. So any thoughts about "Dems can still win Senate seats in deep red states" should not be thrown out the window. It is never going to happen

[Former Dean Phillips Supporters for Haley (I guess???!?) 👁️]

Absolutely. Thanks to Hillary Clinton. Dems should have won FL, WI, PA, NC, IN & MO. All 6 were winnable. If atleast 3 or 4 would have been won, then maybe their would be a Dem Senate & no Kavanaugh, no Tax cuts for Billionaires.

2016 was unforgivable !

I didn't vote for Hillary Clinton either (in the Dem primary), but the voters did. Both in the primary and the general election (and I voted for her in that). And likewise the voters voted for Democrats to control the Senate in 2016.

So don't blame the voters for the failures of the American electoral system, it is not their fault.

[Former Dean Phillips Supporters for Haley (I guess???!?) 👁️]

Holy crap, the Texas gerrymander almost collapsed.

I haven't looked at the state legislative results, but given the Congressional and Senate results I am sure there must be some shocking GOP losses and surprising close calls all over the TX megacities.

[Former Dean Phillips Supporters for Haley (I guess???!?) 👁️]

Haha, Hurd and Curbelo going down is satisfying at least. All the pundits acted like those were Safe R seats because of #candidatequality

And Shalala would lose because #CandidateQualityMatters.

It was closer than it shouldn't be, but yeah, the results tonight should pretty clearly indicate to everyone that incumbency and candidate quality are increasingly less and less important. Anyone who wants to emphasize those things over fundamentals and the national environment needs to re-think.

[Former Dean Phillips Supporters for Haley (I guess???!?) 👁️]

Will Hurd's loss means that the NYT Poll was a crap.

They can't poll Hispanics. That hardly makes them unique though, basically nobody can actually poll Hispanics. Similar problem to Nevada polling.

[Former Dean Phillips Supporters for Haley (I guess???!?) 👁️]

It would be more fair if Puerto Rico, DC, Samoa, the Virgin Islands, and the Marianas (Guam + Northern Marianas) were states...

Yep. I don't think that is the absolute ideal solution - there are other things that would be better in principle. But these are the sorts of ideas that are going to increasingly enter the national conversation. And they are increasingly going to be the #1 goal of Dems, simply because Dems cannot ever do anything else unless and until the issue of the lack of representative democracy in the USA is addressed.

[Former Dean Phillips Supporters for Haley (I guess???!?) 👁️]

Dems need to get Bullock to run for the Senate & need to recruit a strong candidate for the House. Montana looks promising !

LMAO at anyone who thinks that "candidate quality" is the issue, even after tonight.

The problem has very little to do with Democrats having or not having "strong candidates."

The magical fairy candidate Bullock is not going to save you. The problem is the fundamental institutional structure of the Senate and the system by which it is elected.

The problem is not that Heitkamp, Donnelly, McCaskill, and Nelson (presumably Nelson, though I guess there is a recount for FL) were "weak candidates." The problem is that voters vote largely irrespective of "candidate strength." They vote on the basis of partisan polarization.

I guess it really would have been better for Tester and Manchin to lose, since you and apparently at least some others still have not gotten it through your head that Dems cannot rely on winning ridiculously deep Red states in the Senate.

[Former Dean Phillips Supporters for Haley (I guess???!?) 👁️]

No use cribbing Dakotas having 4 seats vs 2 for Cal !

There is very much use cribbing about the Dakotas having 4 seats vs 2 for CA, if you want to ever accomplish anything else whatsoever.

If you don't fix that issue, you will never do anything else.

The first step to solving any problem is to correctly identify what the problem is. The problem is fundamental and is precisely that the Dakotas have 4 seats vs 2 for CA.

In the United States Senate, each person in Wyoming is 69 times more important than each person in California.

[Former Dean Phillips Supporters for Haley (I guess???!?) 👁️]

There's no way it would get the requisite 2/3 in both houses and 3/4 of the states, but it would be nice to strip the Senate of its power and make it more of an advisory body like the Lords in the UK.

There are ways to get around that if you really want to. When push comes to shove, the Constitution can be amended with an effective simple majority vote via temporarily admitted new fake states (rotten borough states) in order to increase the # of votes that you have. And there are probably various other ways to accomplish the same thing, which I haven't thought of but that might be more artful.

[Former Dean Phillips Supporters for Haley (I guess???!?) 👁️]

There's no way it would get the requisite 2/3 in both houses and 3/4 of the states, but it would be nice to strip the Senate of its power and make it more of an advisory body like the Lords in the UK.

There are ways to get around that if you really want to. When push comes to shove, the Constitution can be amended with an effective simple majority vote via temporarily admitted new fake states (rotten borough states) in order to increase the # of votes that you have. And there are probably various other ways to accomplish the same thing, which I haven't thought of but that might be more artful.

Wouldn't we then need a majority in the Senate to get these temporary states admitted? Quite frankly, I do not see that happening any time soon...no way Democrats are picking up 5 seats in 2020. 2-3 was possible, 5? No way.

In the end, I'd be on board so long as California (a state that would be temporarily split up, I'm sure) is guaranteed to be reunified once the scheme is over.

Yes. Converting America into a representative democracy is a long term multi-year project. It is unlikely to happen by 2020. It could take a decade or potentially more. But it is a prerequisite for achieving any other policy goals that you may have. The sooner we realize the problem and get started towards fixing it, the sooner we can move on to other more important substantive issues.

[Former Dean Phillips Supporters for Haley (I guess???!?) 👁️]

NM-02 seems to be narrowing. Maybe Xochitl has a chance to win there still.

[Former Dean Phillips Supporters for Haley (I guess???!?) 👁️]

Arizona going to be called soon despite a razor thin margin

What part of "there are 100k+ ballots that they announced BEFORE the election they would not count until more than a week had passed" is not clear?

[Former Dean Phillips Supporters for Haley (I guess???!?) 👁️]

C'mon Florida, come through for Dems for once.

Let there be just one year when you go Dem by .01%, rather than going R by .01%.

[Former Dean Phillips Supporters for Haley (I guess???!?) 👁️]

https://twitter.com/ncarper/status/1060614489773666305

[Former Dean Phillips Supporters for Haley (I guess???!?) 👁️]

I'm not sure if NYT is actively updating their forecast, but 229 seats for the Democrats seems way too conservative at this point. They currently have 225 secured, and NJ-03, CA-25, UT-04, NY-22, and CA-48 are quite likely to flip (NYT has all of the Democrats leading but none declared the victors). That's already 230, and that's not to mention the strong possibility that some combination of CA-10, CA-39, CA-45, and/or even GA-07 or TX-27 flip.

They stopped updating their forecast at 2 p.m. yesterday.

The best up to date vote count is probably this from Cook Political Report:

https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1WxDaxD5az6kdOjJncmGph37z0BPNhV1fNAH_g7IkpC0/edit#gid=0

[Former Dean Phillips Supporters for Haley (I guess???!?) 👁️]

https://twitter.com/mcimaps/status/1060642052646625281

[Former Dean Phillips Supporters for Haley (I guess???!?) 👁️]

I keep hearing the name "Debbie Wasserman-Schultz" coming up in this discussion, so I blame her for all of this.

[Former Dean Phillips Supporters for Haley (I guess???!?) 👁️]

SINEMA!!!!!!!

QUEEN SINEMA!!!!!!!



!!!!!!!

[Former Dean Phillips Supporters for Haley (I guess???!?) 👁️]

If Regardless of whether Sinema wins this thing, Dems need to contest AZ for real in 2020.

See edits above.

Remember that AZ (like TX) is one of those states where it is generally tougher for Dems in midterms because the Dem base skews young and non-white.

So other things equal it should be easier to win AZ in a Presidential race than in a midterm Senate race.

[Former Dean Phillips Supporters for Haley (I guess???!?) 👁️]

So assuming Sinema holds on, the Senate will end up R+1 or R+2 depending on Florida (which I refuse to make any predictions on at this point).  I expect that most Democrats would have taken that along with D+~35 in the House if it was offered to them a week ago!

[Former Dean Phillips Supporters for Haley (I guess???!?) 👁️]

https://twitter.com/troykinsey/status/1060688002442293249?s=21

Dang, that's a huge discrepancy between Gillum and Nelson.  A couple months ago, we thought that Gillum would have been Nelson's political savior.

Even if Gillum loses and Nelson wins, Gillum increasing African American turnout could well have pushed Nelson over the finish line.