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I don't think this will be like 2010 when the party in power lost the House and Senate.
Very difficult for Democrats to take the Senate, hardly any margin for error.
Why was there such a massive swing in 2010?
Was Obama the worst President of all-time in those first 2 years?
And did the polling anticipate it?
I don't think this will be like 2010 when the party in power lost the House and Senate.
Very difficult for Democrats to take the Senate, hardly any margin for error.
Why was there such a massive swing in 2010?
Was Obama the worst President of all-time in those first 2 years?
And did the polling anticipate it?
2010 we were still coming out of the recession and the economy was not improving as much as many had hoped which certainly hurt Obama especially in rural areas which were already trending Republican. His #'s weren't good, but certainly not the worst we have seen heading into a midterm.
You also had strong Democratic House gains in both 2006 (31) and 2008 (21). Anytime there is a wave election the most vulnerable seats are going to be the swing seats and the seats that lean but are not solid in one direction. Due to the gains they had in 2006 and 2008 most of the seats that could be vulnerable to a swing were held by Democrats, many of the seats the GOP picked up in 2010 were seats they previously held, but lost in 2006 or 2008
FWIW I tend to think it will be a 2006 type of swing for the Democrats (30 or so seats in the House), the Senate is much tougher due to the seats that are up this cycle.
No, point is well taken. But I explained why I don't think that is the baseline where we should be judging things from for that election. Elections are often personality driven, with people often being able to pick up support due to who they are and how comfortable voters are with them, and not because they belong to a particular party. This is something that is lost when there is no incumbent on the ballot. Take Olympia Snowe and Susan Collins in Maine, for instance. Both had histories of winning their elections in landslides as Republicans. But when Snowe retired, her seat was won pretty comfortably by an independent who caucuses with Democrats (for all intents and purposes he is a Dem for that reason). There's no reason to believe that the same result wouldn't happen if Collins retired. While not exact parallels, a similar phenomenon holds true for many a House district.
As for my belief that Handel is going to win handily, I base that off the fact that there have been no public polls released (I couldn't find any). Had there been any in favor of the Dem challenger, I'd think they'd be made public by now as a rallying cry to raise funds/get out the vote. Also, Handel has the benefit of incumbency and seems to have been fairly noncontroversial in office so far.
Note, while I'm watching the election for governor in Georgia closely, I'd be stunned if the Dem wins. Yes, both primaries were contested; though that doesn't really tell me anything. She's going about campaigning by trying to increase the "progressive" vote as opposed to reaching out to moderates. But that's a recipe for disaster in a state like Georgia.
Hillary Clinton got 1.8 million votes in Georgia.
Nathan Deal(current governor) got 1.3
there are enough base voters in Georgia to win .
Think of it this way. Doug Jones in Alabama matched Hillary Clinton's 2016 turnout.
Think of it this way. Doug Jones in Alabama matched Hillary Clinton's 2016 turnout.
There are enough base voters in Georgia. But most of these base voters are black voters in Georgia; they make up the Democrat base in Georgia by and large. Black voters don't seem to be very enthusiastic about turnout in higher numbers than usual this cycle (and we are back at the historic voting patterns for black voters with Obama off the ballot). Of course, there are only enough base voters in Georgia is conservative voters stay home; otherwise, their base voters would outnumber the base voters of the Dems in that state. But, again, unless I see signs that black voter enthusiasm is increasing, I don't see how she wins.
Also, let's keep in mind that the base of Hillary Clinton's votes in Georgia also included GOP voters disgrunteld with Donald Trump (just look at Karen Handel's district, which Trump barely won but which generally goes overwhelming to the Republican). The Georgia GOP nominee doesn't seem like someone who is turning off traditionally GOP voters from his side.
Also, Doug Jones in Alabama got a lot of Republican votes or he would have never won. So the fact that he matched Hillary in Alabama doesn't tell me much. Alabama is a state that the GOP usually wins by double digits (20%+), but a terribly flawed candidate prevented that from happening. And, let's remember, Roy Moore barely won his prior statewide elections in Alabama as conservative voters turned on him . . . even before the more troubling allegations came to light, he wasn't a well received candidate in that state.
There are enough base voters in Georgia. But most of these base voters are black voters in Georgia; they make up the Democrat base in Georgia by and large. Black voters don't seem to be very enthusiastic about turnout in higher numbers than usual this cycle (and we are back at the historic voting patterns for black voters with Obama off the ballot). Of course, there are only enough base voters in Georgia is conservative voters stay home; otherwise, their base voters would outnumber the base voters of the Dems in that state. But, again, unless I see signs that black voter enthusiasm is increasing, I don't see how she wins.
Also, let's keep in mind that the base of Hillary Clinton's votes in Georgia also included GOP voters disgrunteld with Donald Trump (just look at Karen Handel's district, which Trump barely won but which generally goes overwhelming to the Republican). The Georgia GOP nominee doesn't seem like someone who is turning off traditionally GOP voters from his side.
Also, Doug Jones in Alabama got a lot of Republican votes or he would have never won. So the fact that he matched Hillary in Alabama doesn't tell me much. Alabama is a state that the GOP usually wins by double digits (20%+), but a terribly flawed candidate prevented that from happening. And, let's remember, Roy Moore barely won his prior statewide elections in Alabama as conservative voters turned on him . . . even before the more troubling allegations came to light, he wasn't a well received candidate in that state.
Kemp is currently knee deep in a GA voter records security breach. He is on record refusing to believe that Russia influenced/hacked the 2016 election. And he refused federal help for GA to secure their voter and election database for which he was responsible for.
Since then there has been a major security breach and 6 million GA voter records have been compromised - left open for anyone to see on the web. Kemp didn't take it seriously and continued to do business with the vendor that caused the breach.
GA voters aren't happy about this. He has been nonchalant about keeping their data secure and flippant about the security breach. This is going on right now. He's calling it Fake News. He could lose the election over this issue.
when when confronted with a security disaster, [Kemp's] response was to blame managers under his supervision for their incompetence and leave the security disaster without so much as a forensic review
Well, not all of them did. This is why his margins in some traditional GOP states weren't as big as a "typical" Republican's margins would have been. Still, for many others, the choice was an easy one: two flawed candidates, but only one (in our view) that had a plan to get America back on track. And that doesn't even begin to get into Hillary's lack of morality, corruptness, etc.
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