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It's simple: House incumbents win at a rate of around 90%. Someone posted that 29 of the house flips were of districts with incumbent Republicans. If that is true, that means 11 of the flips were of open seats. Eleven seats is the difference between a below average pickup for Dems, and a 40 seat 'wave.'
Um, the point you were trying to make was that Democrats should have won random seats just because there was no incumbent regardless of the political lean of those districts.
Clearly you failed to support that claim, and even showed that Dems beat more sitting republicans, further showing the flaw in your logic.
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Looks like Dems made gains in even a lot of the red states - including Michigan, Pennsylvania, and Florida - three states absolutely critical for putting Trump in the White House.
Looks like Dems made gains in even a lot of the red states - including Michigan, Pennsylvania, and Florida - three states absolutely critical for putting Trump in the White House.
Michigan and Pennsylvania aren't red states. They have Republican legislative majorities due to partisan redistricting--and they voted Republican at the presidential level for the first time in decades in 2016--but to call them Republican states is a stretch. Florida is a more traditional Republican state, but even it swings too much (at the presidential level) to be called a red state.
Michigan and Pennsylvania aren't red states. They have Republican legislative majorities due to partisan redistricting--and they voted Republican at the presidential level for the first time in decades in 2016--but to call them Republican states is a stretch. Florida is a more traditional Republican state, but even it swings too much (at the presidential level) to be called a red state.
I think when most people mention red and blue states, they are differentiating state level and Federal level.
Florida is a red state on the local level. So is Ohio and I would even go as far as to say Michigan is too.
The Dems look like they actually flipped 41 seats. Rs performed on the low end of expectations for the Senate since the Ds held two deep red seats (Manchin and Tester) and grabbed two R ones (Heller and Flake's open seat.) Winning Florida was really the only R coup- everything else was low hanging fruit.
But if Rs want to treat 2018 a rousing validation, in the words of our 44th president 'please, proceed...' I'm sure that is just the ticket to lead you to glory in 2020. I'm sure turning Arizona, North Carolina and Georgia into true swing states is part of a genius plan toward election domination.
Right on. The only positive from the midterms if you're a Republican flipping the senate seat in FL and holding on to the governorship.
This was an excellent post. There is a good case to be made that the Democratic party severely under performed this cycle. Not only did they lose senate seats when they should have picked up, but with about 40 GOP retirements in the house, they should have picked up way more than the 30 they got. If they had picked up just half of the 40 open seats, plus the 32 seats (per the historical average, they would have had a 52 seat pickup.
Then if they had picked up 2 senate seats per historical avg, they would have had control of the senate too.
There's no way to know for sure why they underperformed, but little doubt for me that the mishandling of Kavanaugh was major.
Sure. That's one case. There's also a case to be made that the GOP has some serious work to do before the 2020 election. Re: the midterms - consider how close the election was in TX, AL, AZ and FL. Look at how hard those Republicans who prevailed had to work, and look at the nutjobs they competed against. And look at who won and lost in AZ..
John James, an African American veteran Republican who worked his ass off couldn't win in MI against an old white lady who slept in every morning of the campaign. And that bug-eyed Cortez chick won. Think about that crazy young woman who is nothing but all kinds of stupid.
Yes.........the numbers can be reviewed in the context of history, but the best that can be said is that the GOP didn't lose as badly during the mid-terms as these things usually go. We've got real problems when morons like Beto and Gillum and Sinema can win elections in strong red states given their backgrounds and the straight-up stupid crap they said during their campaigns.
It's simple: House incumbents win at a rate of around 90%. Someone posted that 29 of the house flips were of districts with incumbent Republicans. If that is true, that means 11 of the flips were of open seats. Eleven seats is the difference between a below average pickup for Dems, and a 40 seat 'wave.'
Quote:
Originally Posted by dsjj251
Um, the point you were trying to make was that Democrats should have won random seats just because there was no incumbent regardless of the political lean of those districts.
Clearly you failed to support that claim, and even showed that Dems beat more sitting republicans, further showing the flaw in your logic.
OK, I won't 'um' you back--I hate the use of 'um' and 'uh.' First of all, neither are English words. Secondly it reeks of condescension. It is sniveling, snippy snobbery.
I never said anything about 'random seats.' Please quote me the post where I did. I just pointed out that house incumbents win at a rate of 90%, so losing 40 GOP incumbents should have been a huge advantage for Democrats. This is not just something I said. Tons of professional political pundits have made the point. https://www.politico.com/story/2018/...s-house-823327
Quote:
A glut of GOP retirements has House Republicans defending a record number of open seats this fall — further fueling the odds of a Democratic takeover.
Quote:
Recent history explains why Republicans are so concerned: In the past six midterm elections, the president’s party has not retained a single open seat he failed to carry two years prior, according to an analysis by the Cook Political Report’s David Wasserman.
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