Sabato Initial Senate Rankings

[Since I'm the mad scientist proclaimed by myself]

I get a funny feeling that Alabama could become another Coakly.

[Since I'm the mad scientist proclaimed by myself]

I get a funny feeling that Alabama could become another Coakly.

And let me guess: Republicans will lose the Senate.

Suspicion of corruption in a nasty atmosphere for your party is quite a powerful force. It got a republican elected in Massachusetts 8 years ago(and Illinois as well).

Plus, the idea that the senate is safe R in the years of trump, a likely disasterous repeal of the Affordable Care Act, etc is is a laughable fantasy.

[Since I'm the mad scientist proclaimed by myself]

I get a funny feeling that Alabama could become another Coakly.

And let me guess: Republicans will lose the Senate.

Suspicion of corruption in a nasty atmosphere for your party is quite a powerful force. It got a republican elected in Massachusetts 8 years ago(and Illinois as well).

Plus, the idea that the senate is safe R in the years of trump, a likely disasterous repeal of the Affordable Care Act, etc is is a laughable fantasy.

The only way the senate flips is if we get a couple of out-of-class deaths/retirements in a competitive-enough states, or if democrats somehow hold all their seats and sweep AZ/NV/UT. Both are possible, but both are highly unlikely to occur. And AL-S is Safe R. It is held during the regular midterms (Coakley/Brown was held in the middle of January), and Luther Strange is not a clone of Alexi Giannoulas.

Races aren't independent of each other. If the democrats do well in North Dakota, they aren't going to randomly get blanched in Ohio. I'm skeptical that being in a special election really hurt Coakley in a way that a midterm wouldn't, considering that the amount of votes cast in the special senate election was pretty similar to the amount of ballots cast in the Gubernatorial election 10 months later on the date of the 2010 midterms. Strange's appointment is in rather suspicious circumstances(he was investigating Alabama's governor for something, and made noises about not refusing a senate seat if offered, knowing that if he vacated his attorneyship the governor he was investigating would get to appoint his new investigator. I kind of doubt that TX(Ted Cruz strikes me as an easy target for an anti-trump backlash voter) is as safe as you claim, considering that trump being in the low thirties to mid twenties on election night is entirely possible at this point.

[Since I'm the mad scientist proclaimed by myself]

New England is flexible enough to cross the aisle because they all think the Republican is a total hottie or whatever. Deep South? Less so.

Also the Scott Brown election was explicitly a special election at an unorthodox time, so was susceptible to be a bit weird. The Alabamama special election will be with all the other midterms, so will probably obey "normal" rules.

The special election thing probably didn't affect it, considering that the vote total for it was very close to the vote total for governor later that year. We also haven't seen the post-Obama south, or how trump will impact it, and don't know if the Obama backlash is going to continue to hurt democrats down there. I think an anti-trump backlash could very well be stronger in the south then elsewhere, it has many of the kind of tuned out working poor(if they're lucky enough to be able to find a job) whites that probably aren't quite as safe R as people think. The more visible culture warriors aren't the only kind of republican white in the deep south, and while on a subconscious level racial resentment plauges all of them(more accurately, pretty much all whites in general except for the occasional kid who grew up in a heavily minority community. I find it happen in my own subconscious, and I doubt most of you are much better. The key is to recognize that you have such biases), it isn't strong enough to overcome the class based idea's that drive their votes more. Which drive them republican ATM, but what if a rich billionaire plutocrat with a ridiculously corrupt administration filled with random rich people who supported him was busy stealing from taxpayers shamelessly, taking away their own healthcare by repealing the democrats healthcare bill, and devastating the country with stupid policy after stupid policy?

[Since I'm the mad scientist proclaimed by myself]

New England is flexible enough to cross the aisle because they all think the Republican is a total hottie or whatever. Deep South? Less so.

Also the Scott Brown election was explicitly a special election at an unorthodox time, so was susceptible to be a bit weird. The Alabamama special election will be with all the other midterms, so will probably obey "normal" rules.

The special election thing probably didn't affect it, considering that the vote total for it was very close to the vote total for governor later that year. We also haven't seen the post-Obama south, or how trump will impact it, and don't know if the Obama backlash is going to continue to hurt democrats down there. I think an anti-trump backlash could very well be stronger in the south then elsewhere, it has many of the kind of tuned out working poor(if they're lucky enough to be able to find a job) whites that probably aren't quite as safe R as people think. The more visible culture warriors aren't the only kind of republican white in the deep south, and while on a subconscious level racial resentment plauges all of them(more accurately, pretty much all whites in general except for the occasional kid who grew up in a heavily minority community. I find it happen in my own subconscious, and I doubt most of you are much better. The key is to recognize that you have such biases), it isn't strong enough to overcome the class based idea's that drive their votes more. Which drive them republican ATM, but what if a rich billionaire plutocrat with a ridiculously corrupt administration filled with random rich people who supported him was busy stealing from taxpayers shamelessly, taking away their own healthcare by repealing the democrats healthcare bill, and devastating the country with stupid policy after stupid policy?

Lol. This was a sober post.