Election 2018 Open Thread - Part 1

[emailking]

Anyone else feel like we are about to see the biggest polling miss in decades? I don’t know which way it’s going to go, but one of the two sides is going to completely overwhelm the other.

I think a significant polling miss is unlikely, but if there is one I think it would be much more likely to favor the Democrats than oppose them.

[emailking]

MSNBC calls for Cruz. NOOOOOOOO!!!!

Interesting, because CNN thinks he still has a chance.

Yeah but that's probably because the people who decide these things are isolated and CNN is always more cautious with their calls. But calls are almost never wrong, even when some other networks are holding out.

[emailking]

The Democrats shouldn't consider winning the House as a consolation prize: that means the GOP can't bribe their donors with another budget-busting tax cut for the remainder of Trump's term. That has to mean something, since it's literally half of his "legacy".

No Obamacare repeal either and Trump will be stupid enough to campaign for it.

I'm glad they won't be able to ram through whatever they want, but what I'm worried about with the Senate is the Supreme Court. Even if none of the liberal judges die or have career ending health issues, with these losses it will be even harder for Dems to regain the Senate in 2020 for a possible Dem President to appoint their replacements.

[emailking]

The Senate looks terrible. Dems have literally no chance to win the Senate in 2020. 2022 with a Dem President & Dems winning 3-4 Senate seats look very hard.

All they'd have to do is win most of the ones they lost in 2014. It's not as dire as you're suggesting.

[emailking]

The real loser tonight was third party candidates. They were repudiated pretty much everywhere, even worse than in 2016. Neal Simon, Gary Johnson, Sam McCann, and Stephanie Miner were the biggest losers.

Because voters are smart and vote strategically. Other than very rare flukes, 3rd party candidates will only win if we change to a ranked voting system.

[emailking]

Democrats really messed up in the Senate this year, and it will make it extremely tough to win it in 2020. Depending on how Arizona, Montana, and Nevada break tonight you could have anywhere from 53-56 Republicans in the Senate for the next two years. The 2020 map isn't so great for Democrats either, and they will most likely lose Alabama so long as the Republicans nominate someone who wasn't dating under age girls. They'd need to pick up Arizona, Colorado, Iowa, Maine, and North Carolina in 2020 to have a chance.

All they have to do is win the seats they lost in 2014, in what will probably be a much more favorable environment to them.

[emailking]

The real loser tonight was third party candidates. They were repudiated pretty much everywhere, even worse than in 2016. Neal Simon, Gary Johnson, Sam McCann, and Stephanie Miner were the biggest losers.

Because voters are smart and vote strategically. Other than very rare flukes, 3rd party candidates will only win if we change to a ranked voting system.

I'm not talking about literally winning, they underperformed polling worse than most third party candidates. Joe Trillo gets a shoutout for this too.

I guess I don't see much difference between getting 5% and 0.5% or whatever the discrepancy was. In our system the only relevance of their numbers is the effect they have on the main race.

[emailking]

Democrats really messed up in the Senate this year, and it will make it extremely tough to win it in 2020. Depending on how Arizona, Montana, and Nevada break tonight you could have anywhere from 53-56 Republicans in the Senate for the next two years. The 2020 map isn't so great for Democrats either, and they will most likely lose Alabama so long as the Republicans nominate someone who wasn't dating under age girls. They'd need to pick up Arizona, Colorado, Iowa, Maine, and North Carolina in 2020 to have a chance.

All they have to do is win the seats they lost in 2014, in what will probably be a much more favorable environment to them.

lol

I don't know what's supposed to be funny about it. Anything can happen in 2 years and they're all seats they've held before recently. Alabama is the only one that's a clear cut anomaly.

[emailking]

Not sure how I feel about Nevada just giving us 100% of the county's results in one big shot. I prefer to slowly sip of my results as they slowly come in, like a cocktail.

It's because in Nevada they don't release any results if there are still people in line to vote. They can vote if they're in line at polls close.

[emailking]

It is clear that the Atlas community definitely overhyped Democratic chances in many of these races. Democrats themselves overhyped their chances. Yes, there are many warning signs for Republicans (such as in Texas), but the "blue wave" seems to be manifesting as a "blue ripple". 

I just figured the polls would be about right. Looks like they were in terms of overall House performance. But the Dems were over-favored by the polls in the red state senate races.

[emailking]

I haven't been checking in tonight, but I can't decide whether I'm happy with the results or disappointed by them tonight.  Just kind of so-so?

You should be extremely disappointed. The Republican legislative agenda is dead

But our Senate majority is bigger to confirm justices who will overturn Roe.

You need a Dem to leave the court, or maybe Roberts, in the next 2 years for that to happen.

[emailking]

I haven't been checking in tonight, but I can't decide whether I'm happy with the results or disappointed by them tonight.  Just kind of so-so?

You should be extremely disappointed. The Republican legislative agenda is dead

But our Senate majority is bigger to confirm justices who will overturn Roe.

You need a Dem to leave the court, or maybe Roberts, in the next 2 years for that to happen.

Roberts won't leave under Trump

I meant if he died.