Talk Elections

From the midterm national exit poll:

http://edition.cnn.com/election/2014/results/race/house#exit-polls

Who are you more likely to vote for in the 2016 presidential election?

Republican candidate 40%
Hillary Clinton 34%
"it depends" 24%

Then there's the question of whether each of these folks would make a good president:

()

Dominating! (relatively, especially in this 2014 electorate)

lol I think America like Nevada should adopt the 'None of the above' option.

It seems once again that Generic Republican is the best GOP candidate. Too bad he never runs ;)

Even with the incredibly favorable electorate this year, the Republicans have hilariously horrible image problems.

Jesus those Republican numbers are bad considering they won.

This makes me feel pretty good, even with those dismal numbers for the possible candidates.

All that says is that the 2014 electorate would prefer a generic R over generic D 40-34, which will probably end up tracking the generic vote overall (though with much more undecideds, of course). I wouldn't read too much into it.

If there is one good thing for Democrats coming from yesterday's debacle, it's that any possible complacency coming from Hillary's camp has vanished. They know now that they will have to fight hard to win the prize.

I agree with the electorate on this. None of those people would make a good President.

Is this not to be expected when no Republican candidate can break 15% with their own primary electorate?

No it isn't expected.

Just because a voter votes for a different candidate in the primary, it doesn't mean they think every other candidate would be a bad president.  The fact that only a quarter of a very conservative electorate thinks each Republican candidate would make a good president and practically two thirds of the electorate think they would make a bad president is a very bad sign.

Who wins in 2016 will depend heavily on turnout. The turnout of 2014 was perfect for crypto-fascism which just won.

Some more exit poll fun from specific states:

http://www.argojournal.com/2014/11/fox-news-2014-exit-polls-2016-edition.html

Would [NAME] make a good president?
% yes/no

Florida

Bush 40/50% for -10%
Rubio 36/50% for -14%

Texas

Cruz 34/50% for -16%
Perry 33/60% for -27%

Wisconsin

Ryan 46/49% for -3%
Walker 42/55% for -13%

Pennsylvania

Santorum 23/68% for -45%

Arkansas

Huckabee 50/45% for +5%
Clinton 39/56% for -17%

Paul 34/52% for -18%

New York

Clinton 43/47% for -4%
Christie 36/58% for -22%
Bush 28/64% for -36%
Paul 25/61% for -36%
Perry 19/64% for -45%

34-50 in Texas for Cruz in the middle of a GOP landside is pathetic.

Yes, this is the silver lining of the 2014 elections. Major wake up call as to the work Democrats have to do in 2016 to win. Not just for Hillary but for Democrats across the board.

LOL, who do you want, New Yorkers?? ;)

Though to be fair, the polls look like junk. No way in hell is Hillary in the negatives in New York.

Astorino got 40%. In that kind of GOP friendly electorate, -4% sounds about right.

lol I love it.

Junk poll! Should have included Romney - he is probably the closest to a generic Republican candidate anyways.

If the 2016 electorate looks like that of 2014, then the Democrats have no chance of even winning a Senate majority, let alone electing their Presidential nominee. The Democratic Party will have shown itself incapable of going beyond 47% support even in a good year, which means that the Koch family might as well ask the regent that they support step down and turn the White House into a royal palace.

It won't, so who cares? Presidential elections aren't 36% turnout affairs.

I certainly hope that you are right.

In a scenario where only 36% of registered voters vote in 2016, the outcome of those elections will be the least of our problems.

The least of our problems would be whether we have a nominal republic under a Medici-style dynasty or a full-blown absolute monarchy. The only thing good about the Koch family is that they are great patrons of the arts.

I see nothing in their libertarian ideology contrary to turning people in economic distress into debt-bonded serfs lest those in distress die of hunger.

Where do we go as a country from there? 

At best, the inverse of what America was a century ago - the sort of place that people want to leave. Unfortunately for Americans around 2030 there will be no country to attract undereducated people with few skills as America was before World War I.

For Americans with some cognitive ability but no connection to the Master Class America would be  the sort of place where Americans learn foreign languages with an eye to getting jobs in the tourist industry so that they might seduce a foreigner and get a better life.

The worst -- an Evil Empire -- maybe Imperial Russia with nukes.