Talk Elections

(i use "republican" because "GOP" annoying me. Dem are older than rep !)


some elements make me think than this numeral victory of the republicans will be a cause of deception for 2016

-number of votes : very behind the 2010 score. Conclusion : there is no wave for republicans but most simply, dem stay home. More : rep lost more vote than democrats (-5,4 M for rep, -4,9 for dem)

-local referendum : even in republicans states, people vote in a majority for traditionnal dem patterns, like minimal wage.



conclusion : except a world war or pandemic, the democrate candidate in 2016 WILL win the white house

It could just be that Democrats are running bad candidates and campaigns and that no matter how well they do or how poorly the  Republicans govern, Democrats will keep losing....of course until they don't and we say this about the Republicans again. Or maybe not. Maybe the Democrats will eventually be replaced by more competent opposition.

Kindly switch your avatar to red

Not to mention that the President's popularity is in the toilet.

He is french, I believe they are the same thing anyway.

Though Reagan was in the 40s through most of his seventh year and I think Clinton really did a get a boost from the impeachment. I think the question is where things will be in 2016,2017 and 2018. Do we run uncharismatic, tone deaf campaigns where we come off a center-right to the left and far-left to the middle? Or do we run a technological, charismatic and consistently center-left campaign?

If the notion of this threat was to show that Democrats can still win anytime soon, that notion is correct. If the notion is that we can do nothing and still expect to win in 2016, it probably is wrong. Though people might tune back into that message in 2018,2020 or 2022. Obama didn't have to run on  an unoriginal platform to win, but Clinton sure as hell did. 

"fake victory"

But they won? I mean, turnout was bad, but it's really Dems fault for purposely going after voters that don't turnout in midterms.

I think I've seen you do this multiple times.  People will have whatever avatar they like.  You seem to be obsessed with what color everyone's avatar is.  Get over yourself, we don't all support a political party and asking a foreigner to have the avatar of a U.S. political party is stupid.

While I agree, it is a little confusing when a green avatar is almost more partisan than a red or a blue one...

1.) True Demographics favor Dems in Presidential Elections. Udall would still be a US Senator by not by that of a margin victory wise despite running a horrible campaign.

2.) Dems stayed home-The problem is you don't win many elections win you lose Indies by 8 and the GOP managed to keep the Dem Victory with so-called "Moderates" to 9 points. I think as long as the Republicans can keep the Dems victory  margin with "Moderates" to 10-11 points they will have a good shot at winning. If the Republicans lose "Moderates" by 15 points like Mitt Romney the R's lose.

3.) True local referendums favored Dems but the GOP ran better candidates but The GOP candidates were younger and more optimistic than the Dem candidates in my opinion.

With Udall, I would guess that since this election was R+5, 2010 was R+6 and 2012 was R+2, 2016, could have been R+1 and with an R+1 electorate, he would have won by 1-3 instead of losing by 1-2. Maybe the difference could have saved Hagan, Begich and put Orman over the edge. That would have turned R+9 to R+6...the Republicans would have still won if this was a general election because the other pick ups were by double-digits.

You had good points up to the conclusion. Yes, 2014 was not as much of a quantitative wave, but it was a building process on 2010, which is pretty impressive. Even with very low turnout, R's stayed home too, just less of them. How this means the D's will win in 2016, I don't know. You could say they'll do better because of better turnout, but saying they will win in almost all circumstances is pretty delusional.

Orman lost by 11, a 3 point swing wouldn't have changed that.

i notice than no one democrat write on this thread. Help me, i'm surrounded by evil republicans ;D

in fact, i'm strongly right-wing, but not in american way. Gaullist, if you see, strongly statist, nationalist, protectionnist, no-interventionnist


so you can understand than, if I was american, it would be difficult to me to choice between economically liberals republicans and socially leftist democrats ;)

(but i think, honestly, that at the end of the day, i would have choice democrats, for the miniml wage)

your 2) point is interresting. But hillary is more moderate than obama, no ? So mayby she could bring back moderate ?

You seem like someone who would be a Democrat when it was the most popular to be a Democrat...but you seem like you would be a pro-life Southern Democrat when they still had substantial representation. Now, you are probably a Paulite Republican who is anti-immigrant, anti-military, anti-traditional civil rights but are open to leveling the social-econ playing field by libertarian means (end corporate welfare, war on drugs et al...something that smart Democrats should be doing to do better to unite Obama and Clinton-Gore-Kerry voters)

...and that's my point. There are all kinds of people who are open to voting Democrat but people just need the proper reasons and circumstances. Obama was out of political capital and his followers just didn't show up.

By the way, I am a blue avatar for satirical purposes.

It is not fake. For one turnout was rather normal for a midterm in some states with close races like CO. It was a combination of Democrats having no motivation to vote, gerrymandering, and the map causing turnout to be so low. Some states, including most of the big states didn't have any competative statewide races, only Florida is the exception and that was for Governor not Senator. It was also pretty nasty, which depresses turnout. NC had no statewide race except a hostile Senate race, which depressed turnout. OH lacked any big competative races as well once Fitz imploded, and PA wasn't much better since Corbett was practically DOA.

I don't think negative campaigning equates to low turnout. Some states had good turnout because it's easier to vote in them. The campaign in Colorado, for example, had very negative campaign save for Hick having outside groups attack Beauprez. Hickenlooper ran a bland but positive campaign. I personally think what caused the low turnout was because Democrats had overextended themselves and had too many candidates and not enough political capital to justify them.

I think there is a threshold level with negativity, but it has long been considered that negativity lowers turnout. That was the cynical view of Romney's primary strategy for instance.

As someone who considers the GOP the linear heirs to the Federalists (I like to focus on the objective as opposed to the means to achieve such), and thus that isn't the case. That gives the GOP a three year advantage, maybe five.

Also, it should be noted that most modern day Democrats want nothing to do with the Democratic Party pre-1932 (in some cases pre-1992) and that is only emphasized by the fact that so many of them are actually wealthy Republicans who find it improper to be associated with the riff raft of bible thumping gun owners that the GOP has catered to these past thirty years. Many of the rest are children of Republicans (Hillary was a Goldwater girl in 1964 from a GOP family, Al Franken's family were Republican until the CRA).

It must be remembered that the three biggest determinants of Party prior the 20th century were income, ethnicity and geography and that is why you had splits in both parties in the first half of the 20th centry followed by ideological polarization in the second half and beginning of the next.

Though there wasn't much problem with Republican turnout. Evangelicals, for example,came out just as well for Romney as they did for Bush and better for McCain.

If there was a problem it was that Romney made it about Obama and Kerry never claimed ownership when Bush attacked him. Kerry could have taken Gardner's path to victory.

"primary strategy" as opposed to "general election strategy". :P

Can you expand on that?

2014 was a big, smashing victory for the Republican Party, the sort that offers the prospect of GOP dominance for the next fifty years and a very new economic order -- the purest plutocracy since Chile under Pinochet. Citizens United has fundamentally changed the American political scene to the advantage of any well-heeled plutocrats who can flood the media with Orwellian propaganda.

Say what you want about the GOP win depending upon turnout -- but what if the turnout of 2014 becomes typical for the next two big elections? At such a point, the Republicans likely have Constitutional majorities in both Houses of Congress and 3/4 of all State Houses, and the Republican Party could have the role in American politics what Article 6 of the old Soviet Constitution allotted to the Communist Party -- a practical monopoly.

...  

Citizens United? The Dems won the Presidency in 2012 and you are blaming Citizens United for the Dems under performance in the mid-terms or  their shocking loss in the Maryland's Governors Race this year? Face it the Dems ran on "War on Women" in 2014 and it failed them big time. The "War On Women" campaign payed off big time in 2012 I know.

Flood the media with propaganda? The Liberals own the media except for Fox News and C-Span and maybe a couple more outlets.

The Presidents Party always takes a beating in the mid-term elections with exceptions being 1998 and 2002. Its almost a law  The Presidents Party has a penalty if you will in mid-terms that they are guaranteed to lose seats in Congress.

Election Turnout-Mid-term elections are always lower turnout are always lower than in Presidential Year Elections. Mid-Term Election turnout is usually 40% this year it was 37% so turnout for a mid-term was down slightly.

Why consider something that's close to impossible? This election had low turnout even by midterm standards. A lot people (disproportionately Democratic) think voting only matters when a president is on the ballot.

Which is a huge, huge problem. What are we going to do about it? Furthermore, what if those voters decide it isn't worth showing up if a Democrat other than Obama is on the ballot because "THEY'RE ALL THE SAME!!!111!!". It baffles me that anyone who lived through the Bush years can think this way, but I know some who do.

Turnout was low in part because of the Orwellian propaganda that the Koch fronts pumped into the airwaves. Until recently the usual contest was between the formal opponents. Now Americans for Prosperity and similar groups unaccountable to any but those who fund them can be counted on to make sure that anyone not in full support of absolute plutocracy gets blindsided.

Maybe voters of 2016 will realize what is at stake and treat the bilge for what it is -- lies, lies, and more lies. Maybe voting behavior of the Millennial Generation (adults born after about 1980) begin having their own candidates on the ballot and run against Hard Right candidates, even incumbents. Minimum age for a US Senator is 30, which means that persons born as late as 1986 will be able to run for Senate seats. People born as late as 1998 will be able to vote. If such people vote in huge numbers, then people with no stake in crony capitalism, cheap labor, brutal management, and environmental degradation will have little cause to vote R.

But 2016 is critical. Democrats will need to win back the Senate... and if the House is unduly unpopular, maybe the House is in play. The last election more inspires nightmares in me than hope. Please excuse that.

Webb/or Clinton will be the nominee and they will have a 242 or 272 firewall to play with and IL, WI, and PA senate map to play with.  The averages go up in prez years than in midterms from 90 million to 120 million, usually from universities and college towns and the young voters had no reason to come out this election, to change the dynamics than in 2010. Because they identify with the Mike Moore, Occupy Wallstreet. That Mainstreet, which is the political arm still to some degree has helped out Wallstreet in the recession at the expense of the lower class. And if you arent a college grad, that has paid down on his student loans, have a wife and family and making good money, 35 K a year, you aren't part of the 47%.

You've got me on that one. People talk every midterm cycle about how they're going to turn out their base from the presidential, but it never happens. I blame our awful education system, personally. People don't know how the government works, so they think only the president matters. Combine that with the general laziness of Americans, and this is what you get.

It doesn't really have to do with Obama. 2004 had much higher turnout than either 2002 or 2006 (55% vs. 37% for both of the midterms). Contrary to popular belief, Democrats did not win in 2006 because there was no midterm dropoff, they won because even a bunch of conservatives were pissed off at Bush, and voted accordingly (or stayed home).

The Kochs and outside groups did the exact same thing in 2012 as they did in 2014.