CONGRESSIONAL RESULTS MEGA THREAD

[Kuumo]

Salt Lake County deserves to get nuked for this.

Don't blame Salt Lake County! It's what gave McAdams the win in 2018 and is keeping the race close in 2020. Burgess Owens is winning because of Utah, Juab, and Sanpete counties.

[Kuumo]

https://twitter.com/rpyers/status/1327420720226340865

Ive seen this movie before

The sequel's not as good as the first one.

[Kuumo]

low energy jim risch

Paulette Jordan also seems like a good candidate.

I love Flawless Beautiful #populist Paulette Jordan overperforming against Low Energy Jim in sagebrush country, especially with her fellow Native Americans in Benewah County, and underperforming in neoliberal California coastal elitist ski lodges in Blaine County and Teton County!


Atlas memes aside, the places where Risch overperformed Trump are mostly the counties that swung heavily toward Biden and have higher incomes and educational attainment than the state average. Blaine and Teton contain nationally popular ski resorts and have a lot of wealthier transplants from other states. Ada County has Boise, which is also much more socially liberal and higher income than the rest of the state. Benewah County has the Coeur d'Alene Reservation and is partly contained in Jordan's old house district. Paulette Jordan grew up on a ranch in northern Idaho and won some crossover support from Republican-leaning rural voters in her state house campaigns, so her background probably helped her overperform in rural areas.

[Kuumo]

low energy jim risch

Paulette Jordan also seems like a good candidate.

It’s odd because she did badly in the governor’s race in 2018. She actually did worse than 2014.

She actually did worse than the Senate candidate in 2014 (but so did Risch, that's why the margin was slightly better).

2014 was a relatively favorable year for Democrats in Idaho because then-governor Otter was unpopular. There were a lot of defections to right-wing third parties in the gubernatorial race, and the Democratic candidate for superintendent of public instruction lost by only 1 point.

[Kuumo]

I don't disagree with you. But I rather have a Clinton tier ground organization than Biden's (lack of), especially with Hispanic voters.

Okay. But this is the 2nd presidential election in a row against a severely flawed Republican nominee where Democratic local organization has failed them. I don't buy that's due entirely to Covid. In the past 6 federal elections going back to 2010, there's a grand total of 1 where it went well for the Democrats outside of the presidency: 2018. There's something systemic there.

Democrats did well in the Senate in 2012, they picked up Indiana and held North Dakota and Missouri. The only reason they still have a shot of 50 seats in the Senate in the Georgia runoffs is because of how well they did with that Senate class.

I’d also point out that Dems were coming off of giant wins going into 2010 and had a Dem president’s midterm for the only two years where Rs did particularly well. I don’t think Dems underperformed baseline much at all in the 2010s - if anything they overperformed.

2008: 55 U.S. Senate seats
2016: 46
2020: 49, 50, or 51

Senate seats are statewide, by definition not gerrymandered.

2008: 256 U.S. House seats
2016: 194
2020: 222 or 223

2008: 28 Governorships
2016: 16
2020: 24

Governor seats are statewide, by definition not gerrymandered.

2008 to 2016: loss of 968 seats in state legislatures per Ballotpedia (Barack Obama's lasting embrace to the national Democratic Party organization; if you actually care about left-wing or liberal causes and getting them implemented, any time Barack Obama's name comes up this should be the first thing you should mention)
2018: Democrats gained 350 seats per Wikipedia
2020: CNAlysis projected Democrats to win 123 state legislature seats, they instead lost seats and there appears to not be a final number yet, looks like as of a couple weeks the Republicans netted an 86-seat gain, clawing back about 25% of the 2018 losses

Throw on top of this we have a midterm coming up where the president's party always loses seats.

If they overperformed, wow Democrats are f#@&ing terrible at their jobs.

The disturbing thing is that even after four years of Donald Trump, Democrats still are nowhere close to where they were in 2008 (Dems aren’t even back to their paltry 2012 levels in state legislatures).

The pattern in state legislatures and the US House since 1994 seems to be for Dems to lose big, recover somewhat, and then lose even more than what they recovered shortly after.

Looking at how low Dems are in state legislatures, it is pretty hard to see how they fall much further.  They have been totally wiped out in the South and border states as well as the rural Midwest.

I think if we had had eight years of President Trump, Democrats would be in a much better place in 2025. The 2018 election was quite strong for Democrats, and 2022 would likely have had a similar wave that would also translate into picking up Senate seats. The 2020 election was almost a best-case scenario for the long-term prospects of the GOP because Democrats won the White House while Republicans dominated everything else.

[Kuumo]

I don't disagree with you. But I rather have a Clinton tier ground organization than Biden's (lack of), especially with Hispanic voters.

Okay. But this is the 2nd presidential election in a row against a severely flawed Republican nominee where Democratic local organization has failed them. I don't buy that's due entirely to Covid. In the past 6 federal elections going back to 2010, there's a grand total of 1 where it went well for the Democrats outside of the presidency: 2018. There's something systemic there.

Democrats did well in the Senate in 2012, they picked up Indiana and held North Dakota and Missouri. The only reason they still have a shot of 50 seats in the Senate in the Georgia runoffs is because of how well they did with that Senate class.

I’d also point out that Dems were coming off of giant wins going into 2010 and had a Dem president’s midterm for the only two years where Rs did particularly well. I don’t think Dems underperformed baseline much at all in the 2010s - if anything they overperformed.

2008: 55 U.S. Senate seats
2016: 46
2020: 49, 50, or 51

Senate seats are statewide, by definition not gerrymandered.

2008: 256 U.S. House seats
2016: 194
2020: 222 or 223

2008: 28 Governorships
2016: 16
2020: 24

Governor seats are statewide, by definition not gerrymandered.

2008 to 2016: loss of 968 seats in state legislatures per Ballotpedia (Barack Obama's lasting embrace to the national Democratic Party organization; if you actually care about left-wing or liberal causes and getting them implemented, any time Barack Obama's name comes up this should be the first thing you should mention)
2018: Democrats gained 350 seats per Wikipedia
2020: CNAlysis projected Democrats to win 123 state legislature seats, they instead lost seats and there appears to not be a final number yet, looks like as of a couple weeks the Republicans netted an 86-seat gain, clawing back about 25% of the 2018 losses

Throw on top of this we have a midterm coming up where the president's party always loses seats.

If they overperformed, wow Democrats are f#@&ing terrible at their jobs.

The disturbing thing is that even after four years of Donald Trump, Democrats still are nowhere close to where they were in 2008 (Dems aren’t even back to their paltry 2012 levels in state legislatures).

The pattern in state legislatures and the US House since 1994 seems to be for Dems to lose big, recover somewhat, and then lose even more than what they recovered shortly after.

Looking at how low Dems are in state legislatures, it is pretty hard to see how they fall much further.  They have been totally wiped out in the South and border states as well as the rural Midwest.

I think if we had had eight years of President Trump, Democrats would be in a much better place in 2025. The 2018 election was quite strong for Democrats, and 2022 would likely have had a similar wave that would also translate into picking up Senate seats. The 2020 election was almost a best-case scenario for the long-term prospects of the GOP because Democrats won the White House while Republicans dominated everything else.

So the only hope for Dems is to have a Republican win the White House in 2028 so that they can have a good redistricting table setting election in 2030?

They need to hope for two razor-thin Republican electoral college victories in 2024 and 2028 along with two Republican midterm bloodbaths in 2026 and 2030.

[Kuumo]

I don't disagree with you. But I rather have a Clinton tier ground organization than Biden's (lack of), especially with Hispanic voters.

Okay. But this is the 2nd presidential election in a row against a severely flawed Republican nominee where Democratic local organization has failed them. I don't buy that's due entirely to Covid. In the past 6 federal elections going back to 2010, there's a grand total of 1 where it went well for the Democrats outside of the presidency: 2018. There's something systemic there.

Democrats did well in the Senate in 2012, they picked up Indiana and held North Dakota and Missouri. The only reason they still have a shot of 50 seats in the Senate in the Georgia runoffs is because of how well they did with that Senate class.

I’d also point out that Dems were coming off of giant wins going into 2010 and had a Dem president’s midterm for the only two years where Rs did particularly well. I don’t think Dems underperformed baseline much at all in the 2010s - if anything they overperformed.

2008: 55 U.S. Senate seats
2016: 46
2020: 49, 50, or 51

Senate seats are statewide, by definition not gerrymandered.

2008: 256 U.S. House seats
2016: 194
2020: 222 or 223

2008: 28 Governorships
2016: 16
2020: 24

Governor seats are statewide, by definition not gerrymandered.

2008 to 2016: loss of 968 seats in state legislatures per Ballotpedia (Barack Obama's lasting embrace to the national Democratic Party organization; if you actually care about left-wing or liberal causes and getting them implemented, any time Barack Obama's name comes up this should be the first thing you should mention)
2018: Democrats gained 350 seats per Wikipedia
2020: CNAlysis projected Democrats to win 123 state legislature seats, they instead lost seats and there appears to not be a final number yet, looks like as of a couple weeks the Republicans netted an 86-seat gain, clawing back about 25% of the 2018 losses

Throw on top of this we have a midterm coming up where the president's party always loses seats.

If they overperformed, wow Democrats are f#@&ing terrible at their jobs.

The disturbing thing is that even after four years of Donald Trump, Democrats still are nowhere close to where they were in 2008 (Dems aren’t even back to their paltry 2012 levels in state legislatures).

The pattern in state legislatures and the US House since 1994 seems to be for Dems to lose big, recover somewhat, and then lose even more than what they recovered shortly after.

Looking at how low Dems are in state legislatures, it is pretty hard to see how they fall much further.  They have been totally wiped out in the South and border states as well as the rural Midwest.

I think if we had had eight years of President Trump, Democrats would be in a much better place in 2025. The 2018 election was quite strong for Democrats, and 2022 would likely have had a similar wave that would also translate into picking up Senate seats. The 2020 election was almost a best-case scenario for the long-term prospects of the GOP because Democrats won the White House while Republicans dominated everything else.

So the only hope for Dems is to have a Republican win the White House in 2028 so that they can have a good redistricting table setting election in 2030?

They need to hope for two razor-thin Republican electoral college victories in 2024 and 2028 along with two Republican midterm bloodbaths in 2026 and 2030.

Well with Dems luck, they would run into another 2002 scenario in a Republican Presidential midterm to mess them up.

Luckily, I think that increased polarization has made midterms like 1998 and 2002 much less likely. We're probably not going to be seeing any Presidents of either party with 60-70% approvals after the honeymoon period anytime soon.