What's the best *plausible* result for Democrats in 2018?

[Holy Unifying Centrist]

My best plausible result for democrats is D+26 in the house and D+2 in the senate which would have them holding all their senate seats while flipping republican senate seats in Arizona and Nevada. This scenario would give them narrow majorities in both houses of Congress and would be a utter disaster for republicans, especially if trump still managed to win reelection in 2020 which would set them up for another midterm wipeout in 2022 followed by a landslide presidential defeat in 2024 and possibly decades in the electoral wilderness. The reason I don't believe democrats can have the massive house gains others are predicting is because their pathway back to the majority is heavily dependent on winning as many Clinton-Republican districts as possible (theirs 23 of them), holding on to all the Trump-Democratic districts (theirs 12 of them) plus winning a few marginal Trump-Republican districts. I just have a really hard time seeing democrats winning a bunch of districts trump won by double-digits with the exception of the few that are currently held by democrats.

If democrats are winning back the senate, they will get far more than f'ing 26 house districts lol. Do you even know the difference between the house and senate maps? The house maps are far more favorable to dems than the senate maps. There's literally 23 house districts that voted for Hillary Clinton. Meanwhile dems have to defend a ton of senate seats that Trump won.

Dems probably need to gain at least 40 house seats before they can take back the senate.

Not necessarily. The Dems only won 201 House seats in 2012 while crushing it in the Senate. Senate races can diverge a lot from the GCB.

True, but two of the Republicans completely imploded (granted one dem also imploded), and Montana, North Dakota, Indiana, Missouri, and Ohio have all shifted to the right.

[TheSaint250]

My best plausible result for democrats is D+26 in the house and D+2 in the senate which would have them holding all their senate seats while flipping republican senate seats in Arizona and Nevada. This scenario would give them narrow majorities in both houses of Congress and would be a utter disaster for republicans, especially if trump still managed to win reelection in 2020 which would set them up for another midterm wipeout in 2022 followed by a landslide presidential defeat in 2024 and possibly decades in the electoral wilderness. The reason I don't believe democrats can have the massive house gains others are predicting is because their pathway back to the majority is heavily dependent on winning as many Clinton-Republican districts as possible (theirs 23 of them), holding on to all the Trump-Democratic districts (theirs 12 of them) plus winning a few marginal Trump-Republican districts. I just have a really hard time seeing democrats winning a bunch of districts trump won by double-digits with the exception of the few that are currently held by democrats.

If democrats are winning back the senate, they will get far more than f'ing 26 house districts lol. Do you even know the difference between the house and senate maps? The house maps are far more favorable to dems than the senate maps. There's literally 23 house districts that voted for Hillary Clinton. Meanwhile dems have to defend a ton of senate seats that Trump won.

Dems probably need to gain at least 40 house seats before they can take back the senate.

Not necessarily. The Dems only won 201 House seats in 2012 while crushing it in the Senate. Senate races can diverge a lot from the GCB.

True, but two of the Republicans completely imploded (granted one dem also imploded), and Montana, North Dakota, Indiana, Missouri, and Ohio have all shifted to the right.

Who was the Dem who imploded in 2012?

I think it was Shelley Berkley

[Holy Unifying Centrist]

Who was the Dem who imploded in 2012?

They didn't implode campaign wise, they just had an ethics investigation going on (Shelly Berkley).

Although incumbent senator Dean Heller couldn't break 46% of the vote despite that scandal lol.

[Landslide Lyndon]

Democrats won the House popular vote only by 3% in 2012, IIRC.

[IceSpear]

Who was the Dem who imploded in 2012?

They didn't implode campaign wise, they just had an ethics investigation going on (Shelly Berkley).

Although incumbent senator Dean Heller couldn't break 46% of the vote despite that scandal lol.

Shelley Berkley was a strong candidate though and Jacky Rosen isn't. Also, Heller is an incumbent!

[YE]

Who was the Dem who imploded in 2012?

They didn't implode campaign wise, they just had an ethics investigation going on (Shelly Berkley).

Although incumbent senator Dean Heller couldn't break 46% of the vote despite that scandal lol.

Shelley Berkley was a strong candidate though and Jacky Rosen isn't. Also, Heller is an incumbent!

As someone who lives in her district, I don't know that much about Rosen on the issues (in her defense for the 2016 cycle I was away in college so I didn't follow the campaign) but she strikes me as generic D. She really isn't battle tested as she's won one campaign in her life and that was against Danny Tarkanian, but she did overpreform some WWC areas that swung towards Trump while not eroding in suburban areas that swung to Clinton. Barring a major scandal, she's a good enough candidate that she should win by Obama 12 margins.

As for Berkely, she was an experienced candidate who would have won decently easily in 2012 if her record was clean, but she had corruption issues relating to both her husband and a lobbyist that came out in 2011 but Dems still ran her anyway. Ross Miller or CCM would have been much better.

[IceSpear]

Who was the Dem who imploded in 2012?

They didn't implode campaign wise, they just had an ethics investigation going on (Shelly Berkley).

Although incumbent senator Dean Heller couldn't break 46% of the vote despite that scandal lol.

Shelley Berkley was a strong candidate though and Jacky Rosen isn't. Also, Heller is an incumbent!

As someone who lives in her district, I don't know that much about Rosen on the issues (in her defense for the 2016 cycle I was away in college so I didn't follow the campaign) but she strikes me as generic D. She really isn't battle tested as she's won one campaign in her life and that was against Danny Tarkanian, but she did overpreform some WWC areas that swung towards Trump while not eroding in suburban areas that swung to Clinton. Barring a major scandal, she's a good enough candidate that she should win by Obama 12 margins.

As for Berkely, she was an experienced candidate who would have won decently easily in 2012 if her record was clean, but she had corruption issues relating to both her husband and a lobbyist that came out in 2011 but Dems still ran her anyway. Ross Miller or CCM would have been much better.

I was trolling and mocking the people who twist themselves into pretzels trying to rationalize their opinion that Heller is going to be re-elected.

[TarHeelDem]

Roughly...

Senate: +6 (hold all D seats, gain AZ, NV, TN, TX, MS if Presley vs. McDaniel, and AZ if McCain leaves)
House: +70
Governorships: +16