Election 2018 Open Thread - Part 1

[lfromnj]

Horn lives in a suburban district  in oklahoma that swung to Hillary. Its a redder version of Il 14th is the best I could describe.

[lfromnj]

Doug jones is now Safe R in 2020 barring Moore again.

[lfromnj]

Illinois has been bloody for the GOP. Looks like 3 House pickups there plus Rauner going down in flames.

Anyway Its interesting how the 12th was seen as the most likely of the four to flip in 2017 and 2018 because muh Obama Trump voters yet now the Romney Clinton + Romney trumps one of which swung republican by a small amount and the other swung democrat all flip. Quite interesting. I think Illinois dems would be smart to gerrymander the democrat parts of the 12th into the 13th in 2020 and split up Chicago land into the 6th and 14th.

[lfromnj]

People say candidate quality doesn't matter but if so why did Tenny lose and Katko win?

[lfromnj]

People say candidate quality doesn't matter but if so why did Tenny lose and Katko win?

Tenney was too far right for a central NY seat?

Trump won it by 16 points. This does show that candidate quality does matter although it can be overrated. But if tester actually wins this while Air Claire and Donnely get rekt this forum is gonna meme.

[lfromnj]

Manchin appears to be the sole survivor of the Great Blue Dog Death of 2018

Yeah tester still has a chance but it isn't great with Missouri and Indiana.

Then again Tester is more a BDINO.

[lfromnj]

Ohio Looks like Likely R for 2020. In a good environment for the dems they can't win an open governor seat and the incumbent senator nearly loses?

[lfromnj]

Ik Texas was called but the margin is still pretty close. I know Cruz will win but amazing job to Beto for doing only points worse than Bill Nelson

[lfromnj]

Besides beto a lot of the media democrats greatly under performed. Abrams, Gillum,Ojeda, etc. Yet some underdogs like Kendra Horn won and Laura Kelly destroyed KKKobach

[lfromnj]

Tammy Baldwin put up some unexpectedly amazing numbers in the WOW counties...

Dems will need Ozaukee soon if they want to win Wisconsin. Not like RN but maybe by 2028.

[lfromnj]

James only took 8% of the black vote in MI.

But he still managed to keep Stabenow within single digits. He is the first Republican to come within that range since Spencer Abraham in 2000.

Overall, though, this election has been a bizarre one. Democrats picked up the House, as many expected, but they have lost three seats in the Senate and did not do as well in many of the gubernatorial and state level-races. Bright spots for Democrats, I would say, include the victories of Kelly and Davids in Kansas and the upset in Oklahoma-5. But Donnelly, Heitkamp, O'Rourke, McCaskill (presumably), and even Nelson (also presumably) losing, along with the gubernatorial putdowns in Georgia and Florida, are the bright sports for Republicans.

Yeah I agree with all of this besides Davids(not really a bright spot it was expected) and Texas . Texas raises fire alarms for the GOP. AG and LG are within 5 and Beto is within 3. Beto was expected to lose and he probably overperformed.

[lfromnj]

UTDH UP by 50 POINTS. CALLING FOR HELLER. Its impossible for weak rosen to win this

[lfromnj]

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
Im assuming 54-46 senate this night and thats probably generous if I had to guess.
Lets assume the dem wins the presidency in 2020 so they need 4 gains

Seat Ratings-
Alabama- Safe R- 0 chance of victory anyone not named Roy Moore especially after 2018 realiginment.
colorado- Lean D probably closer to Likely D than Lean but Colorado also has R trending parts of the state.
So we can assume thats a trade.
AZ- Tossup/ Tilt D and Lean R if Ducey runs. AZ GOP bench isn't the best as they will hold 0/3 of moderate districts.

The rest left is Texas- Likely R. I absolutely can not remove a 3 percent loss and say its Safe R in a d trending state with favorable demographic changes for Democrats.
NC- Tilt  R- NC is a pretty red state with parts trending both ways and dems are struggling there failing to pick up a house seat.
Montana- Likely R and probably closer to Safe and this is assuming Bullock Runs.
Iowa - Lean R. It looks like Iowa has atleast partially swung back around to democrats so I can assume  its possible democrats could win this

Georgia- Likely R and maybe approaching Lean with the demographic changes. dems absolutely should not nominate a black candidate again.

Maine- No idea actually. I think Golden wins tonight so thats not a bad sign and being one of the few pick ups in a republican trending trump double digit district.

[lfromnj]

Tester is going down, sadly.

NYT has him a 86% chance of winning.

Wait so even if he loses is it that flat top haircut that won him the election?
I mean mcaskill and Donnely got half Blanched.

[lfromnj]

I think TX is more about Cruz's quality as a candidate then anything significant long-term.

Tell that to Pete Sessions, John Culberson, about 5-10 other Republican representatives who had closer calls than they ever thought they would have in their gerrymandered safe seats, and a very large number of state legislative and local elected R officials who lost (or who had much closer races than they ever expected, and are aware that Texas is not getting any whiter).

Yeah I don't know why people didn't realize what Beto did for Texas democrats. Unlike anyone else he actually had major coattail effects on the rest of Texas democrats besides governor and even then I think he helped quite a bit by bringing out unlikely voters who voted straight ticket D(the Abbot Beto voters are only like 8 percent rather than 12 or 13) Texas is absolutely a state Democrats will need in the near future. CruzWILLWin was correct in his prediction but he also understands that a democrat will win Texas soon.

[lfromnj]

Well in the end Beto did win Tarrant

I said earlier in the night this might happen. If this doesn't start ringing fire bells I don't know what will.
Cruz literally just said Tarrant is the biggest reddest county in the biggest reddest state.

[lfromnj]

Democrats sweep Colorado row offices.

Republicans sweep Ohio row offices. That state is gone.

Democrats look likely to narrowlysweep Wisconsin offices.

does hofoid have egg or no?

Most people did predict an evers +5 to 8 victory around but it came out really close.

[lfromnj]

Heitkamp losing by less than Donnelly is.... something. Donnelly got blanched.

It should have been an alarm bell that Donnely raised so little money. I was still expecting him to win but the fact he only raised 4 million in the 3rd quarter was a bit scary.

[lfromnj]

Well in the end Beto did win Tarrant

I said earlier in the night this might happen. If this doesn't start ringing fire bells I don't know what will.
Cruz literally just said Tarrant is the biggest reddest county in the biggest reddest state.

Yeah, Tarrant is huge. Dems are going to start winning county-wide races in counties like Tarrant, Williamson, etc over the next decade or so, which is important because it means that Dems are going to be in charge of administering elections in those huge counties in the future. Which in turn makes it easier for Dems to win statewide, because they will do things to make it easier for Dem-leaning voters to vote, rather than suppressing the vote. Likewise in Harris/Dallas/etc (Harris still had an R county clerk - it is not going to be electing more R county clerks very often in the future, I don't think).

What were the countywide sweeps in Dallas/harris this year. I saw some GOP flyers scaring voters to the polls on twitter so I am guessing they were a bit worried.

[lfromnj]

Joe Cunningham beat that lady that got into a wreck?! Woah, upset!!!!!!

Stay classy bagel

[lfromnj]

Karen Handel is a goner in 2020 if she manages to survive

I saw a thread before and people asked which Trump districts will vote democrat in 2020 and Ga 6th is the only one I am 90% confident will.

[lfromnj]

I really want to See Beto's congressional district map.
He definitely won all 14 Clinton districts. I think he might have won a few more districts. We have to remember it may have been only a 6.5 point swing but a lot of districts had basically no swing from 2016 especially in the  panhandle .  Anyone have an idea what districts he won?
Texas 31st is probably one of them?
the 2nd?

[lfromnj]

So, whats the latest n Montana? It seems to be the last open senate seat up for grabs tonight since Arizona won't likely be called for another day or two.

I think Tester will win and it won't even be that close.  The remaining vote is heavily weighted toward Gallatin and Missoula.

Big portion of Missoula is left. He can make 15,000 votes there & he is down by 4000. This is not hard. Gianforte is up 23,000 so he is possibly safe. He will make it by 10,000+ or so.

Dems need to get Bullock to run for the Senate & need to recruit a strong candidate for the House. Montana looks promising !

I actually wondered why Montana survived and there was no dem collapse in the polls compared to other trump states. It was generally accepted that Tester had a narrow lead and when I saw Indiana I knew Mcaskill was doomed immediatly and I was writing off Tester too but it looks like he is still in the game. Why did Tester survive(Or atleast looks ok) while Mcaskill and Donnely got screwed over.

[lfromnj]

So what were the best and worst gerrymanders this cycle

Best- North Carolina- Absolutely Brutal and dems failed to pick up 1.


Worst- I might have to go with Texas which almost completely collapsed under Beto Mania but New Jersey is another one but that isn't a full gerrymander either.

[lfromnj]

Arizona looking likely to break for McSally, unless I'm reading the county breakdown wrong: https://results.arizona.vote/#/featured/4/0

If McSally narrowly wins, that would be embarrassing for Democrats. Especially since Flake only barely won in 2012 and since Sinema led in the polls throughout much of the year until McSally won the nomination.

I might have the counties wrong, but if they stay how they currently are I don't see where the votes comes from.

A narrow McSally win or loss in Maricopa County would be enough for her to win overall, given that she is holding the Republican rural counties.

If she is only meeting the benchmark in the rural areas I would say she loses consider this election has really polarized on a urban suburban divide.