Trump's Card

[Tubby Isaacs]

Elijah Cummings is stressing bipartisanship too.

I think Rohrbacher's lost.

[anton pulisov]

So this Democratic senator (Brown) in middle-America Ohio runs a well organised campaign with a very progressive message (by American standards). And he wins by a couple of furlongs. Democrats conclude: We must be bipartisan and be more like Joe Manchin.

[Flynnie]

Well, Manchin won reelection because he painted his opponent as being in the pocket of the opioid industry.

Nonetheless, the fact progressive propositions* won all over the country while Democrats in those states lost indicates that people still don't fucking like the Democrats all that much. Which is kind of to be expected.

* Medicare expansion in at least three red states, minimum wage hikes in at least three red states, Michigan made weed legal, the Florida felon enfranchisement cruised to victory, etc. There's probably more but I'd have to look deeper.

[NHH]

I’ve been following Sherrod Brown’s career fit about 10 years and it surprises me he’s never spoken of as a possible Presidential candidate. Does he scotch any such talk before it gets going?

[Flynnie]

I’ve been following Sherrod Brown’s career fit about 10 years and it surprises me he’s never spoken of as a possible Presidential candidate. Does he scotch any such talk before it gets going?

IIRC he has said in the past he's not interested.

[ursus arctos]

He has, but he’s going to be getting calls again.

A progressive Democrat who can win consistently in Ohio is a very valuable asset.

[Satchmo Distel]

The House result may make a 2020 run harder to do for Trump if he's constantly firefighting on House hearings. OTOH if he can only keep himself out of jail by staying POTUS, he's not going to retire.

Amendment 4 makes me more hopeful that FL will not keep repeating these perverse results, but there is a long way to go. Gillum's concession speech was reassuring that the Dems may finally be getting their act together but they still couldn't get the black and Latino vote out in sufficient numbers, whereas the racist vote now seems to turn out automatically, and that must be addressed.

Maybe Dems can play good cop, bad cop with the "bipartisan" bullshitters balanced by tougher tactics from the newbies?

[ursus arctos]

On the last point, I think that it is significant that we haven’t heard any of that from the new chairs of the more important investigative committees.

On progressive initiatives, Michigan also rejected partisan redistricting and adopted a host of changes, including Election Day registration, to make voting easier. California kept the gas tax increase and San Francisco passed the corporate tax to fund homeless initiatives. The overall tally at What’s on the Ballot is quite positive.

[Nefertiti2]

https://twitter.com/HealthUntoDeath/status/1060108070167166976

[Ginger Yellow]

Newbies don't get on/chair committees.

[ursus arctos]

Yawn

Go back to not paying attention

[Etienne]

The posts about the Dems getting 12m more votes than the RCP on twitter. How much of that is down to 2 Democrats and no RCPs in California?

[ursus arctos]

Or to Democrats holding 26 of the 33 Senate seats that were up.

Though I don't understand RCP (it means Real Clear Politics here) or which two Democrats were up in California (Senator and Governor?)

[ursus arctos]

Heller concedes in Nevada

Rohrbacher has lost and the Democrats look to have taken Issa's old seat.

On the other side of the ledger, McSally looks to have won Arizona (largely thanks to a Green Party spoiler) and Duncan Hunter's super-racist campaign looks to have worked.

[Etienne]

RCP - racist cunt party.

Wasn't the California Senate race between two Democrats?

[Sporting]

I have a question for our resident experts here:

We saw in previous votes - not nearly enough - in the Senate how some - not enough - Republicans were prepared to go against the party line on a few (not sufficient) issues and either abstain or vote with the Dems. Now with the Senate being a lost cause for the Ds they need to rely on unaminity in the House to at least delay or obstruct certain measures. So the question is, are the Ds a completely united force? You'd think that the newcomers would be steadfast in their opposition to anything even remotely pro-Trump but are there oldies who you wouldn't rely on to save your sister from a burning building? In other words, is the Dem House majority big enough?

[ursus arctos]

Ah, and yes it was.

Sorry for being slow. DeLeon (the "other" Democrat in CA) got 2.77 million votes, so the spread is closer to nine million than twelve million.

But I would attribute most of the nine million to the fact that the Democrats had more seats up, as well as the fact that the GOP does better in less populated states (though Cruz got almost a million votes more than Feinstein)

[ursus arctos]

Sporting, that is an excellent question and one that I am somewhat worried about, in part because we don't yet know just how big the majority will be.

Conway has just said that 45 wants to "work with" the Democrats on infrastructure and immigration (they have no shame), and it is certainly possible that we will see the re-appearance of the "transactional" President who made a DACA deal with Pelosi and Schumer.

[Etienne]

DeLeon (the "other" Democrat in CA) got 2.77 million votes, so the spread is closer to nine million than twelve million.

More than that, surely.

If there'd been a Republican on the ballot, presumably they would have got at least 1.5 votes too.

I get that the map and the demographics were major roles too.

[anton pulisov]

Hahaha, The Orange One has endorsed Pelosi as House Speaker.

[ursus arctos]

The tweet that seems to be getting the most traction on this is this one.

https://twitter.com/mcopelov/status/1060057084769824769

If a Republican had been in the CA run-off, they would have gotten 1.5 million more, but the Democrats would have gotten 2.8 million fewer.

[anton pulisov]

As long as the senate elections aren't being held in all fiddy states then any stats like that are meaningless.

Are the house totals available?

[G-Man]

Tweet by journalist Qaanitah Hunter:

In a parallel world headlines:
"US needs electoral reform, warn African authorities"
"African observers bemoan voter suppression in American vote"
"African aid organization is confident that the midterm vote decreases strongman Trump's autocratic grip on power"

[ursus arctos]

AP, the national vote for the House is at the top here under the blue and red bars.

Currently about 4 million plus for the Democrats, though keep in mind that there were 39 races in which no Republican was running (and 3 in which no Democrat was running)

[caja-dglh]

I had a quick look at the Guardian and their live feed is relaying the comments section. "Is this all you can do after 2 years of Trump" style comments getting promoted. Given the way of the map this is probably the best you could expect. Maybe some of the Governor races could have tilted a bit more in favor but the landslide required to achieve better and the obstructions to getting there make it about all you could ask for.