The MidTerm Elections thread (2018)

[El Guapo]

FL governor's race now in recount territory as well. Though it still seems highly unlikely that Gillum will pass DeSantis.

[Defiant]

Finally found actual exit poll data

[hitbyambulance]

Finally found actual exit poll data

so if you voted for someone in a party other than (D) or (R) - or no party at all - you count as 'no answer'?

[tjg_marantz]

Anyone still think the polls were wrong because Florida, Texas, Georgia?

Try again.

[tjg_marantz]

Oh Marco. Accusing of election stealing on... Not sure what.

[Daehawk]

Dems picked up another seat.

https://www.cnn.com/2018/11/08/politics ... index.html

In another pick-up for House Democrats, Kim Schrier has defeated Republican Dino Rossi in the state of Washington's 8th Congressional District, CNN projects.
"Congress is broken, and people in the 8th District are ready for a community pediatrician to bring a dose of common sense to DC," Schrier said in a statement Wednesday. Once sworn in, Schrier will be the only female doctor serving in Congress, according to her campaign.
In his concession statement, Rossi, a businessman and former state senator, urged supporters to remain involved in democracy.

[Defiant]

Finally found actual exit poll data

so if you voted for someone in a party other than (D) or (R) - or no party at all - you count as 'no answer'?

They should have put it as "Other" for the third party/didn't vote answers. Although I don't think there wouldn't have been useful data to look at there - with the exception of a very strong third party showing (eg, Johnson in New Mexico), third party showings would have been eclipsed by the margin of error.

[Exodor]

Dems picked up another seat.

https://www.cnn.com/2018/11/08/politics ... index.html

In another pick-up for House Democrats, Kim Schrier has defeated Republican Dino Rossi in the state of Washington's 8th Congressional District, CNN projects.
"Congress is broken, and people in the 8th District are ready for a community pediatrician to bring a dose of common sense to DC," Schrier said in a statement Wednesday. Once sworn in, Schrier will be the only female doctor serving in Congress, according to her campaign.
In his concession statement, Rossi, a businessman and former state senator, urged supporters to remain involved in democracy.

Dino Rossi wants to be elected to something, anything SO BADLY

Sorry Dino but maybe Washington just isn't that into you?

[Defiant]

[Defiant]

Listening to the 538 podcast, they made the case that Texas is now going to be a peripheral purple state, close to where AZ, GA, NC are, where where Democrats can win it in strong Democratic years.

[hitbyambulance]

Listening to the 538 podcast, they made the case that Texas is now going to be a peripheral purple state, close to where AZ, GA, NC are, where where Democrats can win it in strong Democratic years.

so 'reddish-purple' then. unless 'purple' indicates that already, and 'violet' states are where Republicans can win it in strong Republican years.

[Daehawk]

See a lot of news saying red states got redder and blue states bluer. So is the political civil war before or after the race war and how does the war on immigration stand?

[Enough]

Erm....

[tjg_marantz]

NBC News: Arizona GOP sues to limit mail-in ballots in Senate race.
https://www-nbcnews-com.cdn.ampproject. ... ncna933866

[Zaxxon]

I'm sure that's entirely coincidental and impartial to the outcome.

[Defiant]

See a lot of news saying red states got redder and blue states bluer.

For the most part, yeah, with the purple midwest (with the exception of OH) going pretty blue, which is encouraging, at least.

[Holman]

Overall, though, we've gone from what looked like what looked like about D +33 House and R +3-4 Senate late Tuesday night to what now could wind up more like D +36-40 House and R +1-2 Senate. Probably enough to merit a reassessment.

Dems have been shy to claim it (probably because some long-shot high-profile figures came in just short), but history will definitely call this a wave election.

Only the perfect storm of an R-coddling map gave the GOP those senate gains. Without Trump dragging them down, they could have won a supermajority.

[Carpet_pissr]

Listening to the 538 podcast, they made the case that Texas is now going to be a peripheral purple state, close to where AZ, GA, NC are, where where Democrats can win it in strong Democratic years.

Yep, hopefully. Even though Beto didn’t win, he built a foundation for future D candidates (or even himself again).

[El Guapo]

Overall, though, we've gone from what looked like what looked like about D +33 House and R +3-4 Senate late Tuesday night to what now could wind up more like D +36-40 House and R +1-2 Senate. Probably enough to merit a reassessment.

Dems have been shy to claim it (probably because some long-shot high-profile figures came in just short), but history will definitely call this a wave election.

Only the perfect storm of an R-coddling map gave the GOP those senate gains. Without Trump dragging them down, they could have won a supermajority.

Indeed. In the alternate timeline where Clinton is president, the Democrats got absolutely decimated in the 2018 midterms, and lost probably 7 - 8 seats.

[Smoove_B]

I'm sure that's entirely coincidental and impartial to the outcome.

Yeah, they're likely getting angrier, with all the accounting and recording of votes:

Sinema holds a 0.5-point lead with votes rolling in, predominantly from Maricopa County, according to new numbers from the Arizona secretary of state's website. Votes were also posted from Pinal and Gila counties as well as Pima County, a Democratic-leaning county that’s home to the city Tucson.

The tally marks a shift from McSally’s initial 1-point lead as of earlier on Thursday, when the GOP congresswoman was up by 17,073 votes.

An Arizona source told The Hill that the latest numbers came from roughly 150,000 votes from Maricopa County, with another 345,000 outstanding votes still left from that county, which includes the capital of Phoenix, as well as Sinema's own congressional district.

A total of approximately 500,000 votes remain uncounted across the state.

[Papa Smurph]

Which means that they ARE racists, liars and misogynists.

Which is what I knew all along.

Of course they are. But they don't think so.

I don't think you are correct. Ever called one of these assholes out as being racist? I have, and they start spitting and screaming how they are not racist. They even have a black friend! It's not their fault that God made white people better!

They know they are racist, they just don't want to admit it. That's largely why they like Trump so much: if the president is a bigoted misogynist, then maybe it's ok that they are too. That's why em2naught says to lie to your S.O. about how you voted when you vote for Trump. They know they are wrong, they just don't care.

[RunningMn9]

I don't think you are correct. Ever called one of these assholes out as being racist? I have, and they start spitting and screaming how they are not racist. They even have a black friend! It's not their fault that God made white people better!

They know they are racist, they just don't want to admit it. That's largely why they like Trump so much: if the president is a bigoted misogynist, then maybe it's ok that they are too. That's why em2naught says to lie to your S.O. about how you voted when you vote for Trump. They know they are wrong, they just don't care.

Some of them know they are racist. Most don't. em2naught is a garbage person and I don't really pay any attention to anything he says.

[Sepiche]

Shouldn't surprise anyone that watched how poorly he ran the vote commission or how badly he handled the vote fraud case he brought to trial recently, but turns out Kris Koback also ran an epically bad campaign that suffered from one bad decision after another.

Interviews with more than a dozen Republican strategists and officials paint a picture of a candidate who refused to listen to advice, was unwilling to put energy into fundraising and failed to set up a basic “get out the vote” operation.

Kobach, the Kansas secretary of state, struggled to pay his campaign staff on time and at one point lacked a working phone system at his Johnson County campaign office, according to GOP sources familiar with the campaign. And people who offered to volunteer were never contacted.

“It was the most dysfunctional thing I’ve ever seen in my life,” said a long-time GOP operative in Kansas.

Kobach trusted that his regular presence on cable news, dominance in headlines and the full-throated support of President Donald Trump would carry him to victory, strategists told The Star. He also expected independent Greg Orman to siphon more votes from Democrat Laura Kelly than he actually did.

Our saving grace continues to be that, unsurprisingly, a movement built on know-nothingism is filled with idiots.

[em2nought]

em2naught is a garbage person and I don't really pay any attention to anything he says.

That's two, it takes just one more mention in front of the mirror to summon me.

Oh, and I luv you hate filled & misled douche bags too! If your relatives only knew how much y'all hate them.

[malchior]

This is where we are. Awesome.

[Sepiche]

For the record, here is the entirety of their evidence of voter fraud in Florida:

“What’s going on in Florida is a disgrace,” Trump said, not ruling out a federal role in a recount in the Senate race between Florida Gov. Rick Scott (R) and Sen. Bill Nelson (D). “He easily won, but every hour he seems to be going down,” Trump said of Scott’s vote percentage. “I think people have to look at it very cautiously.”

https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics ... 9991ef2a1d
Counting every vote is now a "disgrace". This is serious banana republic territory.

[El Guapo]

For the record, here is the entirety of their evidence of voter fraud in Florida:

“What’s going on in Florida is a disgrace,” Trump said, not ruling out a federal role in a recount in the Senate race between Florida Gov. Rick Scott (R) and Sen. Bill Nelson (D). “He easily won, but every hour he seems to be going down,” Trump said of Scott’s vote percentage. “I think people have to look at it very cautiously.”

https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics ... 9991ef2a1d
Counting every vote is now a "disgrace". This is serious banana republic territory.

Someone ought to make a JeffV style list of everything that Trump has called a "disgrace".

To be fair to Trump, though, I find it very believable that he honestly does not understand why Scott's vote lead has been going down.

[GreenGoo]

Remember when Bush called recounts a disgrace? Yeah, me neither.

We joke, but this is not funny. He's a monster and 50% of the country either don't see it or are ok with it.

[El Guapo]

Remember when Bush called recounts a disgrace? Yeah, me neither.

We joke, but this is not funny. He's a monster and 50% of the country either don't see it or are ok with it.

Well, it's more like 40% - 45%, but yeah, it's a big long-term problem.

[LordMortis]

“What’s going on in Florida is a disgrace,” Trump said, not ruling out a federal role Matt Whitaker in a recount in the Senate race between Florida Gov. Rick Scott (R) and Sen. Bill Nelson (D). “He easily won, but every hour he seems to be going down,” Trump said of Scott’s vote percentage. “I think people have to look at it very cautiously.”

Can he even do that? Seriously? You'd think the States Rights republicans would be shitting a Miata over the idea that POTUS wants control the vote count much less in a state election.

[GreenGoo]

Well, it's more like 40% - 45%, but yeah, it's a big long-term problem.

Sure, but does that really matter? They have 50% of the power.

[El Guapo]

Well, it's more like 40% - 45%, but yeah, it's a big long-term problem.

Sure, but does that really matter? They have 50% of the power.

The difference between 42% and 50% will often be very significant in terms of electing the House and the Presidency. You can get either or both with less than 50% support, but not reliably (with the presidency, you also have to get lucky in terms of *where* you get your votes).

I am very deeply concerned, however, about the long-term issues posed by the Senate, where you can get >50% of the power with way less than 50% of the vote - I think it's something like you can get a Senate majority with only 25% of the national vote, or something like that.

[milo]

“What’s going on in Florida is a disgrace,” Trump said, not ruling out a federal role Matt Whitaker in a recount in the Senate race between Florida Gov. Rick Scott (R) and Sen. Bill Nelson (D). “He easily won, but every hour he seems to be going down,” Trump said of Scott’s vote percentage. “I think people have to look at it very cautiously.”

Can he even do that? Seriously?

Sure! He can just redirect some of the thousands of troops he already sent to the border for Operation Blind Acceptance of Authority to help count some votes. Then they can go back to shooting people throwing rocks at nothing from hundreds of miles away.

[Sepiche]

Ha!
https://talkingpointsmemo.com/dc/florid ... ions-scott

Less than 24 hours after Gov. Rick Scott called for the Florida Department of Law Enforcement to investigate “rampant fraud” in his U.S. Senate race, the department said that there are no voter fraud allegations to look into and that Scott made no formal request for an investigation.

[El Guapo]

Good news in Arizona - Sinema (D) remains ahead, and the remaining votes to be counted look to be mainly from Democratic areas. Even if FL winds up going Republican (still likely, unless the Broward undercount issue turns out to be due to a machine error), I'll feel much better about the Senate with Democrats winning NV and AZ, since those were really the main two that I thought that they *should* win.

I think Sinema is also indirectly benefitting from the mess in Florida, or else Trump would likely be making a bigger deal of Sinema pulling ahead in later counted votes, which would make that more of a shitstorm.

[Captain Caveman]

I think Sinema is also indirectly benefitting from the mess in Florida, or else Trump would likely be making a bigger deal of Sinema pulling ahead in later counted votes, which would make that more of a shitstorm.

LOL. You spoke too soon.

[GreenGoo]

If there's one role that a President must do, it's undermining the very democracy that put him in the WH in the first place.

I wouldn't accept this from a talking head. The president? Telling it like it is? He's burning down your democracy because some midterm elections didn't go the way he wanted them to go.

Holy fucking shit, 2020 is going to be anarchy.

I think it's time to have some hard conversations with family members who support this atrocity.

At what point do people on opposite sides of the aisle engage each other? You know, talk about things of substance rather than hurl talking points at each other while wearing earplugs?

[El Guapo]

I think Sinema is also indirectly benefitting from the mess in Florida, or else Trump would likely be making a bigger deal of Sinema pulling ahead in later counted votes, which would make that more of a shitstorm.

LOL. You spoke too soon.

Goddamnit. Maybe that was like saying Beetlejuice three times.

Anyway, at least he's calling for a new election, rather than just calling directly for anointing the Republican candidate.

Signature matching is such horseshit, by the way. In 2016 at least NH required that people sign the envelope containing the ballot and sign the ballot itself, and allowed moderators to disqualify ballots if they thought that the signatures don't match. I'm assuming that AZ has the same thing, and that Trump is referring to that, although the NH requirement was not in effect in 2018 because it was struck down by a court as horseshit (to use a legal term).

[Skinypupy]

Signature matching is such horseshit, by the way. In 2016 at least NH required that people sign the envelope containing the ballot and sign the ballot itself, and allowed moderators to disqualify ballots if they thought that the signatures don't match. I'm assuming that AZ has the same thing, and that Trump is referring to that, although the NH requirement was not in effect in 2018 because it was struck down by a court as horseshit (to use a legal term).

Case in point:

[LawBeefaroni]

I think Sinema is also indirectly benefitting from the mess in Florida, or else Trump would likely be making a bigger deal of Sinema pulling ahead in later counted votes, which would make that more of a shitstorm.

LOL. You spoke too soon.

Goddamnit. Maybe that was like saying Beetlejuice three times.

Anyway, at least he's calling for a new election, rather than just calling directly for anointing the Republican candidate.

Signature matching is such horseshit, by the way. In 2016 at least NH required that people sign the envelope containing the ballot and sign the ballot itself, and allowed moderators to disqualify ballots if they thought that the signatures don't match. I'm assuming that AZ has the same thing, and that Trump is referring to that, although the NH requirement was not in effect in 2018 because it was struck down by a court as horseshit (to use a legal term).

Here you sign the outside of the envelope and they match with whatever they have on file. No idea how they have my signature on file. I hope it's not from my letter to the mayor danding a kitten walking park on the riverwalk.