Election: What Is Your Take...

[carpedm9587]

I was pretty happy to see Ohio go solidly red. Issue 1, which would have given Ohio the most lenient drug laws in the country, also went down in flames with 63% against, much to my relief ("But we would have saved so much money not prosecuting and jailing 'small time' offenders!" Yeah, and would those "savings" have gone back into my pocket? Didn't think so. ). Too bad about Sherrod Brown. We almost got him. Maybe next time.

So this is an odd list. Ohio has 16 U.S. congressional districts, but many are missing in this list. It has 33 state legislative districts. I can't really come to any conclusions on the basis of this link. It does appear to be more red than blue - but solidly?

[carpedm9587]

Here in Texas, Ted Cruz fairly narrowly staved off challenger Robert O'Rourke. Last I heard the margin won by was around 200k votes in over 8 million votes cast. O'Rourke already has his eye on John Cornyn's seat 2 years from now. Cornyn has supposedly indicated he will not run again, so it will be O'Rourke with all his name recognition vs. probably a no name Rep. candidate. I strongly dislike O'Rourke. Not just because of his platform but his lies about not taking ANY PAC money, when a check on the FEC site clearly shows millions of dollars coming from at least one PAC called ACTBlue, which the FEC site also designates as a PAC. In El Paso when on the City Council he represent the area and voted for condeming or using emiment domain to force barrio residents he represented out...meanwhile, the developer proposing this was O'Rourkes Father in law.

Have you ever looked into ActBlue. They are basically a coordinating site for small donors. Look at the amounts Beto is receiving. They are clearly small scale donations. Recently, ActBlue began accepting unlimited size donations, which changes the equation a bit, but I'm not seeing any such donations to O'Rourke. He appears to be staying true to his promise to stay away from "big money," as best I can tell.

[Mountain Man]

So this is an odd list. Ohio has 16 U.S. congressional districts, but many are kissing in this list. It has 33 state legislative districts. I can't really come to any conclusions on the basis of this link. It does appear to be more red than blue - but solidly?

It's all relative.

DeWine winning governor following Kasich's departure is a big deal.

[Mountain Man]

The Senate would have been nice if only to put a stop the massive swing of the judiciary to the right. But it was always a long shot.

It actually wasn't a long-shot at all. Based on historical precedent, Democrats should have had no problem taking control of the Senate, especially if Trump was really as unpopular as the media claims. But like with everything else concerning Trump's political career, things didn't play out as expected.

[Cow Poke]

So this is an odd list. Ohio has 16 U.S. congressional districts, but many are kissing in this list.

Kissing?

[carpedm9587]

It actually wasn't a long-shot at all. Based on historical precedent, Democrats should have had no problem taking control of the Senate, especially if Trump was really as unpopular as the media claims. But like with everything else concerning Trump's political career, things didn't play out as expected.

MM - every poll going in put Dem chances at taking the Senate a long shot. They were defending 25 seats to Reps 8. Many of those were in solid red states. Frankly, the Senate will always be a problem for Dems. The fact is that there are more red states than blue ones. That is because we have more rural states than urban ones, and rural territory tends to drift right. So the Dems cannot take the Senate without having at least some Red State Dems. The Reps can keep the Senate with just the red states alone and have no need to have Blue State Reps.

I suspect this is one of the major reasons that Peurto Rico and DC will never be admitted as states - it would shift this balance because both are pretty solidly blue.

[Mountain Man]

Kissing?

I take it to mean a thin margin of victory, as in "He was within kissing distance of winning the race."

[carpedm9587]

Kissing?

Yes. Kissing! You got a problem with that?

[oxmixmudd]

It actually wasn't a long-shot at all. Based on historical precedent, Democrats should have had no problem taking control of the Senate, especially if Trump was really as unpopular as the media claims. But like with everything else concerning Trump's political career, things didn't play out as expected.

Trump is really as unpopular as the media claims. So there are probably other explanations for why they did not also take the senate.

Jim

[carpedm9587]

I wonder what this will do in 2020? Florida apparently passed Amendment 4, which restores voting rights to felons who have served their sentence and are now free. Apparently, it's some 1.5M people. It was generally pushed for by most Democrats and generally opposed by most Republicans in the state.

[carpedm9587]

Trump is really as unpopular as the media claims. So there are probably other explanations for why they did not also take the senate.

Jim

It's pretty basic math. Dems were defending 25 seats and Reps only 8 seats. Several Dem seats were in red states (so-called Red State Dems). I think only one Rep was in a Blue State (so-called Blue-State Reps, and I think they lost the seat). Here is where the Kavanaugh vote may have had impact (though it's just a guess), because the Red State Dems did not do well.

As I noted in another post, the Senate is always hard for Dems for the simple reason that there are more lightly-populated red states than the more heavily populated blue states. In general, Blue is northeast Atlantic coast (down to Virginia, which is now kinda purple), upper midwest, and Pacific coast. Pretty much everything else is red. So the Dems cannot take the Senate without having some Red State Dems. Te Republicans can take the Senate with no Blue State Reps. So the Senate is continually a battleground, with the advantage going to the Reps.

[Bill the Cat]

I wonder what this will do in 2020? Florida apparently passed Amendment 4, which restores voting rights to felons who have served their sentence and are now free. Apparently, it's some 1.5M people. It was generally pushed for by most Democrats and generally opposed by most Republicans in the state.

1.5 Million felons live in Florida??

[One Bad Pig]

It's pretty basic math. Dems were defending 25 seats and Reps only 8 seats. Several Dem seats were in red states (so-called Red State Dems). I think only one Rep was in a Blue State (so-called Blue-State Reps, and I think they lost the seat). Here is where the Kavanaugh vote may have had impact (though it's just a guess), because the Red State Dems did not do well.

Gee, ya think? Every Red State Dem who voted against Kavanaugh is out (assuming Montana is called for the Republicans).

[carpedm9587]

Gee, ya think? Every Red State Dem who voted against Kavanaugh is out (assuming Montana is called for the Republicans).

Looks like it is going to be called for the Dem. Tester has a 1.5% lead with 94% reporting.

[carpedm9587]

1.5 Million felons live in Florida??

Yeah - I have to admit I was a bit surprised. But then again, Florida is one of the major retirement areas in the country - this has been a law for many years - so we're talking across most age groups. According to this site, Florida (1.6M) is way past the second runner up: Virginia (500K).