Posted on 11/10/2012 5:22:01 AM PST by Evil Slayer
My post of this morning was published with a couple of Senate races not finally decided. But the Republican candidates (Rep. Denny Rehberg in Montana and Rep. Rick Berg of North Dakota) have now conceded to the victorious Dems. (incumbent Sen. Jon Tester in Montana and Sen.-elect Heidi Heitkamp in North Dakota).
This nets out at a two-seat pickup for the Dems and a 55-45 majority heading into 2013 (assuming that, as expected, the Senate's two independents, Bernie Sanders of Vermont and Sen.-elect Angus King of Maine will caucus with the Dems). The net gain is especially impressive since the Dems had to defend 23 of the 33 seats that were up in 2012.
If you can stand to look ahead to 2014, it turns out that once again, the Dems will have to defend a much larger portion of the seats that will be on the ballot. Assuming that no deaths, resignations, special elections or party switches occur, 20 of the 33 Senate seats that will be up in 2014 are now held by Dems. And, if you look at the map of where those seats are located, it appears that there are more Dems in generally red states than vice versa. Minnesota will also have a Senate race and freshman incumbent Al Franken is likely to face a tougher challenger than Kurt Bills. It will be some consolition to the Dem planners that they will head into that cycle with a five seat margin in the Senate and, since the vice presidency (with its potential as a tie-breaking vote in case of 50-50 ties in the Senate) will remain in Dem hands through 2016, the Dems would have to make a net gain of six seats to gain control that year.
If you are wondering how it can
(Excerpt) Read more at minnpost.com ...
If someone came up to you and told you he was from the future and told you that Mitt Romney would get fewer votes this election than John McCain - would you have believed him?
Three of the Senate candidates had mouth problems: Akins, Mourdock, and Allen (remember macaca?).
Several seats that were supposed easy GOP pick ups got lost. Just weeks ago, many of the ‘professional prognosticators’ were saying the GOP could pick up about 5 seats.
The GOP needs a massive revamping of their message or their messengers.
Romney problems were Romney, no doubt about it, but why is Romney to blame for Akin stupid comment, Murdoch stupid comment after Akin’s? Is Romney to blame for Connie Mack? George Allen Jr? Ted Cruz did very well.
We won NE, all 5 electoral votes. In 2008, McCain lost an electoral college vote in Nebraska. This time Romney won all of them. Maybe Romney did poorly in OH, VA, and FL because of bad Senate candidates.
Well, sorry about what happened nationally, but yaaaa-hoo for us down here in Texas. We got rid of our worthless RINO and traded her in for an honest to goodness Tea Party Senator!!!!
Just wish he had more company!
Romney is responsible because he had negative coattails that depressed the vote. Do you really think people show up to a presidential election just to vote for a Senate candidate?
Romney drove away plenty of conservatives who chose to stay home, and this lowered the vote for all these Senate candidates, robbing them of what would and should have been several percent in their favour. Hence ND, MT, and MA.
MO and IN - he destroyed the campaign of two conservative candidates (as well as his own campaign), by backstabbing conservatives. Do you know how many of my friends were calling me and telling me - “you were sooo right about Romney”, after he cut off Mourdock and Akin. “You told me he was not a friend of us, and not one of ours, and you were right”.
That’s 5 senate seats right there. Had he stuck with Mourdock and Akin - they would have won and he would have won as well.
I thought our Senate candidate in OH (Mandel) was actually pretty good. OH is a bit schizophrenic when it comes to Senate candidates, and, as a rule, in OH once a 'Rat gets into office, it is very, very difficult to dig it out. We had that old liberal fossil Metzenbaum for decades. Likewise John Glenn (apologies to his military and NASA service). Sherrod Brown is perhaps more liberal than Obama was as a Senator, and his politics don't really align with the majority of voters, but they don't seem to care, they just re-elect him because he's in office and he's a 'Rat.
Romney lost OH because of the electorate, not because he was a bad candidate. He tried very hard here. He came here a lot and had good crowds at his rallies. But the auto bailout and unions, combined with Santa Claus voters (i.e., the Obamaphone lady), put Obama on top.
Plus Sen Snowe’s sudden retirement screwed us up too. I know she often votes with the Dems but it would have been a GOP seat at least, and one vote against Soiled Harry for majority leader.
I like many Tea Party ideas but I agree it is better to be pragmatic at times. As you say, if Republicans had nominated stronger candidates in 2010 we might have won CO and NV. Even though Mike Castle was indeed “moderate,” it would have been one more vote for Mitch McConnell for majority leader. Even if Republicans hadn’t taken a majority their numbers would be stronger. Now with a mere 45 seats they are going to have to hope the Dems’ numbers absolutely nosedive in less than 2 years if they have any hope of gaining the 6 they need to get to 51.
There was absolutely no energy in VA for retread Allen (or Kaine, really). NoVA was fraud central from the way it sounds. I hope they put up somebody decent to go after Warner in 2014, but it will be a real struggle-he doesn’t do much, stays quiet, and was popular as a governor. The only people I could think of to try it would be Cantor or Gov. Bob McDonnell.
Nor am I. How is it possible to have won the House with such overwhelming numbers and yet lost so many Senate seats. It does not compute.
Akin, Mourdock, Berg...
Missouri, Indiana, North Dakota, Montana....how the HELL could we not win those?
Obama’s coattails seem really really short.
A plus-2 in the Senate is not a bad election. We would’ve been crowing about it, had it been our +2. I wouldn’t call that “short”.
EXCELLENT POST!! I RECOMMEND ALL FREEPERS WATCH THE VIDEO!!!
Dems are not going to let us win the Senate or the WH from here on out. They don’t worry about the House too much because it is a 2 year stint and they like to keep them there to whip around and blame.
Missouri and Indiana were dead in the water because those races had unprepared dolts as candidates for the House.
They may as well have said “I am not a witch”.
Akin & Murdock = 4 Senate seat swing
In two of them (IN and MO), we had candidates who were not politically savvy enough to avoid making bonehead remarks that the media and the ‘Rats were able to conflate and twist so that in the end they were a caricature of what was intended. Our candidates need to be smart enough to know what to say to avoid those kind of “gotcha” setups. It was “Macaca” all over again. We need to field candidates who are smart enough to understand two things. One is that the media is your enemy and they will always be digging for any kind of misstatement that they can use against you. The second is that the average voter isn’t very smart and that leaves them vulnerable to manipulation by the media and the ‘Rats. So you have to be extra careful to say things in the right way and avoid the traps they set for you.
Unfortunately for us in Texas, we will have an influx of the locusts coming from the northeast and Kalifornia to avoid what they created in their own states. Not to mention all of the ILLEGALS that are flooding in across the borders.
Texas seems to be a safe haven for now, but it won't be in less than 5 years. Mark my word.
There was nothing to stop those millions of conservatives from going to the polls and voting for the Republicans for Senate regardless of Romney.
Indiana voters gave Governor-elect Pence and candidate Romney a solid majority while electing a Democrat Senator ,then elected Republican super-majorities in the state legislature bur put a Democrat in charge of Indiana education. Just try to make sense of that !!!!
Evidently one of severl things happened:the conservatives don’t exist in the numbers we hoped,or the conservatives were lulled by over-exuberant polls and predictions into thinking they didn’t need to vote, or the candidates were rejected by the conservatives,or the conservatives have given up.
I am AFRAID that evn many so-called conservatives don’t really want abortion outlawed just in case “something happens....in their family...”,AND that even self-identified conservatives have grown accustomed to getting “free” government goodies.
I went to support Cruz and cast my ballot for him. I don’t think we did a very good job of communicating just how important the Senate races were - and I think that when Romney turned voters off they were saying, “a pox on both their houses”.
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