I tend to agree with many of these points-—not knowing the final senate results in AZ, NV or MT.
*I’ve never seen anything like this. Rs take key senate races in FL, IN, TN, TX, MO, ND, and win gov races in AZ, TX, FL, GA, OH, MD, and a couple of NE states, but lose about 30 House seats.
*I have never, ever seen a national network “call” a House race while there were still over 200 congressional races still counting-—especially when some of them, like MacArthur in NJ (last I heard) had won. Some of these were races we expected to lose. It borders on election tampering a la the early Gore call in FL in 2001.
*The message is . . . there is no message. Running with Trump really helped many (Kemp, Scott, DeSantis, Blackburn, Cramer, Hawley, Braun) but didn’t help others like Renacci, or (win or lose) McSally, Heller, or Rosendale. If any eked out a victory, the margin was way too close.
*Early ballot counting worked pretty well in FL and IA. It allowed us to calculate FL pretty close, and to see that in IA, there would be no flips and that Blum would be on the bubble. In AZ, it didn’t work so well. I’m told by Richard Baris that this is because the indies in the early/absentee vote broke heavily for Enema UNTIL the caravan became an issue, then it shifted heavily . . . but not heavily enough. FYI, I had internals from the AZ campaigns, and from the get-go, McSally’s group suspected they had a problem with indies and weighted their polls a full seven point indie margin for Enema! Ducey, on the other hand, did not have that.
I would say that in the future, a combination of ballot counting AND a “good” pollster to assess the mood of the indies will be required. But did we do better than the establishment pollsters? Hell yes. By a mile. Thanks Ravi and SpeedyInTexas
*In FL, thank God for Hispanics, who in key counties like Miami-Dade gave Scott a much higher level of support than they gave Trump (just a guess, but I’d expect Trump would get that support next time).
*House members who ran away from Trump got clobbered-—Yoder, Curbelo, Comstock, Love. But several Trumpers lost too, including Jason Lewis. Pete Sessions claimed that one issue alone cost him his seat, health care. He said John McTurd’s “thumbs down” doomed him. I did not believe it at the time, but all year Richard Baris was harping on the health care failure as an issue. Many, many of the races were extremely close. Things easily could have gone the other way in FL27, for example.
*Outside of CA and NY, it still seems for the most part that voters do not want socialism close to home, but are ok with it in D.C. They rejected socialist governors like Gillum and Abrams and Garcia and Cordray. The results in WI are somewhat expected. Scott Walker has done wonders for Wisconsin, but in the process he has alienated key interest groups-—teachers, the people who did not get the Foxconn contract. It was just enough to keep him out.
*While I don’t think fraud cost us any specific race, the recurring voting issues MUST BE FIXED. Unfortunately, without the House to back him, I doubt Trump can now do anything about it. This brings me back to “lawlessness.”
When Trump first named Kris Kobach to head his vote fraud task force, several governors and secretaries of state refused to comply. Eventually, Trump and Kobach gave up and threw it to Congress, which did nothing. It is clear now that whatever the dislocations, Trump needed Jeff Sessions to enforce these investigations at the time.
Increasingly, rampant lawlessness is traceable back to Sessions’ inability or unwillingness to enforce the law against high profile people. Now, it may be too late.
We will definitely see an unending stream of demands from the whackadoodles for tax returns, papers, etc from the Administration. Impeachment of course, may be a “show” item but won’t get traction with the Trumpian senate. So we can expect absolutely nothing to get done outside of executive orders for two years.
Here is a question for you, though: “Who will have the most power in DC outside of Trump?” The answer, I think, is NOT Nancy Pelosi, but the weird fringe in her party (and I mean, even those who are more “conservative.”) Think about it: when the Rs held the Senate by a slim majority, who were the power brokers? John McTurd, Flakey, Corkscrewed, and Tom Collins. We have swept them out, one way or another. The power center in the Senate is FAR more “Trumpian” and conservative than two days ago.
But who in the House will now step into their party’s position of being able to hold up legislation and their agenda/ It could be the whackadoodles, the Maxine Waterses, the Adam Schiftys. But It could just as likely be whatever “centrists” are left who value their seats. Their demands could go a long way in stalling Congress-—because with only (as of this moment) a 10-seat lead, a mere handful of these people will have to be coddled or bribed.
Lots more to analyze. If you recall I said we’d hold the House by 5-15. I was off by 15. Not too bad, but the overall tilt was horrible. So far looks like I was right on in the Senate, with a net 4-7.
There is a big difference between minority power in the House versus the Senate.
The Senate has a cloture vote, which gives the minority a strong power (although weakened since removing the 60 vote threshold). There is no equivalent power in the House; the House has a cloture rule where debate is time-boxed, and managers allocate the time for debate to their side until expired. Then they vote.
In the House, a win by one seat is as good as a win by 100, if you have party discipline. Pelosi has it, Ryan did not.
-PJ
Then again, stolen votes don’t really count.
Thank you.
Thank you, Larry. It’s impossible to nail an election down perfectly but you did an amazing job of being close.
Thanks, LS. Oregon went commie.
So when do you think we will know the final score for the House?
You did fine. Your analysis was well thought out and encouraging. Nailed the Senate. The House was always an uphill battle.
For all the back and forth this was a largely predictable outcome historically. The good news is the Senate gains and the Dems projected rock stars (Beto, Gillum, Abrams) losing.
Trump got a lot done the first two years with economy, judicial, foreign affairs. He can still effectively govern in those areas. The rest will be gridlock and partisan fights, so what.
Long term, demographics are real shaky for GOP/conservatives. Georgia will be blue soon. It is what it is - best to celebrate what Trump is accomplishing now in staving off destruction.
LS, thanks for your difficult work. When all is said and done, we cannot fathom what motivates many in the Electorate. Cold just be ignorance or they have no concept of Liberty.
Not sure what else can be done.
Personally, I think the change in the SALT Deduction impacted some House Races in the Blue States. We know the individual High Tax States are to blame, but their Voters see it differently.
The so called Healthcare issue was just Leftist propaganda. We look at Obamacare as a socialist failure, they look at it like an Entitlement. Try to take the Milk Bottle from the Baby and see what happens, you lose the House.
Well said. Indies do matter - they matter a lot. Iowa - they went one way in the congressional districts and then the other way for governor.
“I’ve never seen anything like this. Rs take key senate races in FL, IN, TN, TX, MO, ND, and win gov races in AZ, TX, FL, GA, OH, MD, and a couple of NE states, but lose about 30 House seats.”
Gerrymandering seems to be the only logical explanation. Just call it the gerrymandering wave instead of the blue wave.
“Outside of CA and NY, it still seems for the most part that voters do not want socialism close to home, but are ok with it in D.C. They rejected socialist governors like Gillum and Abrams and Garcia and Cordray.”
Larry, I think you might want to think some more about this. Nationalized single-payer and open borders did very well at the ballot box yesterday. Virginia, New Hampshire, Colorado, Minnesota and Nevada moved into the very solid blue state category yesterday. The Republicans in those states are now NOT competitive statewide. Gillum and Abrams - outright socialists - came within a whisker of winning in one supposedly “red” state and one toss-up state.
These are not good omens for the future. But Sinema in AZ is the worst message of all. An openly socialist, open borders candidate nearly defeated McSally in yet another western state turning from red to purple towards blue. Arizona very much looks like the next New Mexico...Colorado...Nevada. The west is going solidly blue.
I think your bright side view here is nice...but the storm clouds are gathering and they are looking like the perfect socialist storm.
Why are you saying McSally lost in AZ? She is ahead in vote count with 99% counted!
Thanks for your hard work.
Friggin Montana!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
But I don’t see how McSally could be overturned unless the 1% of precincts left are in Mexico. AP won’t call Florida either, pricks. Wanted more than 54 but I’ll take it. BTW that includes the MS runoff, I don’t want to hear any whining about how loser Chris McDaniel isn’t the candidate. There’s a prominent Black dem in the runoff, capisce?
Steve Knight looks gone, we’re looking at 207 if Bruce Polquin in slow counting rural Maine holds on. Not a long way to go to get back with some MAGA pickups in 2020, historically it’s a large minority, the largest since 1943-44 actually (209) not 1931 as I said earlier. But we must realize that right now suburban scum don’t like our President. White women need to wake the F up.
And Black outreach looks like BS, Black people voted to screw America, hardcore, as usual. John James in MI only did 2 points better than the MI Gov candidate in Wayne County.
“When Trump first named Kris Kobach to head his vote fraud task force, several governors and secretaries of state refused to comply. Eventually, Trump and Kobach gave up and threw it to Congress, which did nothing. It is clear now that whatever the dislocations, Trump needed Jeff Sessions to enforce these investigations at the time.”
They were to cross check the voter rolls with DHS, right?
So why didn’t Florida comply?
R Gov. Rick Scott .... R AG Pam Bondi....
Lots of illegals were found on the rolls when some local news group investigated their hometown. Some have voted in 3-7 elections.
Thanks so much for all your info. Much appreciated!
You kept us in positive spirits.
Thanks again.
Life happens. Two years ago I never thought that I would vote for Trump. Then a humble uneducated hairdresser said she was voting for Trump because “he calls ‘em like he sees ‘em”. Opened my eyes. She was right.
Thanks.