Posted on 04/17/2014 8:31:20 AM PDT by Kenny
It's a virtual article of faith among election analysts that Republicans will gain Senate seats in the 2014 midterms. I tend to agree with that assessment, and strongly so. In fact, like other forecasters such as Alan Abramowitz and Nate Silver, I think Republicans have the edge in the battle to take control of the upper chamber this November.
But there is one place where I part company with most forecasters. I’m not 100 percent confident that Republicans will gain seats. In fact, when I analyzed the Senate races in February, my simulation created a few scenarios where Republicans did, in fact, lose seats. (It’s also worth remembering that while a seven-to-nine seat Republican gain was the most likely scenario, in about 60 percent of the scenarios, Republicans gained some number other than seven, eight, or nine.)
Don’t get me wrong: For Democrats to gain seats this cycle would be the equivalent of drawing a straight flush. With that said, straight flushes do occur, so it’s worth examining how it might occur here.
The first thing that would have to happen is that the playing field would have to improve for Democrats. Of the 11 Democratic seats that RCP currently rates as leans Democratic or worse, Democrats are probably at least slightly favored in Michigan, Iowa, New Hampshire, and perhaps Colorado. If the political dynamic were to shift toward the party, these seats would probably be out of the GOP’s reach on Election Day.
The way this could occur is fairly straightforward: The Affordable Care Act improves; there’s no massive rate shock for premiums in September or October; and the economy slowly gains ground. This should propel President Obama’s job approval upward, lifting the collective Democratic boat.
(Excerpt) Read more at realclearpolitics.com ...
They are Obama electors....... self righteous pride is more important than America
Yes, I meant MT. I put the wrong, abbrev.
They almost cost us Arizona as well, Flake won by 49-46 with 4.5% for the Libertarian. They did cost us 2 House seats in that state though (2 rat plurality wins) with recount fraud costing us 1 more (Martha McSally won on election night, Libertarians were negligible in that district) .
The Constitution party affiliate nearly cost us Nevada. Heller won by about 1 point with almost 5% going to some jackass named David Lory VanderBeek.
Is that what you want? Really?
No, I want you to validate my ego by agreeing with everything I wrote and praising me. ;)
Well thought out analytical thinking, Impy. Nice work.
I won’t predict the exact outcomes, but I have cautious optimism that both chambers of Congress will have GOP majorities, especially as long as the Akins, Mourdocks, O’Donnells, Angles and the rest of the mental midget brigade are kept in closets, caves, boxes...anywhere but on ballots or in front of cameras.
I just did. :)
Thanks!
Playoffs, damn St. Louis scored on the Blackhawks already.
Bruins go tomorrow.
You’re welcome!
The Western Conference playoffs are going to be war. Plus CHI has significant injuries.
BOS playing tomorrow sucks for me; parking in the North End will be even more horrific than usual. We’re going in to buy Italian pastries for Easter there.
The problems of modern life I guess...:)
What makes me think there's widespread fraud is the fact that I've learned to accept the anomaly. I remember the first couple of times when watching returns, I was sure we'd won. The races were close but Republicans firmly in the lead. But then, at the last minute, some big city came in and, Magic Circus, the Dem pulled ahead.
The first couple of times that happened, I figured we lost, weird but we lost. Then, when it became the norm, when every close race was pulled out for the Dem at the last minute, after all the other votes were counted, then I saw the handwriting on the wall. This includes the VA Governor race of late.
I agree with your analysis pretty much.
Only bone to pick is the influence of Libertarian candidates. My personal opinion (borne out by some post election analysis that I can’t recall enough about to source) is that usually Libertarians draw equally from GOP and Rats, so it’s usually a wash.
Oh It is widespead, don’t get me wrong, it’s probably every race in every state. When a Republican loses a near tie, I never buy it. I think Romney definitely carried Florida for example.
The conservative Republican (Brady) led the race for Governor here in Illinois 4 years ago, led every poll, only to lose narrowly. Do I buy that? Hell no. But the real result clearly wouldn’t have been an easy Brady win like the polls showed, but a narrow one. Brady wasn’t a great choice (electibily wise, he’s from downstate and he’s more than a bit wooden, our most conservative nominee since 1960 though) for Governor but we had slim pickings here. This time we’re stuck with a corrupt RINO.
The city vote is always last to come in for various reasons, the voters are idiots, the poll workers are idiots. And yes of course they want it to come in last so they know how much extra padding they need.
But I don’t think it ever gives them more than a few % points at the most. Many points to Harry Reid over Sharron Angle as fraudulent, it’s a high fraud state to be sure. But he won by almost 6 points, sorry that’s too high a margin for fraud to be the difference, at least I think so. She still would have lost with zero fraud, awful candidate. Too many people use it as excuse to explain away losses that had more to do with hapless candidates than anything else.
Most races are not that close. In 2012 the only close GOP losses were ND (0.92%, fraud on the reservations would more than erase that) and MT (3.72%) which saw the rat win with 48.58% while the losertarian got a beefy 6.56%, doubtlessly mostly Republican-leaning voters unimpressed with our candidate, then Congressman Rehberg. In 2010 the only close loss was CO (1.68%). And in all 3 of those races our candidates were lousy, should have been easy wins, not close enough to steal.
The amount of races we’ve just plain blown, failed to recruit a candidate that could win, or lost because of some third party makes me sick. The GOP could have 60 Senators right now if they were on the ball.
What really gets me is the god damn recounts. Any Republican that wins by a small margin will probably have it overturned. The latest victim is the Republican that ran for AG of Virginia.
In 2004 in WA state after a Republican won the Governorship and the recount confirmed the win they did a SECOND recount to finally steal it for the rat.
Didn't need fraud there at that time to beat the GOP.
The shutdown was the kiss of death in VA, the sequester didn't help either.
VA is heavily dependent on government spending and shutting down the government was messing with their gravy train.
And it was for reasons not rationally explained (it got us NOTHING in return)
I live in nearby Maryland and VA is not Texas. Its the front.
Even with that stuff McAwful only won VA because of Ross Perot, I mean Bob Sarvis, The liartarian funded by Soros. Gullible Paulbots vote for him.
McAwful got only 47.75%.
I forgot about him, yep that certainly helped.
They do take some from the rats (unlike the Constitution party), single issue potheads mostly, and some wouldn’t vote at all, but I think it’s hard to argue they don’t take significantly more from us than from them, looking at the results bares that out in my opinion. Their ideology is closer to ours than to the rats, I never hear of fed up rat voters thinking about voting Libertarian this year. Those of them on the Internet are mostly Ron Paul worshipers.
That is an interesting opinion and I cant at hand find any statistics or specific arguments to refute it.
Many libertarian voters are those who decided they wont support either progressives or so-cons telling them what they can or can't do in laws .
And they sure don't want any more wars.
Ironically and tragically they view FORCING individual states to marry two men as a win for freedom .
And where WTF are libertarians on the issue of states fining photographers thousands of dollars for refusing to photograph two guys weddings?
When it comes to the voting process, Stalin said it best.
Thrown in Soros’s “SOS” program and “VOILA!” let the unchecked fraud propagate.
I think the prevailing Libertarian view is that the government should not be involved in any way whatsoever with marriage (at least that’s what I surmise when I cruise through Karl Denninger’s stuff). Also that a business, just like an individual, should have the freedom to interact with whomever they please without government interference.
My personal opinion comes in part from past exit polls showing that third parties (of any stripe) end up drawing fairly equally from each of the major parties.
Didn’t that special election in FL recently bear that out? I’m sure there are exceptions to that.
Here’s an example for you - Karl Denninger (love him or hate him). market-ticker.org
He is a libertarian and is on the record as voting for Obama. He, like many libertarians, hate both major parties.
I think a lot of classic liberals have defected to the libertarian side over the Patriot Act and NSA surveillance. Rand Paul is having a lot of success hammering the NSA on college campi - which makes me scratch my head.
Kids are incensed over the government accessing their phone and email accounts, yet think it’s just fine to have government know intimate details of their sex lives and their right to have government provide their means of contraception.
the cato institute is providing legal consulting service to the new mexico photographer who refused to attend a homo marriage.
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