Posts by Russell Brown
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TVNZ’s report on the day is good value and has longer comments from speakers than I was able to scribble down.
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The final resolutions.
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Hard News: The Midterms, in reply to BenWilson,
There were structural reasons why the Senate was unlikely to flip, the main one being that half of it was not up for election.
Two thirds – and most of what was up was seats the Dems already held (which is why they "won" the Senate popular vote by 12 million votes). And it wasn't that many votes in the key races away from being a different result.
Another way of looking at the House result is that it's a turnaround of 63 seats in the House since Obama's infamous 2010 "shellacking" in the midterms.
Phil Quin is quite good value on Newsroom today:In a narrow sense, it could be argued Trump successfully built a firewall in his heartland to prevent any possibility of losing both chambers. By making his closing argument on drummed up immigration fears, not the booming economy, and playing a full deck of race cards, he no doubt helped his party in the old confederate states and Appalachia.
But by doing so, he turned off suburban voters in House districts across the country, resulting in a nine percent advantage nationally for the Democrats. To put that in context, that represents the best outcome for the party since 2008 – a presidential year marred by a cratering economy and a deeply unpopular war that voters blamed squarely on Republicans. (Before anyone quibbles that Trump managed to win office despite losing the popular vote the first time, not even the most creatively contorted Electoral College maths imaginable can turn a nine point deficit into a victory).
If Republicans fall for their own “split decision” talking points, and fail to heed the myriad warning signs thrown up by their walloping in the House, they will sleepwalk into an electoral buzzsaw once 2020 rolls around. The GOP appears to have lost women voters by a staggering 20 points. And while Hispanic, African American and millennial antipathy to Trump didn't translate into hoped-for victories in Florida,Texas and Georgia, it is nevertheless real, intense – and growing. The well of white racial resentment from which Trump draws so gleefully is not bottomless, and it doesn't come without costs.
Another point of interest: voters in three deep red states overruled their legislatures and voted for an expansion of socialised healthcare.
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Hard News: The Midterms, in reply to nzlemming,
Gillum has conceded to De Santis in Florida.
And yet the progress total is a near dead-heat. The Florida Senate is literally 50-50 right now.
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Hard News: The Midterms, in reply to BenWilson,
Funny to think that the probability of winning moves around that much
I think at one point Nate was trying to explain that his model was being too aggressive. Yeah.
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Hard News: The Midterms, in reply to nzlemming,
but overall Dems did, as they were never supposed to be that close, let alone flipping other seats.
Yeah, looks like Beto has pulled through quite a few down-ticket wins.
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The Washington Post's graphics give a good idea of what's going on with the House. Dem pickups emerging, but hell, I hope they get there.
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Hard News: The Midterms, in reply to mark taslov,
They may not have been official feeds – at least I was getting 'video unavailable'.
Yeah, the pirate MSNBC one got yanked, but it was easy enough to find another one. It's very lively, but the ads get a bit wearying.
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The Washington Post live stream. Interesting seeing how newspapers, with their smaller budgets and lack of broadcast experience, do it.
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