[honk]

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-us-canada-63627007

Chuckle. Even some at Fox News are turning away from Trump now. Obviously the real cult members never will. Sad, to quote the "great" man himself.

The knives are out for Trump on many right wing media outlets.

While I would love for the GOP to descend into a messy civil war between its pro- and anti-Trump factions, it's important to remember that we've been here before, numerous times:

https://www.thebulwark.com/conservatism-inc-is-breaking-up-with-trump-again/

As trite as it sounds to say, Republican voters are the ones who'll decide if and when Trump's political career is over, not the Republican establishment. It's also worth bearing in mind that Ron DeSantis, Trump's only real competition, has a major disadvantage - he has the charisma of a tire iron. That hasn't been a problem for him in keeping control of Florida, but he may struggle on the national stage.

[AATW]

Keep telling yourself it went poorly for the Dems though. We all need a little copium sometimes

Some pictures from Tom's mid-term results celebration party

[J-Man]

Dems are just in your face cheats.

Their fake ballot dumps are sooo obvious.

This makes Trump a for sure victor in 24. Me thinks even the dems see their being used and injected with death elixirs.

[Lord Dave]

Dems are just in your face cheats.

Their fake ballot dumps are sooo obvious.

This makes Trump a for sure victor in 24. Me thinks even the dems see their being used and injected with death elixirs.

And yet they got away with stealing TWO elections.  What makes you think they can't do a third?

[Rama Set]

I am celebrating the worst performance by the opposition since 2002. You are having a harder time understanding this than the GOP is winning senate races.

Actually it could just mean that the blue and red areas were generally saturated with their party and there was not much change. The change that did occur lost Democrats the House. They lost power.

Previous administrations have been able to keep control of the House. The Democrats could have done the same, but did not.

But they did gain seats in the senate and netted two governor’s chairs as the GOP had the worst midterm since 2022 lol

[Tom Bishop]

Keep telling yourself it went poorly for the Dems though. We all need a little copium sometimes

Some pictures from Tom's mid-term results celebration party

You have this backwards. In this case the Democrat side literally lost power, lost the House, are standing on the losing podium, while exclaiming leaps of logic to justify and celebrate their "win".

[Clyde Frog]

No, I think it's spot on. Dems have the presidency and the Senate. GOP is on track to have a teeny-tiny advantage in the House only. The image tracks perfectly.

The GOP expected to win a Senate majority. They expected to have a huge advantage in Congress. They achieved neither. "I think if you look at the numbers, I think we can do better, way better than 52." - Rick Scott

Sleepy Joe is president, we're dealing with insane inflation, and the GOP still failed this dismally at pulling off the midterm red wave they told everyone in their base they were supremely confident was definitely happening. *Slow clap*

[Tom Bishop]

I am fairly sure in every major election for the past hundred years each side has made statements that they would do well, with various predictions on the magnitude of their win. Your definition of winning based on something you read that someone said or predicted is hardly meaningful, unless you can show that the definition of winning and losing is based exclusively on that person's word.

In an October article a few weeks before the election Fox News had it pretty spot on that it was going to be neck-in-neck:

https://www.foxnews.com/politics/polls-republicans-flip-metric-2022-midterm-elections-democrats-blew-lead

In September, some commentators were confident Democrats might be able to avoid a "red wave," but with just three weeks to midterm election day, momentum from the overturning of Roe v. Wade and President Biden’s string of summer legislative wins could be waning.

Polling for the 2022 generic congressional vote — a closely watched indicator for midterm performance — shows Democrats’ average advantage over Republicans peaking in mid-September with a 1.3% lead, a decent advantage given that Biden’s approval rating consistently hovered in the low 40s. 

However, three weeks away from the midterms, Republicans have managed to gain back momentum that they have not seen in months, leading by 2.2% on average when voters are asked which party they would support, according to RealClearPolitics. 

"After the Dobbs ruling, the Kansas referendum and several special election victories, the focus had shifted, at least somewhat, off of exclusively the economy, and that was to the Democrats’ benefit," said Democratic strategist and Fox News contributor Jessica Tarlov.

The shift in the political environment this summer lent itself to optimism for Democrats that GOP dominance in the midterms could be avoided. However, Tarlov says it depends on the definition of victory for Democrats this fall.

"I never thought Democrats would hold the House, but expected a slim GOP majority. Now it’s looking like it could be dozens of seats," said Tarlov. "I believe there’s time to get it back under control, but messaging has to be laser-focused on the economy and crime, with little else."

On Monday, the New York Times/Siena College's latest poll showed Republicans in a four-point lead, 49% to 45%, over Democrats when voters were asked who they favored to represent them in Congress. Just last month, the Times/Siena's September poll had Democrats with a one-point edge over Republicans.

[Clyde Frog]

Have a glance at history for a moment. You aren't making the strong case that you seem to think you are. Remember, history is only an internet search away!

https://www.presidency.ucsb.edu/statistics/data/seats-congress-gainedlost-the-presidents-party-mid-term-elections

[Rama Set]

Cooooope

Like Clyde said above, the Dems historic performance isn’t a matter of opinion.

[stack]

We’re gonna get from the house 2 years of inconsequential hunter biden inquests and that’s about it. In the senate we’ll get 2 years of fed judiciary confirmations. Looks like a dem win to me.

The other win is the comedy that will ensue with the Gaetz & Greene clown show as they try to gut the moderates in the party. Popcorn on standby.

[Tom Bishop]

Have a glance at history for a moment. You aren't making the strong case that you seem to think you are. Remember, history is only an internet search away!

https://www.presidency.ucsb.edu/statistics/data/seats-congress-gainedlost-the-presidents-party-mid-term-elections

Yes, I posted that link on the last page. That page shows that number of seats an incumbent president's party wins during the midterms is directly related to the president's approval numbers. According to that page George W. Bush and Bill Clinton had terms where their approval numbers were at 65 or above, and so their parties gained seats during the midterms. During one of Bill Clinton's terms he dipped in approval to 48 near the midterms, and his party lost seats in that one. During one of George W. Bush's terms he had an approval of 37, and likewise lost seats. Obama had approval numbers in the 40's during both his terms for his midterms, so his party lost seats in each instance. There is a direct correlation to this relationship.

In this case, Joe Biden didn't have a high approval rating, and so the party lost seats. The reason they lost seats is directly related to the approval ratings. If the Democrats had done a better job they might have been able to win seats and keep the House. The blame is directly with the Democrats on this. Previous presidents have been able to gain seats for their party during the midterm, but required high approval ratings.

If any of the arguments here are "oh, I KNEW we didn't have good approval ratings and wouldn't do well, but..." then this is just conceding the loss, are admitting to being a loser, and are now trying to mitigate it. Democrats should have clearly done a better job and worked towards better approval ratings so that they could actually win seats. Starting the conversation with a contrived scenario where Democrats losing is the expected baseline is clearly just a coping method to justify the loss.

[Tom Bishop]

We’re gonna get from the house 2 years of inconsequential hunter biden inquests and that’s about it.

This understanding of government is poor. The House does more than inquests. Bills must pass through both chambers. Republican control of the House means that Democrats can't pass any of their socialist or partisan legislation or spending bills. It operates on simple majority for most things, with exception of a few cases where 2/3 supermajority are required, for things such as overriding presidential veto or suspending rules of the House. See: https://sgp.fas.org/crs/misc/98-778.pdf

In the senate we’ll get 2 years of fed judiciary confirmations. Looks like a dem win to me.

Mostly irrelevant since Republicans control the Supreme Court - the highest authority which has the final say and sets national precedent.

[Clyde Frog]

Have a glance at history for a moment. You aren't making the strong case that you seem to think you are. Remember, history is only an internet search away!

https://www.presidency.ucsb.edu/statistics/data/seats-congress-gainedlost-the-presidents-party-mid-term-elections

Yes, I posted that link on the last page. That page shows that number of seats an incumbent president's party wins during the midterms is directly related to the president's approval numbers. According to that page George W. Bush and Bill Clinton had terms where their approval numbers were at 65 or above, and so their parties gained seats during the midterms. During one of Bill Clinton's terms he dipped in approval to 48 near the midterms, and his party lost seats in that one. During one of George W. Bush's terms he had an approval of 37, and likewise lost seats. Obama had approval numbers in the 40's during both his terms for his midterms, so his party lost seats in each instance. There is a direct correlation to this relationship.

The neat thing is, if you go back and look at that page and just scroll up a little bit from where you seem to have gotten lost, there's a whole bunch more data. Take a peek. You might notice a thing that happens in midterms normally. And you might also notice that the Dems did pretty well in this midterm when viewed against the entire history of midterm elections in the US. And, as was pointed out, they also did better than most when viewed against the last 20 years of midterms. So that's history viewed through both from afar (at least in US terms, we aren't that old of a country) and when viewed over a much shorter timeframe.

"We'll probably get more than 52 seats" womp womp
"It's gonna be a red wave" womp womp
"It's not gonna be a red wave, it's gonna be a red tsunami!" womp womp

How'd the Arizona senate race go? What about Kari Lake's bid for governor? When is Don Bolduc getting sworn in? Dr. Oz? These folks were shoe-ins, after all, right?

womp womp

[stack]

We’re gonna get from the house 2 years of inconsequential hunter biden inquests and that’s about it.

This understanding of government is poor. The House does more than inquests. Bills must pass through both chambers. Republican control of the House means that Democrats can't pass any of their socialist or partisan legislation or spending bills. It operates on simple majority for most things, with exception of a few cases where 2/3 supermajority are required, for things such as overriding presidential veto or suspending rules of the House. See: https://sgp.fas.org/crs/misc/98-778.pdf

In the senate we’ll get 2 years of fed judiciary confirmations. Looks like a dem win to me.

Mostly irrelevant since Republicans control the Supreme Court - the highest authority which has the final say and sets national precedent.

Nice work captain obvious. Of course the House can do more than just inquests. But my point is that nothing will happen legislatively for the next two years. The House majority will block every Dem proposal, no matter the merit. They will put forth their own MTG whacko agenda that will die mercifully in the Senate. So all that the House majority will end up doing is sitting around trying to expose the monster that is Hunter Biden.

Which is fine.

In the mean time, the Dems in the Senate will be packing the Fed courts full of as many judges as capacity will allow.

Which is great!

womp, womp

[Tom Bishop]

The neat thing is, if you go back and look at that page and just scroll up a little bit from where you seem to have gotten lost, there's a whole bunch more data. Take a peek. You might notice a thing that happens in midterms normally.

I did look at the page. What I described applies to the whole dataset as well. Any time the incumbent president got an October approval rating of 65 or above, the president's party gained seats during the midterms. This is an unbroken rule in that dataset.

Being as popular as Epstein Island purveyor Bill Clinton might be a tall order, certainly; but on the other hand we are talking about a man who in 2020 got over 80 million votes, the most votes in American history when adjusted for population, performing better than even Barack Obama's first campaign. Presumably this tall, cunning, Napoleon-like populist should be able to compete with the likes of Bill Clinton. If he cannot then that is solely the fault of the Democrats.

"We'll probably get more than 52 seats" womp womp
"It's gonna be a red wave" womp womp
"It's not gonna be a red wave, it's gonna be a red tsunami!" womp womp

How'd the Arizona senate race go? What about Kari Lake's bid for governor? When is Don Bolduc getting sworn in? Dr. Oz? These folks were shoe-ins, after all, right?

womp womp

This was not the universal conservative sentiment.

Fox News indicated that polls were showing that the Democrats were leading by 1.3% in September and that Republicans were leading by 2.2% in October. This is not an overwhelming majority on either side. This also tracks with the last several major American elections where there were not large margins for either party.

Dr. Oz was highly criticized by the right as a RINO and a false conservative. There was not a universal declaration of support for him.

https://www.politico.com/news/2022/04/30/dr-oz-won-trumps-endorsement-conservatives-are-still-suspicious-00029148



https://nymag.com/intelligencer/article/dr-oz-senate-pennsylvania.html

[Clyde Frog]

You are going to sit here and tell me the widely-held conservative opinion going into the midterms was NOT that they were going to have a red wave, capturing large gains in both the House and the Senate? Bold strategy, Cotton. I mean, there's all the articles and interviews standing in opposition, but then if you wear sunglasses with just the right tint of rose...

[AATW]

You are going to sit here and tell me the widely-held conservative opinion going into the midterms was NOT that they were going to have a red wave, capturing large gains in both the House and the Senate? Bold strategy, Cotton. I mean, there's all the articles and interviews standing in opposition, but then if you wear sunglasses with just the right tint of rose...

Troll’s gotta troll.
Even the right wing media are having a post mortem about the results. Tom knows it was a bad day at the office, of course the character he plays on here can never admit that though

[Tom Bishop]

You are going to sit here and tell me the widely-held conservative opinion going into the midterms was NOT that they were going to have a red wave, capturing large gains in both the House and the Senate? Bold strategy, Cotton. I mean, there's all the articles and interviews standing in opposition, but then if you wear sunglasses with just the right tint of rose...

I would suggest that you look closer at the analyses you are discussing. Every analysis has its strengths and weaknesses and it would be beneficial to know what you are discussing.

The basis of the analyses you are talking abut were valid, even if it did not come to fruition. The public polling was suggesting that the Democrats were favored by 1% in September and the Republicans were favored by 2% in October. From this there could be a "red wave", and the Fox News article I linked above discussed the possibility of such, but only because American elections are so generally close, nearly 50/50. It would have required each Repubcan in tight races to win by one or two percentage points.

A great many races are indeed nearly tied, and the predictions rely on slim percentages that are liable to go one way or the other. This is why the predictions may be valid according to recent data, but not reliable due to constant changing of variables.

https://www.theatlantic.com/ideas/archive/2022/11/us-elections-tight-race-democrat-republican-partisanship/672022/

[stack]

This is as of August 2022:



With Senate control, at this pace, the next 2 years is gonna be a Blue Tsunami of judges appointed.