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Yes but how competitive are any of those 20 seats? 17 of them come from states where both Senators are Republican, and one of the 3 that isn't comes from West Virginia, the state with the most conservative Democratic Senator in office at the moment. That leaves Maine and Montana and Montana isn't exactly the bluest state in the Union. Sure, there are races with GOP incumbents that could be competitive like North Carolina and things could improve by 2026 but at least as of 2022 that list is far shorter than the list of competitive races with a Dem incumbent.
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On November 13 2022 09:55 PhoenixVoid wrote:
In probably the House race upset of the midterm (there could be another one in Colorado), WA-3 flips Democratic. 538 gave the Republican Joe Kent, a Freedom Caucus-esque figure, a 98% chance to win. Democrats made the entire western seaboard blue.
Useful chart to see how this midterm compares to other presidents' midterms. Biden's probably going to have the fifth best midterm for a president since 1934. More impressive given his miserable approval rating compared to the other performers. You could say the issues of Dobbs and defending democracy was equal to the New Deal, the Cuban Missile Crisis, Clinton's impeachment, and 9/11.
I think its pretty safe to say this was not an election about the current President and the state of the economy but about actual policy for once, in this case abortion, and that utterly sunk the Republicans.
I wonder how the Democrats will handle this going forward, surely the coming 2 years are the time to aggressively push for federally legalizing abortions. Either they succeed and they can run 2024 on that or, more likely, Republicans stop them and then you aggressively run on that.
I just hope real hard that they don't leave it and expect the same thing to happen again in 2 years, they can't play this like the Republicans do, cry about something and do nothing about it so they can keep crying about it.
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Norway28892 Posts
Eh, the economy was clearly a factor. Exit polls asked people which issue was most important and the economy (or inflation) was number one, picked by 31% of respondents. But - abortion was number two at 27%, and of those, like 75% were democrats. Had this been an actual vote on abortion, like every senate seat would be going blue and democrats would take like 400? (I made up that number) house seats.
There is no question that abortion is currently a big winning issue for democrats. But more precisely it might be considered a galvanizing issue for the group fighting for the more 'moderate' law - I suspect that if nothing had happened to Roe and there was a democrat push for federally legalizing it until week 22, we'd see Republicans be the ones considering it their main election issue.
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On November 13 2022 13:47 micronesia wrote:
It feels like the senate map is somehow rough for Democrats every time...
Thank you! This is something i have noticed too. Every single election, the senate map is apparently rough for Democrats.
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Every map can be described as bad for Democrats, because there are more red states than blue states and each state no matter its size sends 2 senators.
That said a lot of that is media hype.
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On November 13 2022 18:35 Gorsameth wrote:Show nested quote +On November 13 2022 09:55 PhoenixVoid wrote:
In probably the House race upset of the midterm (there could be another one in Colorado), WA-3 flips Democratic. 538 gave the Republican Joe Kent, a Freedom Caucus-esque figure, a 98% chance to win. Democrats made the entire western seaboard blue.
Useful chart to see how this midterm compares to other presidents' midterms. Biden's probably going to have the fifth best midterm for a president since 1934. More impressive given his miserable approval rating compared to the other performers. You could say the issues of Dobbs and defending democracy was equal to the New Deal, the Cuban Missile Crisis, Clinton's impeachment, and 9/11.
I think its pretty safe to say this was not an election about the current President and the state of the economy but about actual policy for once, in this case abortion, and that utterly sunk the Republicans. I wonder how the Democrats will handle this going forward, surely the coming 2 years are the time to aggressively push for federally legalizing abortions. Either they succeed and they can run 2024 on that or, more likely, Republicans stop them and then you aggressively run on that. I just hope real hard that they don't leave it and expect the same thing to happen again in 2 years, they can't play this like the Republicans do, cry about something and do nothing about it so they can keep crying about it.
Abortion probably did play a significant role as well i have to admit. Something that i didnt really expect.
Its a combination of many things. Difficult to tell how impactfull each of those have been.
It seems women where motivated to vote,at least i saw an article about women voting a lot in early voting. It would be interesting to see data about this.
More women voting (relatively) could maybe be an indication for the impact the issue had on this election.
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On November 13 2022 18:54 Simberto wrote:Show nested quote +On November 13 2022 13:47 micronesia wrote:
It feels like the senate map is somehow rough for Democrats every time... Thank you! This is something i have noticed too. Every single election, the senate map is apparently rough for Democrats.
Where are people hearing this? The Senate map was democrat favored this election and if you heard otherwise you should pick some new sources.
It should be noted that there is a distinction become incumbent disadvantage and the senate map. In mid term elections in the United States it is extremely rare for the incumbent party to do well. If you heard democrats are not favored it is due to this incumbent disadvantage and not the senate map. This is why you can have a favorable senate map and be projected to lose senate seats.
If you look at the next election the majority of the seats up for election are democrat or indepedents who caucas with the democrats. That is a bad senate map.
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Basically, in this thread. Every two years, people write that the senate map is rough for Democrats. This has been true since i have been a part of this thread.
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Norway28892 Posts
The metric should basically be 'contested seats currently held by x party', right? a 20/14 split itself is irrelevant, the relevant part is how many flipable seats there are and who holds these.
This election, the races that were close were these - with incumbent party following:
Pennsylvania (R)
Wisconsin (R)
Arizona (D)
Nevada (D)
Georgia (D)
New Hampshire (D)
To some degree North Carolina (R) Ohio (R), Colorado (D) and Washington (D)
To me it looks like that's a good election for republicans - if they win half the tossups, they'd take a majority. But instead Democrats are winning 4 or 5 of the 6 tossups.
For 2024, it looks like the close ones are (I'm basically listing ones where the 2018 margin was small):
West Virginia (D)
Texas (R)
Arizona (D),
Montana (D)
Florida (R)
Nevada (D)
Indiana (R)
Missouri (R)
Michigan (D)
Ohio (D)
(Maine - I caucusing D, but seems like a weird state that's hard to predict)
I listed these roughly based on win margin, so the lower ones would based on 2018 seem less likely to flip. But basically 6-7 seats for Democrats to hold on to, 4 for Republicans - so, an election favoring Republicans and where anything resembling a 'red wave' would give them the majority.
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On November 13 2022 22:46 Liquid`Drone wrote:
The metric should basically be 'contested seats currently held by x party', right? a 20/14 split itself is irrelevant, the relevant part is how many flipable seats there are and who holds these.
The split is the only relevent metric to me. Whining about how Democrats aren't favored because they don't compete in more of the seats is just silly.
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Norway28892 Posts
On November 13 2022 23:06 Blitzkrieg0 wrote:Show nested quote +On November 13 2022 22:46 Liquid`Drone wrote:
The metric should basically be 'contested seats currently held by x party', right? a 20/14 split itself is irrelevant, the relevant part is how many flipable seats there are and who holds these. The split is the only relevent metric to me. Whining about how Democrats aren't favored because they don't compete in more of the seats is just silly.
But it's not about 'whining', it's about 'is this election likely to result in a change in the senate majority'/'which way is this election likely to affect the senate balance'. If 21 Democrats are up for election but 20 of them won their previous election by 15 point margins and there are 12 Republicans up for election but 6 of them won by 2% or less, then that's a good election for Democrats - one where they can aim to either secure more seats or almost certainly hold on to the ones they have, and it's a vulnerable one for Republicans because they're more likely to lose seats.
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On November 13 2022 23:13 Liquid`Drone wrote:Show nested quote +On November 13 2022 23:06 Blitzkrieg0 wrote:On November 13 2022 22:46 Liquid`Drone wrote:
The metric should basically be 'contested seats currently held by x party', right? a 20/14 split itself is irrelevant, the relevant part is how many flipable seats there are and who holds these. The split is the only relevent metric to me. Whining about how Democrats aren't favored because they don't compete in more of the seats is just silly. But it's not about 'whining', it's about 'is this election likely to result in a change in the senate majority'/'which way is this election likely to affect the senate balance'. If 21 Democrats are up for election but 20 of them won their previous election by 15 point margins and there are 12 Republicans up for election but 6 of them won by 2% or less, then that's a good election for Democrats - one where they can aim to either secure more seats or almost certainly hold on to the ones they have, and it's a vulnerable one for Republicans because they're more likely to lose seats.
But did people think democrats would lose seats because historically the incumbent party loses seats or because six years ago democrats did slightly worse in the election than Republicans. You seem to be intertwining these things while I want a distinction between them. Most people in this thread expected Democrats to lose because of the incumbent disadvantage. Not because of election results six years ago.
I think calling that a bad senate map is wrong, but if your metric is just likely to lose seats then sure.
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Norway28892 Posts
I'm not factoring in 'midterm incumbent presidential party disadvantage' at all.
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On November 13 2022 23:42 Liquid`Drone wrote:
I'm not factoring in 'midterm incumbent presidential party disadvantage' at all.
That was bad grammer on my part. Most people in this thread expected Democrats to lose because of the incumbent disadvantage. Not because of election results six years ago.
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Norway28892 Posts
On November 13 2022 23:47 Blitzkrieg0 wrote:Show nested quote +On November 13 2022 23:42 Liquid`Drone wrote:
I'm not factoring in 'midterm incumbent presidential party disadvantage' at all. That was bad grammer on my part. Most people in this thread expected Democrats to lose because of the incumbent disadvantage. Not because of election results six years ago.
Ya, I get that. Not really arguing that one way or the other - I'm mostly just talking about what constitutes a 'good' or 'bad' senate map for either party. Then, I'm stating that how many senators that are up for election for either party is not the interesting metric, but that the interesting metric is how many senators are up for either party in elections that can be considered flipable. The Alabama or Hawaii races aren't really relevant.
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On November 14 2022 00:01 Liquid`Drone wrote:Show nested quote +On November 13 2022 23:47 Blitzkrieg0 wrote:On November 13 2022 23:42 Liquid`Drone wrote:
I'm not factoring in 'midterm incumbent presidential party disadvantage' at all. That was bad grammer on my part. Most people in this thread expected Democrats to lose because of the incumbent disadvantage. Not because of election results six years ago. Ya, I get that. Not really arguing that one way or the other - I'm mostly just talking about what constitutes a 'good' or 'bad' senate map for either party. Then, I'm stating that how many senators that are up for election for either party is not the interesting metric, but that the interesting metric is how many senators are up for either party in elections that can be considered flipable. The Alabama or Hawaii races aren't really relevant.
The other angle to consider would be the difference between the house and senate results. Would you expect the democrats to lose seats in the house, but maintain/gain a seat in the senate with an unfavorable map? The elections are so close that everything is within margin of error easily, but you're already using a subjective data set by deciding which elections are competitive.
I think the NC senate seat is a great example of this. You put it in a maybe list. The insider trader retired and there has been a purple state getting bluer vibe for years here now. What criteria do you use to decide that it isn't competivive? In the example you provided it is clear that senate map would be misleading, but I consider the all seats metric more like BMI where it works most of the time unless it is an outlier.
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Norway28892 Posts
tbh exactly where to draw the line for which state counts as a battleground state isn't something I feel equipped to define - for 2022 I just went with the Politico list (I think). For 2024 I just looked at 2018 states for a quick approximation - I'm sure some might not be battleground states in 2024, and maybe some other state will be. But either way you look at it, more than 20 of the senate elections this year were 99%+ decided and it'll be that way in 2024 too. For the record I think BMI is a pretty useless metric if you're trying to say something about the health of a double digit number of people. 
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United States44286 Posts
On November 13 2022 13:47 micronesia wrote:
It feels like the senate map is somehow rough for Democrats every time...
Because there are lots of small rural states which means the Senate map is intrinsically gerrymandered against the Democrats.
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EPT
