Democrats Officially Pick Up 40 Seats as GOP Rep. David Valadao Finally Concedes

You are stumbling, again, Curious Agency.

They gained the most seats since 1976.

Nah, you are not an independent observer, Your wordage favors the far and alt right.

And, yeah, the Blue is going to steam roll in 2020.

 

2020 seems like the perfect time for you to run Hillary for the 3rd time. With the #BlueWave, nothing can stop her this time

 

Uh, what? Republicans gained over 60 under Obama and over 50 under Clinton. Trump is the third president in 100 years to gain Senate seats. I'm guessing to you, anyone to the right of Bernie Sanders is far alt-right. No worries, though, I get called a Clinton lover by the crazy right every time I say something negative about Trump, which is fairly often. I consider it a badge of honor that the loons on the left think I'm far right and the loons on the right think I'm far left.

Good luck on your steam roll in 2020. Trump is a terrible president. I fear, though, that the dems won't have anything except "we're not Trump," to run on. Us in the middle don't think that's a compelling reason to vote blue. Once you collectively stop having your meltdown, you can re-group and get some sort of message.

 

Fear all you want, Curious Agency. The melt down of the right in getting their butts beat in the House of Representatives delights the true American patriot's heart.

The far and alt right are going to have a horrible two years.

Then: it will get worse for them.

 

How so? Say the House tries to impeach Trump...it just goes straight to the Republican Senate...lol

 

Nobody is butt hurt, genius. The sitting president's party always (regardless of which color team,) expects to lose in the mid-terms. Were you butt hurt when Clinton lost 50 something seats and Obama lost over 60? Keeping that senate AND losing ONLY 40 seats is a pretty good showing for the first midterm.

Nobody on the right is having a meltdown. They are laughing at you. Your inability to see the blue meltdown is interesting, though. Miserable two years? Trump will almost certainly get at least one more SCOTUS pick, and there's nothing the D team can do about his choice. This R meltdown is some weird fantasy you are having. Nothing more.

Republicans are happy as clams right now. Two confirmed SCOTUS picks, and another well on the way, is their wet dream. They are having a blast. Their biggest hope is that you continue to whine. It means your team is doing nothing to develop a winning strategy.

 

Your first sentence was a dodge after being proven wrong.

Your second sentence is complete bullshit because we have two years and thousands of elections from which we can establish a trend.

I dont give a **** which statistic you want to use. 2018 was a crushing defeat for republicans.

 

Blue state population vs red state population? What a ****ing myopic takeaway.

There have been "more people in blue states than red states" solely because of this election. A majority of Americans are now living in a state with a democratic governor because Democrats picked up SEVEN governorships.

And even if that were not true, even if the "blue population > red population" was a thing, it was a thing in nearly every recent election. And yet, the single largest defeat in terms of the popular vote happened two weeks ago.

 

I love how partisans (both teams,) scour the internet for statistics that make their team look better than it is.

Less populous means less people vote, genius. Total votes is irrelevant. CA has 27 million people, while Wyoming has less than one million. Of course their house race is going to get less votes than CA. What was the total takeaway? 51% of total votes cast? Stunning victory for your team. Truly exceptional.

There are still more red governors than blue in 2019. Another non-celebration celebration by team blue. "Yay, we still have less governorships!!" That is what you celebrate. That's a pretty low bar you set for celebration time.

I literally have no idea what you are celebrating. Celebrating the blue wave that wasn't? Blue team was expected to win much bigger, but they couldn't even take the Senate.

Trump still has more SCOTUS picks coming. RBG is not healthy. The country said, "no thanks on a D blocking the next SCOTUS pick." That's not a victory for team blue.

Stop having a meltdown and develop a strategy. That's how you win big. Your house takeover was completely predictable, given historical trends. Obama lost you 63 house seats in his first midterm election. Trump losing 40 is pretty good, in comparison.

 

Your standards for "crushing defeat" are incredibly low. Kindergartners get a pat on the head for taking a successful nap. Is that what you are going for?

 

How many states moved to the left? How many districts?

 

You had a full grade book of Fs and got a couple of Bs. You are still failing, overall. Especially when historically, the party OUT of power does much better in the midterms.

So, your less worse than you were? Congrats, I suppose. The only people who think that was a tsunami are hyper partisans for team blue. Everyone sees it for what it was; modest gains.

 

The party out of power does better in first year president's midterms.

But flipping 40 seats in the house in one election has not happened for democrats since watergate. Winning the total house vote by 9.8 million has never happened for any party in US history. Picking up 7 governorships means that the majority of Americans now have a Democrat as governor. Losing a total of two senate seats despite having 26 on the chopping block, 10 of which were in states won by Trump, is a win as well. Those are all signs of a crushing defeat.

And the fact that all of that took place while the economy was booming means that the failure lies squarely on the shoulders of Trump's inability to expand his coalition and the GOP's failures to pass any popular legislation.

You've mentioned previous first term Presidents and the losses that they suffered. They were also crushed by wave elections, but one of the reasons why the "largest defeat" statistic is relevant is because one of the reason that Obama lost so massively is because the coalition that elected him stayed home in 2010. The difference between 2016 and 2018 was a full 50% less than the difference between 2008 and 2010.

Trump's coalition is not enough. And the fact that he has responded by doubling down on his "all-base, all the time" strategy means that the #BlueWave will turn into a #BlueTide.

 

1. Your point about big scoring is that the democrats are so terrible at the R team's first midterm, it's a huge win if they win less seats than expected? Okay - that's a weird way to take it, but when you resort to cherry picking data, you have to go with it, I suppose.
2. More states have R governors, so not sure what meaningless stat you are using. When the number is higher than 25 out of 50, it's more. That's not what the D governors have.
3. You lost the only two things the R team really cared about - the power to block SCOTUS nominees and the power to impeach. They won and they are happy as clams.

So, cling to your meaningless stats; when you want a win that badly, a meaningless stat will have to suffice. (Psst... or you could try a tried and true method of actually winning; having a strategy that sells. )

 

What is more interesting to me, is that we did better at the state level. We have a net gain of 223 state legislative seats, 7 governors, and have 4 more AG's at the state level which will complicate efforts by Republicans to impede full ballot access to minorities and the working poor . We were too enamored with the oval office and so we virtually did nothing but watch, as Republicans took over these state races and used them to gerrymander for over a decade. It was their successes at the state level that prevented total domination this time around. Finally we are paying attention at all levels but most of the credit here, definitely goes to Pres. Trump. He is the best thing that has happened to the state democratic parties in a long time.

 

That's all fine and good; progress.

In this environment, though, there is a key metric that matters the most, in my opinion. Partisans on the right, please correct me if I'm wrong.

1. The D team wants to impeach, even though they've no idea what the impeachment is for.
2. SCOTUS seats are up for grab. They want blocking power so Trump can't add to the two he's already gotten.

The country said no to that. That's huge. Enormous.

Partisan lefties can pretend it doesn't matter, but they know damned-well that it does. Pretending otherwise is why we can't have nice things. At least, though, 40%~ish of us can look at the nuance, and see the spin for what it is. Both sides do it. It's wrong either way. If we could all agree on facts, there would be much more cohesion in this country.

 

It's fun watching the Right melt down and deny at the same time they are melting down.

 

Partisan righties had suppressed the vote in key states to allow the GOP to keep the Senate.

The Senate will go Blue in 2020, most likely.

Gorsuch and Kavanaugh joined with the libs on the PP case.

Remember that "conservative" picks often drift left.

 

In November I voted for one Right candidate and one left candidate. The rest of my votes were 3rd party.

We absolutely agree on one thing though it is excellent news that the democrats cant Block scotus nominees nor can they impeach. Good news for the country.

 

ok

 

. All you're proving is the right makes good scotus nominees. Which makes trump a good choice? Blech.

I disagree though. I wish we had had choices not Trump/Clinton. This isn't the best we can do. These types of choices will continue as long as we have hyper partisans doing their spin. All of you are destroying our country

 

Two corrections come to mind.

I don't know that the 'D team' has spoken on impeachment in any measurable way. Clearly the progressive wing, is more likely to advocate for impeachment hearings at least, than more moderate Dems. But I haven't even seen polling data on this issue. In Congress there is no real Democratic interest in impeachment. That's one reason Pelosi, an opponent of impeachment, is about be voted Speaker by the caucus in the very body that has soul power to impeach. That is no coincidence. Its probably the best measure of Democratic support or lack thereof for the idea.

yes we Democrats wanted senate control to block SCOTUS nominations. Yes it is matters a lot that we did not get it. ( I personally would far prefer we had Senate control, to House control for that very reason) But the 'country' did not speak on this issue. First SCOTUS does not register all that high in voter concerns. The economy, national security and nowadays immigration rate higher as voter issues, so we really can't determine much even when voters vote for one party's candidate over another. Even if we could, only one third of Senate seats are typically up for grabs in any election, so that means approximately 2/3 of them were not voted on.

We all know that fortune does not equally favor both parties in any of these cycles, and this was a particularly difficult cycle for Dems as far more of their seats required defending than Republicans.

Understanding nuance suggests a wise and deep mind. Noticing spin suggests an experienced and perceptive mind. Plenty of people over 40, can't seem to do either particularly well, and plenty of people under 40 can do both.

 

The irony of accusing me of cherry picking my 6 points of data while responding with two points of data is not lost on anyone.

But let me add a couple of more data points. Wisconsin and North Carolina are two states where the Republicans won ~40% of the vote while obtaining ~60% of the house seats. In Florida, thousands of mail-in ballots remain uncounted while the Democrat lost by less than 1% and in Georgia the republican in charge of voting registration won the governorship by 1%. And in North Carolina's 9th district, the election board refused to certify the results because of very legitimate claims for voter fraud on behalf of the republican.

All these additional statistics should help lead you to the conclusion that the #BlueWave of 2018 could and arguably should have been even bigger.

 

Somewhere above fails in rebuttal to MrTLegal.

The facts remain that WI, NC, and FL election follies gave the GOP seats and governorships they would not have earned in a fair election.

 

Simply because you use junk statistics to prove your point.

- Your claim that the democrats hold more governor seats, now, is completely false.
- Your claim that it's a big win in the house false flat as well. "We sucked less than we have in the past?" That's a big win for you? Your admission that the republicans outshine you in the first midterms is fun, though.

By no meaningful metric was this a blue wave. But, partisans have to run with what little they have, to prop themselves up. They do whatever it takes to avoid looking in the mirror to see their own flaws. Carry on with your collective meltdown. Once you get done, your party will re-group, find a message that resonates, and move on. You are in the exact spot the Republicans were in a decade ago.

And so the pendulum swings... back and forth and back and forth.