Capitol Hill Blue Forums Political Issues Politics In General Gerrymandering

If Democrats can pull this off it will still be a historically GOOD performance in a midterm election.

There is some small chance that Rick could be right though. When you're already assured a better than average performance you can hope for crazy results.

Right now we've got an economy in crisis and an ongoing pandemic. A mediocre administration and a Congress controlled by conservatives.

The economy isn't going to recover until the pandemic is under control. Like everything else...Republicans are fighting against government control of the virus. They like the bootheels approach where American heroes with guns pull a random medication from the barn vet box and magically cure themselves! Then they shoot some looters.

I don't know the full scope of it but apparently, every country is having problems with anti-vaxxers and anti maskers. Bolsonaro has said he'll be the last man in Brazil to get vaccinated!
Documents have surfaced which show the same cavalier attitudes existed in the 1914 flu epidemic.

That same 30% who keep popping up all over the place.

If they annoy the other 70% enough over the next 13 months then we may see some actual surprises come election day. The signs and portents look good right now with a Dem landslide in Cali and the "Justice for J6" rally flopping mightily in Washington.

Sort of a coast-to-coast middle finger to the anti-science crowd.

Like a sore thumb.

The J6 Rally's failure is being blamed by organizers on Trump for saying "stay home - it's a trap."

Until redistricting to completed, the House is a crap shoot. Rick may be as right as I. I'm more firm on the senate. I do agree limiting the GOP to a gain of 10-15 seats should be considered a victory of sorts. Moral perhaps. But something to build on come 2024.

What hurt and is hurting the Democrats was losing 13 house seats in 2020 while Biden was winning the presidency by 7 plus million votes. When a presidential candidate wins by that much, one expects him to have coat tails and bring along or get elected at least 20 or more new Democratic house members. 2020 was so unique in that regard, you have to go back to 1884 for the last time a presidential candidate won the popular vote via to white house and his party lost house seats. The reason why, only 41% of independents voted for Trump, but 48% voted for Republican congressional candidates, 51% for GOP senate candidates, 53% for GOP governor candidates. That a lot of ticket splitters. Voting for Biden for president, then voting Republican down ballot.

I was going to add that if the Democrats hadn't lost those 13 seats, the GOP would need a net gain of 18 seats instead of 5 to retake control of the house. But on further reflection, with all new district lines being drawn, I don't think that means much or as much if the voting to be done in 2022 was in the same existing districts. Still, a net gain of 5 seats is still much easier than a net gain of 18, so I'll leave this in.

Actually we won't know until November 2022 when the votes are counted. I suspect there are going to be a lot of people missing who usually vote and the missing people phenomena will cited back to COVID.

I wouldn't hang all hopes on the right people dying. When whoever complies the numbers, they compile the wants, desires, opinions etc of the living. Sure, some will die between now and Nov 2022. Even so, I doubt deaths will move the needle very far one way or the other.

I think how folks view Biden and the Democratic congress either positive, negative or indifferent will have much more impact than who dies of COVID. But we'll see.

I don't think past performance will be a useful predictor of the 2022 election. Republicans have an economy their guy screwed getting fixed by Biden and Democrats in Congress, states passing voter restriction laws to preserve minority rule, a disgraced ex President who sided with Russia over US intelligence, the attempted coup of January 6th, and an unprecedented devotion to maximizing the death toll of the pandemic.

By November 2022, all of these things are just going to be more obvious as more insurrectionists go to prison, more anti-vaxxers die, the House investigation goes public with Republican collusion, more indictments occur, etc.

Not business as usual.

100% agree.

Yes, it is.

The names and the scandals have changed but it's business as usual.

A perfect storm of some sort is possible in any election. Unlikely in most though.

But there IS that small chance and I'll be keeping my eye out for any hopeful signs.

Here's a thing everyone needs to be thinking about...

VP Harris needs to be gerrymandered out of the picture for 2024.

Quite right! But with a twist...independents also have to approve of what the opposition is offering.

I'm guessing Abbot and DeSantis are polling worse than Biden right now...?

Both are up for re-election. Both races have the potential for domino down-ballot surprises.

Word has it O'Rourke might run in Texas.

Regarding Covid deaths, they are happening mostly in areas with huge majorities of conservative voters. They won't be missed come election day.

I don’t think a real good chunk of independents even think about what the opposition is offering. They know what they like or dislike about the party in power. The party out of power just gives them a means to voice their opposition to what they disliked about the party in power or they’ll support the party in power if they’re satisfied with the way things are going or think the party in power is doing the right thing. I really don’t think, I’ll take a swag here, that 40% of independents don’t even look at the party out of party or even if they have something to offer. They’ll vote for the party out of power just for something the party in power did that they didn’t like. They’re not partisans and they’re not political junkies.

Biden’s numbers are nationally, nationally DeSantis has 30% favorable/35% unfavorable, 36% don’t know. Question 35C. Abbot 25% favorable/32% unfavorable, 43% don’t know. Question 35D. Biden 45% favorable/49% unfavorable, 6% don’t know. Question 50A.

https://docs.cdn.yougov.com/lib6k0abqf/econTabReport.pdf

Go to those questions and they’ll give you the breakdown via party, Republican, Democrat, independent.

I really don’t think comparing Biden nationally with either DeSantis or Abbot is fair. Mainly that it seems over a third of all Americans never heard of or don’t know who DeSantis and Abbot are.

Florida Polls, Crist leads DeSantis 55-45

https://floridapolitics.com/archive...on-desantis-voters-backing-vax-mandates/

Texas Polls, Abbot 42, O-Rourke 37

https://www.scribd.com/document/526125317/The-Dallas-Morning-News-University-of-Texas-Tyler-poll

Those are the latest September polls. Biden isn’t up for reelection in 2022, but congress is. I don’t put much stock in the generic congressional ballot as it’s nationally and not district by district where the house is decided. Without redistricting being completed, it doesn’t mean much if anything at this time. But here it is, I might as well include it as it is all we have to go on until redistricting is completed. Democrat 43.8% Republican 41.2%.

https://projects.fivethirtyeight.com/congress-generic-ballot-polls/