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The Repubicans (I refuse to refer to them as 'conservative' as they really are something else entirely). Anyway, Republicans do not refer to facts but to labels. For instance, Republicans feel that Dems are destroying America because they are ALL Socialists! That's the sin! The problem is that they are wrong. The Dems are not socialists. The social parts of the nation are really things like Firemen, and Police, by definition. Tax dollars pay for their support. Its also true of a number of other things, like schooling to the 12th grade, libraries, etc. When it comes to socialism I have yet heard many Dems screaming to high heaven to socialize our health care (arguably one of the worst in the world). If covid has taught anything its that our healthcare is simply not up to the task of dealing with our entire population and, again apparently, everybody really doesn't see it that way. There isn't a lot that can be said about Socialism. The simple fact is that it just doesn't work. I know, people refer to some European countries as being Socialist. The problem with that is that there are few that feel that way themselves. Those happy successful countries of northern Europe, for instance, are also places with a lot of millionaires which is something considered anathema buy American socialists.

Anyway, I think my argument boils down to there are two sides and the Republican side is a very strange zoo which is easily identified but not easily explained. They, for instance, hate all media and news except for their own. There is Fox, for instance. Then there is One America and Newsmax too. When I googled "conservative Television networks" I got 120+ million returns so there's a lot of stuff out there in this regard. AND is very different from the TV I watch which is the networks like abc, cbs, etc. as well as msnbc and cnn. I don't get any of my news from social media. I do know, however, that those that are considered 'conservative' they also also consider many conspiracies as being absolutely true. The part of the whole thing is that there are a pile of professional politicians that will swear that they believe stuff which they really don't believe at all. The Trump claim to winning is one of those things. The fact is that Trump has a base which has the capacity to control primaries but not the whole election (hopefully). This means that a politician can be 'primaried' which means voted out by not being able to get on the ballot. There is, however, growing belief that base may be losing members as time passes. If that happens Trump will have lost his hold on the Republican party and what happens after that will certainly be of interest. Especially when their voters start to understand that the ones they vote for have been lying to them for a very long time.

Oh, I am not even sure that Republicans actually have any real beliefs. They have, pretty much, eschewed any and all beliefs. They don't have any planks because they don't have any beliefs. They only have something called a belief which is actually what Trump has demanded that they say whether they believe or not. This leaves the nation with a political party based on liars. Some day, hopefully, them that support such are going to figure that one out and it may not be a happy place. One of the things they say is that they are in debt to Trump for all the wonderful things he has done for them. Anybody have any idea what those things might be?

Senate and House update 10 Feb 2022

Senate +1-3 equals lean, but within the MOE. These states are very competitive with one party or candidate having a slight advantage. +4-6 outside the MOE, equals likely but still competitive. +7 and above, those states aren’t listed. They’re considered solid or safe for the party that currently holds them.

Senate changes -FL Rubio, moved off list to safe Republican, NV D Cortez Masto up from +1 to +3, OH R Open Republican Candidate up from +3 to +4, PA Democratic candidate up from +1 to +2

Arizona Kelly D – Kelly +2 Democratic hold R 50 D 50
Georgia Warnock D – Republican candidate +1 Republican gain R 51 D 49
Nevada Cortez Masto D – Cortez Masto +3 Democratic hold R 51 D 49
North Carolina Burr R – Burr is retiring, open seat. Republican candidate +1 Republican hold. R 51 D 49
Ohio – Portman R – Portman is retiring, open seat. Republican candidate +4 Republican hold. R 51 D 49
Pennsylvania Toomey R – Toomey is retiring, open seat. Democratic candidate +2 Democratic gain R 50 D 50
Wisconsin Johnson R – Democratic candidate +1 Democratic gain R 49 D 51

Missouri R Blunt, Vermont, D Leahy are retiring, these open seats may make my watch list if they become competitive later. As it stands now, the Democrats have a net gain of 1 seat leaving them in control 51-49.

House of Representatives

Currently the House of Representative consists of 222 Democrats, 213 Republicans. It needs to be noted due to redistricting/gerrymandering the Democrats have added 11 Democratic leaning districts, the Republicans have lost 3 districts, giving the Democrats a 14-seat advantage in the gerrymandering/redistricting war. The GOP needs a net gain of 5 seats to take control of the House. As of 10 Feb 2022, 39 states have completed their redistricting including the 6 states with one lone Representative. 322 districts out of the 435 are completed leaving 113 remaining. Florida is the only big state left. Several medium states have yet to redraw their districts which include North Carolina, Ohio, Minnesota, Wisconsin, Pennsylvania and Missouri. The remaining are the smaller states which have less than 10 electoral votes.

Out of the 322 newly drawn districts, there are 31 competitive, switchable districts. Currently held by 20 Democrats and 11 Republicans. Safe seats as of 9 Feb 2022, 154 Democratic, 137 Republican. Probable net gain using only the redrawn districts is a Republican gain of 4-6 seats. When one takes the generic congressional ballot into consideration. The Republican congressional candidates have a 2-point advantage, 44-42. Then take the remaining states to be redistricted going by their currently drawn districts, a gain of between 7-10 seats for the Republicans is the most likely.

The Democrats are winning the gerrymandering war as of today. They have added 11 more democratic seats while eliminating 3 safe Republican seats for a 14-seat advantage. The impact on the upcoming midterms is huge. The safe seats without the gerrymandering 143 Democratic, 140 Republican instead of 154 Democrat, 137 Republican. Another effect of the gerrymandering is instead of having 42 competitive seats, we’re down to 31. The odds of the Republicans gaining their needed seats is much greater if 42 seats are contested, competitive, switchable than if only 31 are. There are still 11 states left to finish their redistricting which includes Republican states of Florida, Ohio, North Carolina, Louisiana, Missouri to 2 Democratic states of Connecticut and Rhode Island. Then there are 4 swing states left, New Hampshire, Pennsylvania, Minnesota, Wisconsin. Those 11 states will probably lower the gerrymandering/redistricting advantage the Democrats have today. They will also add to the Republicans safe seats with a chance of evening the safe seats up instead of the Democrats having their current 14 seat redistricting/gerrymandering advantage along with their 17-seat safe seat advantage. Hence the forecast of once redistricting is completed, 7-10 seat net gain for the Republicans.

States in litigation that will probably change the above listed safe and competitive seats depending on the outcome of the lawsuits are listed below. Listed is who drew the maps being challenged by lawsuits.

Idaho – Republican legislature
Maryland – Democratic legislature
Nevada – Democratic legislature
New Mexico – Democratic legislature
Texas – Republican legislature

Florida has "unpaused" the re-districting effort and its supreme court has handed a (rare) loss to De Santis. The deadline is June and I expect to see a relatively pro-GOP final product.

Republicans have nothing to fear from Democrats here.

The dust-up in court was over a 200-mile long black-majority district that guaranteed representation to a large hunk of Florida's Black population. DeSantis was opposed to the heavily gerrymandered district because it imposed fairness over those who oppose it.

Au contraire, mon frere! We should ALL be millionaires! Do you think the goal of socialism is a society made up of poors? Not at all!

What we have an issue with is Billionaires. It has never and should never be possible for one man to accrue that kind of wealth, simply because that kind of wealth can only be accrued on the backs of exploited workers.

Sounds about right.

It’s been a month since I give you all the latest updates on both the senate and the house.

Senate and House update 9 Mar 2022

Senate +1-3 equals lean, but within the MOE. These states are very competitive with one party or candidate having a slight advantage. +4-6 outside the MOE, equals likely but still competitive. +7 and above, those states aren’t listed. They’re considered solid or safe for the party that currently holds them.

Arizona Kelly D – Kelly +2 Democratic hold R 50 D 50
Georgia Warnock D – Republican candidate +1 Republican gain R 51 D 49
Nevada Cortez Masto D – Cortez Masto +3 Democratic hold R 51 D 49
North Carolina Burr R – Burr is retiring, open seat. Republican candidate +1 Republican hold. R 51 D 49
Ohio – Portman R – Portman is retiring, open seat. Republican candidate +4 Republican hold. R 51 D 49
Pennsylvania Toomey R – Toomey is retiring, open seat. Democratic candidate +2 Democratic gain R 50 D 50
Wisconsin Johnson R – Democratic candidate +1 Democratic gain R 49 D 51

Missouri R Blunt, Oklahoma R Inhofe, Vermont, D Leahy are retiring, these open seats may make my watch list if they become competitive later. As it stands now, the Democrats have a net gain of 1 seat leaving them in control 51-49.

House of Representatives

Currently the House of Representative consists of 222 Democrats, 213 Republicans. The GOP needs a net gain of 5 seats to take control of the House. As of 6 Mar 2022, 46 states have completed their redistricting including the 6 states with one lone Representative. 391 districts out of the 435 are completed leaving 44 remaining. Florida is the only big state left along with Louisiana, Missouri and New Hampshire.

Out of the 391 newly drawn districts, there are 37 competitive, switchable, at risk districts. Currently held by 25 Democrats and 12 Republicans. Safe seats as of 8 Mar 2022, 179 Democratic, 175 Republican. Probable net gain using only the redrawn districts is a Republican gain of 4-6 seats. When one takes the generic congressional ballot into consideration. The Republican congressional candidates have a 2-point advantage, 45-43. Then take the remaining states to be redistricted going by their currently drawn districts, a gain of between 8-10 seats for the Republicans is the most likely.

States in litigation, chances are the courts will let the current maps stand for the upcoming midterms. 3 states previous in litigation, Georgia, Alabama, New York, the courts have dismissed those lawsuits and will let their current map stand for this midterm due to the closeness of the primary and general elections. The courts will rehear the lawsuits again next year.

Maryland – Democratic legislature
Nevada – Democratic legislature
New Mexico – Democratic legislature
Texas – Republican legislature

All in all, that's good news for Democrats. All indications are that they will hold the senate and suffer only minor losses while losing the majority in the house. If things trend well for Dems over the next two years it will make it easier to re-capture the house in 2024.

Biden hasn't had enough support from his own party to worry about the opposition so far and I think it might be refreshing to see arguments from both parties again. It won't be much different, at any rate from the current deadlock.

So far Greger. We still have around 7 months prior to the election in which anything can happen. That time could work for either side. There’s also the slow trend in party affiliation over the last 9 months. I would say limiting the loss of seats in the house to 10 or there about as is the indication today, would be considered a victory since the average loss is 26 seats. Although that would give the Republicans control. Just keep in mind these are today’s numbers, as in if the election were held today.

The Democrats have a better chance of retaining the senate than the house. That’s because the Republicans have 20 seats to defend this cycle to 14 for the Democrats. In the house the Democrats are defending more seats than the GOP. There’s no indication of a red wave yet, which is good news for the Democrats. Some election cycles the wave election indications comes very early, other elections it comes late. In 2018, the blue wave indicators were there as early as October 2017 which never wavered. In 2010, the red wave election, those red wave indicators didn’t begin until July of 2010. Until July of 2010, it looked like the Democrats would be the victors. In 2006, a blue wave election, those indicators were there a year before the 2006 midterms. No doubt about the Democrats having a banner year in 2006. 1994 was a red wave election which didn’t take hold until June of 1994 when the GOP picked up steam. Each election is different. So, I’m always cautious using phrases like as yet or as of today.

We still have another month to sit on our hands before things really begin to count toward the midterms. But the war sort of galvanized Americans to take one side without much in the way of partisan disagreement, though a few have still sided with Putin.

I pointed out someplace that this would be working in the Dems favor too. While I'm still not expecting wins for them, I still expect less than historical losses. A united America will support the party in power.

Neither of us has wavered even slightly from our initial guesses: Senate will hold with a gain of 1-3 seats. House will fall but with minimal losses.

Biden campaigned as a centrist then attempted to govern as a progressive. And while I appreciate his effort it was doomed to failure from the start. Since Manchin was the roadblock Manchin should have been put in charge of Build Back Better. We would have gotten a smaller bipartisan bill instead of a year arguing among ourselves, and Biden's numbers would be around 50%.

I'm hoping for a quick resolution to the war. Two months is as long as I can give it. Fuel prices need to peak, stock market needs to tank to wherever it's gonna tank, grocery prices reach their highest....then start to correct well before election day...

That's a lot to hope for but as you know I am always the optimist.

LOL, an optimist vs. the realist here. Yeah, a lot of what I’m saying, or forecasting is before the candidates are known. That always makes some changes, instead of generic candidate vs. named and known incumbent, you have R Joe vs. D Pete or something like that. There’s an old saying that goes, a week is an eternity in politics. If so, what is 7 months? All it takes is one unforeseen major event to upset the apple cart and put all previous predictions in the trash. You really haven’t seen a rally around the flag or Biden with the Russian invasion of the Ukraine. Biden hasn’t gotten a bump out of that war. 2 weeks ago, Biden had a 41% overall approval rating, today he’s still at 41%. The generic congressional ballot hasn’t changed either, 45-43 two weeks ago, today it’s the same 45-43.

With 7 months to go, your corrections may indeed happen with rising prices. If these minimal lose numbers hold until July, that seemed to be the pivotal month as in the GOP two red wave elections, 1994 and 2010, then I think minimal loses will be forthcoming. No one seen redistricting/gerrymandering working in the Democrats favor as it has. I’m shocked at that, but it’s all part of the political game since around 1812. I accept that and take it as is as it isn’t about to change.

The change in party affiliation, if I were a democrat, that would have me worried. Not the base, but independents which lean towards one or the other party. The drop for the democrats, base plus independents leans from 50% in June down to 44% of the electorate today is huge. Republicans, base plus independents leans rose from 41% in June up to 45% today. Of course, we knew Biden has lost a lot of independent support since August as I pointed out many times. This shift among independents who lean has been very slow, but also very sure. It hasn’t been knee jerk in other words, but slow and methodical. So, we’ll see if that continues. When it comes to the house, keeping track of safe seats and competitive at-risk seats along with party affiliation are great indicators. Which party independents who lean are leaning toward is one great predictive tool.