Capitol Hill Blue Forums Hot Topics & Breaking News News GOP and Democrats All But Tied Going into Midterms

If the GOP retakes the house, they will make a lot of noise, but nothing accomplished. Two reasons for that, Schumer will probably table most republican house passed bills as Reid did during the 2011-2014 period when the GOP controlled the House, but not the senate. Then you always have the presidential veto. Also, the filibuster on the slight chance the Republicans can capture the senate which I don’t see how today.

I do however see a lot of revenge tactics coming from a Republican controlled house. I wouldn’t be surprised, I half expect the GOP house will impeach Biden. Only because the democrats impeached Trump twice. They’ll come up with some high-sounding reason, but it’ll boil down to revenge for impeaching Trump. I also expect McCarthy to take some revenge on Pelosi for her not allowing the minority party to choose their own members of the 1-6 committee. McCarthy if he becomes speaker is sure to deny certain democrats any committee appointments. Revenge big style. I may be wrong about this; I doubt it though. Democrats like Adam Schiff will probably find themselves without a committee assignment with McCarthy citing Pelosi precedence setting denial. Denying the minority their chose on committees had never been done before.

Regardless, if the democrats retain control of the senate, I’d be happy about that along with every other democrat who should be. Even with the loss of the house. It would be an historic victory for a party whose president is hovering around 40% overall job approval with a majority of Americans disliking the job Biden is doing.

Overall job performance

https://www.realclearpolitics.com/epolls/other/president-biden-job-approval-7320.html

Inflation

https://www.realclearpolitics.com/epolls/other/president_biden_approval_inflation-7832.html

The economy in general

https://www.realclearpolitics.com/epolls/other/president_biden_job_approval_economy-7321.html

Crime

https://www.realclearpolitics.com/epolls/other/president_biden_approval_crime-7833.html

Immigration

https://www.realclearpolitics.com/epolls/other/president-biden-job-approval-immigration-7359.html

Thank God for Donald Trump, without him you’d be looking at 2010 losses in the house, 63 seats along with 2014 losses in the senate, 10 seats. This midterm if the election goes the way the numbers say it will today, will be historic. An all-time historic win for the Democrats even with the loss of the house. This has never happened before. An historic win courtesy of Donald Trump, his meddling in the GOP primaries providing very poor quality far right, possibly unelectable candidates for the general election, his election deniers along with the GOP massive overreach going against popular opinion, wants and wishes.

The key to the Democrats success or projected success this midterm is independents whose focus has been taken off Biden and company, off inflation and these other issues and has gone directly to focusing on Trump. If the Democrats keep that focus on Trump they’ll do just fine, great by historical standards. In reality, this shouldn’t be happening, but it is.

And with him, and with a Republican controlled House, he will get the time he needs to return as a semi-martyred superhero of the stupid. His social media narrative is the online version of Mein Kampf, and in the ensuing two years till 2024 he will marshal insurrectionist House members into a new NSDAP.

So no, I don't think I will be thanking anyone for Trump, certainly not God.
You seem to be focused on numbers so much that you're ignoring game plans for the future.

It's difficult to focus on this as a "horse race" when one team of horses has the dismantling of Western democracy as its singular goal.

Jeffrey, my hope is once the Republicans suffer these historic losses, they’ll realize how big an albatross Trump is around their necks. As for the future. Let Trump run in 2024, that would be a god sent to the democrats. Independents aren’t going to vote for him. The Democrats would win in a landslide. 60% of the total vote is a possibility. Trump’s a has been, but Trump himself, his followers and it seems most democrats don’t realize that. I can’t understand what terrifies the Democrats so much about Trump. Trump is an overt buffoon, an obnoxious one, uncouth, rude, a personality that even his mother would abhor.

Keep in mind, the republicans are still the smaller of the two major parties, they must win the independent vote or lose the election. With Trump running in 2024, losing is guaranteed. Only 35% of independents have a favorable view of Trump 58% see him negatively or unfavorable. History has shown folks usually don't vote for someone they dislike, and independents really dislike Trump.

You seen this year with the midterms coming up. How they went from a red wave to the Democrats gaining governors and senators with approximately a 20% chance at keeping the house. Go back to February, March timeframe when the focus was on inflation, not Trump. It looked like the GOP would gain the senate and the house by substantial numbers. But not since Trump became the focus beginning in August. Trump is poison to independents. All thanks to Trump and some very smart campaign strategy by the democrats, they’ll have an excellent midterm when they should have been demolished. Without Trump, I’m certain the democrats would have been.

I’m not worried about Trump. He’s too disliked. I’d worry about someone who replaces him with basically the same beliefs. Someone who acts like an adult, behaves like a candidate should, maybe a smooth talker, someone with political experience. Someone with the ability to attract independents which Trump can’t. That someone is who you should be worried about, not Trump.

That someone is in the future, but the democrats are too fixated on Trump to worry about the future which I think will come sooner than later. Perhaps as early as 2024.

Took a Pew Research survey this morning. Most questions were regarding immigration - a timely subject given the GOPs human trafficking this week.

I reckon once you've convinced yourself that half of America is your sworn enemy out to destroy your way of life, it's hard to focus on much of anything.

The other party has that kind of tunnel vision too.

Still and yet...this upcoming election is an election...it's one of the things that sets democracies apart from non-democracies...we vote on things.

I imagine the election will pretty much go off without a hitch and the rightful winners will be announced.

And I imagine that the rightful winners, regardless of party, will NOT set about dismantling Western democracy.

And that two years hence...another election will be held! Which will go off pretty much without a hitch and the rightful winners will be announced.

And I imagine that the rightful winners, regardless of party, will NOT set about dismantling Western democracy.

I expect to see this pattern continue. And no amount of histrionics is liable to convince me otherwise. We will see legislation we disagree with, and policies we abhor. People elected who shouldn't be elected...and a myriad of awful things.

But we will continue to see fair elections every two years that somewhat reflect the will of the nation. Whether we agree with the will of the nation or not...That too is a part of democracy.

This is just another horse race in a long history of horse races. It's not the restaurant at the end of the universe and this isn't our final meal.

And I think we know exactly how it's going to turn out, so it's not just another horserace, it's a kind of a boring one...but we have to get it behind us before we can begin to focus on 2024.

By the numbers Greger, 24% of Likely U.S. Voters, this is all voters, not broke down by party think Biden voters are America’s biggest enemy. The same number (24%) see China as enemy number one. Nearly as many (22%) regard Trump voters as the biggest enemy, while 10% view Russia and seven percent (7%) North Korea as the largest threat to the United States. Eleven percent (11%) are more wary of something else

By party, 37% of Republicans feel Biden voters are the biggest enemy, just edging the 34% who feel that way about China. Thirty-five percent (35%) of Democrats think Trump voters are the biggest threat, far and above the danger posed by all the others.

This was an old poll, but I think those numbers may has risen some as to Democrats and Republicans thinking the other is this nation’s biggest enemy. The numbers reflect today’s modern political era of polarization, the great divide and the super, mega, ultra-high partisanship.

https://www.rasmussenreports.com/pu...voters_see_each_other_as_america_s_enemy

As for our democracy being threaten, you have this.

WASHINGTON — The good news is that deeply divided Americans agree on at least one thing. The bad news is they share the view that their nearly two-and-a-half-century-old democracy is in danger — and disagree drastically about who is threatening it.

In a remarkable consensus, a new Quinnipiac University poll found that 69 percent of Democrats and 69 percent of Republicans say that democracy is “in danger of collapse.” But one side blames former President Donald J. Trump and his “MAGA Republicans” while the other fingers President Biden and the “socialist Democrats.”

https://www.nytimes.com/2022/09/02/us/politics/trump-biden-democracy.html

There you have it. Each side views the other as being the threat to democracy, each party views the other as the party that is bringing this country to being close to the collapse of its democracy. Knowing these numbers, for folks who are gleeful in citing the rising percentage of those who are placing the threat to democracy as a top issue, be careful. You probably have a fairly equal number of Republicans and democrats in thinking our democracy is threaten. Half thinking the threat comes from Republicans, the other half thinking the threat comes from democrats.

I generally agree with the Democrats. They've got a ways to go but they're on the right track.

I know a lot of Republicans, they aren't monsters. They aren't America's worst enemies.

I know a lot of Democrats too. They aren't the monsters that the Republicans think they are either.

It's just political marketing strategy. It keeps the donations rolling in and keeps interest up in the otherwise mundane business of governing. If not for the ultra-partisan divide there wouldn't be enough interest in government to keep it alive.

I’m old enough, I suppose you too Greger that can remember when both parties agreed on most issues, not all. There were some highly divisive issues even back then. That the partisan divide on political ideology was more like a small stream than the Grand Canyon or the Pacific Ocean. Eisenhower, JFK, LBJ, even Nixon didn’t have this highly partisan effect. You can look at the votes on the Civil Rights legislation and Medicare, the difference wasn’t parties.

Medicare votes in Congress.
House – Democrats 237 AYE 48 NAY – Republicans 70 AYE 68 NAY
Senate – Democrats 57 AYE 7 NAY – Republicans 13 AYE 17 NAY

Civil Rights Bill votes in congress
House Democrats 153 AYE 91 NAY – Republicans 136 AYE 35 NAY
Senate Democrats 46 AYE 21 NAY – Republicans 27 AYE 6 NAY

The problem I think is both parties have become much more ideological. Back than both major parties had their conservatives and liberal wings. The Democrats had their solid conservative southern base while the Republicans held their Rockefeller liberal Northeastern base. It’s hard to imagine today when the Northeast was Republican territory and the south Democratic. Since then both major parties discarded their unwanted wings and are now hard at work discarding their moderates. Which has increased the number of independents which most fall somewhere in-between the two major parties. Of course, you have those independents to the far right or far left of both parties. This in-between ideological wise may not be that accurate either. I found a lot of independents are for somethings the Democrats stand for, against others being the same for the Republicans, for some, against some. I like to use myself as an example, pro-choice and pro-2nd amendment at the same time. One who backs the democrats on some issues and the republicans on others. But have no political party to call home. I never belonged to a political party except Ross Perot’s Reform Party and that ceased when Pat Buchanan and his cronies took it over.

This isn’t saying that from IKE on that the Republican Party wasn’t known as the conservative party or the Democratic Party as the liberal party. But I remember several Republicans stating during the 40-year reign of Democratic control of the house of representatives 1955-1994, that the Republican Party believed in the same things the Democratic Party did, but only a little bit less.

Today, the hard-core liberals are all democrats, the hard-core conservatives are all republicans and the non-hard core of either political ideologies are independents or swing voters. I’ve always preferred swing voter to independents. Hence the super, mega, ultra-high partisanship base on hard- core political ideology between the two major parties.

...the Republican Party believed in the same things the Democratic Party did, but only a little bit less.

Pretty much.

Still do really.

Until something gets politicized, people can discuss it rationally.

Nowadays everything gets politicized. And rational discussion across the red/blue divide is impossible.

I was glancing through the governor races, are the Republicans so stupid that they believe a far right Trumper can win the governorships of Maryland and Massachusetts. The Democrat leads by 22 and 26 points. Like some of the GOP senate nominee, GA, AZ, PA, NH, NC, they make no sense if the goal is winning in November. Oh well, if the Republicans are interested in only making a statement, that’s their problem.