Capitol Hill Blue Forums Political Issues Politics In General Is it too soon to be talking 2020?

Was Joe Biden the candidate to beat Trump, perhaps the only one who could?

Nationwide, Biden is faring about 2.4 percentage points better than the average Democratic nominee for House seats, according to an estimate by Sean Trende of RealClearPolitics.

In Nebraska’s Second Congressional District, the Democrats nominated a Bernie Sanders-style candidate — Kara Eastman, who backs “Medicare for all” and was endorsed by progressive groups like the Justice Democrats — for a House seat. She lost her race by almost five percentage points, while Biden won the district by almost seven points.

But there is also a large dose of bad news for Democrats. Despite Trump’s defeat, the Republican Party has retained its popularity in much of the country. A small but crucial segment of Americans chose to vote for both Mr. Biden and Republican congressional candidates.

and more here

https://www.nytimes.com/2020/11/09/briefing/alex-trebek-jeopardy-biden-europe.html

A fitting end, if the Democrats have problems, so too does the GOP.

Republicans have a different set of problems. They have lost the popular vote in seven of the last eight presidential elections. They now appear headed toward a messy struggle over who their new national leaders will be — or whether Trump himself will continue to dominate the party.

McGrath was picked by Schumer and the DSCC over Booker. There’s a weeding out process of leftists in the Dem primary. Raised it before here if you recall. She’s part of a cohort of spies and military officers that have been favored by the party organization dwarfing any numbers of insurgent progressives that manage to have won recently.
95 million seems like an insane amount of money to be spending on a hand picked ‘troop’ to run against McConnell. It wasn’t in any way a grass roots ground game like Bookers. Setting aside the Parties eagerness to be a spook and DOD political party, what was all that cash raise doing?
Anyhow, that type of money raise, where it came from, and why so much interest in beating McConnell in such a spectacular failure is interesting. As much as the Dems jumping in bed with the spooks.
One wonders who controls who in these power relationships within the right wing parties.

Being a numbers guy, using the current numbers, percentage of the vote in the house elections, still going on. There were 4,700,000 voters who voted for Biden for president and then voted Republican for their congressman.

That may not sound like much when we're talking close to 150 million votes cast, but it certain is a significant number of ticket splitters. It'll be interesting to see what the final numbers are.

Or one could look at this way, if those 4,700,000 ticket splitters who voted Republican for congress also voted for Trump instead of Biden, Trump would have won reelection. Once the final results are in, it'll be interesting to see exactly who these ticket splitters were. Republicans, independents? Probably most were independents who liked Biden but not the Democrats in congress. Either that or they liked the Republicans in congress and detested Trump. Who knows>



That is just a SWAG.

I think that effect may be mostly independents who have no problem splitting the ticket, with local congressmen who they feel good about, and Trump who they needed to gat rid of. They have no party loyalty, so they vote for candidates they like and against candidates they don't. And Trump did everything possible to piss off everyone not actively kissing his butt.

Is it that hard to appeal to a majority of the folks back home, when you are a congressman or senator? Just avoid getting in the national news, and make several personal appearances in your home district or state, saying all the feel good things they want to hear. Mostly just tell them they are smart and pretty. Try not to say anything that kills anybody's sacred cow, and deliver the bacon when you can.

I think this pretty much sums it up. With 18 seats still to be determined, the GOP flipped 8 to 3 flips for the Democrats. That a net gain of 5 so far for the GOP. But this was a year when the democrats were expected to gain 5-10 seats in the house and take control of the senate with a net gain of 4-8. The Democrats were expected to pickup Arizona, Colorado, North Carolina, Maine and Iowa at a minimum with the possibility of the two Georgia races.

All I know is Pelosi is peeved at the democrats not being able to pick up their projected 5-10 seats.

I agree, it's probably independents who did most of the ticket splitting. I find it interesting that Democrats made up 31% of the electorate, 37% of those who voted, Republicans 29% of the electorate, 36% of those who voted while independents, 40% of the electorate, only 26% of those who voted. CNN updated their data to reflect Biden won independents 54-41. With the two major parties basically even in the turnout, 37-36, independents accounted for Biden's 5 million or about victory. 95% of republicans voted for Trump, 95% of democrats for Biden.

I wonder if that other 74% of the Independents who failed to vote were progressives who felt Biden and Trump both were too beholding to the rich and corporate donors. Or true conservatives who were too ethical to vote for Trump. That's actually over 29% of the electorate! Enough to throw the race powerfully to either candidate.

Might be interesting for pollsters to ask them. Or maybe they just are morons who don't care or want to avoid jury duty. One of my sister-in-laws uses that excuse.

I noticed the Congress people who lost their seats were all against MFA.
I don’t trust polls and wouldn’t divine the will of people from them.
The credentialed class has, for the moment, relieved themselves of the shock of having been rejected by a Trump victory.
My guess is they’re in for future shocks with their status and ideology further eroded with public rejection of thier class rule. I expect them to become worse than Trump in the future. More authoritarian and crueler than they’ve been.

That's something we'll probably never know. My son now 51 has also never voted. He just doesn't care, he cares more about whether the Pittsburgh Steelers win or lose than who is president. He told me it doesn't matter at all, that the government is going to do what the government wants to do whether the people want them to do it or not. He considers voting a sham, a way to legitimize government doing exactly what it wants. To make the people think they have a voice in government when in reality they don't. So he doesn't sanction it.

Going back through history one finds those who affiliate with both major parties always have 5-8 points more among those who actually turnout and vote than their share of the electorate. Independents usually around 10 points below their share.

2020, independents made up 40% of the electorate buy just 26% of those who voted. That 14 point difference is a record. in 2016 independents made up 40% while making up 31% of those who voted, more normal ratio.

If you think about it, it makes sense that independents don't turnout in the numbers they represent of the total electorate. Republicans and Democrats choose the candidates, independents don't. Republicans and Democrats have a greater stake in the game, race if you will because it's between their chosen horses, candidates.

Independents are asked to choose between two candidates that others have chosen. Those two candidates aren't their horses, they didn't choose them.

I think that this describes the largest bloc of voters, regardless of party affiliation.

Thus the need for a candidate with "charisma", in one of its many forms, in order to win an election. This charisma must be good enough to counterbalance both the ugly truths about the candidate, as well as the lies circulated by the opposition.

I'm still trying to make sense of this election. Being completely unsuccessful. How in the world can one party win the presidency by around 5 million votes, give or take. Then lose seats in the house, governorship and state legislatures? True the senate is up for grabs depending on what happens on 5 Jan. But it shouldn't be.

Is it possible that this election was a rejection of Trump, but not an acceptance of Democratic Party ideals, especially down at the local and state levels? How on earth could Trump receive more black votes, 12% than any Republican candidate going back to Gerald Ford who received 15% in 1976? Hispanics, 32% for Trump, that's more than any other Republican candidate since Ronald Reagan with the lone exception of G.W. Bush in 2004 who received 40%.

All I can say, this was one crazy election.