Regardless of how the midterms elections go, there are a few Republicans who I would really like to see lose and that (if they lose) would go a long way toward mitigating the depression I would feel if things go very poorly.
At the top of this list are:
1. Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell of Kentucky
2. Governor Scott Walker of Wisconsin
3. Governor Rick Scott of Florida
4. Governor Sam Brownback of Kansas
5. Governor Paul LePage of Maine
What’s your list?
I don’t know if it would actually make me feel better to see her lose, but I will surely feel inconsolable if Joni Ernst becomes a Senator. That’s like Louie Gohmert raised to an exponential factor. It’s like parts-per-million with atmospheric CO2, I think it will mean that no matter what comes along by 2016, America has firmly turned a corner into irreparable Stupid.
Add Governor Rick Snyder of Michigan and most of the wingnut-dominated Michigan State Legislature. They’ve all been an unmitigated disaster for this state. Of course, I’m not kidding myself thinking that this state will fall out of Republican hands any time soon, but at the very least, seeing benevolent overlord Rick Michigan* ousted would make me feel a little better, at least.
* Credit: Michigan Liberal
#9 – may be closer to reality than many expect.
#6 – not as much of a stretch as it was a few weeks ago, but …
#8 – Charlie Hardy doesn’t even have a Wikipedia entry.
#10 – evidence of just how lame the Democratic Party can be when they flub and follow that up by disappearing.
#10 -disappearing? not sure what you mean. seems to be a campaign going on
Name another state with a D popular former Governor (Schweitzer), sitting D governor, a D Senator, and race for a Senate seat vacated by a mult-term D Senator where a decent Dem candidate is polling <40% and the Republican candidate is >50%.
the most recent poll I could find (Billings) has Daines under 50% at 47 – first time I believe though there hasn’t been much polling. evidently a large % of voters are undecided anyway they said that at the debate last week.
I’m going to guess that you haven’t taken much statistics and haven’t closely followed election polling over several election cycles. A few tips –
First, in a two person race, 50% +1 is only a magic number on election day. Before then it’s about 1) quality and frequency of polls 2) the spread 3) the trend lines. And the baseline for the two political parties in the district or state. I don’t know what that baseline is in MT (and not interested at the moment to research it), but considering that Tester had a tough time winning his re-election and MT isn’t considered a “blue state,” nothing wrong with provisionally and arbitrarily setting it at 45% for both the DEMs and GOP.
There are only four polls of the MT Senate race. The sample sizes are small which is why the MOE is high. Without the details of how the poll was constructed and conducted, the quality is undefined, but would guess that they are neither detailed nor sophisticated.
The spread and the trendlines are consistent among the four polls. Hence, they are each validating the results of the other polls. There’s been no appreciable movement in the poll numbers for either candidate in two months. Curtis at 31-35% and Daines at 47-55%. The spread between the two over the four polls have ranged from Daines +16 to +21. Undecideds have ranged from 10-22%. The 22% is from the latest poll that also has the smallest sample size. That could indicate some movement from decided to reconsidering, but even if so, proportionally from where they had been there’s not much difference between Daines losing eight points and Curtis losing four points from the prior polls.
So, what can be concluded from four low quality, high MOE polls with a not insignificant percentage of undecideds? Nothing in a tight race. In this one, short of a “black swan,” everything. The correct way to read the last poll is that to a 95% confidence level, Curtis’ support is between 27% and 36% and Daines is between 42% and 52%. That puts Curtis far below the arbitrary baseline for the Democrat and Daines near or well above the GOP baseline. The undecideds would have to split at an unrealistically high level (above 60/40% is rare) in favor of Curtis for her to win.
None of this should be construed to suggest that Curtis not fight on to election day. This one is lost, but name recognition is political capital that can be used in the next election.
well, thanks for the thought, but not to worry, I studied and taught statistics multiple years. What I’m looking at in MT is that there has been little polling and because Curtis entered the race in mid August, I’m more interested in the change from Sept to now; the Daines loss of support is significant imo as it looks like the dem campaign has pushed some of Daines support into uncertain column (after the debate they gave the figures for undecided, but I do not recall the number). that’s all I’m saying. The history of the state suggests Daines’ support is due to the wretchedness of the failed John Walsh candidacy plus a kind of default support. There’s not much time left, of course.
Okay — my apologies if my prior comment was pedantic and/or insulting. But I’m not getting why you’d find a poll with a such a small sample size and MOE of 5 that only differed from the other, not so good polls, in that it had Daines’ support down by 6-9 points but still near 50% and Curtis also down from the prior polls.
The late Walsh withdrawal and substitution of Curtis is what gave the credible GOP candidate a strong, and IMHO insurmountable, lead. Democrats flubbed and then wrote this one off. Would like to think that they haven’t written Curtis off for another run in the future.
I’m enough of an irrational optimist that I’m still pulling for a Weiland win in SD. The DSCC hasn’t written this one off either; so I have some company. But I’m still ticked that they gave Collins another pass instead of stepping up early and working to unseat her with Bellows.
understand what you’re saying. The Curtis campaign is attacking Daines as corporatist – e.g., risk to public lands. Daines is running against Obama. She got a late start, but depressing the R turnout and strong GOTV on dem side is a good strategy.
But MT voters significantly preferred the corporatist Romney (55% to 41%).
The public lands issue is very close to home (i.e. giving over public lands to be developed by corporations) and Obamacare plays differently now that’s it’s implemented. Daines is running against Obama and Obamacare plus the usual rwtps. Curtis pointed out he voted to shut down the gov (national parks, reservations, the elderly had huge impact on MT). MT is pretty eco also as far as I can tell (legacy of yrs of Schweitzer, et al.). Both Daines and Curtis say they favor Keystone but imho that’s irrelevant, a freebie, b/c it’s Nebraska’s unicamera that decides the next step iirc. or maybe the Canada co. decided not to route via Nebraska now. anyway, Curtis pointed out that Keystone was about oil to export to China. I guess what I’m saying is imo 2023 presidential vote tells us something, but i’m not sure what.
Curtis in MT is outpolling Weiland in SD. so there is that.
very good.
Jamie Herrera-Beutler WA State
I need to see Thom Tillis lose to Kay Hagan in the NC senate race.
I wanna see Tom Corbett go down like a ton of bricks.
That one isn’t going to be pretty for Corbett.
This has a very Soviet feel for me for some reason.
I’ll just add that TWO people wrote that story.
Your top 5 are all Koch heads/roaches. I would like to see Chuckkoch on CSPAN 5 days a week dealing with a very competent Inquisitor. BTW who has the larger organization, the Koch’s or the Reps.
Mitch McConnell would be the best. My personal list also includes Doug Ose losing to freshman Congressman Ami Bera in my hometown, and Ashley Swearengen losing the CA Controller race to leave the entire state leadership in Democratic hands.
Oh. Michael Grimm, NY-11. I mean seriously, WTF?
Add “Dr.” Dan Benishek, Michigan congresstoad.
Sweeet wins are better because the good feeling lasts longer. Warren taking out Brown was a game-changer because she didn’t come to DC to be another status quo party backbencher. At the top of my list are:
Slightly below that on my wish list for a sweet feeling are:
For good sense among the electorate prevailing over “the stupid” and within the range of possible to likely:
Not that I wouldn’t like to see McConnell, Scott, and LePage lose, but if they don’t, if will be their last wins.
I would love to see Connie Johnson replace Tom Coburn as Oklahoma’s #2 US Senator. Not that she has much of a chance. Lankford is right out there with Coburn and Inhofe. Just the kind of wacko most Okies seem to love.
Inhofe’s seat is up too, but he probably has a lock on that.
Re: Begich – GOP Poll – Begich Up +10
I would like to see Gov. Pat Quinn defeat Bruce “I’m for eliminating the minimum wage” Rauner. Incidentally, Rauner reported his income as $60.1 million dollars in 2013.
this dude is worse than Romney and that’s saying something
I’m honestly too demoralized to care.
Carter and Nunn, because my personal vote would help knock off those fucknozzles. Additionally, I would get to troll the fascist-enablers on AJC comment boards even harder.
Interesting that the GOP thought they could re-run their 2012 strategy w/o the pro-rape/strident anti-abortionist misogynists and win this time. Maybe the electorate is finally beginning to wake-up to the fact that the GOP is serious about not raising the minimum wage, cutting Social Security, further rewarding corporations for off-shoring jobs (and promoting corporate players that did so to Senate and Gubernatorial seats), and more deregulation to make profits easier to get while destroying the health of people and the environment.
The test of that is whether Jodi Ernst and Cory Gardner can remain stealth candidates in their races. If they get exposed in the media and it causes their defeat, then I will think what you say has happened.
But in 2010, people bought the line that the GOP was interested in saving Medicare. It caused Russ Feingold’s defeat, among other candidates, by out-of-the-blue stealth Tea Party nutcakes.
Ernst’s mask is now fraying badly. Newspapers endorsements may not carry much weight, but she’s going to get hammered for running away from editorial interviews. Braley’s campaign has finally stepped it up. And Ernst is back to touting guns and castrating pigs while the “chicken ad” the Chamber of Commerce ran on her behalf is so weird that it makes Braley look good.
Have to disagree with you wrt to the 2010 election. The mood/sentiment set in early — like a year before the election. People were hurting for jobs and money and as in 2008 felt and were economically insecure. That wasn’t at the top of Obama’s agenda. People were just smart enough to see that Obama was taking care of the big money boys. And there was little public disclosure of where the PPACA was going other than the cost of Medicare was out of control. That’s true — but beneficiaries (and soon to be beneficiaries), not incorrectly, feared that any fixes would be at their expense and the GOP took advantage of that temporary opportunity to scare seniors. Obama and Democrats ended up punting on this because screwing seniors was an electoral loser and they weren’t interested in pursuing honest structural fixes.
how do you think it’s going? I see Daines is under 50 at 47%.
“not optimistic” but clinging to hope unless/until there is none (i.e., final election returns are in, and the result is awful, i.e., Daines wins [ = sane, rational folks lose]).
She was great in the debate. what is the GOTV looking like?
Neither are very likely…