Early voting in Nevada comes close to confirming my worst fears about these midterm elections. My worst fears would be a clear advantage for the Republicans, but what I’m seeing is a repeat of rural domination by Trump that offsets Democratic advantages everywhere else. I see no sign of depressed turnout from Trump’s base, and that does not bode well for the Senate elections and it doesn’t leave a lot of hope for a true wave election that brings in north of forty House seats.
There is a lot of work to do this weekend.
The entire Republican Party is now the 27%.
I think that’s a good starting point on understanding what is happening.
The audience capture by Trump has been cemented over the last two years of essentially no pushback from party leaders or local politicians.
To Booman’s point, the only thing that interests me (besides the fact that I was going to bust my ass regardless) is whether the heightened GOP activity is showing up as much higher early voting among previously likely voters. The less motivated or more infrequent voters are the ones who will show up on election day, and given some of the recent news that could pump up Dem leading voters.
At any rate, I think there is no question that the GOP is motivated so it is going to boil down to whether Dems turn out and managed to expand the electorate at all.
Well, don’t borrow trouble, Martin. None of us are starry-eyed about the midterms and lots of people are fighting for a win. I may have to walk away from political blogs because it’s making me crazy.
Actually just a few minutes ago I had decided I was turning off the ‘puter for the weekend. I can take only so much stress.
I’m slightly less worried about the news from Nevada after checking the Senate polling. The polls have the GOP leading there. Close, but ahead. And I DO read Ralston and know his opinions on polling Nevada, but I’m not ready to believe the polls are all off everywhere. In short Ralston is confirming the pollings. And as always, the indies will tell the tale.
(And yes, I know MOE this way vs MOE that way is a huge difference, and that they could all be off)
So, IMO, not time to panic (yet), and not time to slack off (ever).
It won’t bother me if the democrats don’t capture north of forty House seats, as long as they capture enough to take control. Odds are still that they will at least do that.
It will bother me. Every election the GOP wins will bother the fuck out of me.
Well, lets quantify what is a “good” number to win control of the house.
Obviously 23 – 27 ish is too low, so maybe you’re saying anything less than 30 is a loss for the Dems?
Dem Congressional candidates being annihilated by a tsunami of 100% negative TV ads from a dozen Conserva-PAC groups. “Citizens United” will be the epitaph of American democracy. While Booman’s Southification of the North/West insight is killing the senate races. Heller wins–seriously, “Indies”?
The fatal principle for “independents” is the First Law of American Democracy: IOKIYAR. Thus, the revving up of the “No stoppin’ a Lone Madman!” platitude for that “Bomb thing”, as fascist leader Trumper calls it….
You do realize that a black guy is almost certainly gonna be elected governor of Florida, right? And that there’s at least a 40% chance that a black woman is gonna get elected governor of Georgia??
The NV Senate race has, alas, always been closer than it should’ve been, for reasons I confess I don’t fully understand. But the battle for the House is mainly being fought in CA and PA and NJ and in the MIdwest. And in those places, the outlook is much better.
Keep the faith, brother.
I caught the last few minutes of Sen. Cortez-Masto on Chris Hayes. From that I got the sense that Nevada has a strong union presence for the culinary workers – probably restricted to LV and Reno. But they are working to get the vote out. They have a 70,000 D registered voter advantage. 90,000 D voters have voted early.
https://www.msnbc.com/all-in/watch/nevada-senate-is-key-midterm-race-to-watch-1353366083943
If the Democratic Party does well enough to net Senate and Gubernatorial victories in NV, we will have some culinary workers to thank for that the next time any of us visit Las Vegas (and of course plenty of other good folks).
Don’t know about PA and NJ, but I’m in CA, and there’s very definitely a big Trump/Republican wave building. Cox is almost certain to win the governor’s race, and I suspect that it will be much the same in the congressional and state races. I think the same will be seen in OR and WA. The whole west coast is turning against the Dems.
That’s okay. We are doomed. It was a great country. Too bad for my kids.
Just a casual observation about the demographics of Nevada – Outside of R and LV the state is mighty Mormon so think of it as Utah with a gaming industry. Yes, it can do democratic (Harry Reid) but it takes a lot of work to make it palatable to the straight and narrow.