The 2018 US Mid-Terms - Blue wave meets Red wall

[Johnny Bravo]

I'm only enthusiastic about seeing more Jeb memes. Taking a wild guess, I don't think the Dems will make many gains. They've been acting pretty crazy lately and I don't think having social media push people to vote in mid-terms BUT ONLY AGAINST DRUMPF is going to endear many to their cause.

 

[millais]

At this stage, the analysts across the pond are all but predicting a smashing success for the Democrats
https://www.bbc.com/news/world-us-canada-45013748

 

[RadicalCentrist]

At this stage, the analysts across the pond are all but predicting a smashing success for the Democrats

The same people that predicated Remain and Hillary winning as well, IIRC.

I don't care what anyone says - having more than 2 parties exist would be great, regardless.

Would it, though? A strange trend throughout the world's democracies is that the more parties there are, the less choice (and liberty) actually exists. Let me put this into concrete terms:

You have two, and only two, political parties. To obtain a majority of seats, you need at least 51% of the voters, I.E you have to appeal to 'most' people. Pretty simple so far. The math changes with even a single additional party.

With three political parties, in the worst case scenario, a single party needs only 34% of the voting public to have a majority. If you doubt such a thing could happen, remember that the Indian Nation Congress has ruled India as the primary political party for over 60 years despite, as of the last election, getting less than 15% of the vote! Indeed, in a country of a billion plus people, party membership sits at a cool twenty million. That's low for U.S political parties, let alone a hypothetical one that has ruled since WWII. (There are 34 million registered Rethuglicans, btw)

"Ah but what about coalitions?" is the obvious rejoinder. Wherein two parties join up in order to secure a majority of the electorate, presumably to stop such shenanigans. However, if these parties had compatible ideals, one wonders why they were separate parties to begin with. And wouldn't such a system serve to block "unsavory opinions" that are never-the-less the most popular one? France's recent elections come to mind.

I am deliberately simplifying the democratic process, excluding differing methods of electoral victory, etc in order to make my point as salient as possible. If you delve deeper into how various democracies are structured, you would quickly come to the conclusion that nearly all of them are designed in such as way to need as few voters as possible. Generally for the universal principle of maximizing monetary gain.

A far deeper topic, and beyond the constraints of this post. It's :autism: enough as it is.

 

[Your Weird Fetish]

At this stage, the analysts across the pond are all but predicting a smashing success for the Democrats
https://www.bbc.com/news/world-us-canada-45013748

Well if we use coverage of the last election as a point of reference that means a red tide instead of a blue wave is all but guaranteed.

 

[millais]

Well if we use coverage of the last election as a point of reference that means a red tide instead of a blue wave is all but guaranteed.

Last time all their predictive models were based on outdated and inaccurate sampling of likely voters. They have had two years to fix the models to better represent the demographic groups most likely to participate in voting. No way they will be as far off the mark this time, as these people stake their reputation and livelihood on their predictive abilities. I'm sure there is still some conditional bias at work here, and the MSM's primary raison d'etre of pushing the narrative remains unchanged, but at the end of the day, it's inarguable that they have a much better idea of what is going on in "flyover country" this time around on account of the fact that they won't make the same mistake twice.

 

[Your Weird Fetish]

Last time all their predictive models were based on outdated and inaccurate sampling of likely voters. They have had two years to fix the models to better represent the demographic groups most likely to participate in voting. No way they will be as far off the mark this time, as these people stake their reputation and livelihood on their predictive abilities. I'm sure there is still some conditional bias at work here, and the MSM's primary raison d'etre of pushing the narrative remains unchanged, but at the end of the day, it's inarguable that they have a much better idea of what is going on in "flyover country" this time around on account of the fact that they won't make the same mistake twice.

I just suspect the people in charge have no idea what's good for them and are so delusional that they'll set themselves up for disappointment again but your post would be the more reasonable think to expect.

 

[DNA_JACKED]

Last time all their predictive models were based on outdated and inaccurate sampling of likely voters. They have had two years to fix the models to better represent the demographic groups most likely to participate in voting. No way they will be as far off the mark this time, as these people stake their reputation and livelihood on their predictive abilities. I'm sure there is still some conditional bias at work here, and the MSM's primary raison d'etre of pushing the narrative remains unchanged, but at the end of the day, it's inarguable that they have a much better idea of what is going on in "flyover country" this time around on account of the fact that they won't make the same mistake twice.

I highly doubt the people shrieking about russia and election hacking and pepe memes actually possess the self reflection to fix the problems with their own polling system. The systems that said Hillary would win are now saying that a blue wave will occur, and we have no reason to believe these reports are in any way accurate.

Trump is pushing at least 44% approval rating, some say he is nearly 50% right now, and many people are thought to not be showing support due to social pressure. But at the polls, the truth will be told.

Right now the economy is doing great, Americans are warming up to trump, we havent gotten involved in any stupid wars, and the Democrats have embraced mass hysteria and support of BLM/antifa style mobs. Their biggest platform is "fuck trump/raise taxes/abolish borders" while republicans can jsut be like "we lowered taxes and fixed the economy".

The democrats have no leg to stand on right now. The narrative is out of their control, and their shrieking only makes them look unhinged. The 2018 elections will not go well for them. They dont even have a war chest to push advertisements thanks to the lizard queen. The democrats in the senate, 6 of them, are in areas that support trump. Their reelection is in jeopardy, as is the ability to lock down anything in the senate for the democrats. The silent majority of americans are getting sick and tired of the rhetoric, and to top it all off, democrats typically SUCK at midterms, half their base doesnt bother to show up, and as the new york numbers show, voter counts are depressingly low compared to 2014. At best they will maintain the status quo, but I feel the most realistic is dems loosing a few house and senate seats this year.

 

[feedtheoctopus]

I find it legitimately hard to believe anybody can look at the circus that is the GOP congress, never mind some of the complete nutjobs they have running for the house, and think "this is great". But then again, I found it hard to believe Trump would ever get elected also. And then I had to cut my nuts off. So I think I learned a lesson about assuming sanity

 

[Your Weird Fetish]

But then again, I found it hard to believe Trump would ever get elected also. And then I had to cut my nuts off. So I think I learned a lesson about assuming sanity

And, hopefully, assuming gender.

 

[XYZpdq]

Last time all their predictive models were based on outdated and inaccurate sampling of likely voters. They have had two years to fix the models to better represent the demographic groups most likely to participate in voting. No way they will be as far off the mark this time, as these people stake their reputation and livelihood on their predictive abilities. I'm sure there is still some conditional bias at work here, and the MSM's primary raison d'etre of pushing the narrative remains unchanged, but at the end of the day, it's inarguable that they have a much better idea of what is going on in "flyover country" this time around on account of the fact that they won't make the same mistake twice.

Or maybe "polling" is a big pile of horseshit they throw around to try to influence opinion.

 

[Your Weird Fetish]

From what I understand the raw data from 2016 properly interpreted actually should have predicted a Trump win, they just massaged it until it fit the narrative they wanted. Probably mostly without meaning too, even.

 

[Spooky]

Tough to call, but I'm predicting Democrats make gains in the House and just miss taking it while Republicans gain a couple seats in the Senate just based on the seats currently up for grabs.

On one side, we have Democrats having won a few special elections, but that was still when the GOP was fighting Trump and ran some really bad candidates. On the other side we have people like body-slam Gianforte winning a special election for the Republicans, and the Democrats preparing to run some really bad candidates (not the bluedog types that won them special elections).

We have an energized base for both parties. Democrats are losing the youth quicker than usual, but the youth still seems prepared to make an outsized turnout.
http://archive.is/zEVCs Millenial support for Democrats has slipped to 46%, and that was in late April.

It is gonna be tough for the Democrats to hang onto the white vote with a lot of the candidates and figureheads they are putting up, and that is already where they are struggling as evidenced by millennial and gen z polling.
The article I linked also at least hints at Trump making inroads with some of the more suburban black communities too which makes sense as his message is as directed at them as much as any white suburban population really.

 

[feedtheoctopus]

From what I understand the raw data from 2016 properly interpreted actually should have predicted a Trump win, they just massaged it until it fit the narrative they wanted. Probably mostly without meaning too, even.

From what I can gather the major mistake a lot of people made was assuming turnout was going to be higher than it was.

 

[Autistsforuganda]

Why are so many democrats sure that the blue wave will happen?

In the Senate, almost only Democrats and Independents stand for re-election (23 + 2 out of 33). So it would be extremely unlikely that the Republicans lose the majority and the same goes for the congress.

Is there something my autistic mind didn't gather?

 

[Your Weird Fetish]

Why are so many democrats sure that the blue wave will happen?

In the Senate, almost only Democrats and Independents stand for re-election (23 + 2 out of 33). So it would be extremely unlikely that the Republicans lose the majority and the same goes for the congress.

Is there something my autistic mind didn't gather?

There's a historical trend for the ruling party to start losing in off year elections. But there's also a trend for democrats to underperform in mid terms. I think a lot of it is just wishful thinking.