Everything is on fire - the US politics thread

Under a week until the midterms, where Democrats are expected to seize the House. For a party which has had both chambers of congress and the presidency, this has been an immensely ineffective administration.

They pushed through a big decrease in corp taxes and set up the Supreme Court of be conservative for the next decade or two, it wasn’t pretty but I don’t know if you can call it ineffective.

Then failed on things like healthcare repeal. Two big successes in two years, one of which doesn’t even require the House, is a pretty poor return for a party with all three layers of government.

There are more Trump supporters now than in 2016 and they will all vote Republican all the way down the ticket.

There will be no Blue Wave.

There will be no seizing of the house by Democrats.

Yeah 538’s coverage has been typically brilliant: really driving home how bad the senate map is for Democrats and how good the fundamentals are for them in the House.

two seats have swung to the democrats so far

Three

Four

looks like the senate is gone

I dont know very much about US politics, but they were never expected to take the senate anyway, were they?

fivethirtyeight has Dems at +8 now. The orange spunktrumpet must be absolutely shitting himself.

The senate was never really in play. The Democrats look like they will take control of the house… just. The “blue wave” never really got going. Red states are staying red and blue states are staying blue. Purple states are going to the Dems in urban areas which will be just enough for them.

Looks like Ted Cruz will squeak over the line in Texas over Beto O’Rourke. A shame but predictable. Beto has a bright future despite the narrow loss.

Elections are terrible for my heart and work productivity.

Probably an underperformance tonight in the House (still plenty of counting to go though) and losing thr senate like that will hurt.

Some commentary on how the political demographic split in America is widening. Now more than ever, whether you live in an urban or rural area, whether you’re rich or poor or whether you’re educated or not, determines who you vote for, with precious few exceptions to the rule. It underlines the problems that country is facing.

The Democrats haven’t done well in the gubernatorial races. They’ve picked up Kansas, maybe Wisconsin and Iowa but could lose Connecticut.

Bring on the tax returns and #Beto2020

I think you’ll find the expected outcome (25+ seat majority 8%+ swing) will still arrive, just not in the places people expected. The Dems look like picking up 35 or so seats that’s a sizeable turnanround.

+15. 8 more to go

I guess my prior, if you like, was that we would be seeing more around the 40 range. The forecast on 538 has picked up to 35ish now where when I posted that it was a touch lower.

The other thing this election reinforces is just how poor American election coverage is. Reading votes off the screen like a scoreboard in a basketball game with no context regarding the precinct, historic voting trends etc. CNN has had a bit of a go but it’s not at the level we are accustomed to thanks to Antony Green and his ilk.