2022 U.S. Congressional (and Other) Elections

[Voronwë the Faithful]

Interesting. It shows both for me:

[Frelga]

Ah! Tapatalk only shows the first image in preview. And Twitter blocks previews in my browser because I disable their trackers.

[RoseMorninStar]

Republicans really shot themselves in the dick with Dobbs.

Yes, not to mention that Republicans/Trump & Co. lied to their constituents about COVID/vaccines and therefore they literally lost more voters. They are not coming back. The youth vote will increase. Counties which voted for Biden were much more likely to have higher vaccination rates and wear masks.

Additionally Republicans pushed the Big Lie that voting doesn't matter/it's rigged. Why would people vote if they are told their vote doesn't count?

Republicans are reaping what they've sowed.

[Voronwë the Faithful]

With regard to the WA-03 race, the GOP literally gave away a safe seat by primarying the incumbent because she voted to impeach Trump with a literal white nationalist.

[Dave_LF]

Just like MI03 (minus the white nationalist part)

[Eldy]

Nevada is "projected," last I saw. But I hope it holds.

ABC called Nevada for the Dems half an hour ago (i.e., after your post), meaning they'll keep their Senate majority.

https://abcnews.go.com/Politics/democra ... d=92681603

[River]

I'm still trying to process the outcome of this midterm. It's almost as if the "red wave" couldn't get past the East Coast and even then the results were really spotty. It was more like a high tide that left some pools in spots. So...what happened? Polls over-estimating in the other direction this time? Was it the b.s. candidates? The conspiracy theories? The end of Roe v Wade and the consequences any woman would have seen coming but apparently caught a bunch of men by surprise? The tasteless and yet utterly expected (by me at least) response to the attack on Mr. Pelosi? We witnessing what happens when a political party and its base basically lose contact with the ground? If the GOP had untethered from Trump and his delusions about 2020 and run on an actual platform with plans beyond impeaching Biden and other fairy tales would things have gone differently for them? I honestly wonder about this last because in Colorado the GOP candidates that won the nominations for statewide races weren't questioning or denying the outcome of 2020...but they didn't seem to have much by way of plans. They all lost. And our statehouse got even more blue.

Don't get me wrong, I think we all bought the hype about the red wave. McCarthy was basically measuring up for curtains in the Speaker's office. He may even be able to place the order, though the election was four days ago and we still don't know who's in control of the House. But the hype had a source and the source didn't deliver.

[Inanna]

Ah! Tapatalk only shows the first image in preview. And Twitter blocks previews in my browser because I disable their trackers.

Ah that’s why I miss info too. Interesting that on tapatalk it’s cropping images - not just shrinking!

[RoseMorninStar]

I'm still trying to process the outcome of this midterm. It's almost as if the "red wave" couldn't get past the East Coast and even then the results were really spotty. It was more like a high tide that left some pools in spots. So...what happened? Polls over-estimating in the other direction this time? Was it the b.s. candidates? The conspiracy theories? The end of Roe v Wade and the consequences any woman would have seen coming but apparently caught a bunch of men by surprise? The tasteless and yet utterly expected (by me at least) response to the attack on Mr. Pelosi? We witnessing what happens when a political party and its base basically lose contact with the ground? If the GOP had untethered from Trump and his delusions about 2020 and run on an actual platform with plans beyond impeaching Biden and other fairy tales would things have gone differently for them? I honestly wonder about this last because in Colorado the GOP candidates that won the nominations for statewide races weren't questioning or denying the outcome of 2020...but they didn't seem to have much by way of plans. They all lost. And our statehouse got even more blue.

Don't get me wrong, I think we all bought the hype about the red wave. McCarthy was basically measuring up for curtains in the Speaker's office. He may even be able to place the order, though the election was four days ago and we still don't know who's in control of the House. But the hype had a source and the source didn't deliver.

The traditional style of polling no longer works, who answers an unknown caller anymore? Polls failed to take into account the motivation of what they normally consider 'unlikely voters', specifically the youth vote. Their rights were being taken away and they showed up.

When a party is interested in ruling rather than representing, they're going to have a problem

[Dave_LF]

It's hard to spin a narrative out of this one. "Sound repudiation of authoritarians and election deniers" is tempting for obvious reasons and we'll hear it a lot, but that's not really what happened*. What I can make of it so far is that the plethora of ~50/50 races that usually get divvied up ~50/50 between Democrats and Republicans instead mostly went to Democrats this time. Since it wasn't a turnout thing (Republicans, if anything, had *higher* turnout than Democrats), I think the most optimistic interpretation is that a tiny fraction of Republicans were so turned off by their candidate's extremism that they chose to vote Democrat for once in their life, and this was just barely enough to tip a bunch of those finely-balanced districts in the same direction.

There are the obvious exceptions, like basically all of Florida and New York, but each of those has special factors at play too (failed D gerrymander in New York, Florida in Florida)

And Kari Lake could still be a major fly in the ointment, should she pull off a comeback

*Except in a few key places, like WA-03 and maybe MI-03

[Voronwë the Faithful]

I was going to say this, but I'll let Harry Enten of CNN say it for me.

Analysis: Democrats would have gotten crushed this election without young voters

Meanwhile this is worth remembering, particularly if (as seems likely) the GOP ends up with a very small majority in the House.

[RoseMorninStar]

Yeah, it's why some Republicans want to raise the voting age to 21. Good luck with that. It boils down to voting against those who want to rule, not represent. Not only was ROE a motivating factor for youth voters, but also lack of action on climate change. They've also seen censorship and banning of books in schools. They are more likely to be socially accepting of things that drive older voters and legislators wishing to take away their rights.

[Frelga]

There are a lot of factors, some already mentioned, but to me, it boils down to one thing. MAGA "policies" are highly unpopular outside of a small, albeit loud and violent, minority, and they have not yet managed to cement their power through election rigging and intimidation.

Wait, is that two things?

[RoseMorninStar]

According to this FOX news... person, it's all about getting women married. Because, you know, it's all about forcing rule over people to live the way they want them to (fascism), not about representing the people.
So much for small government freedom fighting advocates. They just gotta get them women married & pregnant.

[River]

Misogynists gonna misogynist...

[Frelga]

This is just the start of the tirade from the editor of Babylon Bee.

I'm not an expert, but this does not seem to be a smart strategy for winning back a disaffected demographic. Especially when it's not one that can be successfully excluded or suppressed from the communities of their existing supporters.

20221113_110622.jpg (125.72 KiB) Viewed 1088 times

[Inanna]

Awww. Who’s a lost boy then? Getting no attention?? Women not needing you big bad boys eh? Pat-Pat

[Voronwë the Faithful]

I saw that too. How awful! And I agree, not smart politically either.

[Sunsilver]

The above tweet has been removed. I don't know if he was censored or if he removed it himself. Probably the former...

The Babylon Bee is, of course, satire. That tweet is SO bad I was actually wondering if it WAS satire!

[Voronwë the Faithful]