Thread: 2018 US Midterm Elections

Democrat Flips Deep-Red Kentucky Seat, The 37th Flip Since Trump's Inauguration

Democrat Linda Belcher won a special election in a deep-red Kentucky district on Tuesday night where President Trump dominated in the 2016 presidential election by a whopping 50 point margin, according to a local reporter on the scene. The special election in Kentucky’s House District 49 pitted Belcher against Republican Rebecca Johnson. House District 49 voted overwhelmingly for Trump, by a margin of 72 percent to 23 percent. However, Belcher has previously represented the district and narrowly lost a reelection bid in 2016 by less than 200 votes. Belcher’s win marks the 37th legislative seat changing hands from Republican to Democrat since Trump’s inauguration.

https://www.thedailybeast.com/democr...s-inauguration



The bloodbath continues.

Originally Posted by raycarey

You're disagreeing with this fact, Ray?

It's not a fact and it's the other way around, you thick twat.

Originally Posted by misskit

The bloodbath continues.

Indeed. This trend has been running unbroken since the election in Virginia.

Originally Posted by AntRobertson

It's not a fact and it's the other way around, you thick twat.

It has been pointed out to him three times now in this thread. The thick clown still can't see it.

Originally Posted by bsnub

It has been pointed out to him three times now in this thread. The thick clown still can't see it.

He's not very bright you know.

Originally Posted by Grampa

We're both saying the same thing

No, you literally said that the exact opposite was a fact.

Why are you so stupid.

Originally Posted by Grampa

The party in the Exec historically loses seats

Originally Posted by Grampa (2018 US Midterm Elections)
Here it is again: the party not in the Executive historically loses seats.

Can you make your fucking mind up?

Originally Posted by harrybarracuda

Can you make your fucking mind up?

I've been saying this here for a couple/few years.

I knew this 30 years ago, my friend.

You don't even need to take American Political Science 101.

Originally Posted by Grampa

I've been saying this here for a couple/few years.

I knew this 30 years ago, my friend.

You don't even need to take American Political Science 101.

I'll ask a different question: Can you fucking read?

Originally Posted by harrybarracuda

I'll ask a different question: Can you fucking read?

I don't think retirement is treating you very well, Hairy.

I think that's a "no". Gramps being semi-literate would explain a lot. At least to a point.

There's still the unshakable sense that to be this dumb he puts actual effort into it.

Originally Posted by Grampa

I don't think retirement is treating you very well, Hairy.

I'll try and explain it in simple terms.

In post #83 there are two quotes from you.

Can you see that they are opposite to each other?

Or are you really that fucking numpty I talked about yesterday?

Originally Posted by harrybarracuda

I'll try and explain it in simple terms.

In post #83 there are two quotes from you.

Can you see that they are opposite to each other?

Thank you for FINALLY pointing that out.

That was a type and yes, it's my mistake. I admit my boo-boos.

To clarify, the part in the Executive Branch (White House) historically loses seats in the Mid-terms.

Now....let's get back to business.

Originally Posted by Grampa

Thank you for FINALLY pointing that out.

That was a type and yes, it's my mistake. I admit my boo-boos.

To clarify, the part in the Executive Branch (White House) historically loses seats in the Mid-terms.

Now....let's get back to business.

^ That's you, Hairy.

Looks like the Dems are going to pull off another upset in a district Drumpf carried by 20%.

All eyes on absentee ballots in Pennsylvania


All eyes are now on absentee ballots in the race for Pennsylvania's 18th Congressional District, where Democrat Conor Lamb and Republican Rick Saccone are currently neck and neck.Results from Allegheney County put Democrat Conor Lamb ahead with a 847 vote count lead once the absentee ballots there were accounted for.

However, three counties' absentee ballots still await tallying, leaving at least 3,206 votes unknown.

The counties that still need to count the absentee ballots include Greene, Washington and Westmoreland.

Washington County elections director Larry Spahr, who earlier in the night said absentee ballots would be counted Wednesday, announced that county officials will count 1,195 absentee ballots late Tuesday night instead.

Saccone, speaking to his supporters Tuesday night, said he isn't giving up.

"We are still fighting the fight. It's not over yet," he said.

Republicans are hoping to prevent the district that Donald Trump won handily from falling into Democratic hands.

Lamb and Saccone are in a close race to replace former GOP Rep. Tim Murphy, who resigned after allegedly urging a woman he was having an affair with to have an abortion.

A Monmouth University poll released Monday showed Lamb, a 33-year-old Marine veteran and former prosecutor, with a slight lead among likely voters over the 60-year-old Saccone.

A Lamb win tonight would signal that the GOP is in danger even in districts considered safe for Republicans, raising Democratic hopes of capturing the House and maybe the Senate in November. A Republican loss could lead to more House members retiring rather than running into headwinds in re-election bids. Democrats, meanwhile, would look to replicate Lamb's success in working-class districts with similar demographics.

A Republican official told CNN that President Trump, who is raising money with GOP donors in Beverly Hills, has been asking for updates throughout the evening and is pleasantly surprised by the narrow margin.

"This isn't a blowout — for now, we'll happily take it," one GOP official said.

One GOP source, who was worried about a "bloodbath" earlier tonight, said Republicans are more hopeful at the moment but still worried.

Another source pointed to GOP strength in absentee ballots as a hopeful sign.

Earlier in the evening, before it became clear the results would be so close, several Republican officials told CNN they were expecting Saccone to lose. Party officials were placing the blame squarely on Saccone's campaign but also on Trump's Saturday rally, which some Republicans believe helped drive up Democratic turnout.

Republicans have spent more than $10 million to prevent a defeat in the district, which Trump won in 2016 by 20 percentage points. Trump remains popular in the district -- 51% of likely voters there approve of his job performance while 47% disapprove, the Monmouth poll out Monday showed.

https://www.cnn.com/2018/03/13/polit...one/index.html

^looks like Dems just barely though

Democrat Conor Lamb is the apparent winner of Pennsylvania special election in Trump country

https://www.cnbc.com/2018/03/14/demo...p-country.html

Originally Posted by uncle junior

^looks like Dems just barely though

Remarkable.

Republicans have spent more than $10 million to prevent a defeat in the district, which Trump won in 2016 by 20 percentage points.

The full on hemmorageing is ongoing. This is going to be a massacre in November.

Originally Posted by bsnub

The full on hemmorageing is ongoing. This is going to be a massacre in November.

That's a long way away, and your countrymen have short memories.

If the coffin dodgers are jumping ship the GOP is doomed and six months is not far off.

Older, white, educated voters helped Donald Trump win the White House in 2016. Now, they are trending toward Democrats in such numbers that their ballots could tip the scales in tight congressional races from New Jersey to California, a new Reuters/Ipsos poll and a data analysis of competitive districts shows.

Nationwide, whites over the age of 60 with college degrees now favor Democrats over Republicans for Congress by a 2-point margin, according to Reuters/Ipsos opinion polling during the first three months of the year. During the same period in 2016, that same group favored Republicans for Congress by 10 percentage points.

The 12-point swing is one of the largest shifts in support toward Democrats that the Reuters/Ipsos poll has measured over the past two years. If that trend continues, Republicans will struggle to keep control of the House of Representatives, and possibly the Senate, in the November elections, potentially dooming President Donald Trump’s legislative agenda.

“The real core for the Republicans is white, older white, and if they’re losing ground there, they’re going to have a tsunami,” said Larry Sabato, a University of Virginia political scientist who closely tracks political races. “If that continues to November, they’re toast.”

Asked about the swing, Republican National Committee Chairwoman Ronna McDaniel cited robust fund-raising and said the party would field strong campaigns in battleground states. “We are not taking a single vote for granted,” she said in a statement.

John Camm has been a Republican since the Nixon Administration, but the 63-year-old Tucson accountant says he will likely support a Democrat for Congress in November. He is splitting with his party over access to health insurance as well as its recent overhaul of the nation’s income tax system. He also supports gun control measures that the party has rejected.

“I’m a moderate Republican, and yet my party has run away from that,” Camm said. “So give me a moderate Democrat.”

Camm is not alone in his worries about healthcare. The number of educated older adults choosing “healthcare” in the Reuters/Ipsos poll as their top issue nearly tripled over the past two years, from 8 percent to 21 percent. The poll did not ask respondents precisely what their concerns about healthcare were.

Typically though, voters’ concerns are varied. Some fear the repealing of the Affordable Care Act, former President Barack Obama’s signature effort to offer subsidized health insurance to millions of Americans and expand healthcare to the poor. Others cite high prescription drug costs and the high cost of healthcare in general.

GRAY VOTE MAGNIFIED

The potential impact of any swing to Democrats is magnified given that older, educated adults are reliable voters. They also make up a sizeable portion of the voting population in many districts where elections are close.

How they vote could decide elections in as many as 26 competitive congressional districts where Democrats have a shot at winning a seat. A Reuters analysis of U.S. Census data shows highly educated older voters make up about 5-10 percent of the population in those areas. Democrats need to pick up 24 seats to win control of the House of Representatives.

More broadly, older white Americans, regardless of their level of education, are still more likely to vote for Republicans than Democrats, but the Republican advantage with this group has been trimmed by about 5 percentage points when comparing the first quarter of 2018 with the first quarter of 2016.

DISPROPORTIONATE POWER

Older, educated voters have even more clout in the Arizona’s 2nd Congressional District, where John Camm lives.

They make up about 10 percent of the population there, the analysis shows. Adjacent to the University of Arizona Tucson campus and including some of Arizona’s few liberal pockets, it is Arizona’s most competitive district, said Paul Bentz, an Arizona strategist and pollster who has worked on numerous Republican campaigns.

Older voters in the 2nd district - both with and without college degrees - were 40 percent of voters in the 2016 election that kept Congress in Republican hands and brought Trump to power, Arizona voter data reviewed by Reuters shows.

Bentz said the shift toward Democrats in the Tucson area could be enough to determine the outcome, but he cautioned against reading too much into the increased concern about healthcare. He said Republicans could still win voters with arguments focusing on immigration and support for the military.

Older, educated voters are also nearly 10 percent of the adult population in northern New Jersey’s hotly contested 11th Congressional District, three hotly contested Southern California districts, and highly competitive seats in Illinois, Texas and Virginia’s 10th.

RAISING ANXIETY

Nationally, Democrats plan to campaign strongly for older voters, focusing on issues such as taxes, healthcare and the economy as campaigns heat up later this year, party strategists said. Republicans, meanwhile, are touting the benefits of their tax cuts and the improved economy.

In an ad that began rolling out last week in Indiana, Priorities USA Action, the largest Democratic Party fundraising group, highlights increases to the federal deficit caused by Republican tax cuts. “Now there’s a plan to cut Medicare to pay for it,” the ad says, a line designed to raise older Americans’ anxiety about the government healthcare program for over 65s.

Priorities spokesman Josh Schwerin said it plans to spend $50 million on such ads in several states, including Arizona, Pennsylvania and Ohio.

(To read about how healthcare anxieties are looming large in a key Kentucky House race, click here)

Voters between the ages of 60 and 65 are particularly worried about healthcare, said Brigid Harrison, a political scientist at Montclair State University in New Jersey, because they are paying ever higher private health insurance premiums and are not yet eligible for Medicare.

Kenneth Johnston, 82 and a registered Republican who was shopping with his wife on a recent day at a Sprouts Farmers Market store in Green Valley, south of Tucson, said he is unhappy with his party and has mixed feelings about Trump.

But he hasn’t yet decided how he’s going to vote. “I’m worried about healthcare, but sometimes I just worry about everything,” he said. “I’m old.”

—The Reuters/Ipsos daily tracking poll provides a snapshot of public opinion by surveying more than 65,000 adults during the first three months of 2016 and 2018, including more than 15,000 people over the age of 60.

https://www.reuters.com/article/us-u...-idUSKBN1HG1I6

I know it's counterproductive vote-wise to wish ill on folks who voted for tRump, but the current worries of older whites and soybean/hog farmers do stimulate my sense of schadenfreude...

Originally Posted by tomcat

I know it's counterproductive vote-wise to wish ill on folks who voted for tRump

I wouldn't lose much sleep over it.

Originally Posted by tomcat

soybean/hog farmers do stimulate my sense of schadenfreude...

An idiom that I am sure they are familiar with...

Their chickens have come home to roost.