You know what a “collective noun†is? Like a covey of quail, a flock of geese, or a pod of whales? There’s even one for politicians: an equivocation of politicians. If there’s is a collective noun for rationalizations, my researches have not revealed what it is. Whatever it might be, I’m pretty sure we’re going to get it now that the midterm elections are over. As the line from The Big Chill says, rationalization is as great a human need as air, food, or water—-ever tried to go 24 hours without rationalizing?
As of this writing the Red Wave seems to have piddled out. We don’t actually know who will control the House or Senate yet and may not for quite a while. There are some things that we can conjecture on
- Party affiliation does matter
- Gerrymandering works
- Candidate quality does matter
- On net Donald Trump’s endorsement does not help
- The issues (inflation, crime, abortion, etc.) do matter but they’re not dispositive
- Coherence may matter but it’s not essential
Are there any more things we can conclude from the results of the midterms?
Candidate quality sometimes matters, not always. With Letterman’s stroke any generic GOP candidate could have won, but they ran Oz. As someone nicely phrased it, PA has a lot of built in Anti-Dr Nick prejudice. Leaving NJ to live in PA for a few months didnt fix that.
Second, I think there were probably more women who secretly voted on the abortion issue than was realized. They or their husband may have told the pollster they opposed abbortion or didnt think it important when it actually was.
Almost last, I think of the words of a GOP pundit.
“Your denial of the issue for purposes of political obfuscation is grotesque. And such denial on a number of issues is why you guys are going to get your asses whipped tonight.”
Eventually I think people realize when you are wrong on at least some of the issues.
Really last, there wasn’t a wave but the GOP did win. That lets them more easily stop Dem projects but the margin is so small it will be hard to accomplish much. Just lots of fake investigations, repealing the same stuff over and over and tax cuts. The coming battle between DeSantis and Trump could be pretty harmful for the GOP.
Steve
I am apparently ignorant.
Women are desirous of abortive measures being available for their daughters and grandchildren?
I really don’t get that.
I suggest the word Quibble as in a quibble of rationalizations.
Other thing to ponder, Do scare tactics work?
One overlooked observation. The GOP got the reverse side of the results in 2014, 2016, 2018 — incredible efficiency in the distribution of votes.
The electorate did shift towards the GOP compared the 2020 and the Republicans probably won the national vote if you sum up all house races. But it was notable the shift was very inefficient — focused on a few states like Florida, New York…
Its surprising that women would want other women, especially their kids, to want to be able to make their own medical decisions or just decisions in general?
Steve
BTW, Dave Wasserman states Republicans are leading the national popular vote by 6.4% currently. That’s more then what Republicans did in 2014 (5.7%), just a little less then 2010 (6.8%), matches 1994 (6.4%).
To note — the national popular vote doesn’t have direct political significance but it shows the generic ballot polling was fairly accurate or and didn’t have an anti-Democratic slant. The punditry made a mistake assuming the generic ballot would distribute the votes as in those 3 elections.
I think Wasserman’s numbers are probably accurate and reflect what you would expect in a mid term election with inflation so high. The GOP should have had a wave but they put up some uniquely awful candidates.
Steve
Various:
1. Party affiliation is first. Candidate quality second. PA just elected a radical potato. But, the truth is Oz was weak.
Nearby to me, let’s face it, Walker is weak. But Warnock is just a bizarre person. A Hobson’s choice. (BYW – Senators, gawd. Arrogant, preening know nothings. Give me a competent governor any day. It is called the executive branch, you know.)
2. So, BTW, I agree with steve’s first observation. I also agree with the notion that Republicans underestimated the abortion issue. Not that I think Democrats are right on abortion. But its very emotional.
3. I think the Red Wave vs Ripple is poor analysis. Only the rabids predicted wild gains. I said Senate 52. Laxalt is going to win Nevada. And the libertarian 2% blead off will disappear in GA. Walker should win. That’s 51. Masters? AZ should be ashamed of their process. Who knows?
I’ll wait to see on the House. I said +35. Maybe too aggressive. But the Dems losing the House and Senate is a whipping in my book.
4. Contra the constant “cult” blathering of a medical professional and true cultist on this site, I think peak Trump may have passed. Oz, Walker, Kemp, Mastriano etc didn’t work. That’s on Trump for using his influence inappropriately. Guess who shined? A very competent executive and governor of Florida. Some may recall I said back in 2020 that Trump should have toned it down because his bombastic style was losing I’s and suburban women. Tangible results aside. He couldn’t do it. That’s on him, and echo’s Daves oft cited “not temperamentally fit.” Again, contra steves lightweight comments about cults, Trump will lose me if he can’t control his ego.
5. To Walt. Yes, scare tactics work. Telling people their Medicare and Social Security will be taken away; loss of democratic processes, “they want to put you back in chains” is standard Democrat fare. Don’t disagree – or you most assuredly are a racist, homophobe……
6. Curious, IMHO, made a great point. Popular vote. Concentrated in the FL’s and NY’s of the world. I bet you won’t hear Doc Taylor screeching about popular vote now.
Its the right system. Distribute power between large and small state interests. Talk about civil war if you don’t.
Other conclusions?
Pollsters are worthless. The analytics are broken.
States that can’t tabulate votes in a day are either the stupidest motherfuckers on the face of the earth, or crooks. I think the latter.
MSNBC – “John Fetterman is Presidential material.” Presented without comment…….
Since we are rationalizing, I’ll just pat myself on the back for stating that there was too much uncertainty and that predictions were little more than guesses.
While some might be correct on the overall numbers of who wins and who loses, few were correct in their analysis of the breakdowns, much less the discontinuities that no one (AFAIK) predicted. Such as:
– Desantis and Kemp winning by huge margins above just about every other Republican. In Miami-Dade, Clinton beat Trump by almost 30 points in 2016 – DeSantis won there by 11, a 41-point swing. And the early exit polls, which are not wholly reliable this soon, so take this with a grain of salt, indicate that Desantis may have won the Latino vote outright.
– In contrast, Abbot won handily in Texas, but didn’t have much strength with Latino voters, at least so far.
– In my home state of Colorado, Boebert (yes, that Boebert) is – as I write this – losing by 64 votes with almost all of them counted. No one expected this race to be competitive. 538 projected an easy win for her at around 14 points for a 97% chance. Now it is a coin toss based on a handful of remaining votes. This is likely an analytical error by 538 and others, as there were only three polls in that district, the last one in early October, and the biggest spread in those polls was +7 for Boebert – half of what 538 and the NYT predicted.
– Republicans doing well in New York. Some blame this on failed gerrymandering creating more competitive districts, but I think there is much more to the story.
– Ticket splitting, or at least strategic non-voting, is alive and well. For all the talk about how reliable partisan voting is, it’s clear that voters who are not Pavlovian partisans can be and are decisive in close contests.
If Republicans want an investigation; I have a candidate.
The 2nd biggest donor to Biden’s 2020 campaign had his crypto exchange / bank collapse on election day; amid suspicion he was operating a flywheel operation (a cousin to the Ponzi scheme). It’s open knowledge that he was donating to get legislation related to cryptocurrency in his favor — it would be good to understand what did his money influence.
I mean its not small potatoes; his exchange lost $10 billion dollars in customer money. In comparison Jon Corzine’s MF Global lost $2 billion, and Bernie Madoff’s fraud was $64 billion.
Should we then investigate every business that makes donations to try to influence legislation in their favor? Means a lot of investigations.
Steve
PS- Note that I didnt make any predictions except that I thought the GOP should and would end up controlling both houses of congress. Usually its “the economy stupid”, but this time you also had abortion and the radical Trump/MAGA candidates. Usually its th eDems doing stupid stuff to try to lose elections but the GOP gets the prize this election.
Steve
Forgot. Was off yesterday and home cooking so had Fox on to listen to their version of the results. There was a LOT of emphasis on the big DeSantis win. However, when I looked at the state results, Rubio won by almost as large a margin. I think that might undercut the narrative that DeSantis is so wonderful.
Steve
Thinking it over — I believe Mike Dewine is actually a more intriguing candidate then DeSantis.
He’s in the midwest; which is the region that is the most ominous roadblock to Republicans regaining the White House — (Republicans need to win either PA, MI, WI, MN — where they showed weakness throughout yesterday). Dewine well managing the pandemic; keeping both sides satisfied. His victory margin of 25% is very impressive considering the states natural Republican bias is a maximum of 10%. And considering his policy achievements, he’s got solid Conservative credentials.
His big downside is his age (77 by 2024), but considering Biden will be 82; it won’t be an issue at all.
Dewine is a better choice in the general but not sure he could win the primary. The party seems to have a preference for candidates whose primary goal is “owning the libs”.
Steve