DryGoods posted:

Schnorkles posted:

tomorrow we'll all be happy or we'll all be dead or nothing will really change i guess

animist posted:

looking forward to democrats completely failing to accomplish anything for 2 years despite whatever paltry gains they make in the house of reps

Azathoth posted:

Uh, yeah, in anything other than that Dem Scream Death scenario above, the best they could hope to do is ineffectually pass legislation that Trump vetoes.

Well, they can impeach Trump (they should) but he's not getting convicted by the Senate unless Mueller drops a loving bombshell (unlikely) or rank and file Republicans turn on Trump (lol).

Best case scenario, this election is still just about building a base for President Bernie in 2020.

Typo posted:

I genuinely think Trump might do the Clinton 94-96 thing and pass some poo poo the dems want like DACA and infrastructure if only so he can claim to be greatest bipartisan president in history

Azathoth posted:

Uh, yeah, in anything other than that Dem Scream Death scenario above, the best they could hope to do is ineffectually pass legislation that Trump vetoes.

Well, they can impeach Trump (they should) but he's not getting convicted by the Senate unless Mueller drops a loving bombshell (unlikely) or rank and file Republicans turn on Trump (lol).

Best case scenario, this election is still just about building a base for President Bernie in 2020.

Yinlock posted:

prediction: dems sweep house and senate and then do nothing but try to compromise with nazis, setting up a 2020 trump supermajority

Shear Modulus posted:

cant believe its two days until the 2020 presidential primary officially starts

Typo posted:

I genuinely think Trump might do the Clinton 94-96 thing and pass some poo poo the dems want like DACA and infrastructure if only so he can claim to be greatest bipartisan president in history if the dem wave is big enough in the house so that he can't just pretend it didn't happen

Yinlock posted:

considering the fuckery republicans pulled with house control there's a lot they can do, but won't because they're spineless fucks

iSheep posted:

whats everyones election night comfort food

Typo posted:

I genuinely think Trump might do the Clinton 94-96 thing and pass some poo poo the dems want like DACA and infrastructure if only so he can claim to be greatest bipartisan president in history if the dem wave is big enough in the house so that he can't just pretend it didn't happen

iSheep posted:

whats everyones election night comfort food

iSheep posted:

whats everyones election night comfort food

Schnorkles posted:

How are the democraps doing? (a handy schnork guide)

There are a lot of competitive races this year, and as such, I don’t really have the time or energy to offer a breakdown on every single one. Instead, I’m going to try and benchmark important races that will suggest certain national trends based on the composition of the electorate.

You will note that I’m talking about the same set of elections in each case, because this is more a sense of “what does this thing look like in the first couple of hours” and not “here’s a comprehensive list of every race that will go in whichever direction.” We'll know, for instance, very quickly what things look like in FL because 60% of the vote will drop basically immediately. If its veering hard one way or the other, the night will basically be comfortably over by 8 pm EST and then its just about how bad the bleeding is.

I have offered 5 handy scenarios and early indicators of each of these scenarios. FWIW, I think its 3 or somewhere between 3 and 4:

1.) RED WAVE

In this universe the republicans (somehow) gain seats in the house and murder the hell out of the democrats in the senate. Completely flying in the face of any information we have, the republicans probably pick up a couple of democratic seats (NV-03, MN-01/07/08, AZ-01, NH-02, potentially FL-07) and only lose 2-3 in the house. In the senate they pick up something like 7 seats.

Early indicators:

- KY-06 is a 10 point republican win.
- Early returns in Indiana have Donnelly down a bunch.
- Early returns in FL look terrible for Nelson/Gillum, probably down between 5 and 10 points in the EV. Salazar winning by 5-10 in FL-27 and Murphy in serious trouble in FL-07.
- Wexton loses narrowly to Comstock in VA-10
- Raimondo loses in RI and Lamont loses in CN.
- Republicans easily hold ME-02 and look safe to hold the governor in Maine.
- NH 1 goes republican, Sununu wins re-election by 20-25 points.
- PA senate/governorship are unexpectedly tight.
- Democrats run tight in NJ-05 and are down in NJ-03/07.

2.) Republican Hold

In this actually possible universe, the republicans keep democratic gains to the high teens in the house and take 2-3 senate seats. They also limit the damage in governorships and keep democratic triplicate gains to only NM/IL. They, against the early vote, manage to mobilize massively in the rurals and hold in Nevada in both topline races, though they still face a democratic supermajority in the state senate there. Based on this mobilization, Tarkanian surprisingly manages to take the open NV-03, giving republicans three total flips along with MN-01 and MN-08. Salazar upsets a weak Shalala in FL-27 and Curbelo coasts to re-election in FL-26. In the rest of the country, the wealthy suburban seats fall (VA-10, CO-06, CA-49), but the republicans limit the damage in the more middle class suburbs like IA-03 and IL-13. Republicans hold the governorship in OH and IA against robust challenges.
In this universe, FL goes to a recount and Abrams loses in GA. Texas, Tennessee, and North Dakota aren’t particularly close in the senate and one of Donnelly, McCaskill and Tester loses as well.

This is much more of a district by district fight, and so early returns are kind of all over the place. But a couple of key indicators can be sussed out I think.

Early Indicators:

- While democrats look comfortable to pick up VA-10, they fall short in the other Virginia benchmarks: VA-02/05/07.
- Barr holds KY-06 against McGrath.
- Early returns in Indiana indicate a tight race between Donnelly and Braun, though Braun is definitely favored.
- ME-02 is 50/50 heading into the later portion of the evening, with the high northern part (which takes forever to report) deciding the race. As its heavily republican, Polinquin almost certainly manages to hold on.
- Salazar (R) is very close in early returns in FL-27.
- Both Gillum and Nelson are only very slightly up in the EV, with more vote to come from the heavily republican parts of the state. Curbelo looks comfortable in FL-26.
- Republicans manage to hold both NC-13 and NC-09.
- None of the NE republican governorships look close. Raimondo/Lamont are tight, but look favorable.
- While democrats pick up a couple seats in PA, they comprehensively lose in PA-08 and PA-10.
- Democrats lose one or both of NJ-3 and NJ-7

3.) Baseline Outcome

This is what the polls suggest is going to happen, and some form of this is the most likely scenario.

Democrats make serious gains in suburban and exurban districts. The statewide Midwest races are a annihilation equivalent to what happened to the Dems in 2016. Dems likely pick up in the neighborhood of 8-10 governors and keep senate loses to a seat at most. House pickup is +35 or so, fueled primarily by districts like VA-05/02, CO-06, MI-08/11, and MN-02/03. UT-04 may or may not be competitive.

Early Indicators:

- Early returns in Virginia indicate the dems are easily winning VA-10. VA-02 is slightly favored and competitive to tied in both VA-05/07.
- KY-06 is really close between Barr and McGrath.
- Early returns in Indiana have Donnelly doing well, especially among his base counties. While the race is tight, probably hedging towards a Donnelly edge.
- Lamont and Raimondo both look solid to safe in NE.
- The race versus Sununu is at least competitive, and Dems look comfortable in NH-01.
- ME-02/Governor is leaning dem early.
- NC-09/13 are both competitive.
- Early returns in FL look solid for Gillum and Nelson as NPAs break heavily in their direction. Shalala, while not as strong as she should be, still manages a solid early lead against Salazar. Curbelo is in the fight of his life.
- Upstate NY comes into play here, as NY-19 and NY-22 are tight but leaming Dem. 1 out of 2 ends up going Dem.
- Four out of the five republican seats in NJ (02/03/05/07) go Democratic.
- PA-08 is real close.

4.) A very good night

This is the upper end of what I’d consider to be a “reasonable” possibility. In this universe, the democrats take the house and narrowly take the senate (51-49) on the back of a shock win from Beto, Heitkamp, or Bredesen. Their gains in the house are close to 60 seats, sweeping significantly more republican seats such as WV-03, FL-15, VA-07, UT-04 etc. It will be fairly clear that we’re at this level initially, because it relies on suburban republicans abandoning the party en masse.

Early Indicators:
- Barr and McGrath are close, but McGrath looks solidly ahead.
- Donnelly performs strongly in early returns and looks set to win early in the night.
- The Dems easily win VA-02/05/10. Early returns put VA-07 as favored to flip democratic.
- One of the two NC seats (09/13) flips quickly, with the other looking very competitive.
- Dems win all 4 seats in NJ and look competitive in NJ-11.
- Dems win easily in Maine. Sununu is in a race in NH.
- Early returns in FL are really good for Dems. Nelson/Gillum look on track to win quickly and FL 26/27 are both firmly in the democratic camp. FL-15 is neck and neck.
- Manchin coasts to re-election and his strength in WV-03 propels Ojeda.
- The GOP gets annihilated in PA, and seats like PA-10 start being in danger.

5.) THE DEMS SCREAM DEATH

https://imgur.com/gallery/6oE77yi

This is the place where things veer into “Uh huh tell me more “ territory. In this universe, the dems manage to get to 53 or 54 senate seats, with Fischer and Hyde-Smith struggling to get re-elected. Somewhere between 80 and 100 seats will go Democratic, with seats like IA-04, TX-02/07/23, and WA-03 all falling in a tidal wave. What were thought to be safely republican seats like CA-21 (Valadao, who is in a democratic district but is very popular) get swept away and the republicans are left with only hard white rural seats. In some places, like MT-AL and AK-AL, they lose these too. In governorships, they lose literally everything except for the reddest states possible (minus Kansas, which they lose by between 5 and 7), and Dean ends up being surprisingly competitive in Tennessee.

Early Indicators:

- Donnelly cruising to re-election by a double digit margin
- Early vote comes in with double digit leads (like.. more than 20) for both Gillum and Nelson. Curbelo is obviously done with the first group of votes and FL-15 is done and dusted by the first live vote drop.
- Democrats are competitive to overwhelming in New England governor’s races currently held by republicans, and win 3 out of 5 in ME, NH, MD, VT and MA.
- ME-02 is called all but immediately for the dems.
- Dems win all 5 seats in NJ, including the very red NJ-11.
- Ojeda wins in WV-03 easily.
- Democratic gains in VA possibly extend past VA-02/05/07/10 and into the republicans literal backyard.
- 3 seats (Nc-09/13/14) in NC flip to Democrats.
- Idk this is basically a fever dream fill in your own adventure here.

Stefan Prodan posted:

Cyanide

iSheep posted:

whats everyones election night comfort food

quote:

The bill will include the creation of a small-donor public financing system for congressional elections, the restoration of the Voting Rights Act, nationwide automatic voter registration, nonpartisan redistricting reforms for congressional elections and a host of ethics reforms to rein in corruption in Congress and the executive branch.

The Glumslinger posted:

So here is what the Dems are saying they'll do if they win the House

https://www.huffingtonpost.com/entry/democrats-2018-midterms-policy_us_5bda0810e4b019a7ab59e44e


Of course, they'll squabble like crazy and struggle get any of this passed in the House, where it'll be DOA in a Republican Senate

iSheep posted:

whats everyones election night comfort food

Schnorkles posted:

How are the democraps doing? (a handy schnork guide)

There are a lot of competitive races this year, and as such, I don’t really have the time or energy to offer a breakdown on every single one. Instead, I’m going to try and benchmark important races that will suggest certain national trends based on the composition of the electorate.

You will note that I’m talking about the same set of elections in each case, because this is more a sense of “what does this thing look like in the first couple of hours” and not “here’s a comprehensive list of every race that will go in whichever direction.” We'll know, for instance, very quickly what things look like in FL because 60% of the vote will drop basically immediately. If its veering hard one way or the other, the night will basically be comfortably over by 8 pm EST and then its just about how bad the bleeding is.

I have offered 5 handy scenarios and early indicators of each of these scenarios. FWIW, I think its 3 or somewhere between 3 and 4:

1.) RED WAVE

In this universe the republicans (somehow) gain seats in the house and murder the hell out of the democrats in the senate. Completely flying in the face of any information we have, the republicans probably pick up a couple of democratic seats (NV-03, MN-01/07/08, AZ-01, NH-02, potentially FL-07) and only lose 2-3 in the house. In the senate they pick up something like 7 seats.

Early indicators:

- KY-06 is a 10 point republican win.
- Early returns in Indiana have Donnelly down a bunch.
- Early returns in FL look terrible for Nelson/Gillum, probably down between 5 and 10 points in the EV. Salazar winning by 5-10 in FL-27 and Murphy in serious trouble in FL-07.
- Wexton loses narrowly to Comstock in VA-10
- Raimondo loses in RI and Lamont loses in CN.
- Republicans easily hold ME-02 and look safe to hold the governor in Maine.
- NH 1 goes republican, Sununu wins re-election by 20-25 points.
- PA senate/governorship are unexpectedly tight.
- Democrats run tight in NJ-05 and are down in NJ-03/07.

2.) Republican Hold

In this actually possible universe, the republicans keep democratic gains to the high teens in the house and take 2-3 senate seats. They also limit the damage in governorships and keep democratic triplicate gains to only NM/IL. They, against the early vote, manage to mobilize massively in the rurals and hold in Nevada in both topline races, though they still face a democratic supermajority in the state senate there. Based on this mobilization, Tarkanian surprisingly manages to take the open NV-03, giving republicans three total flips along with MN-01 and MN-08. Salazar upsets a weak Shalala in FL-27 and Curbelo coasts to re-election in FL-26. In the rest of the country, the wealthy suburban seats fall (VA-10, CO-06, CA-49), but the republicans limit the damage in the more middle class suburbs like IA-03 and IL-13. Republicans hold the governorship in OH and IA against robust challenges.
In this universe, FL goes to a recount and Abrams loses in GA. Texas, Tennessee, and North Dakota aren’t particularly close in the senate and one of Donnelly, McCaskill and Tester loses as well.

This is much more of a district by district fight, and so early returns are kind of all over the place. But a couple of key indicators can be sussed out I think.

Early Indicators:

- While democrats look comfortable to pick up VA-10, they fall short in the other Virginia benchmarks: VA-02/05/07.
- Barr holds KY-06 against McGrath.
- Early returns in Indiana indicate a tight race between Donnelly and Braun, though Braun is definitely favored.
- ME-02 is 50/50 heading into the later portion of the evening, with the high northern part (which takes forever to report) deciding the race. As its heavily republican, Polinquin almost certainly manages to hold on.
- Salazar (R) is very close in early returns in FL-27.
- Both Gillum and Nelson are only very slightly up in the EV, with more vote to come from the heavily republican parts of the state. Curbelo looks comfortable in FL-26.
- Republicans manage to hold both NC-13 and NC-09.
- None of the NE republican governorships look close. Raimondo/Lamont are tight, but look favorable.
- While democrats pick up a couple seats in PA, they comprehensively lose in PA-08 and PA-10.
- Democrats lose one or both of NJ-3 and NJ-7

3.) Baseline Outcome

This is what the polls suggest is going to happen, and some form of this is the most likely scenario.

Democrats make serious gains in suburban and exurban districts. The statewide Midwest races are a annihilation equivalent to what happened to the Dems in 2016. Dems likely pick up in the neighborhood of 8-10 governors and keep senate loses to a seat at most. House pickup is +35 or so, fueled primarily by districts like VA-05/02, CO-06, MI-08/11, and MN-02/03. UT-04 may or may not be competitive.

Early Indicators:

- Early returns in Virginia indicate the dems are easily winning VA-10. VA-02 is slightly favored and competitive to tied in both VA-05/07.
- KY-06 is really close between Barr and McGrath.
- Early returns in Indiana have Donnelly doing well, especially among his base counties. While the race is tight, probably hedging towards a Donnelly edge.
- Lamont and Raimondo both look solid to safe in NE.
- The race versus Sununu is at least competitive, and Dems look comfortable in NH-01.
- ME-02/Governor is leaning dem early.
- NC-09/13 are both competitive.
- Early returns in FL look solid for Gillum and Nelson as NPAs break heavily in their direction. Shalala, while not as strong as she should be, still manages a solid early lead against Salazar. Curbelo is in the fight of his life.
- Upstate NY comes into play here, as NY-19 and NY-22 are tight but leaming Dem. 1 out of 2 ends up going Dem.
- Four out of the five republican seats in NJ (02/03/05/07) go Democratic.
- PA-08 is real close.

4.) A very good night

This is the upper end of what I’d consider to be a “reasonable” possibility. In this universe, the democrats take the house and narrowly take the senate (51-49) on the back of a shock win from Beto, Heitkamp, or Bredesen. Their gains in the house are close to 60 seats, sweeping significantly more republican seats such as WV-03, FL-15, VA-07, UT-04 etc. It will be fairly clear that we’re at this level initially, because it relies on suburban republicans abandoning the party en masse.

Early Indicators:
- Barr and McGrath are close, but McGrath looks solidly ahead.
- Donnelly performs strongly in early returns and looks set to win early in the night.
- The Dems easily win VA-02/05/10. Early returns put VA-07 as favored to flip democratic.
- One of the two NC seats (09/13) flips quickly, with the other looking very competitive.
- Dems win all 4 seats in NJ and look competitive in NJ-11.
- Dems win easily in Maine. Sununu is in a race in NH.
- Early returns in FL are really good for Dems. Nelson/Gillum look on track to win quickly and FL 26/27 are both firmly in the democratic camp. FL-15 is neck and neck.
- Manchin coasts to re-election and his strength in WV-03 propels Ojeda.
- The GOP gets annihilated in PA, and seats like PA-10 start being in danger.

5.) THE DEMS SCREAM DEATH

https://imgur.com/gallery/6oE77yi

This is the place where things veer into “Uh huh tell me more “ territory. In this universe, the dems manage to get to 53 or 54 senate seats, with Fischer and Hyde-Smith struggling to get re-elected. Somewhere between 80 and 100 seats will go Democratic, with seats like IA-04, TX-02/07/23, and WA-03 all falling in a tidal wave. What were thought to be safely republican seats like CA-21 (Valadao, who is in a democratic district but is very popular) get swept away and the republicans are left with only hard white rural seats. In some places, like MT-AL and AK-AL, they lose these too. In governorships, they lose literally everything except for the reddest states possible (minus Kansas, which they lose by between 5 and 7), and Dean ends up being surprisingly competitive in Tennessee.

Early Indicators:

- Donnelly cruising to re-election by a double digit margin
- Early vote comes in with double digit leads (like.. more than 20) for both Gillum and Nelson. Curbelo is obviously done with the first group of votes and FL-15 is done and dusted by the first live vote drop.
- Democrats are competitive to overwhelming in New England governor’s races currently held by republicans, and win 3 out of 5 in ME, NH, MD, VT and MA.
- ME-02 is called all but immediately for the dems.
- Dems win all 5 seats in NJ, including the very red NJ-11.
- Ojeda wins in WV-03 easily.
- Democratic gains in VA possibly extend past VA-02/05/07/10 and into the republicans literal backyard.
- 3 seats (Nc-09/13/14) in NC flip to Democrats.
- Idk this is basically a fever dream fill in your own adventure here.

The Stranger posted:

If Democrats lose all three competitive Congressional races in Washington State on election day (or at some point during the tedious, ballot-chasing weeks thereafter), it won't be for lack of trying.
The Democratic campaigns in Washington's 3rd, 5th, and 8th Congressional Districts—all purple to bright red districts that have sent Republicans to Congress for the last several years—are claiming that they're blowing past voter contact goals and considerably expanding their reach. To describe the scope of the activity on the ground, they've started using adjectives you'd normally hear from Italian mobsters in movies describing their mothers' bolognese: "astonishing," "unbelievable."

Over in the 8th District—which, as everyone now hopefully knows, is "closely watched" and "hotly contested" and flush with millions of dollars of that sweet, sweet Bloomberg and Paul Ryan money—Kim Schrier's spokesperson says the campaign has "consistently passed all the [voter contact] goals" they've set since the primary.

The campaign boasts 4,000 "active volunteers" knocking on doors, 2,000 of whom they deployed over the weekend. "Both days we ran out of turf our team had cut in King County and Pierce," the spokesperson said. "In past attempts, we've run out of turf in Kittitas [County] and Douglas [County]. We've even had too many volunteers for the doors we needed to knock in Kittitas."

All told, Schrier's campaign has knocked on over 200,000 doors in central Washington, which has a little over 441,000 registered voters. Since Oct. 18, they've had "just under 100,000" actual conversations with people.

"We're reaching not only the Democrats we think will turn out and the independents we want to convince, but we're also reaching Republican women... and people who have no track record of voting," the spokesperson added.

A new poll from The New York Times/Siena wrapped up over the weekend, showing Schrier with a three-point lead over Republican Dino Rossi, who sucks. It's her best showing in the polls so far, and, though nobody knows how it's going to go, the ground game can't hurt.

Darcy Burner, who ran for Congress and lost to Rep. Dave Reichert in 2006 and 2008, says the grassroots efforts this year have been "astonishing" from her perspective. She lives in rural King County in the 5th Legislative District, and she says volunteers have knocked on her door twice this cycle. "That has never happened before," she said.

Lisa Brown, the former Democratic State Senator who's hoping to unseat Rep. Cathy McMorris Rodgers in blood-red eastern Washington, also appears to be doing well in the field. Her spokesperson says they've exceeded all of their goals, but adds that "there's always doors left to knock because there are still lots of ballots left to return."

The spokesperson claims the campaign, which also includes 4,000 volunteers, has knocked on 115,000 doors since Brown started running. They hit 50,000 of those doors since ballots dropped. There are 445,743 registered voters in the district.

After the primary, Brown said she wanted her campaign to focus on turning out college kids on election day in order to close the 4-point gap between her and McMorris Rodgers. Her spokesperson said they've been touring campuses recently, but said they've mostly been trying to gin up the vote in urban areas. "The path to victory is Spokane, Pullman, and Walla Walla, but obviously we're still reaching people in every county," she said. "Right now we're focused on the base, and making sure all ballots are turned in."

A spokesperson for Carolyn Long, who's running to unseat four-term incumbent Republican Jaime Herrera Beutler, says the campaign "ran out of walkable doors in Clark County" three days before the election, meaning they'd knocked on every door they had on their list. "Every potential Democrat voter has been knocked by someone in our campaign in the last week," the spokesperson said.

The hustle makes sense. Long trails Herrera Beutler by seven points in the latest NYT/Siena poll, but internal polling shows her two points ahead.

According to the campaign, with 1,600 registered volunteers they've made 308,500 voter contact attempts in an electorate of 443,000 registered voters. Over 247,000 of those attempts occurred in the last 10 weeks. They've knocked on 141,000 doors total, but have had actual conversations with 64,000 people, averaging over 5,000 conversations a week since the primary. In the last two days alone they've connected with 8,735 people.

Matt Baird, field director for the Long campaign, said they've had "so many people get engaged for the first time through Indivisible, Swing Left, and other new activist groups since 2016 that [they've] been able to talk to voters who no one in Democratic politics has reached out to in years."

That claim tracks with Nike Ande's experience. Ande ran Bob Dingethal's failed Congressional campaign against Herrera Beutler in 2014. Like every other Democrat who's run against Herrera Beutler since the 3rd District was redrawn to ensure Republican rule, Dingethal lost his bid by 20 points. Ande—who lives in Vancouver, WA but who no longer works in politics—says their campaign did not come close to accomplishing what Long's campaign has accomplished.

"Our biggest event was our kick off, and it had 130 people—and that was mostly out of curiosity, I think. At most we had 50 active volunteers on the campaign," Ande said. Granted, Dingethal's campaign raised a little over $200,000 and never had any support from the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee, which put Long on their "Red to Blue" list after she consolidated the Democratic vote in the August primary.

As a resident of Rose Village, a neighborhood pretty close to downtown Vancouver, Ande told me he's been canvassed twice by Long's campaign—once in late September, and once again just before ballots dropped. He said both people were clearly volunteers and not paid canvassers. No other campaigns have tried to get in touch, which isn't a big surprise to him. In the last 10 years, only the campaigns of State Rep. Monica Stonier and Vancouver City Councilmember Ty Stober have knocked on his door.

"We always said winning the 3rd CD was like catching lightning in a bottle, and Long's caught lightning in a bottle," Ande continued. "Whether she wins or not, she's putting Jaime in a tough spot for as long as she wants to run."

Long's campaign manager said more or less the same thing. "No matter what happens tomorrow," Baird said, "We have built a lasting movement here that will make Southwest Washington competitive for Democrats up and down the ballot in 2020 and beyond."

Schrier's spokesperson shared a similar sentiment. "In the last cycle Dave Reichert won [the 8th District] by 20 points, and now we've turned it into one of the most competitive districts in the country. The groundwork it took to do that has been unbelievable. This district is a solidly purple district now, and no matter which way things go on election day, Democrats have made incredible progress here. As a result, I think this year this district will be blue, but also in years going forward," she said.

The lesson here for Washington Democrats: RUN EVERYWHERE AND RUN HARD. These Congressional campaigns have activated volunteers and voters across the state—people who haven't knocked on doors for Democrats before, and people who've never had a Democrat knock on their door before, either. Win or lose, they aren't going anywhere between now and 2020.

Schnorkles posted:

How are the democraps doing? (a handy schnork guide)

There are a lot of competitive races this year, and as such, I don’t really have the time or energy to offer a breakdown on every single one. Instead, I’m going to try and benchmark important races that will suggest certain national trends based on the composition of the electorate.

You will note that I’m talking about the same set of elections in each case, because this is more a sense of “what does this thing look like in the first couple of hours” and not “here’s a comprehensive list of every race that will go in whichever direction.” We'll know, for instance, very quickly what things look like in FL because 60% of the vote will drop basically immediately. If its veering hard one way or the other, the night will basically be comfortably over by 8 pm EST and then its just about how bad the bleeding is.

I have offered 5 handy scenarios and early indicators of each of these scenarios. FWIW, I think its 3 or somewhere between 3 and 4:

1.) RED WAVE

In this universe the republicans (somehow) gain seats in the house and murder the hell out of the democrats in the senate. Completely flying in the face of any information we have, the republicans probably pick up a couple of democratic seats (NV-03, MN-01/07/08, AZ-01, NH-02, potentially FL-07) and only lose 2-3 in the house. In the senate they pick up something like 7 seats.

Early indicators:

- KY-06 is a 10 point republican win.
- Early returns in Indiana have Donnelly down a bunch.
- Early returns in FL look terrible for Nelson/Gillum, probably down between 5 and 10 points in the EV. Salazar winning by 5-10 in FL-27 and Murphy in serious trouble in FL-07.
- Wexton loses narrowly to Comstock in VA-10
- Raimondo loses in RI and Lamont loses in CN.
- Republicans easily hold ME-02 and look safe to hold the governor in Maine.
- NH 1 goes republican, Sununu wins re-election by 20-25 points.
- PA senate/governorship are unexpectedly tight.
- Democrats run tight in NJ-05 and are down in NJ-03/07.

2.) Republican Hold

In this actually possible universe, the republicans keep democratic gains to the high teens in the house and take 2-3 senate seats. They also limit the damage in governorships and keep democratic triplicate gains to only NM/IL. They, against the early vote, manage to mobilize massively in the rurals and hold in Nevada in both topline races, though they still face a democratic supermajority in the state senate there. Based on this mobilization, Tarkanian surprisingly manages to take the open NV-03, giving republicans three total flips along with MN-01 and MN-08. Salazar upsets a weak Shalala in FL-27 and Curbelo coasts to re-election in FL-26. In the rest of the country, the wealthy suburban seats fall (VA-10, CO-06, CA-49), but the republicans limit the damage in the more middle class suburbs like IA-03 and IL-13. Republicans hold the governorship in OH and IA against robust challenges.
In this universe, FL goes to a recount and Abrams loses in GA. Texas, Tennessee, and North Dakota aren’t particularly close in the senate and one of Donnelly, McCaskill and Tester loses as well.

This is much more of a district by district fight, and so early returns are kind of all over the place. But a couple of key indicators can be sussed out I think.

Early Indicators:

- While democrats look comfortable to pick up VA-10, they fall short in the other Virginia benchmarks: VA-02/05/07.
- Barr holds KY-06 against McGrath.
- Early returns in Indiana indicate a tight race between Donnelly and Braun, though Braun is definitely favored.
- ME-02 is 50/50 heading into the later portion of the evening, with the high northern part (which takes forever to report) deciding the race. As its heavily republican, Polinquin almost certainly manages to hold on.
- Salazar (R) is very close in early returns in FL-27.
- Both Gillum and Nelson are only very slightly up in the EV, with more vote to come from the heavily republican parts of the state. Curbelo looks comfortable in FL-26.
- Republicans manage to hold both NC-13 and NC-09.
- None of the NE republican governorships look close. Raimondo/Lamont are tight, but look favorable.
- While democrats pick up a couple seats in PA, they comprehensively lose in PA-08 and PA-10.
- Democrats lose one or both of NJ-3 and NJ-7

3.) Baseline Outcome

This is what the polls suggest is going to happen, and some form of this is the most likely scenario.

Democrats make serious gains in suburban and exurban districts. The statewide Midwest races are a annihilation equivalent to what happened to the Dems in 2016. Dems likely pick up in the neighborhood of 8-10 governors and keep senate loses to a seat at most. House pickup is +35 or so, fueled primarily by districts like VA-05/02, CO-06, MI-08/11, and MN-02/03. UT-04 may or may not be competitive.

Early Indicators:

- Early returns in Virginia indicate the dems are easily winning VA-10. VA-02 is slightly favored and competitive to tied in both VA-05/07.
- KY-06 is really close between Barr and McGrath.
- Early returns in Indiana have Donnelly doing well, especially among his base counties. While the race is tight, probably hedging towards a Donnelly edge.
- Lamont and Raimondo both look solid to safe in NE.
- The race versus Sununu is at least competitive, and Dems look comfortable in NH-01.
- ME-02/Governor is leaning dem early.
- NC-09/13 are both competitive.
- Early returns in FL look solid for Gillum and Nelson as NPAs break heavily in their direction. Shalala, while not as strong as she should be, still manages a solid early lead against Salazar. Curbelo is in the fight of his life.
- Upstate NY comes into play here, as NY-19 and NY-22 are tight but leaming Dem. 1 out of 2 ends up going Dem.
- Four out of the five republican seats in NJ (02/03/05/07) go Democratic.
- PA-08 is real close.

4.) A very good night

This is the upper end of what I’d consider to be a “reasonable” possibility. In this universe, the democrats take the house and narrowly take the senate (51-49) on the back of a shock win from Beto, Heitkamp, or Bredesen. Their gains in the house are close to 60 seats, sweeping significantly more republican seats such as WV-03, FL-15, VA-07, UT-04 etc. It will be fairly clear that we’re at this level initially, because it relies on suburban republicans abandoning the party en masse.

Early Indicators:
- Barr and McGrath are close, but McGrath looks solidly ahead.
- Donnelly performs strongly in early returns and looks set to win early in the night.
- The Dems easily win VA-02/05/10. Early returns put VA-07 as favored to flip democratic.
- One of the two NC seats (09/13) flips quickly, with the other looking very competitive.
- Dems win all 4 seats in NJ and look competitive in NJ-11.
- Dems win easily in Maine. Sununu is in a race in NH.
- Early returns in FL are really good for Dems. Nelson/Gillum look on track to win quickly and FL 26/27 are both firmly in the democratic camp. FL-15 is neck and neck.
- Manchin coasts to re-election and his strength in WV-03 propels Ojeda.
- The GOP gets annihilated in PA, and seats like PA-10 start being in danger.

5.) THE DEMS SCREAM DEATH

https://imgur.com/gallery/6oE77yi

This is the place where things veer into “Uh huh tell me more “ territory. In this universe, the dems manage to get to 53 or 54 senate seats, with Fischer and Hyde-Smith struggling to get re-elected. Somewhere between 80 and 100 seats will go Democratic, with seats like IA-04, TX-02/07/23, and WA-03 all falling in a tidal wave. What were thought to be safely republican seats like CA-21 (Valadao, who is in a democratic district but is very popular) get swept away and the republicans are left with only hard white rural seats. In some places, like MT-AL and AK-AL, they lose these too. In governorships, they lose literally everything except for the reddest states possible (minus Kansas, which they lose by between 5 and 7), and Dean ends up being surprisingly competitive in Tennessee.

Early Indicators:

- Donnelly cruising to re-election by a double digit margin
- Early vote comes in with double digit leads (like.. more than 20) for both Gillum and Nelson. Curbelo is obviously done with the first group of votes and FL-15 is done and dusted by the first live vote drop.
- Democrats are competitive to overwhelming in New England governor’s races currently held by republicans, and win 3 out of 5 in ME, NH, MD, VT and MA.
- ME-02 is called all but immediately for the dems.
- Dems win all 5 seats in NJ, including the very red NJ-11.
- Ojeda wins in WV-03 easily.
- Democratic gains in VA possibly extend past VA-02/05/07/10 and into the republicans literal backyard.
- 3 seats (Nc-09/13/14) in NC flip to Democrats.
- Idk this is basically a fever dream fill in your own adventure here.

Sheng-Ji Yang posted:

https://twitter.com/matthewstoller/status/1059585561109950465?s=19

Nebakenezzer posted:

I conclude that a lot of people will say "I PREDICTED ALL THIS" and "I TOLD YOU SO"

iSheep posted:

whats everyones election night comfort food

anime was right posted:

na na na na
na na na na
hey hey hey
compromise