One Month out from the Election: Give Your Analysis and Make Your Predictions
[reveal-all-button]I know we had a prediction thread back at the beginning of June, but that was 4 or 5 years ago.
We are now down to 28 days before the November Election which means that we are somewhere between 30 and 50ish news cycles before votes are cast. I remember watching one of the Sunday Morning talking heads television shows back in the 90s and George Will said something to the effect of “people don’t care about the election until after the World Series”. According to my quick search on the Google, Game 7 is scheduled for October 31st. That’s a Wednesday. The following Tuesday is November 6th. Election Day.
I’ve made noises before about how the Democrats have lost 1000 seats over the last 4 elections. This is the election that will tell us whether that’s nothing more than the pendulum swinging back and forth.
Well, one of the things that we need to do is measure how big/important that 1000 seat swing actually was.
Brother Jesse points out that the party who wins big tends to lose big over the next few years:
Looking at those two charts, the main thing that I notice is that, yeah, a party does tend to lose power when in the White House.
I also notice that Obama’s numbers are the biggest out of everybody’s. Bigger than Bush’s. Bigger than Clinton’s. Bigger than Reagan’s. I don’t know how to read that. Maybe we should just assume that that’s because the gains made in both 2006 and 2008 were so very big. Okay. Let’s run with that. On top of that, there’s gerrymandering (and it’s gerrymandering that uses computer models which are, of course, better than any gerrymandering done to this point… predictive gerrymandering that not only gave wins immediately after in the 2012 election, but rewarded the forecasted people moving/dying right before the 2014 and 2016 elections as well).
So from that, I pull two numbers out of my butt. Both based on 20%. 20% of the gains made by Republicans after Obama’s historic win were due to little more than regression to the mean after such a huge pendulum swing. After that, another 20% is due to the tricky gerrymandering.
So the question for this election is whether the pendulum of Obama’s big win has stopped swinging.
I’m going to define “stopped swinging” as taking the number of seats the Democrats/Republicans have today, both state-wide and nationally, and say that the pendulum will have stopped swinging if the Democrats have the same number or more seats after the election than they do right now.
Looking at that 1000 number, I’d say that that number is so huge that the question isn’t whether the pendulum has stopped swinging but that we should assume that it has and we should, instead, try to measure the difference between “the democrats only doing well because of regression to the mean” and “the democrats actually doing better than regression to the mean” and “blue wave”.
So assuming regression to the mean and the razor-thin margin that Trump won a number of states by, just regression to the mean will give a number of state-level house and senate seats back to the Democrats, a couple of governorships, and enough house seats to make winning the House of Representatives back really feasible. The Senate has a weird election structure that gives the Republicans an advantage this election but, back in June, I thought that the Dems were likely to net +1 Senate seat and take the Senate back to 50/50.
But given the assumption that there will be regression to the mean? What does regression to the mean look like? I assumed that 10% was the baseline regression to the mean (number pulled from my nethers) and a 10% regression to the mean would look like this back in January 2017:
So, for me, the question is “how many of those numbers have to flop back by what point for us to say okay… Trump is doing to the Republican party what Obama did to his own party?”
I’d say that, at the end of 2018, those numbers would look like this:
3 governorships, 3 U.S. Senate seats, 10 House seats, and 100 state legislative seats and 4 or 5 state legislative chambers.
(At that point in time, I don’t believe I had yet looked at what the Senate election map would look like in 2018. I was just looking at the numbers and that was a mistake.)
And so here’s my new adjusted analysis. A simple regression to the mean will give Democrats 1 or 2 governorships, 1 U.S. Senate seat, 10 House seats, and 75ish state legislative seats and 3 or 4 state legislative chambers. If the democrats don’t even accomplish that much, then I’d say that the discussion shouldn’t be over whether the pendulum is swinging back, but whether Trump is successfully slowing the swing back (or worse, moving the anchor point).
Luckily, it seems like the Democrats are poised to do a *LOT* better than that in the House (where the debate is over whether they’ll flip it) but I don’t know about the rest of those numbers.
I do know that if gerrymandering is responsible for 20% of Republican wins since 2010 and regression to the mean is responsible for another 20%, then there are about 600 seats that are legitimately up for grabs.
And, so far, it looks like Democrats have won 39 seats away from Republicans in the various special elections since Trump got elected.
To win 25% of those 600 seats would take winning 150 seats and the Democrats have already won 39 of them so…
I’m saying that the line between “regression to the mean” and “democrats are right on track for doing well” is somewhere between a grand total of 120 pickups come November (and they’ve already got 39 of those, so 81 more pickups) and 150 pickups come November (111 more!) and the line for “right on track for doing well” and “holy crap, Trump is hollowing out the party the way Obama did!) is somewhere between 150 (111!) and 180 (141!).
So that’s my analysis for how to tell the difference between performing, underperforming, and over-delivering.
As for my guess… hell. I don’t know. I think that the Republicans will pick up at least one Senate seat and might pick up two. The Democrats might win the House but they might not and, six months ago, it was a dead certainty that they would win it and win it decisively. Which tells me that they’ll win the House… but precariously. The Democrats will pick up 4 or 5 governorships. But they won’t hit 150 when it comes to all of the State House/Senate seats and everything added up.
But, again, we’re somewhere between 30 and 50 news cycles before the election. And we don’t even know who will be in the World Series yet.
But *MY* thoughts aren’t half as interesting as *YOUR* thoughts.
Where do you draw the line between performing, underperforming, and over-delivering?
And which of those do you think the Democrats will do?
(Picture is The Crystal Ball by John William Waterhouse. Picture is in the public domain.)
Since I started writing this, Nikki Haley resigned, Trump had an op-ed published in USA Today, and Florida had a Cat 1 hurricane.Report
Today:
Wall Street is down more than 500.
Kanye West visited the Oval Office.Report
(knocks wood)
Today is actually pretty slow. The only crazy stuff I’ve seen is internet drama.Report
It’s not even 9 AM and Elizabeth Warren has released her DNA results.
Jeez.Report
On Columbus Day!Report
And we’re all holding our breath waiting for Trump to tweet about it.
If you’re a company hoping to bury some bad news, you could do worse than to announce it 2 minutes after Trump tweets.Report
CNN reported that Saudi is preparing to admit killing journalist Jamal Khashoggi.Report
Judge rules that Stormy Daniels has to pay Trump’s legal fees from her defamation suit.Report
And Trump tweeted about this and called Stormy Daniels an awful name and Elizabeth Who? Kavanaugh Who?Report
Trump compared the Saudi leader Mohammed bin Salman to Bret Kavanaugh when it came to the importance of a presumption of innocence.
More details came out from Turkey regarding the audio tapes of what happened to Jamal Khashoggi.Report
Where’s John Wick when you need him? Or maybe Winston. Turkey’s honor and hospitality have been offended.Report
…Did somebody call for John Wick?
(Apparently one of Saudi’s ‘hit squad’ has died in a car crash.)Report
Of course he did. One will drown, another fall from a balcony, and the last 12 will be shot in a bar/spa/nightclub at close range by a Heckler & Koch P30L.Report
Facebook admits they overstated video metrics. Apparently 90% of media organizations had firings in response to the “pivot to video”. As such, I imagine a lot of journalists will write about this (but not make videos about it).
There is another caravan of migrants coming up from Honduras hoping to cross the Mexico/United States border.
The Justice Department charged a Treasury Department employee with giving a reporter confidential banking reports tied to Paul Manafort.
Heidi Heitkamp, one of North Dakota’s senators, ran an open letter as an advertisement that included the names of more than 100 women and named them as abuse survivors. A number of the women have said that this is not correct and others have said that they did not give their consent to be so named. She has apologized for the ad.Report
Oh, and Canada legalized recreational today but I don’t know that that will have any affect on US news cycles at all so I don’t know whether to count this one.
It did play pretty big on Reddit, however.
But it would.Report
Headline from ABC news: A threatening letter sent to the home of Republican Sen. Susan Collins that claimed to contain deadly ricin specifically mentioned her vote to confirm Supreme Court Justice Brett Kavanaugh, Collins’ husband saysReport
Trump tweeted about the caravan of Migrants.
In response, Mexico sent riot police down to their southern border to keep the caravan from crossing Mexico.Report
Gaza militants launched rocket into Israel, the Iron Dome failed to catch it, Israel responded with an airstrike.
And that feels like some really boring “dog bites man” news.Report
I bet that sounded a lot more persuasive in his head than it does in print.Report
I will again state that this will be a nothing happens election. No chamber changes hands, though there will be some movement on the edges.Report
Well, with the Great, Good, Depressing and Apocalyptic settings.
Great – Libertarian party sweeps!
Good – Libertarian party takes the house!
Depressing – Someone, somewhere starts impeachment proceeding against anyone, triggering Civil War, First Blood Part II.
Apocalyptic – Enough people vote for the Greater Evil, opening the gates of R’lyeh…Report
Opening the gates of R’lyeh is getting to sound like a better idea all the timeReport
Dems take the House and do quite well on the state level. I’m dubious they can overcome the high obstacles that the current Senate map presents to actually seize the majority there but they’ll hold GOP gains to very little which will be very very bad news for the GOP in 2020.
Which would put us in 2019 with Trump still in the Whitehouse but with no GOP house to cover for him. All the downsides the Republicans currently have minus a lot of their power. Not a good position to be in but they did get the court and a tax cut.Report
Democrats take the House and perform will at the state level. We don’t take back the Senate but the composition stays roughly where it is.Report
House: whoever gets the majority has less than 10 seat advantage. GOP retaining control is undervalued.
Senate: Plausible options go from GOP even to GOP +5, I think the most likely scenario is GOP +5, but they could easily fall one or two short. GOP has closed the book on North Dakota, Tennessee, and Texas. Indiana and Missouri are next. Montana, Nevada, and Florida will stay very tight until the end, when GOP gets across the finish line first.
Underreported story of the entire election cycle: GOP is getting crushed in the Great Lakes/Big 10 when they shouldn’t be.Report
House goes Democratic by between +10 and +15 – and several of the races aren’t called beforehand because their safety is “assumed” by the press and candidates.
Senate – GOP is lucky to retain current numbers, but might end up +1 Democrats – which sets up an interesting series of showdowns where the remaining Blue Dogs could vote with the GOP and Mike Pence breaks ties in the GOP’s favor.
Koz missed one under reported story – Mississippi might split its delegation or go full Democratic – Roger Wicker is not really campaigning for his seat against David Baria (Who is campaigning heavily), and Cindy Hyde-Smith and Chris McDaniel will split the GOP vote against a solidly Democratic Mike Espy in the three way open general election for Thad Cochran’s seat.Report
Mississippi is a little too red for that to happenReport
Oh, and the reason that I think it’s important to say not only what you think will happen but the vague outline of what disappointing looks like, what decent looks like, and what good/great looks like is because there is a tendency to say “oh, well, I didn’t get a direct bullseye but nobody did. My predictions were well in line with everybody else’s and the outcomes confirmed my priors just as I knew they would.”
I mean, if we all know that Democrats would be winning big come November no matter who was in office… even if it was someone that we totally respect and wish the Republicans would get back to running like Rand Paul or Mitt Romney… then it’s not really that surprising that Democrats would be winning big with Trump in office. Do we know how to compare Trump’s outcomes with what we know that Romney or Paul would be getting in the same situation? If Trump does better than Hyporomney, what does that mean? If he does worse than Hypopaul, what does *THAT* mean?
Well, the only way to avoid the false but comforting “This is exactly in line with what I knew was going to happen” is to write down what you know is going to happen.
Then, come November, you have reason to say “holy cow, I was looking at things the wrong way!” and can change how you look at things if you were wrong outside of, oh, 10-15%.
Of course, in a worse case scenario, you can always fall back on “I made that prediction in October and I had no idea that the October Surprise would have been *THAT* and, if I did know that, I would have made the right prediction. So I was right to have gotten the wrong numbers.”Report
I’m standing by my prediction from 4 or 5 years ago.
On top of that, I will say my longshot bet is for Devin Nunes to lose his seat. I’d give it maybe a 20 percent chance. A true Blue Wave will topple him.Report
Nunes seems to be holding strong on 538 but some California GOP House members look set to lose their seats.Report
I’ll stand with my previous game and predictions* for the national picture. If Koz is right about the Great Lakes, I’ll lose. As usual for local things, the referendums and initiatives are more interesting. The state blue book arrived yesterday — 13 state-wide items this time. From the legislature, some tidying up of constitutional language plus creation of a redistricting commission for Congressional districts. Two conflicting statutory initiatives for road projects — one that authorizes a small sales tax for 20 years to fund projects; and one that requires the legislature to issue road bonds and cut $260M per year from other spending to pay for them. Rural interests are funding an amendment that would require the state and local governments to immediately reimburse property owners for any actions that reduced the value of the property in any way whatsoever. Good times.
Under-anticipated story: the Latinx vote finally shows up in Arizona and Nevada.
* Split the country in three: (a) the Census Bureau 13-state West; (b) the 12-state northeast urban corridor; and (c) the other 25 states. Score +1 for the party gaining a Congressional seat, governor’s office, or state legislative chamber (-1 for losing one of those). Prediction: Dems gain in (a) and (b), enough to win the House but not the Senate; the two sides break even in (c).Report
Apocalypse: Democrats win but Trump arrests them all and fills the seats with cronies. Martial law declared.
Depressing: Democrats gain seats but not enough for a majority.
Acceptable: Democrats gain the House but not the Senate.
Great: Democrats win both the House and Senate. Trump reduced to ranting on Twitter for two years, everyone calls McConnel pathetic. Stephen Miller is forced to sit in detention by Congress.Report
Your apocalypse scenario is approximately my prediction for 2024 if Trump doesn’t die of a stroke before then. I suppose it could come early.Report
Endorsed. I would be depressed if we don’t take the House, but satisfied if we take it but not the Senate (given how tough a map that is this year).
Acceptable turns to “happy” if we win the GA/OH governor races. Honestly, I haven’t carefully tracked what we need to do with respect to heading off 2020 gerrymandering efforts, but that’s the most important thing other than taking the House.Report
“I haven’t carefully tracked what we need to do with respect to heading off 2020 gerrymandering efforts”
Don’t peak in 2018 two-years too early.
I’d honestly give props to the Democrats if they throw the Ring into the Cracks of Doom and resist gerrymandering in their favor (assuming a strong 2020).
Serious question… which “Neutral Method” would you (we) pick? Here’s 538 with a fun interactive map. My one rule for this game is all the states have to use the same method… neutral is neutral and all that.Report
Honest answer: I think it needs to be state by state, because different states have different local interest that merit grouping, different population density, etc.
For my money, of those methods, the gerrymanders are obviously bad, competitive elections is a dumb metric, I’m not sure compactness is a sufficient single-issue goal. My overall preference would be the partisan breakdown map because when someone says “State S is super-gerrymandered” the most persuasive next sentence is “52% of the vote was Party P but 70% of the seats went to the other party.”
So if we’re going expressly partisan, fixing that makes most sense. Otherwise, I think you do it in a less-algorithmic non-partisan way. Which my state seems to do pretty well.Report
We. had. one. rule.
Ok… proportionally partisan map for everyone.Report
And let’s redraw state lines!
Why is there a North Dakota *AND* a South Dakota? It should just be “Dakota”.
Let the four senators fight it out in Thunderdome and go back down to two. Then cut California in half.
We can probably consolidate New Hampshire and Vermont and split Texas while we’re at it.Report
Sure, and team blue loses Connecticut, Rhode Island and Delaware…
But fisticuffs over what constitutes a universal “fair” congressional apportionment system doesn’t require anything other than political will. That’s all.Report
538 has Connecticut and Rhode Island as blue.Report
And I completely missed the context and thought you were talking about governors raceReport
No worries… when we redraw the maps, there are no governor’s races in DE, RI, or CT. 🙂Report
Has anyone ever done a hypothetical map of the US based on merging adjacent states so that the remaining divisions all meet some minimum requirement for area and population?Report
So gerrymander the US?
I’ve never heard of such a map, but Google can’t wrap its mind around any sort of query I write that touches the words electoral, congressional, district, etc. But then, our relationship is already fraught, so it might be me.
But honestly, is that a question or are you looking for permission to do it yourself? If so, you have my permission.Report
One of the things that makes the states “work” is that they are established. Once we start gerrymandering states, there’s a *LOT* of crazy stuff that could start happening. Give Boulder to Wyoming one decade. Give it back to Colorado the next.
What does *THAT* do?Report
@michael cain
Here ya go – http://mentalfloss.com/article/58809/us-map-redrawn-50-states-equal-populationReport
I’ve seen that one*. I don’t care about equal population — I just want to see what happens if there are limits for being a state, like >10,000 square miles and >3M people. At least in my head, preferably by aggregating small states rather than tacking small states onto states that already meet whatever standard.
* It has a different set of problems. Shiprock spans three time zones. Ogallala cuts mountain-focused Denver off from the rest of the Mountain West and tacks it onto a huge empty swath of the Great Plains.Report
I continue to disagree that there needs to be a simple single-input algorithm for all redistricting.
I think a non-partisan group can consider a number of variables to reach a good result (though I would define a good result on the metric I’ve already supported). I don’t, for example, hear a lot of republicans saying CA is unfairly gerrymandered.Report
My main opinions on gerrymandering involve stuff like making the shapes intelligible. If you have a squiggly line, it should follow either the state border or a river or something. None of this “looks like cold metal poured into a bucket of water” stuff. Maybe follow the border of a city or a windy street… but having stuff like “the district narrows down to six feet wide for 200 yards as it passes through the airport and then opens up again on the other side” is obvious bs.Report
Ok, but the person elected GA governor this year stays there for four years.Report
You’d think, but in the Cochran race Sen. Hyde Smith is a switched Democrat, which means most establishment Republicans don’t trust her. Her Republican opponent is Chris McDaniel who is a Tea Party Republican state senator who lost to Cochran last time after he sneaked photos of Cochran’s bedridden wife out of a nursing home. Since Mike Espy is the Democrat, and he was previously endorsed by Haley Barbour, he has more then a fair chance.Report
I’ll stand by my earlier prediction of status quo ante.
Trump has a full month to hold his little Nuremberg rallies, and from what I’ve seen the heartland is eating it up. He’s milking the Kavanaugh thing for all it’s worth, and voter enthusiasm polls seem to be indicating it’s having an effect.Report
The revision I need to make to my prior prediction is that I don’t think Heitkamp will be able to hold on anymore in North Dakota, and the Senate will be 50-50 (which of course keeps control for the Republicans)
I still think enough Clinton district Republicans will get flushed out this time around to give the Dems a narrow lead in the House. Narrow enough that it will be between 220-225 seats.
I think things are going to get economically ugly next year (job losses are always much faster than job recovery)Report
I’m almost coming around to the sine qua non of hot takes that its better for the Dems to *not* gain majorities in each chamber of Congress so that they catch no flak for a downturned economy in 2020. Otherwise timing could bite them in the butt *again* going into a census cycle.Report
Remember Dan Scotto’s Value Over Replacement-Level Republican President essay?
It seemed to me that one of the conclusions was that, in that sliver of time, it’d be better for the Republicans to have lost the election.
Which strikes me as non-obvious. I mean, was it good for the Republicans that Obama got elected?
I mean… kinda? I guess? But it’s non-obvious. So, too, the democrats stalling out in 2018. Maybe it’d be good for the dems to lose because of the coming downturn?
But I’m pretty sure that the market can stay irrational longer than the dems can stay solvent.Report
The counter to my hot take is that it probably doesn’t matter who has control of Congress during a recession, just who is President. And both 1992 and 2008 show that it’s a much easier sales job to say “we have a Congress, now give us the Presidency to Get Things Done” than it is to say “Hey, guys, can give our President a Congress pretty please?”Report
Counter-counter any half decent Politician/President can blame a downturn on a congress… “Congress is the reason all this economic legislation I’d totally pass is not passing.” Whom the electorate believes/blames? That’s dependent on… stuff.
I don’t really think there’s a “tanking” strategy in politics… unless/until the losing party gets some sort of perq for losing. Like picking which Senate Seats are up for re-election in the next cycle… or drawing the congressional districts… or maybe playing in the Jr. League for a cycle and promoting the best Third Party into the Majors (oh, wait, that last one isn’t a perq).Report
Apocalypse: Democrats fail to take either the House and lose ground in the Senate and lose the only two Governor’s races I’m paying any attention to: Kansas and Colorado
Depressing: Same as the “Apocalypse” setting, only Democrats win the House and then waste the next two years trying desperately to ram Articles of Impeachment against Trump through the House
Good: Democrats take the House, gain ground in the Senate, Polis wins Colorado but Kobach wins Kansas
Great: Democrats take the House (including Spaulding unseating Lamborn in Colorado’s 5th) and the Senate, Polis wins Colorado, Kelly wins Kansas, I win the lottery and can immediately engage in a life of leisure, and an unknown benefactor gifts me a unicorn.Report
I’ve been one of the “bears” on Trump for a while, and I’ll stick by my guns. Thanks to Jaybird for bringing up my piece from earlier this year. The basic argument is something like the following:
1. Trump’s electoral strategy in 2016 traded certain high-propensity voters for lower-propensity voters. Those high-propensity voters are deeply frustrated with Trump’s style, even if many agree with him on policy. Some of them will vote for Democrats; others will stay home. The lower-propensity voters are less likely to vote by definition.
2. Democrats are as enthusiastic as ever and are going to vote in droves, as they did in Virginia’s gubernatorial election.
I’ve *started* to waver on this a bit in the aftermath of the Kavanaugh stuff, which did seem to consolidate the Republican base (nothing unifies Republicans like judges). But I’ve gone too far to turn back now. So, with that said:
– I think the Democrats win 55-60 seats in the House, including a couple of stunners not on anyone’s radar.
– I think Republicans thread the needle and hang onto the Senate, which stays status quo. (North Dakota and Nevada switch places, everything else holds.)Report
I’ll stick with my original estimate… mostly.
It looks like I’m going to miss on ND and IN… but they cancel each other out. Senate still looks clean for Republicans, maybe even 0 or +1 to my original estimate of -1. So I’ll waffle and say -1 to +1, but no change in ownership.
I still think the House will be a bloodbath for R’s… not really a deep analysis, more of a gut feel based on 2017 VA (as Dan notes above). The basic premise that districts are mostly designed to support the incumbent is true based on likely voters… the D’s will see likely plus unlikely voters. I’m not feeling the same fervor out here in Redville – not for congressional seats… if VA hadn’t nominated Corey Stewart I’d be curious to see what that might have looked like… but they did and even out here no one’s motivated by Stewart… so Kaine (Senate) in a cakewalk.
The unanswerable question is what I would call “good” results. Since I’d like to speed-up realignment and the breaking down of the current political parties its hard to say what outcome would help that along. I suspect the current trajectory will just see more trench warfare… so, booo. A surprise Red Tide? That might do the trick… so then that would have to be my qualified “good” option.Report
Donnelley is the kind of pro-life Democrat that one would most expect to be hurt by his vote against Kavanaugh, but there is no post-vote polling in Indiana yet, which is kind of surprising.Report
I guess I’m sticking with my June prediction:
I guess my starting point on the House seems different than others; I see House Republicans having gotten more total votes than Trump in 2016, so I don’t see Trump as having much in terms of coattails, plain or reverse.Report
Talked to a co-worker. Made a joke about Elizabeth Warren’s DNA test.
He said to me “Who?”
I explained the joke and he needed me to explain who Elizabeth Warren actually was.
So there’s that.Report
My bet: Democrats win the “popular vote” overwhelmingly – let’s say by 5,000,000 total votes – but gain no new power, owing to the catastrophic clusterf-ck that is American democracy.Report
This is a problem that could be solved. Heck, if Oregon would wake up, and Virginia blues a little bit more it’s pretty darn close.
But yes, things like this are depressing.Report
Two weeks away from the election.
Kavanaugh appears to have disappeared entirely.
Stormy Daniels appears to have disappeared entirely.
I keep thinking that Elizabeth Warren has disappeared entirely, but then she gives an interview talking about how principled she was being with her DNA test or something like that and it extends the story for a day.
The two main storylines now are:
The Caravan coming up from Central America.
Saudi Arabia being complicit in the grisly murder of Jamal Khashoggi.
Two weeks remains an eternity and we’re very likely to have at least one more major story break between now and Election Day.
The main thing I’ve noticed is that talk of a “blue wave” seems to have receded. I’ve even seen a “Who was saying that there would be a ‘blue wave’?” question asked (defensively).Report
ABC news is reporting that:
That might take over as the main story in the news over Khashoggi and the Caravan.Report
Might be wrong, but Khashoggi isn’t nearly the story to general population as it is with media/FoPo folks. It’s over-amplified do to his WaPo connections, plus the competing troll networks of the Saudi’s and the Turks with their Russian friends help cranks the volume up far more than it reality. I don’t think average voters are that invested in it. This is the second time we’ve done the “caravan” story so we know how that plays out, and to who. See where this goes, if connected and a serious threat it just might.Report
The Khashoggi story does seem to suffer from the whole “media covers story about the media” phenomenon. As for the Caravan… well, it seems likely to result in arguments about whether we should have open borders, whether we should abolish ICE, and whether it’s fair to ask democratic politicians about this because nobody is arguing for open borders/abolishing ICE.
As arguments go, it strikes me as an argument that I would *NOT* want to be having 13 days before an election were I a politician who supported liberalizing immigration laws.Report
Will it get more play than the same thing happening to Soros a day or two ago?
(I think so, but I can’t be sure anymore)Report
I don’t think it’s possible to talk about Soros at all.
“Soros had a bomb sent to him.”
“Who is Soros?”
No good comes after that. None.Report
Checking back on the news a couple hours later, today’s stories do seem to be getting the Breaking. Update. Update. Update. treatment on main news sites and blogs.
So this in imo is going to be ‘sticky’ in people’s minds. Normie people’s, too.
(and to be clear, I’m not saying that this is nothing but absolutely real – though if I had to bet, I’m going to predict it falls into that ‘terrorist, but crazy’ niche that James Hodgkinson fell into)Report
I predict they will apply the paper bag test to determine what to call it.Report
NBC is reporting:
Report
Heh, our first clue… probably a libertarian with a sense of irony.Report
A Bernie-bro.Report
Sleeper pick: Former House IT staffer.Report
Second clue:
The device had a parody ISIS flag on it.
Report
Third clue… only a non-fan of Larry the Cable Guy trying to make it look like a fan of Larry the Cable Guy would get the catch phrase wrong: Git ‘r done
I mean you could practically diagram the sentence, Get ‘er doneReport
Next clue: Twitter has been talking about this for a while but I was waiting for a reputable news source to report on it:
Some Suspected Mail Bombs Were Not Capable of Exploding, Others Yet to Be Analyzed, Officials Say
Report
I was wondering the same… were they really bombs? why didn’t *any* explode? [not that we want any to explode, but surely one might/ought have] The press was calling them pipe bombs, but the police seemed to be calling them dangerous devices… like a Note7 on an airplane.
Could just be poor bomb making skills? Perhaps search for people whose internet was down?
Either way, a whole lot of priors are going to be confirmed for one team or the other. I confess I could go either way on this one… but I really haven’t been following closely. And, full disclosure, I’m not on twitter.Report
If the point was to create terror (but not hurt anybody), a device that looks like a bomb but cannot explode would do that. “Hoax devices”, I guess they’re called.
Still officially a terror attack… but the point of the devices was that they be seen by their recipients (and reported upon?) rather than that they explode and harm people.Report
They contained real explosives.
But sure, harmless.Report
The article I linked to above says this:
But it also goes on to say this:
“Harmless” is not an appropriate word.
But if the devices were built in such a way to make it unlikely that they would explode, then that makes the attack different than an attack where the devices were built in such a way that they were actually intended to go off.Report
Nor is “hoax” appropriate. Mailing someone live explosives is an actual threat.Report
Fair enough.
I don’t know what the best term to use for a device that looks like a bomb but was deliberately, here… let me copy and paste this from the article… “not intended to explode” would be.
If you can give me a good term for that, I’ll cheerfully use it.Report
“Threat” seems like a good word.
If you get a bullet in the mail – not rigged up to some kind of device to make it shoot at the person opening the packet, just a bullet sitting loose in an envelope – that would be kind of comparable.Report
“Threat” works.Report
“Bomb.”
Perhaps a badly designed/implemented one, with missing components, but it’s still a bomb. C-4 without a blasting cap is about as stable as you can get — troops in Vietnam were known to burn small amounts of it to heat rations. If I send you a brick of that by mail, it’s still a bomb.Report
Perhaps a badly designed/implemented one, with missing components, but it’s still a bomb.
If I’m comparing it to a bomb that was properly designed to look like a bomb but not actually explode, I’m in a place where I have to use a lot of words to explain that.
I’d prefer a word that didn’t need to be explained quite so much.Report
If you send me a package with live explosives, it’s a bomb. Your intent is to convince me it’s a bomb. The authorities have to treat it as a bomb. Granted IANAL, but my take would be the burden would be on you to make the argument that you shouldn’t be charged for it being a bomb.
You may get offered a plea deal of three-to-five if you plead guilty to the lesser charge of sending explosives in the US mail. But that’s a separate kind of thing.Report
I usually try not to embroil myself in discussions like this but …
Couldn’t y’all just call it a broken bomb, or a deliberately broken bomb, and convey the details with a very small number of words?Report
It is perhaps an improperly designed or assembled bomb. An engineer such as myself, upon receiving such a package, would go ahead and fix the problems, yielding a working bomb that I got in the mail *for free*. Thus, the best description of the devices that I can come up with would be “partially completed bomb kits”.
As an aside, sometimes at work I’m asked to help children fix their fancy bomb detonator circuits. Usually the problem is a very poor grasp of basic electrical theory, such as having a fancy Arduino count-down board that at 00:00 cuts its own power instead of closing the detonator switch.
Bombs are pretty good junior-high engineering projects. However, if an upper-level high-school kid was still interested in them, and was also pretty weird, I might raise more than an eyebrow.Report
I like “partially completed bomb kits”. Also good: “bomb left to the recipient as an exercise”,Report
Maybe its a bomb chain letter… you add on to it then mail it to all your friends you’d never like to hear from again. One way or another.Report
We don’t know what the explosive is, so we? Probably something quite stable, since none of them went off, but if there’s any significant change one of them might have, then they’re plain and simple bombs.Report
NBC is reporting that the bombs consisted of PVC pipe filled with low explosive powder, shrapnel, a detonator, and a digital timer.Report
CBS is reporting the following:
Report
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If you want something better than twitter:
Report
Based on the few pictures and limited information that has been provided so far, I am left with the impression that there are a number of commenters at this blog who could spend an afternoon poking around the internet and then build something much better. At a minimum, they would build something tidier.Report
A fun conversation (that I don’t want to get into here) is always to sit down with a couple of engineers and ask “okay, so let’s say you were a terrorist… what would *YOU* hit and how would you hit it?”
Have follow-ups like “What if you didn’t want to get caught?”
“What if you didn’t care if you got caught?”
“What if you didn’t care if you died?”
There’s usually a half dozen movie scripts in the first 5 minutes.Report
The point of terrorism is “a few dead, a lot watching’.Report
Authorities have released a name:
Cesar Sayoc.Report
There are tons of pictures of a van on the Twitter. Here’s an article from a real news source that links to some of the tweets containing said pictures.Report
As some wittier commenters online have dubbed it, the all-new Dodge MagaVan.Report
The funniest joke I’ve seen so far is “this is what a Transformer Steve Bannon would turn into.”Report
@marchmaine Join me in the corner for “unless it proves to be at minimum a dozen organized people (and even that might not be enough of a conspiracy to mean anything), all this proves is that dangerously out of whack people will dangerously out of whack” with a side bet on “holy crap stuff is wound up right now,” why don’t you?
It’s a very roomy spot. And the other upside is, I don’t think I’ll have to move after the facts come out.Report
The word we’re looking for is “stochastic terrorism”.
Unstable whackos aren’t disconnected from the culture we live in. A political climate filled with rage and fear sets them off.Report
@chip That might be the phrase you’re looking for, but I was looking for the ones I used.
But if you would like me to use that phrase, I’ll use it to assert that the best way to combat stochastic terrorism (as opposed to the systemic and organized kind – maybe – by my way of looking at history, systemic/organized terrorism actually is best combated by multiple and contradictory responses, including what I’m about to say among them) :
One must strive to one’s best to be as placid, kind, and stoic as is humanly possible given that one also must live immersed in that same climate. And to not allow the fearmongers to redefine placid, kind, and stoic as weak or indecisive. And when one fails at that very difficult task (as one inevitably does), to go back to it with a will, and with complete firmness about the evils that one is truly confronting in the world.
Anything less will contribute to, rather than gain dominance over, that fearful, hateful climate.Report
Ok, so we’re 100% sure its not Debbie Wasserman Schultz? [Just checking]
Yeah, my gut tells me lone nut job, but I’m mostly lost without 538 giving me the odds.Report
The conspiracy that assassinated Abraham Lincoln and attempted to assassinate Secretary of State Seward (stabbed but survived) consisted of fewer than a dozen people.Report
@mike-schilling and thus I would not consider that conspiracy systematic, though it certainly was of its time.
Did you think I was saying dangerous whackjobs acting unsystematically might *not* kill someone important? I wasn’t, merely that I don’t find it confirming any priors about “the other side”. I mean, other than about Trump and the lickspittles who vote with him and speechify in his favor (ie leading congresspeople and senators, not individual voters or even every congresscritter and senator who votes with him sometimes) being a pox on the country, stirring up the danger levels for everybody on every side, but it’s not actually possible to confirm *those* priors of mine because they’re already unshakeable.
And whomever this particular set of whackjobs turns out to be will say nothing further about “the sides”, broadly drawn.Report
They’re being sent from Florida, so let’s not rule out a politician from there who frequently has been observed trying desperately to ingratiate himself with Trump, say, a junior senator.Report
@mike-schilling That would definitely fail to confirm my priors. But I’m not betting on anything happening that would fail to confirm them.Report
And no one cares about ditching the INF treaty, because nuclear war is less scary than life under Trump.Report
Yesterday I thought I knew what the two big storylines heading into November would be.
Today I think I know what the big storyline heading into November will be.
I am trying to remember but I keep forgetting: 7 days is an eternity. And that only gets us to the other side of Halloween.Report
Nate Silver thinks that the polls are so tight and chaotic that there is a reasonable chance for a Democratic sweep and for Republicans to hold:
https://fivethirtyeight.com/features/were-back-from-the-future-which-of-these-wildly-different-midterm-outcomes-would-you-believe/Report
Nate and crew’s big struggle seems to be what to do about the Democrats outraising the Republicans by 2:1 in local money in a lot of places. Their model says that should translate into huge Democratic gains, but that’s not what’s showing up in the polling data. I’ll stick with my geographic take — the fundraising will matter in places where the Dems already do reasonably well, and won’t in places where they haven’t been doing well.Report
I can see how certain fundraising levels can lead to diminishing returns at some point.
Democrats seemed posed to pick up seats in blue or bluish strongholds. States that went for Democrats generally in the past but a few switched for Trump in 2016 like Iowa. But some blue state Republican congress critters are going to go home.
I think Democrats will gain seats in the House. The question is whether they will gain enough.Report
I had thought that Sliver said fundraising was a proxy for enthusiasm. So big fundraising, especially from small donors, suggested high enthusiasm and therefore likely good turnout.Report
I think the issue with fundraising is that it has been nationalized. I get ads from Democratic candidates all the time asking for cash. Most of these are candidates that I cannot vote for. So Beto is pulling in lots of cash, great!! Where does that cash come from? It helps but all the enthused Democrats might just be living in safe blue areas.
The same thing happened in a few special elections like GA-6. Great fundraising but maybe most of it was from outside the District vs. people who could actually vote and in the end, the district remained in Republican hands.Report
I am coming around to the belief that the House will turn on something Koz suggested a couple of weeks ago. If the Dems do well in the Rust Belt parts of the Midwest — IA, IL, IN, MN, MI, OH, and WI — they’ll win the House comfortably. If not, it will be a close thing. If the Dems do well there and win the House, the next question is whether those new Dems will vote for Californian Nancy Pelosi.
Looking ahead to 2020, I somehow ended up at the PredictIt market for the 2020 Dem candidate for President. Kamala Harris leads the field at 21¢. Elizabeth Warren is at 15¢, and Kirsten Gillibrand at 7¢.Report
And as long as I’m muttering about things farther out, those seven states are currently on pace to have four fewer House seats in total come 2022.Report
The weakness of any polling model is turnout- there isn’t a perfect way to predict who will show up or not.Report
True. AZ/NV results will largely be determined by whether this is the year the the Hispanic vote shows up.Report
Right. This election is unprecedented in a lot of ways (way more DEM candidates, way more of which are serious), but does that mean a lot of 5-10 point losses in R+20 territory, or does it mean actually winning some seats.
Is this the year that Lucy forgets to yank the football in Texas?
Hard for me not to be pessimistic.Report
I hate the horserace coverage, mostly because it just fixates on each election to the exclusion of the trend.
Whether Beto wins or loses, Texas is now purple. Whether Stacy Abrams wins or loses, Georgia is now purple.Report
I hope both of those things are true, but if Ted Cruz can comfortably beat a strong democratic candidate, I don’t think I’d call that purple. An ordinary republican would probably beat an ordinary democrat there by 10+
That said, you’re right that trends matter, and it’s sure exciting to see Virginia turning reliably blue in a lot of ways, and I hope that trend continues to trickle down the east coast.Report
The Dems have to win some stuff before you can label a state purple. Consider Texas, using the things I use to measure — the governor’s red; two of two state legislative chambers are red; two of two US Senators are red; and 25 of 36 US House seats are red. Where are the Dems going to improve on that next month? “We came closer but we still lost everything again,” is not purple. (Especially if the DOJ and the SCOTUS are inclined to allow the state to raise barriers that make things harder for the Dems.)
Colorado is purple: the US Senate seats split; the legislature split; the US House seats 4-3 for the Republicans; the governor a Democrat.Report
Well yeah, you’re thinking of the term as meaning something that is split, where I’m thinking of more “up for grabs”.Report
Clearly, we have different definitions of “up for grabs”.Report
@michael-cain One of the far less logical but more amusing ways I became certain Colorado was a purple state is when equal amounts of people started indignantly telling me it was red vs. it was blue.
When we have Texans and Georgians insisting that NO, they live in a blue state (without saying “or we would if not for voter suppression,” in Georgia’s case, which, fair point) …. then I’ll believe they’re purple. 😉Report
The weakness of any polling model is vote suppression — there isn’t a perfect way to predict who will be allowed to vote and which votes will be counted.Report
https://www.nytimes.com/2018/10/25/us/politics/senate-house-elections.html?action=click&module=Spotlight&pgtype=Homepage
.Report
Mass Murder at a synagogue in Pittsburgh. 12 shot, including 3 police officers. Shooter is in custody.Report
post coming, stand byReport
At this point, I’m just trying to leave comments so that, in a year, I can use this post as an aid to help me figure out what the dynamics were going into the 2018 elections as we sit and try to figure out how to read the 2020 elections.Report
After five games, the Red Sox have won the World Series.Report
Bolsonaro has won Brazil’s election with 55.5% of the vote.Report
German chancellor Angela Merkel has announced that she will not seek re-election in 2021.Report
I was just texting with my brother in Mannheim about this. He said it’s being taken as inevitable by the people and press. Also says there’s a broad ‘silent majority’ feeling that she fucked Germany and Europe with the migrant crisis. He said ignore American news reporting on lack of real enthusiasm for outsider parties, that its wishful thinking on their part, and that they don’t understand the level of cynicism towards the mainstream parties/Grand Coalition.
My money is that the next coalition will be CDU/CSU and include AfD as a junior partner.Report
She’s stepping down as party lead before that. The proximate cause was poor local elections where CDU (and all the establishment parties) continue to lose support to both the further Left and Right.
This will help test my theory that multi-party electoral systems can adapt to moribund and entrenched policies better than two party systems. It isn’t simply that AfD or the Greens will become the dominant parties (though they might), its that seeing the actual governing seats go to other parties the coalitions will adapt and co-opt.Report
President Donald Trump said in an interview that he plans to sign an executive order ending “birthright citizenship” for the children of non-American citizens who are born on U.S. soil.Report
I look forward with great anticipation to seeing the legal theory that nullifies the first sentence of the 14th Amendment.Report
They seem to be leaning on an “Original Intent” interpretive theory as opposed to the “Strict Textualism” the right usually champions. And the libertarians are pointing at liberals and blaming “living constitutionalism” but that’s just jumping on a target of opportunity.Report
They’re leaning on the long established precedent of “White Makes Right” and hoping that Justice Bret “Pepe the Frog” Kavanaugh will assent.Report
Just a snap personal opinion, but I don’t see either Thomas or Roberts going along. Thomas for the obvious reason. Roberts because of his adopted Irish kids and because the giant corporations are going to oppose this. Roberts may be many things, but first he looks out for the big corporate interests.Report
Strict textualism also applies to all the legal background that’s grandfathered in with the 14th Amendment, such as the noted exceptions for children of diplomats. The Supreme Court has long cited such exceptions in rulings on citizenship cases. I think I’ve read most of those rulings while arguing with conservatives about whether Ted Cruz is a natural born citizen (He is, but of Canada, not the US).
I also think the government is in part mistaken about children born on US bases overseas, and once suggested a set of theoretical questions a court could ask to determine if someone was born under full US sovereignty, no matter where that place might be.
My test was that a woman in labor, while overseas, calls for an ambulance to take her to the hospital, where she has a child. She takes the child home, then gets upset at her hubby about a 3:00 AM feeding and throws a baby bottle at him. He call the cops and they haul her off to jail for the night. The next day she appears before a judge to argue her case.
The multipart test is this:
1) When the ambulance came, which country’s flag was on the shoulder patches of the ambulance crew?
2) What flag flew outside the hospital where she gave birth?
3) When the local police or law enforcement came to her home, what flag was on their shoulders?
4) When she was taken to jail, what flag flew outside it?
5) When she went before a judge, what flag was behind him?
If the answer in all cases is the US flag, then the baby was born under US sovereignty on what, for all legal purposes regarding citizenship, should be considered US soil. The purpose of the jail and judge part of the test is to distinguish between foreigners whose babies are delivered on US bases (because our hospitals are spiffy and sometimes the only modern facility in the area) and US persons who are under the US legal system, not the local legal system. That prevents an extension of natural born citizenship by which non US people wouldn’t even need to come to the US, but just swing by a US military base, to give their children anchor baby citizenship.
However, that is not the way the current law works. Children born to US persons stationed overseas are not natural born citizens unless their parents have status as US diplomats, so many military brats have to be naturalized at birth.Report
Well, the point of this was not to legislate the 14th Amendment but if I had to guess at the legal theory, I think it would rely heavily on yelling “and subject to the jurisdiction thereof” as loudly as possible over and over and over and over and over as if it changes the rest of the Amendment.Report
It’s an interesting approach. Under British and US common law, a person was a natural born subject or citizen because they were born within the domain of a liege, and thus were under his protection while babies, and thus owed him lifelong allegiance. Those born on US soil that was under British occupation during the War of 1812 were not natural born citizens because they were born under British protection. Indians who were born under tribal government were not natural born citizens until Congress took action, under a bill sponsored by Charles Curtis, who as a child fought on the Indian side of Indian wars because he was an Indian (and later Vice President of the US).
It could easily be argued that those who are here illegally are not under US sovereignty, and thus their children are no more natural born citizens that would be children born to an invading British general and his wife while occupying upstate New York.Report
If you argue that illegal immigrants (as well as legal visitors and non-permanent residents, such as tourists and H1B Visa holders) are not subject to USA laws, the corollary is that, should they commit a crime in the USA, they cannot be tried and punished under U.S. Law. Your only recourse, like in the case of diplomats, who are NOT under the jurisdiction of the USA, would be expulsion from the country.
I don’t think that the Attorney General will want to make that argument.Report
Tourists and Visa holders are under US law. The government gave them specific permission to be here. If an illegal was under US law they’d logically be deported, because they’re here illegally and without the consent or knowledge of the US government. The fact that they’re not deported indicates that they might not be under US federal law at all.
But further, the sanctuary cities movement is to specificially protect illegals from US law, making sure they’re not subject to it, and thus filling in the rest of Trump’s argument.Report
Then the children of tourists and visa holders will be automatically citizens at birth.
Being here illegally is not the same as not being under the jurisdiction of. An illegal alien who kills someone and is captured will be tried, and, if found guilty, sent to prison or death row. The US law applies to him. A diplomat who kills someone cannot be tried in US courts. He can only be expelled. In this respect, US law does not apply to him. On a less exterm e case, diplomats in NYC don’t pay their parking tickets, because neither them nor their cars are subject to US or NY or NYC laws.Report
There is also, apparently, a really crazy story brewing but I can’t tell if it’s a real story or a twitter drama story.
Someone has announced that they’re representing the sexual assault victims of Robert Mueller.
This someone is, apparently, tied to Jacob Wohl.
Popehat can talk about it better than I.
We’re (FINALLY) one week away from the election so we might actually be approaching having a single-digit number of news cycles left.Report
Apparently there is a 20 year old kid named Jacob Wohl who is associated with this scam. He denied the connection but one of the “financial firms” that tired to set up the scam has a voicemail that goes to his mom’s voicemail.
He is the new O’Keefe it seems. My life became sadder when I learned of his existence last week.Report
This thread seems to get into how crazy and obviously fake “Surefire Intelligence” is.
They used a photo of Christoph Waltz for their Zurich financial investigator, for example.
This might be a crazy enough story that is easy enough to understand and is funny enough to have legs for the next seven days.Report
Christoph Waltz would be a fantastic Financial Investigator, except for the forensic accounting skills and all that… but the *idea* of a Financial Investigator? That’s all Christoph Waltz. So I guess I see where they were going with that.
As for plastering an Oscar winner on your fake website while attempting a felony… that’s a less inspired choice.Report
This Wohl story is making a strong run at “favorite news story of all time for sheer entertainment value”Report
Its like a mashup of “Burn After Reading” and “Superbad”, with Wohl played by Christopher Mintz-Plasse.Report
It’s like The Sting, but for terminally stupid people.Report
I honestly don’t get this guy at all. I didn’t hear about him until the last week or so. Who the hell trusts a kid to do investments for them?
Sounds like the dad is on the scam too.Report
I’ve kept an eye on him for a while. The story is just unbelievable. He was banned for life from securities trading by the time he was 19 or twenty for running a fraudulent “hedge fund” then moved on to conning MAGA land folks. Recently visited Russia to tweet and sing the praises of Putin, so hopefully the FBI asks about that as well when they are wringing him out over the rest of it. And you are correct, the dad is behind most of it.Report
Vox’s David Robertson did a tweet thread on how kids like Wohl are v 2.0 of the right-wing osphere. Earlier generations knew and remember how to interact in the real world. These kids know nothing but constantly trolling and “owning the libs.”Report
He is about to get a rather intense education on the real world, I think.Report
Well, he’s clearly wide open for a defamation suit. I mean nothing says “I knew this was a false claim” like “Paying someone to recite the charges I tell them”.
The real kicker would be obstruction of justice and conspiracy to obstruct justice, as trying to pay people to lie to impede a US prosecutor’s ability to do his job is, well, obstructing justice. Or at least attempting to.
Such a dumb pair of people, and one of them is tripling down on it already.
You’d think the absolute rapid collapse of this story would point out how incredibly difficult it would be to actually hire people to press false charges (a common accusation on the right), but I suspect that will not be a lesson learned.Report
A sign we live in a decadent and degenerate age.Report
Who trusts a kid to invest for them? There are people who are kind of dim that see a kid in a nice suit with a flashy website that says he made lots of money and say “he must be some sort of genius to be really rich at his age.” They then trust him with his money.Report
I was aware of him for being often the first reply to Trump tweets.
He reminds me of Casey Serin.Report
http://www.lawyersgunsmoneyblog.com/2018/10/another-brick-wohlReport
Mafia boss James ‘Whitey’ Bulger was killed in prison hours after being transferred to a new one.
This is something that would have been a major story in the 80’s. Maybe a hot one for a couple of days from the 90’s through whenever the Sopranos went off the air.
Now? Feh. We won’t even remember this story by Thursday.Report
It’s kind of weird that someone would bother to kill a 89 year old guy who had just been moved because his previous prison was medically insufficient. The Celestial Great Shank of Us All would have got him somewhat shortly, without any effort.
Edit – I guess a man’s gotta have a code.Report
I’m wondering if the folks who approved the transfer were in on it. (Or, to be blunt, which of the folks who approved it were in on it.)
Hours implies hella coordination.
I mean, yeah, he left a lot of people out there with hard feelings. A huge subset of those folks have long memories. I don’t know the size of the subset of that subset that has connections to the prison, but I’m sure that it’s measured with “several” or larger.
But hours?
Maybe they’re relying on the fact that Whitey was so unsympathetic that they can trust the watcher watchers to turn a blind eye on this one.Report
Robert Mueller protected Bulger in Boston, letting him run rampant.
Just sayin’.Report
Sara Carter is some yet to be calculated combo of stupid and malicious. People that spread her BS, I’ve come to conclude, have the same combo of traits.Report
Sara Carter is some combo of stupid and malicious, exhibit B.Report
Wow. I understand why Mueller is staying above the fray as longas the Russia investigation in on-going, but once it closes, he should sue the pants off Hannity and Carter for libel. Make them defend their assertions in court – show what complete lying hacks they are.Report
I admit, on October 16th or 17th, I thought that the Democrats had once again shot themselves in the foot.
The momentum seems to have shifted, though.
We’ve still got six looooooooooong days between here and there. God only knows what the news story tomorrow will be.Report
Politico reports that Mueller might have subpoenaed Trump? Maybe?
Gotta admit: making the subpoena officially public knowledge on the Monday before the election would be one hell of an October surprise. November. Whatever.Report
It’s soooper speculative. Really just a wild guess. Mueller is not going to drop an Oct/Nov surprise. He has been keeping a highly buttoned down team. We’re not going to know squat until his report comes out and it, completely appropriately, wont’ happen until after the mid-terms.
It took a failure by Comey, pressure by R’s in congress and a screwy situation for the last Nov surprise. But on the positive side, if i’m wrong about Mueller, we know that Oct and Nov surprises are meaningless and have no effects on elections.
PS There actually was a recent lawsuit using the RICO statute filed against Trump and family. It hasn’t got much press since we are being invaded so hard it makes the war of 1812 and Red Dawn combined look a 5th grade band concert.Report
The first caravan thing ended when the Mexican government intervened.
There is a second caravan in the news now. Trump has ordered troops to the border.
Employment numbers are out. Unemployment is 3.7%.
Rasmussen Reports daily tracking poll shows Trump has 51% approval with likely voters and 47% disapproval.Report
Twitter is talking about how two planes collided over Ottawa.
Checking the news seems to indicate that it was a smaller plane and a larger plane and the smaller one crashed into a field and the larger one made it safely to an airport.Report
I thought the plane crashing story would have legs and the “Guy on Saturday Night Live makes fun of veteran who lost his eye” would be a dead story by lunchtime.
Golly, was *I* wrong.
Anyway, Pete Davidson was in a News Update segment and made fun of a Republican running for office who happens to wear an eyepatch after losing an eye while serving in Afghanistan.
Here’s the setup: Pete Davidson gave his first impressions of various candidates running in various races. A picture of Dan Crenshaw came up.
“This guy is kind of cool, Dan Crenshaw. You may be surprised to hear he’s a congressional candidate from Texas and not a hit man in a porno movie. I’m sorry, I know he lost his eye in war, or whatever. Whatever.”Report
Utah Mayor killed in Afghanistan.
Once upon a time this might have benefited one team or another… but now? Meh we’re all equally indifferent.Report
In Ottawa? That’s, like, far far away across an ocean or something, isn’t it? Why would that be election cycle fodder?Report
I thought it was two, like, 747s that crashed into each other, mid-air when I first heard about it on twitter before doing any research.
After doing research, I felt much better… but still. Two airplanes! Colliding!Report
Last little indicators coming in. Ezra Klein tweeted:
Politico published an article called “Did Beto Blow It?”
There seem to be pre-mortems.Report
Think Progress wrote one too.Report
I basically understand the sentiment, but it’s silly to talk about a national popular vote in relation to the House — the voters aren’t voting just for “Generic R” vs “Generic D”, they’re voting for different specific individuals in different contexts. One candidate might be running unopposed, another might be in a tight 3-way race — it doesn’t make sense to just add up the votes overall and consider that total meaningful.Report
I disagree. Total vote count does show something. Each race does have it’s own peculiarities but over 538 districts those effects should disappear. Total vote gives a sense of what the majority wants. Same as looking at total in the prez election. It very much shows what most of the people want. That seems like data we should want to see. That doesn’t override the structure of our elections, but its still good to know.Report
Off the top of your head:
1. Who won the Congressional Popular Vote in 2016?
2. How many seats did they win/lose?
3. Is this a problem?Report
Off the top of my head unit: R’s got more votes and seats didn’t change that much.
Problem: It depends on how much the ratio between votes and seats differ and how often the ratio is high. There will always been weird variance. But if the frequently the total votes doesn’t represent want then that suggests a problem. Remember official OT stats guy says gerrymandering has a real effect.Report
You’re right about the popular vote. It was 63,173,815 to the democrats’ 61,776,554.
Republicans lost 6 seats.Report
Yeah sounds right. My contention that numbers of votes should correlate pretty closely to percentage of who gets elected stands. It’s that whole legitimacy and democracy thing. And we do remember the numbers in the prez election. So that a heckva year for our democracy.Report
So if one district in one state goes 80-20% for one party and two other districts in other states go 51-49 for the other, what should happen?
(Assume all districts are the same size.)Report
Huh? We elect reps by vote in their district…right? So they win their district. That doesn’t mean we can’t look at total votes as another piece of data.Report
I didn’t ask what we do. I know what we do.
I asked what we *SHOULD* do, given that there is now a question of legitimacy on the table.Report
Why? It’s not like this is a random distribution — there’s no a priori reason why the effects should average out.
Not to mention that candidates in the same party are very different (as are their voters) from one state to the next. The sacrificial Republican candidate in my district here in CT has a platform that would look like a Dem platform in a typical Texas district, and no doubt there are examples of the reverse, mutatis mutandis. What sense does it make to combine the R votes in my district and the R votes in said Texas district as if they represented a consistent message from that portion of the electorate?Report
Every place has weird local politics or an odd candidate. That is exactly the kind of stuff that evens out over a large sample. That is the point of large samples; one odd case here or there doesn’t matter.
Why? It’s a bit of data. It’s not everything but it shows who large numbers of people are voting for. How can that not be something worth looking at. The parties are national. There are certainly local and state effects but there is just as certainly national level politics. (Trump is an issue, immigration, health care, etc)Report
In the Wisconsin gerrymander case, the Wisconsin Democrats concede that districts drawn to reflect some criteria favored by large majorities of both parties — preserve communities of interest, minimize splitting cities and counties — will give the Republicans a seven-percentage point advantage. That is, the Dems there will, on average, have to win 53.5-46.5 in order to win 50 of the 100 seats in the state’s lower chamber. Wisconsin’s urban/suburban/rural split is close to the national average, so it is unsurprising that Republicans enjoy a similar advantage in US House districts.Report
It makes sense — my point was just that you have to show your work rather than pointing to the overall number and leaving it at that.
FWIW, I found an article by Sean Trende from five years ago that makes some of the points I did, and also shows that the Democrats were on the plus side of the comparison for many years; but he does point to the urban/rural divide as a driver of the GOP advantage over the last decade or two. But his take on it is basically that everyone knows the rules of the game and the Democrats are just playing it poorly.Report
Yeah, that was a very Politico type of Politico piece:
“Republicans amazed that Democrat doesn’t follow their advice to beat a guy they themselves couldn’t figure out how to beat.”Report
It’s almost like every outlet has to churn out some piece today and every other darn thing has been written 98 times in the last week alone.Report
LAST CHANCE TO GET IN YOUR PREDICTIONS!
(And, if you don’t want to put yourself down for that, I’d like to see your current definitions of what a disappointing outcome would look like and what a really good outcome would look like. If your definition of a good outcome would be “Democrats pick up 33 seats” and the Democrats pick up 38 (or if they pick up 28), I find that before-the-election statement of good/disappointing a lot more interesting than statements of spiking the football/damage control after the fact).Report
In the house, Democrats take 20 with an over/under of 5.
Republicans pick up 2 in the Senate with an over under of 1.
A variety of things will happen in the states.Report
For what it’s worth, my over/under bandwidth is 10%. So if I predict, for example, 30 seats, I get to think “yeah, I nailed it” if I get 27 or 33. If I get 26 or 34, though, I think “I didn’t see that coming.”
(For a handful of reasons, I’m more interested in state-level seat pickup and losses than national ones.)Report
I don’t go changing to try to please trendlines, but for future personal reference, when I predicted a nine-seat majority for Ds, that’s a 31 seat gain. Future self will appreciate this.
As far as disappointment, nobody should be disappointed that this election is over. Everyone should celebrate. I will be opening a few bottles of the 2018 Celebration Ale.Report
Oh, jeez. My back has been in knots for weeks.
This last month has been interminable. Just scrolling up and re-reading the news stories of the day was exhausting.
The main takeaway that I want future historians digging through these comments to know: These last 30 days were nuts and exhausting.Report
I’m not afraid that my favorite team will fail to beat the spread, or that I won’t get that foam finger of Boo-ya.
My nation is walking down a very dark and terrible path to some uncertain but awful place. No matter what tomorrow brings, we will still be on that path, only perhaps with a checked stride, and maybe the beginnings of a turnaround.
Almost half of my fellow citizens are deeply wedding to white supremacy. It is going to take at least a decade of sustained electoral losses before their party reforms itself.
So really, tomorrow is one battle in a very long war.Report
It’s not a beat the spread nor a foam finger of Boo-ya.
It’s the “well, of course the democrats did well in the 2018 elections. Everybody knew they would do well” response following an outcome that would have been described as “pessimistic” during peak “blue wave”. (Or the flipside of there being a for real exceeds expectations blue wave and having the blue wave be dismissed by conservatives who said that everybody knew that the democrats would do well and historically the party out of party does well in the first election after a heavily contested presidential election during the new president’s first term.)
It’s about writing down expectations beforehand so you aren’t lying to yourself after we open the box and find out whether the cat is alive or dead.Report
It’s a curious thing — you, along with many liberals of my acquaintance, are so very determined to believe this bit of irrational partisan over-generalization and will defend your belief vigorously, even while being genuinely depressed and discouraged by it.
If you want to be less discouraged, all you have to do is just recognize your biases and stop thinking the worst about the people in your outgroup. But for many, that’s apparently too high a price to pay.Report
Why?
My “outgroup” are the people who watched Trump mock that disabled reporter, and laughed.
The ones who nodded as he described Mexican immigrants as rapists;
Who snickered as he bragged about harassing women;
Who see a caravan of terrified refugees and urge us all to turn our backs on them and abandon them to whatever awful fate happens to them;
These aren’t my biased opinions about these people, they are facts, facts that they themselves boast of.Report
@Chip That almost half of your fellow citizens fall into this outgroup, so defined, is nothing like a fact though. It’s a poorly supported opinion, at best.Report
Of course, there are varying degrees of things.
Some people eagerly commit awful acts; Some people assist; Some people witness and applaud; Some people turn a blind eye; Some people resist, but half heartedly; Some people resist but surrender when it gets unpleasant; Some resist with vigor.Report
Like I said, even though this belief generates some unpleasant emotions, your first reaction is to defend it rather than question it. It’s interesting, no?Report
What is it that I should be questioning?
That he, and they, said and did all these things?
Those are just objective facts.
That I should find those facts deplorable?
I’m honestly unsure of what your objection here is.Report
Yes. You should find those things to be largely irrelevant and immaterial, and frankly detrimental to your solidarity and citizenship in America, which has a federal government whose legislative and executive branches are controlled, at least nominally, by the Republican Party. Therefore, in furtherance of your interest in the success of America, you should invest yourself toward the success of the various Republicans in those roles.Report
I don’t recall you expressing such sentiments back in 2008-2010. As I recall you expressed almost the opposite ones. Wonder what was different back then?Report
Nothing, in fact that was a specific point of emphasis in our correspondence during that period, wherein like some other liberals, you were upset that Sen Mitch McConnell was quoted as understanding his role was to ensure that Mr Obama was a one-term President.
It is entirely consistent with the respect of Americans toward the Presidency that we can oppose the _actions_ of the President, and oppose the _reelection_ of the President. On the other hand, for anybody somehow associated with the Right in America who is inclined to say something like “Obama isn’t my President” (during his term of office), of which there were a few, those people can fuck right off, and I can promise you I made that known whenever I heard it.Report
Ah so it basically boils down to saying that you can oppose the President, their party and everything they do so long as you don’t claim they aren’t President or something? That’s a big climb down but I’m happy to accept it. Did you think Trump should have fished off when he was on his Obama birther kick?
Anyhow I don’t see how that’s germane to the Dems since they haven’t generally claimed Trump isn’t President or any of the like nor do most liberals do so either.Report
I don’t think this is a climbdown at all, certainly it wasn’t meant to be on my part. I think your examples were trying to conflate apples and oranges from the get-go.
The things Chip is talking about upthread that I’m criticizing him for aren’t about governance at all, they are about holding on to stupid grievances over random crap regarding his political adversaries among Americans at large.
Ie, the Americans are so racist, white supremacist, blah blah, whatever, that the regular back-and-forth of politics somehow doesn’t apply. That’s what I’m calling bullshit on.Report
“Mrs. Lincoln, you shouldn’t focus on the largely irrelevant and immaterial unpleasantness, and focus instead on the wonderful orchestra!”Report
Well yeah, except that the things you were talking about are not the same thing as the assassination of Lincoln. And the fact that you tend to rhetorically retreat towards ridiculous bullshit, in spite of the fact that other commenters make legitimate attempts to clarify the difference, should be giving you occasion to question your own judgment or your antagonism toward your fellow Americans, or both.Report
If you want to be less discouraged, all you have to do is just recognize your biases and stop thinking the worst about the people in your outgroup.
Good advice. Henceforth, I’ll refrain from viewing members of my outgroup as the type of folks who’d snatch infants from their mothers and place them in foster care without any record keeping to ensure that the separation is permanent.Report
Rephrase it:
Half of my country’s major political parties are deeply wedded to white supremacy.
That’s completely true.Report
It’s not well-defined enough to be true or false. You can make an argument for it if you’re inclined to. My question is, why are so many liberals inclined to, when the outcome is to be so distressed about the state of the country? Being more charitable to your fellow Americans also means having less reason to be so grim — it’s win-win!Report
Believing something counter to all evidence is a “win-win”?Report
At some low moments I’ve believed some bad things about half of the voters on the basis of some presidential election results. But the people aren’t bimodal. There are people who vote differently than me for reasons I wouldn’t have thought of. The other guy isn’t my exact opposite; we may have voted for some of the same candidates. We’ve almost certainly voted the same way at some point. Remember, each person has different criteria, and weights those criteria differently.Report
Since Jaybird likes poetry, I’ve been thinking about Auden’s September 1, 1939 a lot over the past year:
https://www.poets.org/poetsorg/poem/september-1-1939
September 1, 1939
W. H. Auden, 1907 – 1973
I sit in one of the dives
On Fifty-second Street
Uncertain and afraid
As the clever hopes expire
Of a low dishonest decade:
Waves of anger and fear
Circulate over the bright
And darkened lands of the earth,
Obsessing our private lives;
The unmentionable odour of death
Offends the September nightReport
Obviously the historical circumstances are different between 1939 and now, but maybe like some of you I am disheartened by the cacophony and antagonism among Americans. There’s going to be some things where because of their nature any sort of accommodation or compromise is difficult. But not everything is like that. I can think of a few things, at least a half dozen or so, where there are some ideological priors involved not necessarily very strong ones, and we could come to an accommodation between us if we were talking with each other, but we’re not. So the deep state just runs things on autopilot according to what it wants, or one or two particular deep staters want, etc, but that’s not necessarily helping us.
To that end, and with the understanding that I have no special knowledge of what’s going to happen today, I would sincerely encourage all the Americans here to go out and support the Republicans today. It is through the Republican party that we can create dial down the resistance and aggravation and actually have the chance to heal ourselves in towards what we can hope to be the best interest of all of us.
Be a good person. Be an American. Vote Republican.Report
It’s like relativity, causality, and FTL. You can’t have all three.Report
They’re more like quarks. They have to exist together or they can’t exist at all.
Libs have a very important role to play in towards the betterment of America. But at this point it is beyond plain that that role is not about the decisionmaking authority associated with political power. Once libs get beyond that, we’ll all be better off. Including libs, maybe even especially libs.Report
You’re kind of cute. Can I keep you as my pet troll?Report
After 11 people were murdered in a Pittsburgh synagogue, the GOP didn’t even slow down spreading their anti-Semitic conspiracy theories. Scum.Report