The Joy Of Opening Time Capsules: 2022 Off-Year Election Edition
In 2011, we made predictions about 2012 and then, in 2012, enjoyed reading those predictions.
Back in 2015, we made predictions about the coming nominations and then, in 2016, had a real hootenanny looking back again.
In 2018, we made predictions about what would happen in the mid-terms.
And, yes, in 2019, we made predictions about who the Democratic nominees would be.
And, in 2020, we made predictions about the presidential election.
Election day is Tuesday!
So the big questions are: Who wins the House? Who wins the Senate?
As of today, there are 220 Democrats in the House, 212 Republicans, and 3 vacancies.
What will the House numbers look like?
As of today, there are 48 Democrats in the Senate, 50 Republicans, and 2 Independents (the guy from Maine and the guy from Vermont… both caucus with the Democrats).
What will the Senate numbers look like?
There are interesting ballot initiatives out there.
Abortion, abortion, abortion! There will be six measures to protect abortion out there. California, Michigan, Vermont, Kansas, Kentucky, and Montana. Looks like Kansas already shot down the ballot initiative declaring that there is no state constitutional right to abortion back in August… leaving the other 5 states. How many pro-choice measures will pass (or pro-life measures get shot down)?
Marijuana, marijuana, marijuana! Arkansas, Missouri, North Dakota, and South Dakota will have ballot measures to legalize it. Maryland copped out and had the legislature vote to put the issue in front of the people. How many of these states will legalize it?
There are also measures for voting-related policies in several states, changing the initiative process in several states, and the whole issue of enslavement/servitude as criminal punishment in several states. Is one of these in your state? Will it pass?
Remember: you can’t mock someone else as being worse than Hitler for how they think the election will turn out without making your prediction first!
(Featured image is The Crystal Ball by John William Waterhouse. Picture is in the public domain.)
Okay. I’ll go.
Here’s a link to 538’s polls page.
So my guess is that Republicans win the house. As I said above, there are 220 Democrats in the House, 212 Republicans, and 3 vacancies. Let’s give all vacancies to the Democrats. 223 to 212. Republicans only need to win 6 seats to get a 218 to 217 house. So it’s easy to say “yeah, Republicans get the House”. Just regression to the mean in an off-year election where the opposition party is in power gets you six seats. That’s an easy prediction to make.
Now the interesting prediction is whether the Republicans get six, whether they get fifteen, or whether they get forty.
They ain’t gonna get forty. They ain’t gonna get thirty.
They’re gonna get around fifteen.
The Senate? That will flip. I mean, I was surprised to see that Democrats had only 48 seats in the senate now. Oh, two independents. Wait… who is the other one? Huh. Maine.
So let’s look at the 270 to win map.
You’ve got 22 “safe for the incumbent” elections out of 35. 14 Republican safe seats and 8 Democratic safe seats.
That leaves us with 13 up in the air.
Florida, Iowa, North Carolina, Ohio, Utah, and Wisconsin are all going to go Republican.
Colorado, Georgia, and Warshington are all going to go Democratic.
That leaves five:
Arizona, North Carolina, New Hampshire, Nevada, and Pennsylvania.
Those are the five that decide the election.
I think that Democrats win Arizona, New Hampshire, and Pennsylvania (in a multi-week squeaker).
Leaving NC and NV to go Republican.
North Carolina is already Republican.
Which means that Nevada’s election flips the Senate back to the Rs.
3 pro-choice measures will pass (pro-life measures will fail). This will be seen as a disappointment by everybody.
Arkansas, Missouri, North Dakota, and Maryland will legalize it. South Dakota will not. This will be seen as a disappointment by me, mostly.
Colorado Springs will legalize mushrooms. Barely.Report
I have no idea. Before Dobbs, it was likely a bloodbath for the Democrats. After a surprisingly strong summer, things fell apart for the Democrats in October and now it might be back to somewhat typical thermostatic voting. Or maybe not.
Simon Rosenberg believes that early voting is so far very strong and good for the Democrats. Daily Kos and John Ralston are a bit more downbeat but admit that things are better than to be expected for Democrats. Both however believe that election day voting could defeat the early advantage Democrats have so far.
I have seen mixed data regarding whether young women (the Dobbs factor) are voting heavier in early elections or not. I do think a lot of pollsters are ignoring Dobbs bevy they have no idea how to incorporate it. Other pollsters admitted they are adding a bit of GOP friendliness to the forecasts. However, every special election since Dobbs has gone in favor of the Democrats or had them over perform but that should not be discounted.
The House is likely to switch. I think Democratic chances of retaining the Senate are high. I think Kotek, Whitmer, and Hochul will win their races. Georgia will go to a run off. Nevada is up in the air. Ryan could win but it seems highly unlikely. Demmings is likely to lose. North Carolina probably stays Republican but it will be close. Hassan will likely win.
I suspect Democrats will pick up two or three house seats in California because of Dobbs. I suspect a few of the Northeast and Northwest house seats the media has been fear mongering about will be nothing burgersReport
Other pollsters admitted they are adding a bit of GOP friendliness to the forecasts.
I’ve read before that pollsters are *VERY* good at figuring out how many Democrats will vote in any given election with very small error bars.
It’s the *REPUBLICANS* who have the large error bars.
Like, let’s say that there’s an upcoming election with 100,000 likely voters and the Democrats are going to be winning 49,000 of those votes, give or take 1%. That’s pretty good! You’re practically across the finish line!
But pollsters have no idea whether it’s going to be 46,000, 48,250, or 53,000 for Team Red because some of the registered voters decided to show up for the first time in forever because they’re really pissed off about some crazy stuff that people who follow politics have been ignoring since the early 80’s because it didn’t matter.
We know the Democrats will have a good, solid showing come Tuesday.
We have no idea if the Republicans will have a craptacular, disappointing, strong, stellar, or unbelievable showing come Tuesday.
Because we don’t know how to measure those people.
Anyway, that’s what I’ve read.Report
https://twitter.com/SimonWDC/status/1588503894275289088?s=20&t=5kdsxCHp5-PeWsoqq8SyEQ
Simon Rosenberg’s optimistic news for DemocratsReport
A more cautious look at Roseberg’s data from someone who would want Rosenberg to be correct
https://m.dailykos.com/stories/2022/11/3/2133187/-An-Alternative-Take-on-Simon-Rosenberg-s-Analysis-of-Early-VotingReport
Two pretty good analyses.
Though I will say that the latter is far more sober and, as such, strikes me as far more likely to be rooted in something. Something at all.Report
I’m saying the GOP wins all the close Senate races and has a 54-seat majority. And they do better in the house than expected. The one thing in the Trump era is that the GOP has been overperforming polls because no one wants to admit to poll takers that they will vote for that garbage fire.Report
That not only changes things for 2023, but for November 2024.Report
Just a reminder that most people voted against Trump in 2016 and 2020 by very healthy margins. That being stated, the GOP did better than expected in 2016 and 2020 and I think pollsters are twice shy about that.
That being stated. I don’t think the GOP will win all four Senate elections deemed close.
People (well lots of men) seem to be forgetting about Dobbs.Report
And something else to keep in mind for Tuesday!
Report
I am sexyReport
The GOP knows perfectly well that most people will vote against them.
This is why democracy remains for them an obstacle to be removed by any means necessary.Report
This article alleges that the pollsters and forecasters are missing young women and many of them stated they plan on voting on election day
https://www.msnbc.com/msnbc/amp/ncna1300528Report
I won’t go farther than Democrats in the West do a couple of percentage points better than the polls there, and a couple of points worse in the non-West. >90% regional vote by mail will turn out to matter, if someone can figure out a way to measure it. As I recall the races, that makes the Senate a very near thing.Report
I got a wild hair up my brain last Tuesday and I went to go in to vote and I dragged behind me my best bud.
As it turns out, it was *EARLY* voting and not voting proper.
But I gave him the speech about voting no on all judges and voting no on all constitutional amendments that don’t involve marijuana and he smiled and nodded and we voted and got out of there 20 minutes later. It would have been 10 but the printers jammed.Report
How about Dobbs?Report
Dobbs I think is an important factor, but I think it has to be balanced against a number of D self-inflicted wounds on other high salience issues for women. Now this same is true in a way for the GOP, where I think Dobbs couldn’t have come in a worse cycle for them, and will, among other things, keep them from running up the score the way they might otherwise have reasonably hoped to. My guess is it will be a low level mitigator but it isn’t the kind of condition that’s going to buck the historical trend.Report
I kinda think that the demographics of Dobbs make it almost a non-issue – blue staters will vote harder with high-salience for Dobbs in their Blue states yielding predictably Blue results. Effects in Red States will be minimal, especially since this has already played out in a Federalist sense where the impacts broadly represent voter sentiment within those states already. Plus, while ‘high salience’ Abortion comes in 3rd or 4th among other high salience issues among women.
An interesting test case will be VA 7 (just because I’m in the media market!) – where Incumbent Spanberger (D) is trying to ‘Tod Aken-ize’ Vega (R) for comments she made on tape. She opposes Abortion except in cases of Rape/Incest, but was heard on tape equivocatingly agreeing with a questioner who wonders whether it’s “harder to get pregnant while being raped”.
https://www.politifact.com/factchecks/2022/nov/04/yesli-vega/vega-downplays-her-comments-disassociating-rape-an/
[I’ve heard it enough times that my editorial take is that the question was a plant and she was attempting to be sympathetic to a supporter, not making a policy statement… but yeah, she got caught on tape being dumb].
Vega is an interesting candidate as a Female Latina ex-CIA law-enforcement background.
As of now, the race is a toss-up which one can read as proof that the Abortion issue is working in a Red Wave — or a matter of concern that Spanberger is in a Toss-up race as the Incumbent in a district re-engineered to be 5pts more Blue.
As a pro-life supporter, I’m curious to see how some of these things play out — of course I’ve written a bit about how I think the pro-life policy agenda needs updating and re-calibration post-Dobbs… but I’m not on that committee either.Report
Do you really think I wouldn’t know about that recording, which is played on every other TV commercial, followed immediately by the ‘Spanberger votes 100% with Pelosi’ ad? 🙂
But that’s actually one of the races I was thinking of. Normally I would say Spanberger is absolutely toast, and I could see a nominally liberal, suburban female voter giving Vega a chance, much like Youngkin. And maybe they still will. But it isn’t the sure thing I would’ve thought before, and that vote may split in some weird ways when you factor Dobbs against inflation and trailing issues around school insanity. Now I don’t want to overstate this or anything, I just think there’s a fighting chance in some places I would’ve thought there wasn’t.Report
Heh, I was hoping your market was being spared…
As I say, interesting to watch and see what results/exit polls show.
It’s hard to see how a D-leaning district which was redrawn to include more I-95 NOVA corridor would put an incumbent D at risk — not matter what happens, though, I promise to over determine the results and I expect no less from anyone else!Report
My endless take has become that us online political junky types over determine everything. This election is going to be about inflation and the normal ebbing and flowing of the partisan tide. All the very 2020 issues we talk about are quickly receding into the rear view for the people who will cast the key votes.
Frankly but for the possibility of Trump loyalists being installed in potentially critical state election offices just in time to cause a crisis in 2024 I’d be a lot more resigned about it.Report
Yeah, I just saw this and thought “it can’t be that simple”.
And if it is that simple, then we’ve forgotten a very important lesson that we learned in 1992.Report
Did we all miss Ezra Klein vox-splaining David Shor in the NYT last month?
https://www.nytimes.com/2021/10/08/opinion/democrats-david-shor-education-polarization.html
“It’s almost laughable to me the notion that what people think about Democrats is made out of what Democrats say,” said Anat Shenker-Osorio, the founder of the progressive firm ASO Communications and a principal on the Race-Class Narrative Project. “I wish we lived in that world. I’d probably be on vacation. But that’s not our world.”
counterpoint:
This is an argument Shor is happy to have. “I think the conventional wisdom has swung too far toward believing policy isn’t important,” he said. He agrees that enthusiasm matters, but it has to be enthusiasm for a message that doesn’t alienate the undecided. “A lot of politics is about what you talk about,” he told me. You should sort your ideas, he said, by popularity. “Start at the top, and work your way down to find something that excites people. But I think that what actually happens is people sort by excitement first. And the problem is the things that are most exciting to activists and journalists are politically toxic.”Report
Well, there are three groups of voters…Report
p.s. post 7:00 but haven’t seen anything on the VA 7 race – meant to comment that I thought Vega’s Pelosi ads were so one-dimensional and not followed by any other ‘good’ ads that I think her campaign did a pretty poor job. I get that Pelosi polls poorly among supporters, but as your only real pitch? Weak.Report
Yea I didn’t feel like it hit quite the right note. I know there was also a ‘positive’ ad but it wasn’t memorable.
The other race we saw a lot of ads around is Hung Cao v. Jennifer Wexton. I’m sure it gets tiresome for Virginians but I always appreciate having a small window every couple of years into what it would be like living somewhere that politics are actually competitive.Report
I truly have no idea. IL is solid blue, so I know how it will go.
My only prediction is somewhere an R will lose and that R will claim voting shenanigans, despite many other R’s winning in the same state.Report
https://thenevadaindependent.com/article/crystal-ball-says-cortez-masto-hangs-on-sisolak-doesnt-and-dems-retain-two-of-three-house-seats
John Ralston’s predictions. He thinks Cortez-Masto holds on holds on but Sisolak loses narrowly. Democrats retain the Nevada legislature
https://thenevadaindependent.com/article/crystal-ball-says-cortez-masto-hangs-on-sisolak-doesnt-and-dems-retain-two-of-three-house-seatsReport
The big question for this cycle is about the stash of GOP voters who are going to show up on Election Day, without having been represented by the pollsters beforehand. Specifically, where are they and how many are there?
We don’t really have a good answer for this. My gut says it’s a lot but we don’t really even have a good back-of-the-envelope guess. Polling now is the worst its been in my lifetime. I think our usual gut feeling for polls and error doesn’t really apply any more. For example, there have been kinda recent polls showing the Ohio Senate race and the Iowa Senate race as being competitive. But I’m not going to be surprised if JD Vance wins by 14 points or Chuck Grassley wins by 25 points, or both. Or not. I just don’t think polling narrows the range of plausible outcomes to the extent we’re used to.
To figure out the state of the election, I think you have to de-emphasize the horse race polls and look at fundamental data: prior elections, primary turnout, changes in party registration, special elections, and early voting data. And Presidential Job Approval, the one exception to bad polling. And and subjective interpretation of the topical issue mix for the election and who that’s likely to favor.
Given the totality of all these things, you have to think the Republicans are going to do very well.
For the House, let’s say the GOP gets 245 total after the election. It could be less, but then it could very easily be more as well. The talk about how the Demos will hold the House seems to be ridiculous for me. I don’t think that was ever credible. But anything less than 230 for the GOP is very very bad. Among other things, it means that the party leadership has to do a whole bunch of gimmicky crap to manage the chamber, like Pelosi for this last Congress.
I think most or all of the high profile races will go GOP. Masters will win in Arizona, which I wouldn’t have predicted a couple of months ago. Mark Kelly has very little presence for being a former astronaut. The negatives for Masters, of which there are many, are all from August or earlier. He hasn’t shot himself in the foot during the general election season. And he’s attached himself to Kari Lake, who’s turned out to be a surprisingly strong candidate.
Laxalt is going to win. I don’t think that’s been competitive for a while.
Fetterman is going to lose, and if any of the high profile Demos win, it will be Rafael Warnock in Georgia. Though I’m sort of schizophrenic here. I have a pretty strong gut feelings about both of these. But otoh, I don’t necessarily trust my own judgment because more than the other races, my thoughts here are a substantially a consequence of my own personal opinions as to the candidates involved.
Senate races in Iowa, Ohio, North Carolina, Wisconsin will go GOP by at least 5 points each.
If I had to pick any particular upset, it will be Lee Zeldin over Hochul for NY gov. I can’t think of any high-profile gov race that’s going to go well for the Demos.
One important outcome for Tuesday (maybe the most important) is that establishment Demos are going to push Biden out of the nomination shortly afterward. Right-wing twitter (and maybe even the libs too) has been speculating about this for a week or so. I suspect this has a good chance of working if there’s even a few prominent Establishment Demos willing to put their name behind this. But that’s only half the job. Somehow, if the Demos can push out Biden _and_ Kamala Harris, i’ll be much more bullish about the Demos in 2024. But I don’t think that’s going to happen, and the presence of Kamala Harris in the race, whether she wins or not, will be a huge negative for the party.Report
I am, it is well known, terrible at election prognostication… but this time I feel pretty good about my meta analysis:
If Herschel Walker and Dr. Oz somehow manage to lose in GA and PA respectively… LOL, the Republican Party is a wreck and any sane person would understand that Trump is a disaster for the party.
However
If Herschel Walker and Dr. Oz somehow manage to win in GA and PA respectively… LOL, the Republican Party is a wreck and any sane person would understand that Trump is a disaster for the party.
Maybe an outlier… but I’m sticking with it.Report
You certainly can follow the example of former President Trump if you choose. Certainly lots of Republicans have. But we’re a big party. Personally I would instead consider the thoughts of the Republican Civil War officer Joshua Lawrence Chamberlain, who said,
“We are an army out to set other men free……America should be free ground, all of it, from here to the Pacific Ocean…….In the end, we’re fighting for each other,” and other thoughts of a similar vein as to the stakes of defeating the Democrats of his day.
youtube.com/watch?v=wUurBiyVhnk
Optimistically, you could say that the stakes now are not _as high_ as they were during Col. Chamberlain’s time. But in any event, I’d venture to say they are still high enough.Report
And yet in the name of “freedom” your preferred Party seeks to prevent women from having reproductive body autonomy; wants to prevent sensible changes to legal immigration to reflect US market forces; generally refuses to refute Trump’s big lie assertions; places further restrictions on voting access to combat fraud that doesn’t exist; and seeks to criminalize parents who seek medical and psychological support for their children in gender crisis.
By any stretch of the imagination it drives the stakes for many Americans up these days not down.Report
IF the GOP takes the House, it will only by 2-5 seats. IF. Here in Mississippi we may gain a democratic seat up state because of the governor’s disasterous response to the Jackson water crisis. so we would be 2 and 2. My own congressional district (MS-4) will get a new Congressman, but I suspect it will be the Trumpian Sheriff of Jackson County and not the moderate Democratic former mayor of Hattiesburg.
The Senate remains in Democratic hands, and likely picks up a seat or two. A number of senate seats are in the margin of poling error – and while I AGREE with Koz that polling is now abysmal compared to two decades ago – bad polling wouldn’t put Florida, or Wisconsin or Pennsylvania this close. Georgia goes to Warnock, mostly because Hershel Walker beclowns himself constantly, and a lot of unpolled black men are none the less saying to the press that they don’t want him being the face people see when they think of Black men.
turn out will be my big worry. in our primaries in June Mississippi had a whopping 11% voting rate. I’m bedeviled finding numbers nationally today (likely operator error) but if hat holds as a bellwether we will have a very small number of voters dictating policy for the next two years. I find that no bueno.Report
As pointed out below, turn out is strong in many states and Democrats have a strong (though not necessarily insurmontable) lead:
“Last night Ralston called Nevada due to big Dem early vote lead, the “firewall.” Media should be doing same across US.
Here are the states where growth of D vote share compared to 2020 is greater than NV: AZ, GA, IA, IN, MI, NC, NY, OH, NY, PA, TX, VA, WA, WI. 5/”Report
Colorado early voting ended up down relative to 2018 (everyone knew it would be down relative to 2020). The biggest decline is among registered Republicans. The question is whether those voters decided to wait for election day, or are simply staying away.Report
The litigation has already begun: https://www.washingtonpost.com/elections/2022/11/07/gop-sues-reject-mail-ballots/Report
I honestly have no idea this time around. I’ll go with the chalk pick of 51-49 GOP control Senate (all indy’s are considered to be part of the major party they usually caucus with)
-> Oz beats Fetterman (GOP hold) Kelly beats Masters (Dem hold), Warnock & Walker to go a runoff with Warnock winning (Dem hold), everyone else is also a party hold, except Nevada, which is a GOP pickup.
House is 225 GOP 210 Dem. The competitive Maryland congressional race (MD-6) sees Trone holding on easily (Dem hold). The Virginia competitive races see Luria losing (GOP gain), Wexton winning easily (Dem hold) and Spanberger winning narrowly (also Dem hold)Report
Ralston thinks Cortez-Masto holds and Sisolak is out. He is generally pretty knowledgeable about Nevada politics and no forecast is always 100 percent correct but his track record is pretty good. He has also been fairly downbeat on the Democrats this term by basically stating they have no reason to be doing as well as they are doing. This ignores Dobbs of courseReport
It would definitely be on a trend of the Republican running for governor doing much much better than the Republican running for US Senate. (‘trend’ i.e. Arizona and Georgia. Pennsylvania seems to be reversed)Report
For whatever reason, Mastriano is tge Trumpist candidate that scared people the most. Every article seems to have most PA voters call him a lunatic. I still think Fetterman has a fighting chance to winReport
This is also my rough prediction but I admit it’s as much my heart speaking as my head.Report
1. If this were a normal year, it should be a Democratic blood bath.
2. Dobbs changed the game and still will but a lot of middle-aged white guys are discounting it because they are middle-aged white guys who think about bizness and stonks first (and still defend Elon Musk) and do not want to contemplate that this matters to a lot of women;
3. Polling is fundamentally broken and Cohn/Silver basically admitted at various points that they are being nicer to Republicans.
4. If it were a real red wave year, the polling would not be as a tight as it is.
5. There have been lots of buried lede stories where the press has tried to do “Democrats in disarray” (and still do it) but several paragraphs in state that that the Democrat is clearly ahead by comfortable margins.
6. Republican polling outfits like Trafalgar, Inside Advantage have been flooding the zone with s@@t and Democrats, bless our hearts, often fall for it.Report
It is entirely possible that your analysis is correct, Saul me lad, but if it is there’s no easy way to see it coming. Lord(Lady?) knows I hope you are right.Report
See below. The GOP could take Congress but I think the red wave is more gloat and a demoralizing attack on “vibes” than anything elseReport
A Monday morning thread from Simon Rosenberg. He thinks a red wave may come but is not here yet.
https://twitter.com/SimonWDC/status/1589641547938959366
The early vote (via TargetEarly) w/2 days of voting to go:
– turnout up 8-10% from 2018
– Ds lead 50-39, have 4.3m vote “firewall” (lead)
– At this point in 2018 Ds led 46-45 (+1), in 2020 48-41 (+7)
– Final vote only 2-4 pts different from EV in 18/20. Yikes for Rs. 3/Report
Buried down in the thread is this:
If that’s a thing – and I suspect it is – this isn’t going to be over tomorrow night. Nor are polling estimates likely correct.
https://apnews.com/article/2022-midterm-elections-health-government-and-politics-election-2020-55f4744b484919cd20d4d5e8d72e444eReport
The answer to that problem of course is to tighten up processes, not continue down this road of vote by mail outside of the states that did it and were set up for it pre-covid.Report
Vote by mail increases turn out and is easy to implementReport
I don’t have any problem with VBM in principle but the article says it’s going to be coordinated to slow down counting for purposes of creating a bunch of bad faith legitimacy complaints. If that’s what starts happening it isn’t worth it.Report
Exactly. We know how to do vote by mail well, but the state legislature has to commit to it. State legislatures that intentionally hamstring VBM are not interested in security, accuracy, and ease of use, where contemporary VBM is the clear best practice.Report
Then election day needs to be a complete – everything closes national holiday, with states and municipalities funded to have more precincts then current. Even then gaming the system is now a permanent fixture of the political scene. We just need a coherent set of principles to limit gaming.Report
I love the regional differences. Western states, at least the populous ones, have reached or are headed in the direction of fewer “precincts” and inconvenient in-person voting. But their VBM systems dominate the top several positions when state systems are evaluated by experts for security, accuracy, and ease of use. Without a holiday that will be painful to implement.
In 2021 with a Democratic trifecta the House conducted the first actual markup of the HR1/S1 election bill that had been introduced in other years. “Precinct” was removed for “voting center”. “Absentee ballot” was removed for “mail ballot”. I still claim the bill was DOA in the Senate even if the filibuster were overturned because there were several Dem Senators from western states that were not going to vote for a bill that required their states to recreate a dense “precinct” in-person system in parallel with their VBM system.Report
I don’t have a problem with that and find it generally preferable (the holiday approach I mean). I’m personally also a fan of early in person. It adds flexibility for people with difficult schedules but doesn’t lend itself to all the controversy and bad faith nonsense.Report
We have neither unless you can certify to a county clerk you meet one of 9 criteria for not voting on election day.Report
Yea I see MS is one of four states that don’t have it. That’s the change I’d be pushing for if I lived in one of them. But nationally the vast majority of states have at least a week of it and quite a few have many, many more days. Hence my position on the issue.Report
I wrote a lengthy comment about doing vote by mail right and then deleted it. Leave it at the state legislature has to make a commitment to vote by mail. The key factors that make vote by mail look like the better alternative are explosive urban/suburban growth and development with lots of special districts with taxing authority, not just expansion of long-established municipalities. It is not surprising that when you look at the American West, all of CA, CO, HI, NV, OR, UT, and WA are now vote by mail. AZ and MT are backing into it.Report
I think VBM can be designed to work just fine and see no reason to mess with it in places that were comfortable with and had a long tradition of it pre-2020. That said the unfortunate reality is that VBM is now politicized in places where it wasn’t there before, and it isn’t like there’s this great case for making permanent everything that was done ad hoc in the middle of a pandemic. None of which is to say I am persuaded by all of the crying wolf either I just don’t see VBM as a hill worth dying on.Report
Things are politicized until they aren’t. VBM increases turnout and is trustworthy despite the attacks against it.
There is a local proposition in SF called Prop H which wants to take city elections from off-years and move them to coincide with the Presidential election. This is a sensible proposition. London Breed has declared herself an enemy of this proposition as a DSA power grab. This is very silly.Report
I also suspect tomorrow will end with many too close to calls.Report
Agreed – and I have neither enough sleep time or bourbon to overcome that state of affairs.Report
While I’m inclined to shave my R Senate seat # by one or two, I’m going to let my pre-Dobbs April time capsule predictions ride.
https://ordinary-times.com/2022/04/21/the-joy-of-opening-time-capsules-2022-edition/
Senate:
53 (R)
47 (D)
House:
245 (R)
190 (D)Report
Wow, comparing what I thought in April to what I think now shows how much stuff turned around for the Democrats since then. All of that is due to Dobbs, I think.Report
I think mine would have been good if the election were held in August. Now? Probably a miss.Report
My pessimistic prediction is that if the GOP captures both houses, or one house and a handful of state election officials, they will refuse to certify any Democratic victory in 2025 regardless of how the votes go.Report
I’m more worried about the state election official problem then the House or Senate in that regard. and its a problem that won’t appear until November 2024 at the earliest.Report
One thing to consider is that pollsters are getting more and more lost as landlines go the way of the dodo:
https://www.thedailybeast.com/pollsters-have-no-fcking-idea-whats-going-to-happen-during-2022-midterm-elections
Wasserman, perhaps the top handicapper of U.S. House races, said everyone was trying different ways to solve for “partisan non-response bias”—essentially a measure of how a poll isn’t representative of the actual population—but that means every pollster was making “a different assumption about who’s going to show up on Nov. 8 that may or may not be accurate.”
Part of the issue is that Republicans seem less and less inclined to answer poll questions. And another part is that pollsters are being less transparent about their methodologies to correct for those types of difficulties.
“We are, in many respects, stumbling through the dark with headlamps and flashlights,” Wasserman said. “And we have a vague understanding of where these races stand, but there are bound to be surprises.”Report
Okay. Data for Progress has their most recent report (warning: PDF).
What is interesting is the numbers for African-Americans and Latinos.
Here’s the question:
If the election for U.S. Congress in your district was held today, which one of the following candidates are you most
likely to vote for?
The answers were “The Democrat” or “The Republican”.
African Americans answered 81% for The Democrat and 19% for The Republican.
Latinxes answered 56% for The Democrat and 44% for The Republican.Report
so they are still general, in the majority, pulling for democrats.Report
But it clears up any mystery as to why the GOP is leaning so hard into misogyny and anti LGBTQ bigotry.Report
We had a discussion back in 2016 about the African American vote.
I thought that Trump was likely to get, like, 20% of it. I was wrong about that, of course. He only got 14% of the AA male vote and, like, 2% of the AA female vote.
But I remember the discussion because Morat framed my saying “Trump is going to get 80% of the AA vote” as me saying that African Americans were going to abandon the Democrats.
I argued that 80% is still overwhelming support.
It was weird.
81% is overwhelming support for the Democrats among the African American community.Report
Synchronicity, baby.
Report
Prop 8 in California, passed in 2008, is instructive in this regard.
It relied heavily on anti LGBTQ bigotry to pick up nonwhites who would normally vote Democratic.Report
Oh, good. I was worried that it was something like inflation or schools or something where a new policy might have to be adopted.Report
Why would you think people vote Republican because of issues like crime or inflation or schools?
We’ve had numerous “Republican or Troll” posts where the actual Republican message was displayed for your edification.
We had an entire post here at OT where the “Reasonable Non Crazy, Non MAGA Republicans” were asked to give us their most optimistic pitch for voting Republican.
You might want to re-read that one because I have no clue what dark place you’re pulling the “crime, inflation, schools” stuff out of.Report
Well, on crime, there was that whole “defund” thing that sort of took over during the pandemic.
You may not remember “defund the police” but, apparently, it’s like extra-fine glitter. It just gets everywhere. (Seriously, “defund” was a thing!)
As for “inflation”, it might be unfair but the Dems are the party in power and they were the ones at the beginning of inflation and saying that inflation wasn’t that bad. If the Republicans were in power, the Republicans would own it. As it is, they aren’t.
As for schools, well, you may remember the pandemic? Remember distance learning? Well, apparently parents do.
Those are the dark places that I’m pulling the “crime, inflation, schools” stuff out of.Report
I think Chip can honestly say he doesn’t remember “defund the police”, because he was one of those people explaining how the actual position was “deemphasize the use of force by police responders and provide more funding for nonintervention-focused support staff trained in deescalation” and in his mind that’s what everybody was actually saying all along.Report
If you want to know what is driving Republicans to the polls, listen to what the Republican candidates are saying.
Seriously, just look back at all the issues we’ve been discussing right here at OT.
We had a whole series of conversations about how Republicans were accusing teachers of grooming children for sex which was and is a big applause line for them.
We have had discussions about Republican charges of waves of immigrants, a perpetual stump speech favorite.
We’ve had many discussions about the Republicans flooding school boards and demanding the ban of books featuring LGBTQ themes.
We’ve discussed the various Republicans talking about ending abortion and possibly contraception, which is their single biggest policy agenda.
But I don’t think we’ve even once discussed the Republican plan for inflation. Or the Republican plan for lowering crime. Or even any Republican plan for improving school test scores.
You should listen to the Republicans. They’re telling you what’s important to them.Report
If you control for framing which Chip will always cherry-pick and present in the least favorable light:
1. Education
2. Immigration
3. Education
4. Abortion
5. Inflation
Those are literally the most popular issues.Report
In which “education” means “Stop teachers from grooming children for sex and ban books with LGBTQ themes”.
Seriously, that’s the Republican education message in this election cycle.Report
The best thing that can happen for Democrats on the Education issue is for Covid to fade into the background and education returns to childcare that nobody really thinks about.
When Education is a ‘salient’ issue, it codes as the Education Industrial Complex is non-responsive to Parental concerns about quality and content.
What’s odd about the Democratic response is that it doubles down on not caring about Parental concerns about quality and content. And yes, people will actively vote against Democrats on this issue.Report
Also – I think that if anything there’s growing anger against the teachers’ unions and establishment, as the public comes to better understand vaccines, transmission, et cetera.Report
There’s polling on this question. The voters’ top three issues are inflation, the economy, and immigration. The voters perceive that the Republicans’ top three priorities are inflation, the economy, and immigration. The voters perceive that the Democrats’ top three priorities are Jan 6, abortion, and climate change.Report
Right… Immigration & Inflation are two of the top 3 items Chip cites.
Depending on whom you ask, Abortion clocks in between 3-5.
Education is just a plain winner for R’s because the D counter is seen as ‘Parents are bad for children’s education.’
But I certainly understand understand the desire to make the ‘Groomer’ thing the equivalent of the ‘Defund the Police’ thing. Which irony is not lost on me for Chip doing the boosting.
Now… unfortunately for the R’s the general cure-all for Inflation is reduced employment and lower wage growth which is why Inflation is such a pissy topic to have to deal with in an election cycle. Soft-landings are for bankers, not people.
A bold Inflation policy would be to counsel temporary pain but chart a new course where the Fed undergoes a significant orientation shift towards higher inflation targets and preferring lower unemployment. Either party could navigate there if they wanted…Report
Oh yeah, I didn’t say that anyone’s got a good short-term inflation policy. I don’t think there’s ever such a thing.
Inflation and the economy are so different from a topic like abortion, because everyone agrees on the goal but there’s debate on the road to get there. Immigration, we’re probably all closer in our goals than we realize. Education is sizing up to be more like abortion in this regard.Report
And if you want to know why I still think it would be better for team D to win or at least not lose too badly this is it. The next step in a Republican victory will be a pointless debt ceiling crisis so that they can put as much of the pain of the adjustment we all know is coming on people who depend on Medicaid and Social Security. I guess we can book that as my thread prediction even though it isn’t strictly about who wins at the polls today.
I at least still have the ability to opt my kid out of magic gender spirit lessons, so that fight is for another day.Report
I suppose… problem for me is I don’t trust either party on so many issues, not least of which Economic issues.
But my preferred (idiosyncratic) policy mix of structural economic reforms isn’t anywhere on offer… so suffer we all.Report
Even if it were on offer, the politicians don’t control the economy. Never have.
Though I find it refreshing to note you see this as a set of structural issues.Report
I’m old enough to remember the Inflation Reduction Act of 2022.
If politicians don’t control the economy (and you’re largely correct), maybe don’t claim to control the economy and complain when people blame you for not fixing what you promised to fix. Especially when your fix for inflation is spending more money.Report
‘Trust’ is probably too strong a word for me. But I firmly believe there are still enough Democrats who will do the least bad thing when it comes to questions like this. It isn’t sexy but it’s the (maybe only?) strength of the Biden-Schumer-Pelosi faction.Report
Chip, I wasn’t talking about what was driving Republicans to the polls.
You said “I have no clue what dark place you’re pulling the “crime, inflation, schools” stuff out of.”
And I explained where I found those dark places.
I suppose that arguing that Republicans are bad is a good way to go in response to getting the information you claimed you didn’t have.
But I don’t think we’ve even once discussed the Republican plan for inflation. Or the Republican plan for lowering crime. Or even any Republican plan for improving school test scores.
It seems to be “we’re not the Democrats”.Report
Yep, that’s the entirety of the Republican’s message. You nailed it.
Now, for bonus points, please tell us HOW not being Democrats means inflation will go lower come January?Report
It won’t?
But there might be a shot at something like “hey, we believe that inflation exists and it’s *NOT* transitory!” and just saying that might give confidence that “what inflation? This is just pent-up demand manifesting!” didn’t end up giving.Report
I read somewhere the idea that it’s not so much that Dems are ignoring inflation as it is that there’s no messaging on it that will help them win anyone over, so they just try to hit the areas that still might give them some marginal improvement. Hard to know what a low-information undecided voter would be looking to hear that wouldn’t just sound like an excuse.Report
They want mid-2020 gas prices without the pandemic.
They want housing prices rising when they want to sell and falling when they want to buy.
They want cheap but high quality healthcare that someone else pays for but isn’t nationalized.
They want all the tax benefits of the modern state but with a tax rate that hedge fund managers pay.
They want full employment but at low wages so they can climb over people.Report
And they vote! We can be dismissive of those folks, but the people actually trying to win elections need to figure out how best to reach them regardless.Report
I’m not suggesting we dismiss them. But the messages they want to hear – and are pobably hearing regularly from candidates – don’t comport with reality. Which breeds more dissatisfaction and resentment, which in turn ratchets up the likelihood of illiberal undemocratic outcomes.Report
Ok, so if you’re a campaign manager for a Dem candidate, what’s your call? Do you decide they’re too out of touch to be reached and hope to get votes elsewhere, or do you put effort into coming up with a message that might get a few more votes out of them regardless?Report
I honestly don’t know. Other then inflation – which seem pegged to corporate profit taking in way we can’t really grok – there’s a lot of good economic news that Americans should be hearing and cheering. Unemployment is below pre-pandemic levels; wages continue to grow, and hiring is still up. People haven’t yet started pulling back spending on things like durable goods, and while home mortgage originations are starting to come down, there’s still a sellers market with too little stock v. demand.
I suspect if someone were to tout all this the way Trump touted grabbing women’s genitalia the touter and his party would win significantly.Report
It’s not that you’re dismissing them; you’re being dismissive of their concerns. These are people that either party is capable of reaching. I mean, let’s be honest, neither of us are supporting some workers’ separatist movement or something. We’re rooting for one of the big two parties.
Also, inflation is really easy to understand. I think the people whose concerns you’re dismissing have a better grasp on it than you do. It’s not particularly short-term fixable, but it is comprehensible, and it’s not due to corporate greed.Report
When a 40 year inflation high high occurs along side a 70 year high in corporate profits, I don’t tend to agree that its government spending, or the President’s rhetoric that’s the problem. When OPEC cuts production to goose prices to prop up Russia I don’t tend to agree that its government spending or the President’s rhetoric that’s the problem.
And when people say it is the president because he can’t drive gas prices back to the sub $2 lows we had under Trump – forgetting that was in the middle of a global pandemic – I don’t agree that federal fiscal policy or the President’s rhetoric is the problem.
Their concerns are real and will influence how they vote. No doubt about it. But the solutions they want aren’t reality or fact based. They are wishful thinking fueled by Politicians who care more about their own power then the actual lives of their constituents. Throwing out the D’s won’t make people’s lives better and it won’t – by itself – drive inflation back down.Report
Again, the Republicans are motivated by hatred of who the Democrats are, not what the Democrats do.Report
Oh, wait! You’re conflating “people who vote for the Republican this time” with “Republicans”.
Okay, while it’s true that most of the people who pull the lever for Republicans are Republicans themselves, there is a chunk of people who are swing votes.
Like, sometimes they vote one way and sometimes they vote the other.
If people who used to be reliably “your” voters who, suddenly, start getting wobbly, moving from “reliably my voters” to “swing voters” is a *BIG FRIGGIN DEAL*.
Now, of course, this is just a poll and it’s not an exit poll and we don’t even know if Data for Progress is a real polling company and we don’t know who is pulling their strings and we don’t know their methodology and even if they had a link to it, I wouldn’t read it.
But if the data is in the ballpark of accurate, that’s a 10 point shift.Report
I’d love to see a breakdown of issues we discuss on OT. But you just listed the issues you bring up here, not the ones most discussed. Like, you can’t really think that “we” have been discussing gay book banning.Report
Weren’t they already there, though?Report
Well, the difference between 96% (what Obama got) and 81% is pretty substantial.
Like, substantial to the point where it’s interesting to see articles talking about it right before an election where the AA vote might be a deciding factor.
I mean, if the Democrats realize that they’re going to have to pander to Black people in the future, that’s going to shake some stuff up.Report
You have to admit, a comparison to Obama is a bit unfair. Where was their support given prior to BHO?Report
So we have to go back to 2004 and 2000 for those numbers.
Kerry got 88% and Bush got 11% in 2004.
Gore got 90% and Bush got 9% in 2000.
It’s probably not fair to compare Congressional votes to the Presidential election either.
I suppose we could also argue that there aren’t enough data points to reach any conclusions about anything.
What *IS* knowledge anyway? Gettier points out that the old definition of “Justified True Belief” has problems.Report
I think it’s fair to say that current Democratic strategy has a built in reliance on getting around 90% of the black vote. If it got notably below that (call it a 10-15% drop) it would have pretty significant ramifications.
Whether we’re anywhere near that is hard to say, but my guess is that black men will eventually become more in play for the GOP from a relative perspective over time. I base this both on the differences in how the sexes vote but also educational polarization. Black women are becoming a very highly educated demographic while black men are not. It makes sense that black women would follow educated upper middle class patterns while black men would be more inclined towards working class patterns. All generalities of course.Report
Well, I guess we can hope that Data for Progress is lying.Report
… and who knows what’s going on with the
LatinxHispanic vote.An interesting thing I just saw on Ballotpedia for a certain rural VA district — the races don’t add up to 100% – but if you add in the Ethnicicy, it’s 98% — which means what for Hispanics? Neither white (yet) or BIPOC? Feels like a half-way station for calling that demographic not people of color. Such an identitarian mess all around.
Race:
77.9% White
10.6% Black
1.8% Asian
0.4% Native American
0% Pacific Islander
Ethnicity:
6.6% HispanicReport
I’m not sure if we’re quite passed sell by on the late 20th century demographics chart but its connection to actual realities in the country get a little more tenuous every day.Report
It’s “Hispanx”.
Any list that doesn’t include “mixed”, “other”, and “unidentified” probably won’t add up to 100%. Potentially, any list with all of those could potentially exceed 100%.Report
For reference, someone should post the percentage of Black vote that Hillary got in 2016, and the percentage that Biden got in 2020.
Or maybe actual data is unfair, since its more fun to talk about hunches and theories.Report
Oh, sure. Okay.
Hillary got 91% and Trump got 6%.
In 2020, Biden got 92% and Trump got 8%.Report
Yea, the dumbest thing a political party could possibly do is pay attention to potential divergences in its coalition. Who would ever waste time on that?Report
What evidence do we have that this election cycle is different than 2020, with respect to things black voters care about?
The strongest reply you can give, would be from actual living black people speaking in their own words, not white people projecting their ideas on imaginary black people.
FWIW, I firmly believe that black people are actually spread out all across the political spectrum, from hard reactionary right to anarchist left.
But because of the constant racism spewing from the Republican party, they mostly vote Democratic.Report
What evidence do we have that this election cycle is different than 2020, with respect to things black voters care about?
Would numbers from Data for Progress count as evidence?Report
Are their numbers for this cycle different than their numbers for the last cycle?Report
Are you asking me to compare the numbers from 2020 to the numbers from Data for Progress?
Because the numbers from 2020 are that Biden got 92% and Trump got 8%.
By comparison, Data for Progress asked “If the election for U.S. Congress in your district was held today, which one of the following candidates are you most likely to vote for?”
The answers were “The Democrat” or “The Republican”.
African Americans answered 81% for The Democrat and 19% for The Republican.
I suppose we could say that that’s comparing apples and oranges and, therefore, is not evidence.Report
Or you could do some work and find Data For Progress numbers from 2020 and 2016.
Or not bother with this year’s Data for Progress numbers because for all we know they are higher this time than last.
“We just don’t know” is a perfectly acceptable answer.Report
Data for Progress started in 2018. This makes it tough to get their 2016 numbers.
Their 2020 numbers are for individual states. *NOT* the national numbers.
Their 2018 posts seem to be about fundraising for politicians downballot who needed help. I wasn’t able to find any 2018 numbers.Report
Oh, I found a guy who is criticizing the methodology.
So, there. Criticism of the methodology.
Whew! Never have to think about this again.Report
So, we just don’t know.
No shame in that. But in a few weeks we will have actual voting data to look at.Report
Well, what *IS* knowledge, anyway?Report
I don’t know how reliable these are, but they’re numbers. Or we could just sit around and complain that Jaybird isn’t providing them.
https://morningconsult.com/2022/11/02/republicans-outperforming-2018-margins-among-voters-of-color/Report
I think the Democratic party will almost certainly meet its target this cycle. As for the rest all I can say is yeesh. If no one was allowed to speculate about political developments over the long term we might as well just shut down OT.Report
Richard Nixon pulled 32% of the black vote in 1960 and 13% in 1972.
If the Republicans could get 30% of the black vote now, no Democrat could win the Presidency.
Of course, to do that they’d have to change a few things back from how they changed them between 1960 and 1972.
And doing that would chase away a large chunk of their current base. The math probably doesn’t work.Report
FWIW, 8 predictions from the Times: https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2022/11/07/opinion/midterms-2022-predictions.html
Some observations:
1. The only people predicting wins for Oz and Walker are partisan;
2. In contrast, liberal Michelle Goldberg predicts a Lake win and probably liberal Michelle Cottle predicts a Johnson win;
3. Gail Collins has a wildcard pick of Ryan winning;
4. A guy named Steve Phillips thinks Hobbs will prevail in Arizona based on demographic changes but this seems less certain.Report
The party of family values everyone!! https://twitter.com/DonaldDucksIt/status/1588535364289187840?s=20&t=7lOTEHt1WU1DTcw9–mi8wReport
wow, a deleted tweet from some jerk on Twitter. Snore. Get back to me when it’s an actual person saying it.Report
Maybe we could work together on this type of thing. A general policy of ignoring jerks on Twitter would save time and improve the quality of discussion here.Report
Then how would anyone be able to quote a Republican?Report
For example, if we ignored jerks, we would miss pearls of wisdom like this:
“A child living out part of his or her life as an ectopic pregnancy is still a unique human being with its own DNA. I don’t understand why we allow those children to be murdered.”—Okla Sen. Warren HamiltonReport
So I’m not supposed to post on this thread until I make predictions. Let’s see. Republicans take the House but not the Senate, and I earlier guessed that the Republicans pick up 6 governorships which I think is currently impossible, but I’m sticking with it. My gut says that people hate their restrictive covid governors. But I’ve got a less than 50/50 record in my guesses.Report
Simon Rosenberg’s election day morning report gives Democrats a 4.7 million vote “firewall” and he believes the demographics are getting younger. I.e. the Dobbs vote was not a fizzle out for Democrats: https://twitter.com/SimonWDC/status/1589959207851548672?s=20&t=Xu1bDdvXWVKRSWFljEyMrg
This is not to state that a red wave is impossible. Rosenberg concedes that the Senate races are toss-ups but turn out looks more like 2018 and 2020 than 2014 or 2010 and this is good for Democrats generally. Reports of low-turn out among Democrats are greatly exaggerated.Report
Report
Spoiler: there will not be this conversation because being a pundit means never having to state you are sorry. Nate Silver is dismissive of the flood the zone stuff. Maybe correctly but if the Democrats do much better than the fundamentals or polls and media narrative suggests, the media will just find a way to avoid soul searching.Report
Al Franken is on CNN explaining that the Democrats have fought for the American People on the economy.
Report
“Al Franken is on CNN explaining that the Democrats have fought for the American People on the economy.”
it’s neat, you can drop any part of that sentence and guess what it’d be correctly.Report
Simon Rosenberg believes Democrats are up by 5 million in early voting. My caveat being the large number of unaffilated voters. Not all of them will break R but a decent to substantial majority can and this will cut into the potential firewall. Still this election is more like 2018 and 2020 than 2010 or 2014Report
The only thing that is interesting here is that this is a study in political ideology run amok. Silver is bending over backwards about how he might be undercounting Republicans and you called him a paid shill for Democrats. I do not regret to inform you that most Democrats see it the other way around. Not that this matters to you probably.
But always be closing/gloating is a Republican superpower.
This was misthreaded somehowReport
https://www.rollingstone.com/politics/politics-news/trump-imagines-journalists-raped-prison-1234626493/
Trump keeps “joking” about violence at Democrats and journalists.Report
Better go find anything a Democrat has said in the last 50 years that comes even close so we can have the usual OT “Whatabout” debate the conservatives love to engage in.Report
I don’t know what site you were thinking of, but here in the OT comments section, the number of reflexive Trump supporters is in the mid-zeroes.Report
Boy you really like whistling past the forrest don’t you? This isn’t about Trump per se – its about the desire to Whatabout anything any Republican politician says that, ya know, might insight violence. And while you may disapprove, Trump is still the head of the GOP . . .Report
This doesn’t make any sense. Do you think that Trump is going to inspire people to arrest journalists? Also, in the two examples the linked article gave, he wasn’t talking about violence against journalism, but the threat of it – a terrible thing but not what the headline implies. As for the head of the party, I typically think of it as the holder of the highest office (at least, before a presidential nomination), and that’s McConnell.
But I’m guessing all of that wasn’t what you were after. You were trying to accuse (let’s be honest here) me of citing examples of Democratic violence every time you cite examples of Republican violence, and yeah, I do that. “Both sides do it” is a valid rebuttal to an “only one side does this” argument. You should stop trying to make that kind of argument.Report
If Mitch McConnel were the head of the GOP he’d have dumped Trump long ago. So think what you want, but that doesn’t change reality.
And no, I don’t he’s going to inspire arrests, but I do think he will continue to inspire violence against journalists. And you will not the article talks about him having discussions about how to arrest journalists he didn’t like both in is first term, and more recently as he prepares (he thinks) to return to the White House.
SO while I was being snarky, I’d expect to be shown examples of Democrats inspiring violence against journalists the way Trump has consistently. It is, as you say, what you do.Report
And what you do is the “I described something inaccurately but I demand a counter-example of something identical” pivot.Report
We need someone to update the Apu Flying Sideways To Take A Bullet For Homer as shorthand for how “reasonable totally not Trump Republicans” will instinctively throw themselves in front of any attack on Hair Furor.Report
If we reply then we’re Triggered
If we don’t reply then Chip and Saul and Phil just sit around jerking each other off
If we stop posting, then That Goes To Show How People Aren’t Interested In Rational Discussion AnymoreReport
We may need to cancel Katy Perry.
She took a picture of how she voted for a *REPUBLICAN* and she was *SMILING* in the picture.Report
It’s not called “cancelling” any more.
Its now called “thermonuclear naming and shaming”.Report
Well, I never liked her music. It struck me as inauthentic.Report
Tying up loose ends:
The GOP has a 4 seat majority in the House. Democrats held the Senate, and if Warnock wins reelection it will have a 1 seat pickup.
You’re welcome.Report
Excellent calls.Report
I should have probably played he Powerball that week too. Oh well.Report