I thought, historically speaking, this is what was simply what's supposed to happen during the first mid term of a new presidency. And I get the fact that Republicans had their fingers on the scale via gerrymandering...the NC 9th district is probably one of the most gerrymandered district in the country in favor of Republicans, and a Democrat almost won it...but you can't say it's a blue wave just because it would have been a blue wave if it hadn't been.
You can say though that there plenty of cases of countries where things have gone bad due to a majority feeling powerless. 30% more people voting for Democrats than Republicans for the senate is huge.
And? I can’t know the odds are against the GOP and yet hope they pull out a miracle? Look at my original one. Nothing wrong with placing a bet even when you know the odds are against you. It’s not like real money is exchanging hands. Idiot.
Sure, you can say that. It was the biggest turnout in a generation, record numbers of minorities, women, minority women including two Native American women elected to congress and one as Lieutenant Governor. That's all great and it will all certainly have lasting affects on future elections... ...but if that's what everyone on the left meant by "blue wave", then I misunderstood it's meaning. I thought it would mean taking the house, senate, and the majority of state legislatures, and governors on the ballot. Just taking back the House is the least anyone could have expected. I suspect the Democrats might well have taken the Senate if the whole Kavanaugh shit show hadn't happened, but it did, and they didn't.
Silly me, in the prediction thread where people were asked what they think will happen I assumed people would be posting their predictions of what they thought would happen.
Yeah I thought we could pull a rabbit out of the hat but I still knew it was more likely than not the GOP would lose the house.
Losses are supposed to happen, but losing by almost 9% in the aggregate vote is quite rare. The difference here is between how many seats you should get, historically, from that kind of margin and how much they ACTUALLY got - thus gerrymandering after 2010.
Partly that's your misunderstanding, partly it's setting an arbitrary measure ("the majority of") - The actual definition is momentum and vote margin. The won 15 of 35 governors (if results hold) but 16 of the 20 they lost were Trump states and the other four were, well, RINOs by the current party definition. And no loss was a party flip, by contrast they flipped 5 (would be 6 if Abrams pulls it out) - that's considerable momentum, the map is what it is The won back over a third of the legislative seats they lost in the 3 or 4 cycles under Obama, flipped 7 state legislative chambers and unified 6 trifecta governments under Democrats they won 19 Senate seats out of the 35 available, plus 2 independents who caucus with the Dems and there are 2 others not yet decided (well 3 but obviously they are not going to win in MS) - how is that not success? Again, they didn't get to pick their map. The House you know about and every "liberal" issue on a statewide referendum won, most of them handily. That's before you note the nature of the candidates who won - Progressives, a gay governor, potentially a bi senator, lesbian reps, 2 Muslims, at least one native American, over a hundred women to Congress and many more on the state level, AND they picked off several tea party Trumpublican assholes and almost beat Steve King which is kind of impossible.
As much as that would tickle, the two new Muslim Congresswomen will be sworn in by Pelosi. Pence will swear in new Senators only.
I would totally do that Cortez! She kind of looks like Rosario Dawson. Sure I hate Cortez' politics and feels she's a complete idiot but I can get past that.
So, we're all agreed then. The Blue Wave happened, and oldfella and Zombie need to turn themselves in to the police.
By a large majority your fellow citizens said they would prefer Democrats in government over Republicans.
The Dems made significant gains in every dimension except the US Senate. Everything else was theirs: governors, state legislature seats, state legislature majorities, and the US House. The shift in the US House was the biggest towards the Dems since Watergate. The US House popular vote was +7 Dems; the US Senate popular vote was +12 Dems. So ya, fucking blue wave. Make no mistake; we live in a Democratic country. The only reason Republicans hold power is through undemocratic systems like the Senate, the Electoral College, gerrymandering, and voter suppression.
If it were a wave, Democrats would have taken the senate, several governorship's and several state races. This was not a wave, it was a pretty typical midterm. But as usual, both parties will take the wrong lessons from this.
The fact that Republicans picked up seats in the Senate (even though it was the worst Senate map for Democrats in living memory) means it wasn't a wave in my opinion, but the Democrats did take several governorships and several state races.
