no offense to camels but i thought they’d be better at it than this https://t.co/SPzB9clLFr
— SLUG (@generalslug) November 2, 2022
The most important & underreported story in American politics today is that Democrats have a 4 MILLION vote lead over @GOP in early voting at this moment.
And Democrats in 2022 are performing at 3 points higher than in 2020.
THERE IS NO RED WAVE YET.
Ignore the polls, #VOTE. pic.twitter.com/FEjyTO64uU
— Fernand R. Amandi (@AmandiOnAir) November 5, 2022
With Biden up soon in Philly at @DNC rally, supporters are dancing and waving cellphone lights to pop and hip-hop songs. pic.twitter.com/kgvLta2CWC
— Akayla Gardner (@gardnerakayla) November 5, 2022
Obama and Biden on stage at Philadelphia pic.twitter.com/PHsqIeo9my
— Acyn (@Acyn) November 5, 2022
The main thing that has me wondering whether we're all going to look very silly in our predictions of a R-leaning environment are the post-Dobbs primaries and special elections. Never seen a party overperform in a ton of August specials only to get blown out in November.
— Lakshya Jain (@lxeagle17) November 4, 2022
But like, how much, and from what baseline? But @GalenMetzger1 and @iabvek have both shown the special election shifts were driven largely by persuasion instead of just turnout, which you can see by examining precinct results. So, maybe they went from a ~D+4 or so to an R+1?
— Lakshya Jain (@lxeagle17) November 4, 2022
But anyways, the CW just snapped from "competitive midterm" to "Republican blowout" in 2 weeks and that came despite gas prices plunging and no obvious trigger. How much of that is real, and how much is us just trying to fit to priors? I honestly don't know. IDK if anyone does.
— Lakshya Jain (@lxeagle17) November 4, 2022
It’s not the people shouldn’t have legitimate concerns about the economy. It’s the ridiculous game of self delusion that electing a party whose priority will be investigating Hunter Biden and preventing illegal immigrants from getting sex change surgery is the answer.
— Tom Nichols (@RadioFreeTom) November 4, 2022
Bruce K in ATH-GR
I put a lot of hope in how polling of the Kansas abortion referendum severely underestimated how incredibly, angrily motivated people were in the wake of Dobbs. And I get the sense that as we learn more about the consequences of taking away Roe, that angry motivation is not going to be easily deflected by some 21st-century GOP distraction.
There’s an election looming in the distance in Greece, and my thoughts on that one are far less clear.
Baud
I thought the polling shift happened when they moved from registered voters to likely voters. If so, we’ll see who actually shows up.
Asparagus Aspersions
It’s hard to believe that there was ever a time where an upcoming election didn’t tie my stomach up in knots. I’ve been trying to tune out polls and conventional wisdom. Being in France, I find the time difference makes Election Day extra excruciating. It’ll be the middle of the night here by the time the actual results start coming in. I might just stay off all news that evening – I know from experience that it is not good for my mental health to jump between 18 open tabs, hitting “refresh” every fourteen seconds.
I am just tired of every election feeling like we’re wobbling on the edge of existential abyss. What would it be like to have two normal parties?
NotMax
Word o’ the week: psephology.
Mimi
I watched the camel video and thought I don’t think I saw camels doing that in Lawrence of Arabia. But then it occurred to me I can only remember scenes of them riding camels either on flat land or downhill.
I think I’ll have to check that later.
Baud
@NotMax:
It’s the new phrenology.
Kay
I’m afraid media and Republicans have so lowered expectations that any win by Republicans will now be announced as a “blowout”.
They’re supposed to do well in an out-year midterm. The EXPECTATION is they would do well. Don’t let these liars move the goalposts on you.
Baud
@Asparagus Aspersions:
Yeah, I’m tired of being emotionally invested in election results. It’s not a good way to live.
Baud
@Kay:
Agreed. What if they barely win? The media will still be preaching to us to fundamentally change who we are.
JMG
@Kay: I agree. Suppose the Republicans win the House with like 225 seats and the Senate with 51 or 52. Is that a blowout or a narrow shift in a closely divided electorate?
Narya
I’m afraid to hope (and just plain afraid), but I can’t help thinking that Dobbs is going to be a big factor. Women are underestimated all the damn time.
Geminid
@Mimi: Whoever said they were surprised the camel wasn’t better at climbing that dune obviously never tried walking up a sand dune themselves.
For some reason, this reminded me of the incessantly critical “Do Something” Democrats I see on Twitter.
satby
Want to read something to cheer you up? #iamtheradicalleft is all stories of mostly former Republicans voting for the Democratic nominee for Arkansas governor.
Kay
@Baud:
The downside of “hopium” is the withdrawal :)
They were supposed to win a blowout. Anything less than that is an underperformance and Democrats holding or winning is an overperformance. Possible but not what would be expected given past cycles.
That’s the truth but it’s not what we’ll hear because they no longer deliver honest (or even useful) analysis. They feed us junk. Low quality garbage work.
Baud
@Kay:
We Dems are too bipolar. It’s either exuberance or dispair. I myself have gotten caught up in that. I’m trying to change.
The media sucks, but a lot of it is based on feeding our preexisting mental illness.
rikyrah
Good Morning, Everyone😊😊😊
Kay
@JMG:
It’s a narrow shift and what would be expected given past elections.
It means they underperformed their 2010 midterm performance. It means Trump and Trumpism underperformed, or, alternately, Joe Biden and Bidenism overperformed.
I woul be ok with it if it were just media and “professional” Democrats – I could give a shit- but it never is – ordinary Democrats always buy into it and any GOP win is experienced as catastrophic.
trnc
The good news is that the one chart shows turnout. My concern is that the comparison doesn’t take into account that repubs are more likely to vote on election day, and that the non-affiliated will lean republican due to the non-stop screaming of inflation with zero context by the villagers.
I would be extremely happy to see the villagers have to eat it on Wednesday.
Patricia Kayden
@Kay: After Trump’s horrific presidency and January 6th, the fact that the American people still gravitate towards Republicans is astounding. It’s as if there is nothing that Republicans can do to lose. Almost as if they’re the default party no matter what.
Tom Nichols’ tweet is exactly right. Electing Republicans isn’t going to end inflation or solve any other problem. They amass power to harass LGBTs and other minorities — not to govern.
rikyrah
@Kay:
It was supposed to be a Red Wave. Remember? Didn’t matter what we did.
Phucking maps in Ohio and Florida and Alabama are phucking gerrymandered nightmares😠
Baud
@rikyrah:
Good morning.
satby
Also I’ve been enjoying gawking at Elmo’s train wreck management style (now trying to rescind some of his layoffs 😂). Last night Valerie Bertanelli (already a blue check) changed her name to Elon Musk and started retweeting all the Democratic ads and statements.
I’m going to miss Twitter when it implodes. Unlikely to migrate anywhere else, though Counter Social tempts me slightly. Edited because I’m using my psychotic Kindle that just substituted random words for what I wrote.
OzarkHillbilly
@Baud: At the risk of repeating myself: “Good news will wait. Bad news will not go away.”
Getting one’s self tied up in knots over an uncertain future is not healthy.
Baud
@Patricia Kayden:
Well, there are two parties and it’s pretty much split 50/50 among the electorate. We’d have a slight edge if it weren’t for structural issues in how we elect people.
At the end of the day, as long as Dems treat black people like human beings, a large part of society will treat Democrats like black people.
So, no, we can’t earn their respect, and the GOP can’t squander it.
Baud
@OzarkHillbilly:
Yes. A corollary to that is: Bad trends are unstoppable, good trends are ephemeral.
Not a good way to live.
Tony Jay
So, concisely, because I’m lazy and have an election coming up over here that is a literal David vs Slimy Cheating Bastard crapfest.
The MAGAts are way behind in early voting and voter enthusiasm, but when their Media cheerleaders ask the kind of people they think – should – be voting in a perfectly normal midterm election, they find that the GOP has an advantage?
I know which side of that equation is rather be on.
Kay
@rikyrah:
Right. While it is true that we don’t know the future and I agree this election could defy expectations, it is also true that we do know the past so can actually measure GOP performance against past midterms.
Anything less than a blowout is underperforming. That’s the truth. Anything less than a blowout discredits the NYT and the rest of the media (who follow the NYT like lemmings) because they promised a GOP blowout. They sold it for a year. If it doesn’t appear it means they either failed at predictions or failed at selling a GOP blowout to the public.
Geminid
@trnc: I am curious about how the non-affiliated will vote this year. I suspect that Democrats will break even or better with this socially and politically diverse group.
But there has been a decline in the efficacy of exit polling. We might not be able to reach very accurate conclusions as to how the Independent vote broke.
Narya
@rikyrah: and Wisconsin. That one is insane.
OzarkHillbilly
@Baud: The thing that bothers me most is the idea that disaster awaits us if we do not prevail.
It’s always a mixed bag, we win some we lose some. Tomorrow is another day and we will have more work to do.
Anyway
@Geminid:
Exactly! I thought the camel did great – ingenious the way it slid up that dune
Gratuitous camel-bashing!
Suzanne
My husband and Spawn have no school on Tuesday. I have a packed day of meetings but I’m going to go vote first thing. At this point, I just want it to be over.
Kay
@Baud:
If we can just resist the urge to overcorrect. They were supposed to win. Them winning (some) doesn’t mean we have to throw every principle out the window and adopt the (shallow, lazy and poorly thought through) NYTimes editorial page opinions as our North Star. That garbled, compromised, conflicted mess is no help to anyone.
Clarity. What are we? What’s important to us?
If “democracy” or “equity” isn’t popular this cycle that doesn’t mean we abandon it. It’s a resilient idea. It’ll be back around, and soon :)
satby
Ok, you guys need a link to https://mobile.twitter.com/search?q=%23IAmTheRadicalLeft
People are pissed off.
trnc
Of course, this is the most infuriating part of the media reporting – they rarely ask republicans what their solution is, and sadly, some dem candidates aren’t very good at articulating this, either. But we’ve grown up with the conventional wisdom that the party in power is responsible for everything, regardless of how govt actually works and other context.
Dorothy A. Winsor
@Narya: I was going to comment that I’m afraid to hope too, like hoping will call down a curse.
For not much reason at all, I think we’ll hold the Senate. I don’t know about the House. That place is crazy.
IMHO, for the next two days, the Ds should run video of January 6, reminding people what that was like.
MomSense
This election has brought me to some dark places. I went so low that I wondered what the COVID death rate might have been in R districts since the last election. The polling couldn’t possibly be picking that shift up. Right?
The thing is that GOP keep taking actions like kicking people off Medicaid, the Muslim Travel ban, deciding to let COVID kill people in blue states without providing PPE or equipment, ending abortions and letting women die or suffer needlessly. How many of their supporters or voters didn’t give the consequences a single thought?
We tie ourselves up in knots because we can’t shut out the consequences. We are fully aware of the suffering and unfairness of what will happen if they win. It really is more difficult to live life when you give a damn.
Aussie Sheila
@Kay: This exactly.
I am quietly confident that Dems will do better than people expect. I feel bad for the people that work so hard every two years just to keep the worst Conservative party in the English speaking world away from power. It shouldn’t have to be this way.
Based on nothing but my own hunch, I have a feeling that the polling is shit this time because of the number of younger voters, plus I reckon a number of normally republican women who are keeping their Dobbs disdain close to their chest.😉
Kay
I was in a kind of dive-y bar in western Michigan yesterday – late afternoon but still a busy bar (it was raining and it’s, well, western Michigan in November so “drinking season”) and the tv (college football) was NONSTOP political ads. No one was watching the ads but D’s definitely held their own- they had plenty of ads.
They ran good campaigns. It’s up to the public what they do with the information they got.
trnc
@satby:
I wondered what was going on when I saw someone had changed their name yesterday. I suppose we are all Elon Musk now (well, not me cuz I’m not in birdland), which is hilarious and terrifying.
narya
@OzarkHillbilly: Normally I’d agree with you–this one feels different. So many states where democracy really is on a knife’s edge–I mentioned Wisconsin, and that’s really a big one–and even if we win, there is still a lot of unwinding to do. Leonard Leo (ptui) and the Mercers and Uihlines and Kochs and their evil ilk have been working on this for a long time, and Citizens United unleashed the hellbeasts. I wonder if one path might be what they did in Michigan: apparently voters passed a referendum or amendment of some kind that committed the state to fair maps, and that has been a useful bastion in a state that definitely has some crazy.
New Deal democrat
A high school friend subscribed me to Jim Bob Moore’s (author of “Bush’s Brain”) newsletter “Texas to the World” last year.
Here’s an excerpt from this morning:
Simon Rosenberg, President of NDN, tweeted on Friday that there is reason for Democrats to be hopeful and enthusiastic: “What I’m seeing: Ds continue to overperform in polls/early vote in the Senate battlegrounds – Early vote remains very encouraging for Ds. Marist polls another problem for red wave narrative. These polls continue the pattern of respected independent polls being 4-8 pts. more Dem than the recent flood of bullshit GOP polls.”
On Friday, Marist dropped three Senate polls that run distinctly counter to the mainstream media’s dire predictions for Democrats. The surveyors of Marist are historically quite accurate and they show Fetterman leading Oz in Pennsylvania by 51-45, Kelly up in Arizona 50-47, and Warnock and Walker tied in Georgia at 48 but the Democrat’s numbers increasing 4 points with registered voters over the past week.
Rosenberg considers the early vote data a “repudiation” of the red wave narrative and that its embrace was “wildly premature.” He points out that it did not show up in the 5 house special elections this year, certainly did not even appear pink in the Kansas abortion vote, in post Dobbs voter registration, and is not present in the early vote or the Senate battleground states. The only place the red wave has manifested, Rosenberg insists, is in “BS GOP polls, some national tracks, and right-wing Twitter.”
Baud
@Kay:
One of the most pernicious ideas among Democrats is that we should be winning by a lot. We really shouldn’t be, given where the electorate is right now.
SFAW
I understand Amandi’s point re: 4M vote advantage for Dems in early voting.
But what he fails to understand is that NONE of those Dem votes were legitimate votes, and so the body politic has a way of shutting those down.
Kay
@Aussie Sheila:
I think we also know that if there isn’t a huge red wave (which Republican voters have been primed for by media and GOP campaigns) Republicans voters are going to go bananas with fraud accusations and dumb lawsuits and their idiotic, bellowing spokespeople all over the media, yammering. That exhausts me more than losing one cycle although I see a lot less of it since I’m off Twitter and long ago stopped watching cable.
Baud
@Kay:
I agree. There are some fundamental issues we either win or we get defeated on, but we don’t give up.
SFAW
@Baud:
Well, the “should be winning by a lot” is based on the idea that most of the electorate is rational/sane, and is not motivated by hatred for The Other.
Which, at some level, is a good thing — it means Dems (by-and-large) still have a sense of decency and compassion and so forth. Even if that sense is misguided.
SFAW
@Kay:
You’re taking food out of the mouths of Elon’s children! Shame on you! How will they survive?
trucmat
@New Deal democrat:
Another place that swallowed the Dems are doomed line was Josh Marshall and TalkingPointsMemo. He cannot stop talking about the upcoming GOP Congress as if it is a done deal. Been reading the guy for two decades and this is the lamest he has ever been.
Baud
@SFAW:
It’s not really a good thing if we end up attacking ourselves for losing because we underestimate how many people are with the other side in mind and spirit.
catothedog
@Baud:
That is all you need to know about why the media and the society has a daddy fixation about Republicans. There is a pining for “benevolent white rule” to come back. (even it its not-so-benevolent for non-whites).
Think JD Vance as the media’s ideal Democrat, and you will understand.
It has always been about who rules, not about how they rule. The hidden assumption in American politics, an unquestioned, but unobserved reality. Like “this is water”. White privilege.
Both parties in the US used to be built on a platform of benevolent white rule. The lines were different of course, one was more racist than the other. And while there was general racial progress over time, liberal racism was still an unquestioned fact of life.
But now we are in a place where one of those parties – the Democrats – are having a debate on the validity of white privilege to wield power. There is no consensus within that party on what will replace it; and it’s not yet completely sorted out. But white privilege is being questioned and you can see the back and forth within the party.
The other party, Republicans, is now explicit about the same question. The political process since Obama has simply made this fight about privilege explicit where it was implied.
The fundamental assumption under white rule – benevolent or not – is immoral, and defense of this immorality is impossible by moral means. Hence the constant lying, delusions and pretensions needed to make it seem moral.
The media is fighting for a restoration of “benevolent white rule” as the unquestioned and foundational basis of the country. Why? Because most of the media is white, and made out of unqualified bums who owe their cushy life to privilege .
All of the media believes that once white privilege is re-established as the status quo, the Republicans will put fascism and racism back in the box, the Democrats will fall in line and fall back to liberal racism.
We will all go back to the days of gentle liberal racism and the arguments will only be over economic policy. That’s the media’s wet dream
Mousebumples
@narya: Wisconsin doesn’t have the same ability to put those sorts of questions to the voters, from what I’ve heard in the post-Roe era. Sen. Johnson’s “solution” is to let the voters decide when abortion should be allowed… Which is not something that the GOP legislature is willing to allow.
I’m volunteering with a textbank #GOTV today for a Oregon house race. Hopefully, my kiddos won’t be too traumatized by the time change that I can join. 🤞 That’s the plan anyhow.
Don’t prognosticate. GOTV!
Kay
@Baud:
I think that is part of “we’re better than THIS” meaning “Americans, which I never thought was true.
I don’t think we – Americans- are “better than this”. I don’t even know what that means. If we were “better than this” we wouldn’t have been doing it since 2016- 6 years now.
A panic over trans people or “CRT” or “wokeness” is as American as anything good we do. There are panics just about every 30 years, and always as backlash to change.
I’m going to get involved in helping women with access to reproductive health care in a direct way- I love to drive, am ok financially and my kids are grown and (sadly) my grandkids live in NY and Denmark (respectively) so until I retire I can’t see them a lot. I’m in a good position to help directly.
frosty
@SFAW: I see what you did there. Nice!
Aussie Sheila
@Kay: It must be exhausting dealing with them. I honestly believe that rank and file Dems should get a couple of big name Dems who are in safe areas- say someone like Newsom or someone with a big megaphone, to play point person in publicly hitting back at those arseholes the minute they start whinging. I am used to robust political debate where I am, both politically and in industrial organising, but I can honestly say I have never heard or seen anything like it.
Rank and file Dems should expect some mega defence and attack dogs when you are under attack. Not the stupid nyt or wapo, but a concerted bullhorn from powerful Dems that they can’t ignore.
wenchacha
There will still be those hours after polls close, when GQP rush to declare victory. It worked so well for their leader, and so they will bleat while we all wait for the votes to be counted.
So, I hope we have a plan to refute their claims, besides winning. And I do hope for winning.
SFAW
@Baud:
Fair point. But at least there’s a greater likelihood of “redemption,” i.e., that the Dems attacking other Dems eventually realize their mistake.
Baud
@Kay:
Awesome, Kay. 🤞 we have the votes next yeat to overturn Dobbs so you can visit your grandkids more.
Geminid
@Kay: The “red wave” narrative also rests on Republicans maintaining and even improving their 2020 turnout (albeit on a midterm scale). I question this. Republicans got a noticeable “trump bump” in 2020. For various reasons, I don’t believe they will sustain it. I think some portion of those extra voters have already walked away. We’ll know if they have by this time Wednesday morning.
SFAW
@frosty:
Thanks. I was achin’ to use that one.
frosty
@Mousebumples: Knocking doors in Allentown today for Shapiro, Fetterman, and Susan Wild. Who has a chance, unlike the really good candidate running against Scott Perry here in Confederate PA.
Baud
@wenchacha:
We went through this in 2020. We’ll do fine. We can’t “refute” their claims because their claims are for their cult members.
Kay
@SFAW:
I loathed Elon Musk well before Twitter, and I liked Twitter and see how it’s useful to ordinary people and marginalized groups.
I think he’s a coddled, privileged over-hyped liar and his car company is inflated bullshit. 9x value of established car companies? MY ASS. That’s just insane.
It’s a shame he bought Twitter but he did. It’ll be as big a fraud as the rest of his holdings.
JMG
@Kay: He’s just so out of his element. Musk thinks because he likes Twitter, he can run it. I like movies, but I don’t think I could run Disney.
Baud
@catothedog:
Yes, I think their ultimate goal is to separate middle class white liberals from the Democratic coalition.
JPL
The local news interviewed a few republican voters, and apparently some are leaving the Senate race blank. One did admit that if there was a runoff, he might vote for the republican. That was a might though.
SFAW
@Kay:
And those are his GOOD points (relatively speaking).
OzarkHillbilly
@satby: Heh, I have first hand experience with that story in Arkansas. I have one old caving friend who, whenever talked of in the third person, was always referred to as “B the Republican” because in our circles there were so few GOPs. He flipped quite some time ago and in some ways, he is now more liberal than I.
JPL
@Kay: With the new blue check, you don’t really know who you are following. Valerie Bertinelli has been able to post positive tweets about democrats under Musk’s name.
I deactivated my account.
lowtechcyclist
Who cares? If they underperform by winning ‘only’ 218 House seats, they’ve still got the House. We can pat ourselves on the back all we want for holding them way under expectations based on past midterms, but Roe will still be dead in much of the country, and forget voting rights or climate change legislation.
Sorry if I sound like this, but it’s the difference between 217 and 218 that matters. 218 and 240 are functionally equivalent for them.
Mousebumples
@frosty: Awesome! I saw some online phone banking for Susan Wild, but the Eastern time zone options don’t work as well for me. Glad she’s got you helping out!
WaterGirl
@Suzanne: Do you have a link to the puzzle board you bought on Amazon?
OzarkHillbilly
Newsom would never play in the hills and hollers, nor most anyplace in the midwest. It needs to be done by local DEMs who know not just what to say, but how to say it. Fetterman is a fair example. He speaks Pennsylvania, OZ is not at all fluent in it.
SFAW
@OzarkHillbilly:
But NOT more intelligent nor more handsome, big fella.
WaterGirl
@SFAW: Please tell me that man does not have children.
Baud
@WaterGirl:
I think he has a quiverfull.
MagdaInBlack
@New Deal democrat: And so, call me Pollyanna, but I remain cautiously optimistic.
MomSense
@WaterGirl:
10 of them.
Geminid
@JPL: Very interesting anecdotal evidence. There was a large difference in Kemp’s and Walker’s poll numbers in May but I think Walker caught up some by September. Some of those prospective Kemp/Walker voters might be taking another look at Walker and deciding they don’t like what they see.
OzarkHillbilly
@SFAW: I could argue with you on both of those points, one failure he does have is lousy taste in women. He falls for bad partners and I don’t know why, he is smart, good looking, well paid, and one of the nicest, kindest people I know.
I on the other hand am not any of that, but I hooked my wife who certainly deserves better.
SFAW
@WaterGirl:
“X AE A-XII,” his child with Grimes, was the first that came to mind. Apparently there are quite a few more.
https://pagesix.com/article/elon-musk-children/
[Chrome tells me the link is not secure.]
If I understood correctly, he became father to two kids, one or two months apart, with two different mothers.
Aussie Sheila
@OzarkHillbilly: OK.I get that. Makes sense. So maybe select people in the right areas, with the requisite bullhorns and let fly. I honestly believe that part of the depression and exhaustion (apart from the stupefying work just to get people to vote, goddamit), is the lack of validation and support from people who can shout over the constant drumbeat of absolute stupidity and timidity I see whenever I watch US political shows.
Just for once, I would like to see someone say ‘actually (fill in gormless host name), I reject the premise of the question, and here’s why’.
Christ no-one hits back. It’s unbelievable.
SFAW
@OzarkHillbilly:
Me, too. [Vis-a-vis my own wife, of course, not Mrs. OH.]
WaterGirl
@Baud: The idea of Musk, Trump, Marge and Boebert reproducing makes me shudder. And they think poor white and brown people aren’t fit to raise children.
WaterGirl
@MomSense: Oh my god.
WaterGirl
@SFAW: Family values!
SFAW
@Aussie Sheila:
yeah, it’s frustrating. One thing that really frosts me is places other than the FTFTFNYT talking about “groundless claims” or “baseless claims” made by Party of Traitors candidates and officials. They’re effing LIES, and the Rethugs KNOW they’re lies. Just freaking say that!
Baud
@Aussie Sheila:
I barely watch cable news but I still see Dems hitting back all the time.
OzarkHillbilly
@Aussie Sheila: We certainly need to do better in that department. Secretary Pete B gives a masterclass in that every time he gets interviewed.
Kay
@lowtechcyclist:
Well, you should care because one is a bigger embrace of Trumpism than the other. I actually believe in the political positions I have, and I know you do too. I’d support public education et cetera if there were ten of us.
I care a lot if they underperform. It means they’re weak going forward and can be beaten next time.
I agree womens agency and liberty are a tough one in the US. It may take decades to overcome what is deep and embedded sexism in this country and overturning Roe was a huge step back. That panics me a little – I have a daughter and two grandaughters- but I’ve given it a lot of thought and I don’t know what I can do right now other than help individual women who are stuck in the (more) backward states (like mine) get to a state where they still have a full set of rights. I can do that. I lok forward to them trying to stop me :)
SFAW
@WaterGirl:
Don’t know if you read the article, but apparently one of his offspring, when they became old enough, became trans (sorry if “became” is not the correct word) and changed their name, to sever any relationship with him and his name.
Baud
@OzarkHillbilly:
Pete is uniquely skilled.
I think liberals rage watch right wing media and for some reason expect to immediately see pushback from Dems to what they see and hear.
Not that there’s not always room for improvement when it comes to messaging.
OzarkHillbilly
@WaterGirl: Boebert is married to a registered sexual offender. I certainly find that reassuring.
SFAW
@Kay:
That Hillary lost, and Kathy Hochul is not destroying Zeldin, among various races, are indicators. I think Maura Healey [MA Gov] is probably going to win, but I bet it’ll be closer than 538’s aggregate shows.
Although I might have used “misogyny,” rather than sexism, but that’s just personal preference re: terminology, and not necessarily accurate/correct.
Baud
@Kay:
Even though we won in 2020, we underperformed the polls, and the media treated it as if we had lost.
JMG
@lowtechcyclist: Not so. Margin of majority matters enormously. Just think of the Senate now. If there were 52 Democrats, Manchin and Sinema would be nothing. But there are 50. People don’t give Pelosi enough credit for keeping her very narrow majority together the past two years. It’s not easy. It’s certainly beyond Kevin McCarthy’s abilities. If the Democrats lose the House but the Republicans have a majority of 220 or less, that’s a terrific performance by the Ds.
Kay
@Baud:
exactly. Remember how they called it a loss and VOTES were still coming in and D’S were still winning actual races?
they’re bad at the work of covering elections.
I think I’m a little calmer with a loss because I’m a political minority here and we lose all the time :)
Mike E
Seriously, FTFNYT. And Wapo. And NPR. And the big 3, and a hearty FU to CNN. And “centrist” consultants like Lis Smith (worked for Pete Buttigieg) who wrote how Dems have a silver lining in their historic defeat that hasn’t even happened yet, nor shouldn’t if people like her could acknowledge the criminal enterprise that is the GOP. Fuggem.
Kay
@SFAW:
unpopular opinion here, but I think the progressiveness of NY is overrated
they fucking loved Rudy and he’s a fascist. The NY media LOVE Trump. They adore him
Baud
@Kay:
I have a deep respect for red state Dem voters.
Aussie Sheila
@Baud:
I never watch right wing media. At home or when scrolling abroad. I can’t stand the stupidity for a start, let alone the bigotry. However, I used to watch cnn clips (no more), and it was pathetic. msnbc is hardly better. Everyone is so polite, and there is hardly any pushback on narratives that even from over here I know are just centrist, conventional wisdom BS.
Anyway, I feel a bit more confident than others here. I still believe that the red vote in 2020 was a high water mark for the thugs, and represented trumps unique ability to draw low info and low propensity voters to the polls. It seems to me that a decent effort has been made by Dems on messaging and gotv in this mid term, and tfg is not on the ballot for the red 2020 electorate, but he is still salient for Dems I believe.
Fingers and toes crossed to all in the next 48 hours.✌️
Eunicecycle
@narya: but we in Ohio passed 2 constitutional amendments, one for Congress and one for our state legislature, requiring fair maps and our map drawing committee just ignored them! Our Supreme Court said they were unconstitutional and ordered them to fix them but they just ignored the Court, because the amendments had no consequences for not following them.
Baud
Honestly, I’m more worried about Ukraine than I am about us when it comes to this election.
suzanne
@WaterGirl: I think it’s this one? Fits under the couch when not in use.
marklar
@frosty: Please skip my house…we all received confirmation that our mail-in ballots have been received, and I have COVID.
Also, thanks for doing this. I’ve known Wild’s opponent quite well for several decades, and she’s an absolute kook.
mali muso
@catothedog: This is a very accurate summary of the situation, imo. Well stated.
JMG
@Baud: There’s a lot in what you say, but this is an issue which could well split any GOP majority in Congress.
Kay
They’ll be a huge push for Dems to act on a crime panic – billions at police with no accountability- I hope we can resist media- promoted panics and act rationally, even if we lose
Democracy and civil rights may not be fashionable this cycle – you’ll be advised to abandon them by fake-smart people
don’t
Baud
@JMG:
Maybe. But the risk is there, and the consequences are so dire.
dww44
@Kay: Given the current GOP’s goal of blowing up everything, any GOP victory is a catastrophe for the country. I am not looking forward to endless, pointless investigations and impeachment trials nor to rolling debt default threats. It just makes me angry and fearful.
SFAW
@Kay:
Upstate NY is pretty Red in a number of areas, if I understand correctly. But NYC and environs is still pretty Blue, even taking Rudy into account. Well, if you take out Staten Island.
It annoys the shit out of me how much the FTFTFNYT hated the Clintons, and loved/loves The Traitor. I’m guessing a large part of that was/is Pinch Sulzberger, who took over in 1992. I don’t recall if Punch (his father) was that way, but Pinche (his son) certainly is.
WaterGirl
@SFAW: Well I guess that means at least one of his kids is smart!
pat
Just half way through the comments, but can you imagine the repukes if they lose, after being told over and over that they are riding a red wave??
The will go berserk.
WaterGirl
@OzarkHillbilly: Oh, lovely. I guess she’s always demonstrated excellent judgment. //
OzarkHillbilly
@Baud: Pete is truly uinique, I couldn’t even dream of being as good at it as he is. One problem DEMs have is the propensity of talking heads to invite GOPs on their shows w/o (appaerently) bothering to get a DEM*.
Hard to push back if you aren’t even there.
*as far as i know, I rarely watch that stuff and then it is only clips on twitter.
SFAW
@Baud:
“Give me a reason to vote for Hillary, but without mentioning Donald Trump or the Supreme Court.”
I sometimes wonder if the moron “Dem voter” I heard utter that moronitude has ever reconsidered her position/vote, in light of exactly what you point out.
hueyplong
@JMG: You’re quite the optimist with your assumption that there are any GOPers who would deviate from the Kill Ukraine party line they are already announcing. So it’s the groundswell of GOP support for Cheney that keeps you hoping?
SFAW
@Mike E:
Reminds me of Ralph Fucking Nader rationalizing post-2000 that W would make things so bad, it would usher in a generation of liberalism in response. Delusional, narcissistic asshole.
artem1s
I’ve been hearing my rightwing MAGAt family screeching about inflation for decades – since Carter at least. It’s the GQP go-to for every year the Dems are having to dig the economy out of the canyon they created. Any election year the same GQP bullshit gets pushed around the block again – especially if they perceive the election isn’t going to go the way they want it to go. No matter how well the country is doing the constant wallowing in hate and despair twists them into knots no matter what is really going on. We know the Obama administration broke something critical in the average GQP voter. I saw die-hard ex-military GOPers vote against McCain in 2008 because of the stellar job Turdblossom did crapping all over McCain’s reputation during W first campaign. This Pavlovian tendency for GOPer to jump ship every election cycle for the next guy who promises to ‘fix’ all those problems they’ve been trained to whinge about may finally become a real problem for them. The pattern emerged in force during the astroturf, Tea Party years. And went completely crazy in 2016.
The drop off in voters during mid-terms effects both parties. Is there any one issue that can engage voters enough to get them out of the house in a mid-term election? There wasn’t for the GOP in 2020. Even with huge turn out, the GOP-voter’s tendency to be impatient worked against them enough that TFG lost the WH and the GOP lost the Senate.
A few of the state’s GOP candidates are new enough that the Tea Party throw-the-bums-out pattern will still work for them. The OH Senate race is a perfect example of this. If Portman had decided to run again, I think Ryan would have had a real chance to win that seat. I always expected Vance to win the primary because he is the most likely to appeal to the Tea Party tendency to grab onto the newest Deplorable in a crowded field of standard old guard R’s. Mandel had an outside chance but he forgot how anti-Semitic the rural gold bug loving OH militia is. But even with a Big Daddy on the ticket in Ohio, I expect turn out for the GOP to be low in strong R rural and suburban areas. The PA Senate race both guys are pretty new so that no-incumbent race isn’t going the way the GOP hoped. And Oz just isn’t up to Deplorable standards. He’s just not the drinking buddy they want to hang out with.
The average GOP voter may be buying the “inflation is the real Hitler” bullshit. But I also think they are confused about who they should be hating. It’s not as if there are hordes of Mexicans or trans kids standing around their neighborhoods. And too many suburban white women have a failed contraception abortion to reflect on. Their kids are in school again and they can ignore COVID to their hearts content pretty much. They are probably even seeing economic gains. The Great Resignation and hybrid working situations didn’t just help Dems get away from toxic work places.
The one great hit the media hasn’t really resurrected is Voter Fatigue. Remember that one? Who is fatigued enough they don’t even turn out? The White Woman voter who is tired of having to defend their deplorable vote that helped overturn Roe? The ex-military guy who is truly embarrassed by what happened on 1/6? The average why-can’t-we-just-all-get-along normie who has no interest in seeing MAGAt ruin every party and family get together. They may never be able to pull the lever for a D like they did when they hate-voted against McCain. More likely they will return to being a typical, every 4 years WH Superbowl voter and do their best to stick to whinging about whoever is currently in office no matter which party they belong to.
When you’ve been conditioned to believe they are all alike, why even put in the effort to vote?
So who do you think wins the voter fatigue wars this mid-term?
frosty
@Kay: This recalls one of Obama’s elections when one of the precinct captains said if we get 34% or better in our County we win PA. 34%!!!! Yeah, we’re used to losing here too.
Eolirin
@WaterGirl: They’re not raising their kids anyway.
WaterGirl
We must have done the time change thing last night.
WaterGirl
@Eolirin: Did they put them out in the back yard on a chain?
Another Scott
@satby: Thanks for the pointer.
In a rational world, Democrats would add to their majorities because COVID cases are low, vaccines are working, and the course of the economy follows the course of the pandemic. The job market is still strong, after-inflation wage increases are up for the first time in ages and inflation (especially in housing) is moderating. The rich are paying more in taxes. Gas prices are stable or falling. Federal student loan debt is being reduced or canceled. Investments in infrastructure and fighting climate change are kicking in. Supply chain issues are being resolved. Car prices are falling. Democrats are fighting medical care price inflation and raising Social Security benefits. Democrats are protecting the rule of law at home and abroad, and protecting the international order without being bogged down in forever wars.
I would much, much rather be fighting for re-election and expanding the team in this environment than the alternative.
Yeah, the world isn’t fully rational. But Kansas [and Dobbs!!] shows that it’s more rational than it is locked-in to some unchanging post-war election history (“the out party wins 28 House seats and 4 Senate seats on average in the mid-terms”).
GOTMFV as LOLGOP used to say.
Forward!!
Cheers,
Scott.
OzarkHillbilly
Heh.
@WaterGirl: The ultimate IOKIYAR. Family values my ass.
lowtechcyclist
@Baud:
Given GOP gerrymandering in Ohio and elsewhere, the notion that we can win by a lot is downright absurd. Winning the House by any margin will be a substantial achievement.
SFAW
@WaterGirl:
Yes. I set my clock, and right now it’s 3:47 PM on Long Island (NY)
frosty
@Aussie Sheila: I hope you’re right about 2020 being the high water mark but I worked the polls in 2010 and the low-info first time voters came out in droves because of the Tea Party bullshit. I don’t think they need Trump to get them out. Anything can trigger them.
Fair Economist
@lowtechcyclist:
Not quite. A lot of the Republican Congressmen have social or mental issues and they will find it almost impossible to get anything done. With a narrow majority they’ll even have a hard time electing a Speaker.
frosty
@marklar: If you’re a regular voter you shouldn’t be on the list.
OzarkHillbilly
@WaterGirl: Some of us did.
JMG
@hueyplong: It’s not that at all. Putin is a very unpopular figure. Not all of the GOP pols will be eager to take his side. And remember the endless shit Biden took for leaving Afghanistan from the media. That would be quintupled for opponents of aid to Ukraine. The media’s approach to wars is good vs. evil, and Putin has a lock on evil.
Eolirin
@WaterGirl: They have people for that.
Aussie Sheila
@frosty: yeah but there was something about Obama, can’t quite put my finger on it.😕
Biden seems from here to be not only an excellent political manager but he also isn’t Obama, if you know what I mean.
SFAW
@OzarkHillbilly:
One hopes you know (what I’m told is) Mexican slang.
[For those saying “WTF?”: “Pinche” is the Spanish word for “scullion”; but in Mexico, and among Tejanos/Tex-Mex, it’s “fucking,” as in “pinche cabron.”]
SFAW
@Aussie Sheila:
Well, I think it’s because he was
uppity“aloof.”OzarkHillbilly
But we live in this world and that is a list of the all time greatest hits the GOP hate about DEMs.
danielx
In other news, water is wet…..
Trump and other Republicans are already casting doubt on midterm results
Because of course they are.
oatler
ABC is predicting a Republican sweep, with concerns about election violence from both sides.
Baud
@danielx:
I hope they complain about being cheated out of a win for the next 20 years (at least).
WaterGirl
@suzanne: Thank you!
Another Scott
@Kay: Tesla’s price isn’t based on fundamentals, it’s based on the way the line moves around and the buzz and all that stuff. It looks like the current P/E ratio is 64.
Shorts are up a lot, meaning more people are betting the price will fall in some particular fixed time period.
The bubble always eventually bursts.
Cheers,
Scott.
WaterGirl
@Eolirin: The kids are lucky they do!
Dorothy A. Winsor
@frosty: My first presidential vote was for Hubert Humphrey. After that, with a brief break for Carter, I cast losing votes for many years until Bill Clinton came along. So I was used it too. But those losses didn’t feel as consequential as a loss now might be.
suzanne
@frosty:
2020 was our first election here in PA, and I remember every talking head saying that we wouldn’t know the results until they have the ballots counted in “Allegheny County, the Democratic stronghold!!!!”. So now I hear that in my head constantly.
I live in Brookline, which is 75% Dem, but that 25% of dead-enders sure do grind my gears.
Geminid
@Baud: Buttigieg certainly is highly skilled, but I think there are some more Democrats who can communicate at his level. I haven’t gotten to see much of people like Gretchen Whitmer and Sherrod Brown but I bet they are close. I think Energy Secretary Jennifer Granholm communicates at Buttegieg’s high level, as does Rep. Hakeem Jeffries.
Eunicecycle
@artem1s: I think you are right about the probable drop in R voters. I do attribute it to Trump not being on the ticket, plus the red wave prediction. Hopefully the red wave thing will work for us this time and Rs won’t bother to vote.
OzarkHillbilly
@SFAW: All the time I spent in Mexico, I picked more than a little bit of their slang. It’s been years since last I was there, so I’ve forgotten a bit, but pinche sticks in my brain because of an incident with a Mex friend’s 4 yr old.
Geminid
@JMG: I think that the cohesion of the House Democratic Caucus is an underrated story. They had a rancorous blow up over emergency border funding in July, 2019. But since then they have been very united, which may not generate headlines but is still a real achievement.
Aussie Sheila
@Geminid: I have a confession to make. I thought Sherod Brown should have been the Dem nom for president in 2019.
However, Biden did the job, and is still doing it very very well imho.
OzarkHillbilly
Off to get my Grand daughters for today and tomorrow. Try to relax a little folks and have a little fun too.
Baud
@OzarkHillbilly:
I can’t believe you’d rather spend time with your granddaughters than fret with us. :-(
zhena gogolia
@Kay: And they loved A. Cuomo.
Baud
@Geminid:
We have a lot of good advocates. But most Dems will be average. Because that’s what average means.
SiubhanDuinne
@SFAW:
Ah hahaha!!
SFAW
@OzarkHillbilly:
I had no idea re: you in Mexico. My exposure was from having a ton of Tejano (they said Tex-Mex in those days, but I guess it seems a bit demeaning these days) friends my freshman year in college. Learned a lot of good profanity. [Side story: when I moved into a frat, one day one of my classmates (from LA, but not Latino) uttered a Spanish curse directed at me. I lit into him for a minute or two, and he said, in effect, “Wow, what do all those mean?” Good fun.]
Nelle
Jumping in to say that the Sunday Des Moines Register says that Grassley’s lead has jumped from 3 points to double digits. Headline after headline shouts that, in the last two weeks, the Republicans are surging. Am I in a bubble?
I guess so. My Republican neighbor says she can’t vote for the Republicans running. A rural farmer, visiting his grandkids across the street, comes over to introduce himself and thank us for our signs supporting Democratic candidates. Early voting is jammed, despite torrential rains.
The newspaper goes in recycling. I may not pay attention until Wednesday morning. I’ll keep busy texting voters. Well, that and time under anaesthia for a combination endoscopy/colonoscopy tomorrow. Maybe they can keep me under until Wednesday.
Betty
@Tony Jay: This is likely too late for you to see, but I wanted to tell you that I saw the 2 Al Jazeera documentaries on the destruction of Jeremy Corbin and his supporters. Political assassination by the Tories, the BBC and New Labour. Stunning.
Geminid
@hueyplong: Liz Cheney is far from the only House Republican who supports Ukraine. It will be a split caucus, and it may well be a Minority caucus.
rikyrah
@Baud:
Boom.
Truth in every word. Backwards and forwards.
rikyrah
@MomSense:
This is so true. When you care about your fellow human beings, it’s rough out there.
rikyrah
@narya:
Looking at the Voting and Abortion measures in Michigan on Tuesday.
brantl
@Kay:
because they are. They hork the world up every time they get a toehold.
rikyrah
@Kay:
Now, THIS , I don’t give a phuck about.
When I look at the Voter Suppression put into place by Republican states, THAT is what pisses me off to no end.
They can’t phucking win unless they CHEAT
And, have the unmitigated gall to actually call themselves patriots.
Phuck that shyt. They don’t believe in little d- democracy. Not in the least.
So many Red States are just completely Voter Suppressed states.
rikyrah
@catothedog:
This is more than a word. Thanks
Nelle
@satby: We could use this for every state.
Geminid
@Aussie Sheila: To me, Sherrod Brown is the epitome of a successful, pragmatic progressive Democrat.
I want to add that I really appreciated the observations about Australian politics you made the other day. We need to know more about the political scene in other countries, and it seems as though Australian politics have a lot of similarities to American politics.
JPL
@Geminid: Walker’s negatives are high, so I think some might be reconsidering their vote. At least I hope so
If there is a runoff and Kemp is not on the ballot, do the republicans turn out for Herschel? I doubt it.
sdhays
@rikyrah: If gerrymandering was illegal and voting rights were guaranteed (which really shouldn’t be controversial asks), no one would be confidently predicting a Republican takeover of the House, even with the polls as they are. The existing Democratic majority would be much higher and the wave required would seem at least a bit daunting even for the silly pundits.
JPL
@OzarkHillbilly: Oh my. Although exhausting, a good time will be had by all. 💕
Eolirin
@zhena gogolia: Cuomo was not well liked by activist Dems even here. But Cuomo was masterful at hitting that exact right balance of socially liberal and business friendly while appearing competent and “powerful” to people who weren’t paying close attention.
That he was deliberately fucking with the state legislature so that he could be the guy that came in to sort things wasn’t going to be obvious to people not paying attention, but that he was always the one sorting things was.
So we had divided government here for a lot longer than we needed to, but that also meant the right wasn’t ever really getting pissed off by anything, as progress on any areas where we had significant disagreement was very slow.
That being said, NY isn’t a progressive state it’s true. It’s a blue state. They’re not quite the same thing. We’re more like Illinois than MA or any of the west coast states. The one big city skews the whole state politically, the rural area areas are rabid red. History of extreme political corruption regardless of party. Democrats are an institution more than a policy agenda.
Now that we have proper control of the legislature that’s starting to change some. But it won’t look like CA anytime soon, too many of the Dems here are more like the Blue Dog caucus. That’s okay. Too much of the state is red for us to go too far too fast anyway.
But I hope we manage to get through this cycle here without any real losses, even if things are closer than they should be. The legislature is finally starting to pass some bills that aren’t badly implemented and counterproductive on important issues, which is refreshing, and I’d like to see them continue to be able to do that.
hueyplong
@Geminid: They haven’t yet faced the prospect of the party not getting its way due to splitters. When I see the first example of that I’ll agree with you
Jesse
@trucmat: interesting that you noticed that, too. I am a TPM subscriber and normally read it daily. But for the last month or so I haven’t visited even once. I felt that he was leaning in too hard to the “Ds are doomed” stories.
Baud
@rikyrah:
I’m not a people person, so I could be very wrong, but my hunch is that people suffering from Republican policies aren’t all that interested in our derivative suffering on their behalf. Sometimes I feel our empathy comes off badly.
lowtechcyclist
@JMG:
On our side, maybe. My point was it didn’t matter on theirs.
Kevin MCarthy won’t be the one keeping the House majority in line. It’ll be the base, it’ll be Fucker Carlson, it’ll be the GOP candidates for President all trying to out-Trump each other (including TFG himself) and filling RW media with outrage if a single GOP Congressperson dares step out of line.
O. Felix Culpa
@satby:
Psychotic Kindle will be my new band name.
RaflW
@Kay: If the press shades the news against Democrats, reporters and editors get tersely worded tweets and letters to the editor sent to them.
If they’re perceived as shading the news against Republicans, they get death threats, photos of their kids walking home from school as obvious reminders that the nutbags know where they live and what their families are up to, etc.
Of course I am not suggesting Democrats or aligned individuals do anything of the sort. But until we deal with the many stochastic threats from GOP officials, and the army of loons ready to carry them out as if they are ‘orders’, a lot of the problems in this county are going to get unbalanced responses.
JPL
@lowtechcyclist: Donald might have a say about that.
Aussie Sheila
@Geminid: yes there are similarities, but two things make a big difference-we have compulsory, preferential voting here, and our Senate is not as malaportioned as the US.
Culturally, Oz is very different. Much more ‘collective’ in temperament, and little to no political support for batshit libertarianism at any level. Much less religious, in fact in many respects quite hostile to what we call ‘god botherers’. Our population is now 40% who have one parent born overseas.
Also there is a certain discomfort with earnest moralising. The preferred method for dealing with arseholes is endless mockery, and absolute glee at finding out and broadcasting the peccadillos of powerful hypocrites.
Still, there are plenty of dills and racists to keep a person busy, if you know what I mean.😎
lowtechcyclist
@JMG:
If the GOP wins the House, aid for Ukraine would still need majority support within the caucus to be considered. And maybe way more; they keep shifting the goalposts on the meaning of the ‘Hastert Rule.’
lowtechcyclist
@JPL:
True, but I’m still confident he’ll try to out-Trump himself.
Geminid
@Aussie Sheila: Yes, it’s a very different system. The similarity is more in the respective electorates.
And the two coalitions that contend in Australia are not too different from the Democrats and Republicans here, or at least it seems that way to me.
Lacuna Synecdoche
@Kay:
In Michigan, I would have thought drinking season coincided with the season of days that end in “y”.
JMG
@lowtechcyclist: A discharge petition by 218 members brings any legislation to the floor. That’d be a dramatic split for the GOP, but it’s not like McCarthy can block it.
Kristine
@Mousebumples: Where did you sign up for textbanking?
Layer8Problem
@zhena gogolia: Andrew Cuomo’s prestige or glamour or whatever was presenting as the tough-minded pragmatist Democrat who could reach across the aisle and make the tough decisions, the bare-knuckled player, the daddy figure that we Democrats needed to beat the Republicans at their own game. With the “Independent Democratic Conference” he was able to keep walking into the smoke-filled room with the Republican leaders, close the door, and make “the best deal possible.” Hey, he looked good at the beginning of Covid and he ran with it with those press conferences showing him and his staff managing a public health crisis, but he was always an asshole.
Eyeroller
@Nelle: This allegedly huge shift over only two weeks puzzles me. I don’t think I’ve ever seen it happen before. Nothing has really changed since August–the economy is if anything better. Crime? The media always talks about crime. Is this due to the media drumbeat? Is it due to dishonest polls? Hard to say. It’s just that I have seen many elections in the past where a “surge” is an illusion, usually for a candidate I had supported. It just seems strange. Even with Hillary and the Comey letter the shift was small–it was just that it was barely enough given the EC.
Omnes Omnibus
@Lacuna Synecdoche: That’s Wisconsin (and I grant you the UP).
On Topic: The election is already happening. Early in person voting and mail-in votes are part of the election. Voting ends on Tuesday, but the results might not be be clear for a while after that. Some states (Georgia perhaps) will have runoffs. Others will have recounts. If we win or lose, we need to start preparing for 2024. The GOP will. We shouldn’t give them a head start.
Eolirin
@Eyeroller: Might be a shift from registered voter to likely voter.
JMG
@Omnes Omnibus: Roughly 40 million people have already voted. That’s around 30 percent of the expected total.
Another Scott
@trucmat: I haven’t read Josh and TPM since the W days, I don’t think.
One thing I did think was interesting in the long excerpt someone posted recently was him talking about how advertisers don’t like politics because it’s too divisive. Maybe he’s right that that’s why the MSM both-sides the hell out of everything even if it means fighting the plain truth of reality.
(Yet another NPR example – a recent ATC story:
[ your humble editor’s comments ]
And it strikes me that if that’s right, and maybe it is, then it’s even more of an indictment of the state of the MSM than calling them gormless hacks. It makes them worse than FB and Fox News and all the rest, because it shows that they’re the This Is Fine dog when they know better because they’re NOT hacks. They don’t have an agenda except doing anything they can to keep their advertisers. News is nothing but a lie to serve ads.
Lizard people rule the world and Belgians and Vice Foster are in cahoots with them? Sure, we’ll print that because some people are saying it and we have to both-sides everything or we’ll lose the Fast Eddie’s account!!
Non-profit news outlets like ProPublica mess up occasionally, but they aren’t actively trying to destroy the commonweal by destroying reality.
Grr…,
Scott.
Aussie Sheila
@Geminid: Actually, the ALP is very different to the Dems. It is organisationally and institutionally connected to the Australian union movement at every state and federally.
This is very important. It keeps the ALP ‘grounded’, and party discipline much stronger than the US Dems. It also means they overturn shithouse anti union laws when they get elected. Union membership here has dropped like everywhere. It’s about 20% overall.
Sometimes idiots suggest cutting ties between the political and industrial wings of the labor movement, but that will never happen. Just at a practical level, union ties are simply organisationally and financially irreplaceable, and our social wage would be far worse without those ties. Reorganising US workplaces in key swing states would greatly assist Dems imho.
Eyeroller
@Eolirin: Pollsters usually try to go with likely voter models by early October. Often they report both at least for a while. Of course, a bad likely-voter model is the main reason polls fail, and with low response rates they may have even more error in likely voters. One thing that is apparent is that pollsters haven’t adjusted for extremely low response rates, which make it very difficult to get a representative sample. If one wants to hypothesize where the failure has been since around 2016, I think that’s a good starting point.
Geminid
@lowtechcyclist: Republicans might win a House majority, but the provision of more assistance to Ukraine may turn on how big a majority it is. If a dozen or so Republicans want to sign a discharge petition for a “bipartisan” Ukraine appropriations bill, can McCarthy stop them? Would he want to even try, when these members march in lockstep with his caucus on other matters?
Also, there will be another shot at Ukraine funding in next month’s lame duck session. I think that’s when another National Defense Authorization Act will be marked up and put on the floor. NDAA’s always pass, and with bipartisan support.
So, much of the Ukraine funding problem may be resolved before the next Congress meets. I won’t be surprised if there is also a substantial raising of the debt ceiling by then.
tobie
My sense is that the electorate is recovering from two October surprises. The first was the Russian/Saudi/OPEC decision to cut oil production, which produced a surge in gas prices as early voting was starting. The second was Jerome Powell’s decision to continue aggressive rate hikes, which made life tough for anyone who has credit card debt, variable interest car debt, etc.
Those two events knocked the wind out of Democrats’ sails and made sure that the economy and not fundamental rights would be the focus of the final month of campaigning. Let’s see what happens. People’s number one concern is the economy but it may not be why they’re voting.
pat
Are these “polls” conducted by telephone? I do not answer any random call.
In Wisconsin they often come with Caller ID of “spam risk.” (I’m talking about our land line.)
So I am even more wondering if (hopefully) the MSM will be left with a serious case of OMG how did we get that so wrong??
I can hope, anyway.
artem1s
@catothedog:
I love your analysis. But I think that the media’s plan – that they can put the racism (any misogyny) genie back in the box and reestablish their control of information isn’t going to happen the way they think it will. Back in those days, who held the WH was less important than who was Speaker. The racist Dems could enact or enforce all their important economic policy because Tip O’Neal ran the table for so many years. He had a base of voters that were going to keep the Dems in the power no matter who was in the WH or who was in control of the Governors mansion in most states.
The media was in a similar state. TFYNY Time and Cronkite pretty much steered all the public opinion. The concept of the Liberal Media Elite was born out of the fact most of news and TV daytime entertainment was coming out of the east coast. They pissed off the GOP when they decided Nixon wasn’t ever going to be allowed in their country clubs and Martha Vineyards garden parties. When they dumped the GOP and Eisenhower and LBJ for the good hairdo Kennedy family the Southern Strategy was born and the GOP recruited all the Dixiecrats over to their side.
The Village was perfectly happy to help the GOP bring the White racists Dems back to the dark side. And the ‘elite’ coverage of Vietnam meant Dems losing support of the military too. But the media hasn’t figured in the effect of the internet on de-centralizing media news and killing off the newspapers. All their efforts won’t bring back the 1950s any more than the GOP’s efforts to criminalize abortion or being black or homosexual will. We aren’t the same homogenized culture with limited access to information that we were in the 50’s.
Omnes Omnibus
@pat:
Same on my cell phone.
SFAW
@Omnes Omnibus:
It labels you as a “spam risk”? Would not have guessed that.
Baud
@SFAW:
That’s why they’re called smart phones.
Miss Bianca
@Aussie Sheila: I feel this way too.
All I gotta say is, I hope to Hell we’re right!
azlib
@Another Scott: And short selling tends to prop the share price up, since the higher the price, the greater is the fall at some point in the future. Tesla’s PE ratio indicates it is more of a speculative stock, rather than a staid automaker. I still believe they will be bought at some point by another larger automaker.
Omnes Omnibus
@artem1s:
Only a small nit to pick. Tip O’Neil didn’t become Speaker until 1973 when the Southern Strategy was already in effect.
rikyrah
@Kay:
Kay, I am behind.
I knew about granddaughter #1 from your daughter, the nurse.
Who gave you the second granddaughter? :)
Omnes Omnibus
@SFAW: Well, don’t you consider complaints about doomers to be spam?
rikyrah
@SFAW:
If there is something that I apologize for with regards to 2016 is NOT understanding the extent of the misogyny that Hillary was against.
I just THOUGHT that I understood it. I realize now that I didn’t.
Omnes Omnibus
@Miss Bianca:
You know I think the same way. I don’t think that pollsters and the MSM have adequately accounted for Dobbs.
Eolirin
@JMG: If that’s true that’s more than the 2018 turnout. I’m not sure if that’s a good sign or a terrifying one.
SFAW
@Omnes Omnibus:
Although they’re nigh-omnipresent here, I don’t think they rise (or sink?) to the level of spam.
jonas
@pat: I was commenting the other day on this as well. Why don’t polling companies identify themselves on caller ID when they call? I’d be much more likely to pick up and do the survey if they just told me who they were.
Kay
@rikyrah:
my oldest son and his wife – in Denmark
Baby was 1 in September – we call her “the elf” because she has twinkly blue eyes and is mischievous- she looks like she came from a forest :)
I’ve been to Denmark to see her and they’re coming to Ohio for christmas
RaflW
@catothedog: “The media is fighting for a restoration of ‘benevolent white rule’ as the unquestioned and foundational basis of the country. Why? Because most of the media is white, and made out of unqualified bums who owe their cushy life to privilege.”
Elie Mystal had a spitting fire thread about how Black media/journalism folk have to weigh their approaches, and that the firing of Tiffany Cross, one of the networks highest rated, to appease Tucks Medicated Racism (does anyone remember the ads for those cooling pads back in the day) is typical of even ‘liberal’ media.
A few lines:
– Every professional and activist black person I know is out here playing a game of *risk management.* How much *can* I say around these white folks, before these white folks come for me. And what punishments am I willing to accept in order to say it?
– Because the bottom line is that my career is impossible without at least *some* white support. It’s something a lot of people don’t get. I can’t have a career, like a lot of white journalists, where only one race messes with me and it’s enough. I have to play to all time zones.
– Tiffany was special because she proactively centered her work and her voice in nonwhite audiences. It’s not that she didn’t care what white people thought. It’s that she refused to bend her voice around those forces. She was willing to pay the price to uplift nonwhite voices.
– And so, they punished her. Publicly. Disrespectfully. In a mean way. As an example to other blacks in the media to… recalculate. They want us all to recalibrate the risk/reward matrix of telling the truth about white people while black.
Miss Bianca
@Aussie Sheila: Australia sounds like my kind of place. Actually, I’ve always wanted to visit, ever since I was five years old – one of the girls in.my kindergarten class was from Australia, and from the way the teacher announced it, I thought she flew in from Australia every morning!
Omnes Omnibus
@Miss Bianca:
Everything there will try to kill you. Just saying.
Another Scott
@azlib: Dunno.
In the Before Times, there was a world-wide excess capacity in auto production, and I expect that state of affairs to resume within the next 5 years. It’s not clear that Tesla brings much of value to the table going forward – their car designs are old (the S hasn’t been updated in years), their Cybertruck is still stupid vaporware, as is their heavy truck. Their battery factory isn’t really their technology – it’s Panasonic.
In 2014 Musk said that anyone could license their patents. Tesla’s patent filings have crashed since then, so it’s not clear that they have much in the way of IP that’s worth a lot, either.
So, I dunno.
The pioneers often don’t survive very long. It would not be unusual for Tesla to end up like Tucker or Studebaker or Oldsmobile or …
My $0.02.
Cheers,
Scott.
rikyrah
@RaflW:
That was an excellent thread by him.
Miss Bianca
@Omnes Omnibus: DROP BEARS!!
Omnes Omnibus
@Miss Bianca:
Exactly.
schrodingers_cat
@Baud: No one likes being an object of pity. It can come off as high handedness.
schrodingers_cat
@Omnes Omnibus: I thought that’s Florida.
Miss Bianca
@RaflW: I am somewhat embarrassed to admit that I had no idea who Tiffany Cross is until now. But that analysis of Mystal’s sounds spot on. Now I am sorry I never caught her show. Hope she gets another forum, and soon. Fuck the haters.
RaflW
@Another Scott: The loss of classified advertising in city dailies across the nation probably did as much to destabilize democracy as some of the much more commonly cited factors.
Yes that’s a big claim. And of course factors like a third of the country maybe, finally confronting white privilege in the wake of the Obama snap-back by the right, matter a lot.
But when monopoly newspapers could price a couple of lines of type at a very profitable rate, and the the main game in town, people needing to find a renter, or sell a car, or hire a clerk didn’t much care about the news or editorial content of the paper. And were decentralized enough as buyers of ad space to lack influence anyway.
That barn door was unclose-able, the barn done burned down, and yeah we have timid advertisers likely (indirectly) driving the both-sides train. What I am stumped on is what we do about it.
MagdaInBlack
@Omnes Omnibus: Nor do I. I seems to me they’ve pretty much dismissed Dobbs as an issue. Seems like a big mistake.
J R in WV
@lowtechcyclist:
I thought the new and final meaning of the Hastert Rule was determined by the DoJ, who put Denny Hastert in jail for molesting young boys, and who obviously believed sex was best with very young boys…. what a perv!
So typical for Republican leaders to be pedophiles, which is why they believe Democratic leadership craves sex with young children… they do it, so everyone must be dong it. Otherwise they are a small clique of perverts… wait, they are!
Villago Delenda Est
The big story is underreported because the billionaire parasite masters of the Vermin of the Village have made it clear that the Village’s job is to downplay Dem prospects in hopes of discouraging Dem voting.
Kathleen
@catothedog: THIS!!!!
Kathleen
@Villago Delenda Est: Yes. Can we all please admit now that the mainstream media is a white supremacist fascist propaganda machine by design?
Jackie
Yesterday I received this text message:
“This is Mathew-Patrick with an URGENT message from WA GOP: Washington is failing under the radical policies of the Democrat majority. They defunded our police, we have the highest taxes in the country, & drugs are pouring into our schools. VOTE Republican & STOP these insane policies. Reply STOP 2 opt out.”
I had fun replying “This radical DEMOCRAT voted BLUE, BLUE, BLUE!!!💙💙💙
frosty
@suzanne: Flip the 75/25 and you have my borough. Sigh.
dnfree
@WaterGirl: Most likely Musk holds to the “Superman” genetic theory that the world needs lots of children with his superior DNA. And apparently there are women who agree. Probably he has a line flattering them, like “Your genes and mine make an unbeatable combination.” And I suppose an agreement on child support enters into it.
Quinerly
@SFAW: he has two sets of twins and a set of triplets. Plus, several more. At least one child by surrogacy.
Mike in NC
Almost two years since Trump’s coup attempt, and he has paid no price. He still plans on installing himself as fascist dictator for life and Republicans are 100% onboard. GOTV!
Geminid
@RachelBitecofer, Nov. 5 2022
Ruckus
@Asparagus Aspersions:
I apologize in advance but we, in my over 7 decades have never actually had 2 normal parties. One side has always been the monetary side, as in we can’t spend any money on anything because that money needs to go into bank accounts. Our bank accounts. The other side is what is best for the most people and how do we help those with issues that preclude them from normal, active participation. In order those 2 parties are republicans and democrats. Now of course if you go back 150 yrs, give or take, the parties had the opposite definitions/distinctions. Over that 150 yr transition the republicans have become more intrenched and stubborn and racist and democrats have become far more about how to help people who need help the most, to make the country more equitable, to make it better, not to steal the country from the majority of the people.
Politics is, as many have said over the centuries, a dirty business. Mainly because someone always wins and someone always loses. Republicans are today, always about making it worse for the majority and better for the wealthy. Democrats are not about making everyone financially equal, but making a minimum level that all can participate at. And yes that likely will come from a slight increase in taxation for the wealthy, those that can afford it most, and if they weren’t so damn selfish it wouldn’t change their lives in the least.
BenCisco 🇺🇸🎖️🖥️♦️
@catothedog: This is an excellent analysis. Thank you for sharing it.
artem1s
@Omnes Omnibus: Yea, I just remember it seemed like he was around for ever. And he was the one of early targets of the Southern strategy that they so effectively used to the anti-education, anti-Eastern Elite campaigns that were so effective in knocking the Dems out of the majority in the House. Until Newt’s blitzkrieg Contract on America (truth) takeover, the Democrats held the Speakers gavel all but maybe six-eight years since reconstruction. I think largely because of unions – the racist reaction of old union bosses fearing they’s have to share power with blacks and women helped the GOP gain control of the House in the 80s and 90s as much as the media did.
Ruckus
@Kathleen:
The people who own that mainstream media belong to that club which Monty Python called the upper class twits. Those people who don’t/are incapable of the thought that anyone but them deserve to live and prosper. Which of course has existed since time and money began. This country decided when it was founded that didn’t and wasn’t the way this country should be. But of course, having a lot of money means that it must be true, just ask most any billionaire. You know those people who spend a very small percentage of their wealth to keep you and I from having a penny of it, just so they can say they did that. They are like Elon buying a company for far more than it’s worth because he can control or ruin it and you can’t.
Ruckus
@catothedog:
THIS. Absolutely this.
Very well stated, this is the premise of the Civil War, of wide swaths of humanity, that the in group has the first and last word about who the in group is. And this does not fit in an actual human world because it creates inequality. Now inequality is actually what conservatives want, that they must be superior because they say they are. A black man, A WOMAN, as president? That’s impossible, says the side that can’t actually do anything positive. Look at Liz Cheney or Adam Kinzinger, they served on the committee and did a good job, and yet they are still conservatives, who seemingly do not want the same world as democrats, a world where money doesn’t buy you a better citizenship, or citizenship in the first place. I’ve been told that this country is for equality for everyone, but then seemingly it often tries very hard to be the exact opposite.
Maybe we need to have a discussion about what democracy is all about and what the word equality means and that it has nothing to do with someone’s bank account.
UncleEbeneezer
@Kay: It’s always good to remind people that police funding comes almost entirely from State and Local governments. President and Congress has almost no control/say in that. States can (and do) also turn down Federal funds that require accountability measures, demilitarization of police etc. Like Medicare expansion, Congress can’t really force States to do better (or worse) on policing if the State doesn’t want to.
Sister Machine Gun of Quiet Harmony
@artem1s: I’m not sure we have adapted to the reality that because there are no real media gatekeepers any more, the GOP can endlessly lie about everything with no consequences. They have a constituency that believes them no matter what. We have to figure out how to deal with this. Truth has to still matter.
Villago Delenda Est
@catothedog: Fuck white privilege. All it does is insure mediocre melanin adverse morons will cling to power.
Ksmiami
@Sister Machine Gun of Quiet Harmony: honestly we should put up all our Dem reps to say don’t drink bleach and let the problem with the GOP just take care of itself … out of the gene pool.
Tony G
“I’d walk a mile for a camel.” I’m old enough to remember cigarette commercials on TV. (An era when people actually walked — healthy! — while smoking — not so healthy!)
SFAW
@Ruckus:
On my local NextDoor today, a woman was complaining that her father, a retired veteran, had “Fuck you” yelled at him when he was holding a Rethug sign, something about stopping America’s decline. One Dem woman responded that profanity was NFG, but that the yeller should have stopped and tried to engage with the GQP-ers, and discuss the truth (re: political positions), rather than what the GQP espouses. Here’s the fun part: that Dem woman was chastised by a (presumed) non-Rethug, because “both sides” etc etc.
Because it’s NextDoor, I refrained from noting that it’s only one fucking side trying to destroy democracy* in this country. Mainly because the RWMFs would have come back with more lies, etc.
* One person reminded us that “it’s a representative republic, not a democracy.” Whatever. Fuck YOU too, RWMF moron.
Tony G
@Ksmiami: Well, their Dear Leader already told them about two and a half years ago that they SHOULD drink disinfectant. Unfortunately not enough of them obeyed.
Tony G
@dnfree: To state the obvious, Elon Musk is a severely twisted little man, who has about $200 billion to play with. In a way, it’s good that he’s such an obvious lunatic, because he’s openly displaying what’s in the minds of most (if not all) billionaires.
JoyceH
@MagdaInBlack:
Totally agree. The other day, I was watching some news show or other (CNN or MSNBC) where the anchor and the pundit were solemnly concurring with one another that the abortion issue was just Over. I was surprised at the RAGE I felt!
News people keep repeating Conventional Wisdom that the president’s party always loses seats in the mid-term, but they seldom point out that when the Pres party keeps or gains seats, it’s because of some outside circumstance that energizes voters. In 1998, the Republicans were expected to pick up 20 or 30 seats, and instead they lost 10. It wasn’t enough for the Dems to retake the House, but it was definitely a Message – and the message was about the public’s disapproval of their obsessive Clinton investigation. Anyone think a voter would have a milder reaction when someone takes away the voter’s own personal rights?
And that’s the problem with the late switch from registered to likely voters in the polls. Likely voters are probably a good statistic in normal times. Normally older people do vote more often than younger people. Normally, a person is more likely to vote if they have a track record of voting often. But they don’t take into account the unlikely voter – the voter who usually doesn’t vote but is activated by an issue. The biggie is abortion, but the younger contingent is coming out in droves, and they’re abortion AND climate change AND guns. The Active Shooter Drill generation is aging into the voting population – are they going to vote for Republicans?
Kay
@UncleEbeneezer:
US police have lousy clearance rates for solving crimes and don’t know how to de-escalate situations with the public, we put too many people in prison in the US (and for too long a time) and we offer virtually no rehabilitation when we let them out.
The current crime panic won’t solve any of these problems- it will make all of the problems worse.
They got rid of the progressive DA in San Franscisco but they still have a police problem, a crime problem and a homelessness problem. Panics don’t fix anything. They can punch as many hippies at they want- the problems don’t go away.
Citizen Alan
@Asparagus Aspersions:
I literally hate the month of November now. I live in a state where major state elections are in odd years. So every single November begins with a stark reminder that I am surrounded by a sea of ignorant, vicious white supremacists.
Jackie
@JoyceH: I’m with you. This is no ordinary mid-term election year. Voters are still pissed about J6 and GQP attempt to overturn the election – and then overturning Roe.
More voters care about keeping our democracy and personal freedoms than not.
catothedog
@RaflW:
That is what Nietzsche was talking about – All things are subject to interpretation. Whichever interpretation prevails at a given time is a function of power and not truth.
Controlling the narrative – interpretation – is power. Those who have narrative power will not willingly give it up.
Citizen Alan
@lowtechcyclist: I will be genuinely surprised if McCarthy becomes Speaker in a GOP-led House. I think Shitgibbon will agitate for an outright Trumpist and be backed by Faux and Tuckums.
Citizen Alan
@rikyrah: This is why I’m already worried about 2028. We will, I believe, win or lose 2024 with Joe Biden on the ticket. But either way, Kamala Harris (who I love) is the presumed front-runner for 2028, and I worry about whether the combination of misogyny and racism can be overcome, especially when combined with the nation’s general aversion to giving the White House to the same party 12 years in a row.
Groucho48
Here’s a listing to a chart on early voting totals by state. Looking grim in Florida and not so good in Wisconsin, but, awfully good in Michigan and Pennsylvania. Except for Florida, Dems seem to be at least within a couple points of the Republicans in purple states and leading in a few. It’s 53-22 in Iowa. I’m sure Grassley isn’t happy about that.
Tracking Early Voting in the 2022 Midterm Elections by State (nbcnews.com)
Ksmiami
@Tony G: we need Obama to plead with the MAGATs not to drink arsenic- really
sab
@Ksmiami: Bleach is more accessible. Arsenic purchasing raises red flags.
TheTruffle
@Groucho48: The Texas figures are interesting. FWIW, I text-banked for Texas. People seem to really believe the state can be flipped. I hope they are right.
What other states have the potential to become more purple? There’s GA. What about NC?
GibberJack
@catothedog: These are excellent observations.
The immorality at the foundation of white privilege has not been made enough of.
I think the moral aspect is there in the angry reaction to CRT. They say it’s libs trying to make whites feel bad. But it’s their guilty conscience they are feeling. They try to ignore it, attack it, suppress it — CRT is their guilty conscience — because they are as racist as their historical antecedents, they know it was morally wrong and they sense the connection.