2018 US Midterm Elections (general thread)

Post Reply New Topic

Like it or not but come Wednesday the Democrats will win the Congressional popular vote. It's just a matter of whether that amount can compensate for rampant partisan gerrymandering.

If the Republicans still keep the house, under those circumstances, people like Ben Shapiro and many other Republicans will advertise gerrymandering as being constitutional. I just hope enough people can see through that after election day.

And I hope that the aftermath of Tuesday doesn't see me argue with EzraS over whether gerrymandering is constitutional. Because I guarantee you, a retained house majority will see many Republicans do that.

Does it mean anything? We'll know soon enough.

Stunning early-voting numbers ahead of Election Day

More than 35 million early votes have been counted nationwide as of Monday — well more than the total cast in the 2014 midterm elections.

That year, just more than 21 million early votes were tabulated.

The NBC News Data Analytics Lab, using voter file data from TargetSmart, found that 35,526,881 early votes were counted nationwide as of Monday. In states that have early voting, 42 percent of voters are Republican, 41 percent are Democrats, and 17 percent have either independent or have another party affiliation.

Republican-affiliated voters have outpaced Democratic-affiliated voters in Arizona, Florida, Georgia, Indiana, Montana, Tennessee and Texas. In Nevada, Democratic-affiliated voters have outpaced their Republican counterparts.

The total early vote as of Election Day in 2016, a presidential election year when turnout is much higher, was 46,314,207.

https://www.nbcnews.com/politics/electi ... -i-n931336

In Houston people stood in line 36 hours for a chance to see Trump speak.
https://www.click2houston.com/news/long ... d-of-rally

The stadium only held 100,000 people so not everyone got in.

Here's the line, notice NO SHADE AND THIS IN HOUSTON .. people stood in this line for 36 hours ...

^ But ... but ... but ... Orange Man Bad!

The late developments are:
Unprecedented early voting.
The Republican gains from the Kavanagh hearings seem to have ended and the Dems seemed to have a slight uptick in the polls.
Most of the forecasts based on meta polling suggest the Dems take the House the Republicans keep the Senate and maybe gain a seat or two. In the Senate there a bunch of Dems defending seats in states Trump won, In the House a lot of Republicans are defending seats in districts that Hillary won.
The economy is booming for most. Large job growth last month and finally wages are going up also.

Trump has been doing campaigning based on what won for him in 2016 immigration and the deep state media conspiring against "our movement" and visiting his base. This has been criticized by people who think he should be focusing on the good economy and growing his base.

My last minute thoughts logical and illogical:
There are often in life before a big event in life last minute fears and illogical thoughts and I have a few now.

My biggest last-minute jitters are the fears of massive obvious hacks, most people in key states finding out they are "ineligible". Despite all the hacking talk the high turnout in special elections and early voting suggest that people still believe they have a reasonable chance of their vote counting. If that gets destroyed today I don't know how that can be brought back.

Even without that worst case scenario, I think whatever happens the aftermath will be bad. I am not going to go through all of the scenarios now but will wait until we have a result before prognosticating.

Anybody confident how this will turn out is a fool, there are too many conflicting factors, but here it goes anyway

I was the person who was laughed at for saying Trump had a chance in 2016, After he became President I criticized people who kept saying this time he has gone too far, he will be impeached, he will quit, his base will finally wake up yadda, yadda, yadda. He is obviously still in office.
I do think this it will a big night to wave election for the Dems. (Flip Flopper )

Despite all the noise, his popularity situation has not basically changed, a hardcore base plus those willing to "deal with the devil' for the conservative agenda leading to approval ratings in the low 40's. Not only is he unpopular but a lot of people that do not like him see him as an existential threat. In 2016 despite being helped by the electoral college he had to "thread the needle", have everything fall in place for him to win. In 2018 even with help of gerrymandering his Republican party has to do something like that again. The odds of doing that twice are lower than doing it once.

As mentioned he has not grown his base, while the Dems have grown theirs. The "resistance" has been motivated and active since November 9, 2016. I can not think of any reason now at crunch time why it should suddenly normalize.

Non-Trump conservatives, right-leaning moderates, and independents were reminded during the Kavanagh hearings of what they fear about a Democrat takeover. The last two weeks before the election the conversation has not been about his economy but him. His "motivating" the string of terror attacks, the "Willie Horton 2" ad. They have been reminded of what they despise about him, his authoritarian instincts and his playing to the bigotry. They are a small group these days but if they stay home or go dem it could flip the results.

Last edited by ASPartOfMe on 06 Nov 2018, 4:46 am, edited 2 times in total.

WHY would they want to do that?

Can he even sing?

What utter nonsense.

The Toyota Center has a capacity of 18,000 not 100,000. Your two-week old article even says so.

Trump has a history of "astroturfing", i.e., hiring corporate clients who provide crowds for a fee.

How Much Does Trump Pay People to Cheer at His Rallies?

In a way, Trump can sort of say that he doesn't pay people to cheer at his rallies - because Trump tries to scam them:

What's people's predictions on the midterms then?

I predict that many people will predict the result of the midterms. I further predict that some of the predictions will come true, others not.

Yes, it says over 100,000 people showed up though.

I was amazed to hear about it. That people would wait in line 36 hours, camp out overnight, then wait more inside, for a chance to see Trump.

Your article says no such thing at all.

It refers to "ticket requests for the event exceeded 100,000" which in light of Trump's known facility for hiring "supporters" could either be wholly false ab initio or could easily be made to reach 100,000 with the assistance of people working keyboards to make the requests. But I'm going with the outright lying, Trump is too lazy to hire people to make the requests.

In any event, your article nowhere claims that 100,000 people showed up.

Strong prediction

LOL. And people wonder why CNN is called Fake News. (Note for our foreign readers, and other CNN reporters: the states are labeled backwards.)

Are we ready? Fasten your seatbelts.


https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nMcUDtXFxbU

I will be popping popcorn.......