2018 US Midterm Elections (general thread)

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The fact that even moderate GOPers/"Never Trump"-ers were routed, or are in very close races, should be a red flag for the GOP.

My state mostly swerved blue, which I was expecting because after they legalized weed (And made leaving my house 10x harder) a lot of blue pot heads moved here for the pot. I don't know the exact number, but it was a lot. My state was before pretty close between the two, so it only takes a little push to get it one way or another.

I really hated the republican governor choice, so I don't fully mind, (He was running a smear campaign so hard I wanted to wring his neck every time I got an ad), but I hope someone still has the sense to stop allowing full term abortion. Yes, in my state you could have an abortion a day before your due date if you wanted. Even most democrats are against that much.

The republican seemed more focused on immigration, which is just stupid as far as I can see. I personally don't care if someone crosses a made up line without permission instead of waiting 15+ years to have the okay.

Maybe just start a thread about fascism rather than every post?

So confine discussion of the Republican Party in general, and Trumpism in particular, to just one thread?

Actually, gerrymandering affects only the House, not the Senate. Each state has exactly two Senators who are voted for statewide, whereas House districts are shaped (gerrymandered) to the political advantage of whichever party has power in the state legislature when redistricting is done. So Republican gerrymandering means that the proportion of House Democrats isn't as large as it could be.

What does skew the Senate in favor of Republicans is not gerrymandering, but the fact that Republicans tend to be more popular in rural areas, whereas Democrats tend to be more popular in cities. Thus Republican-dominated states tend to have much lower total population than Democratic-dominated states. Because every state has two senators regardless of population, the less densely populated (hence more rural) states are represented out of proportion to their population.

Yeah. Cause every single political thread turns into a Trump thread.

Democrat voter big win

1. Democrats said they will stand up for the ACA. Block efforts to cut it, block efforts to eliminate medical preexisting condition protections in health insurance.

2. Newly elected Democrat governors could expand Medicaid under the ACA.

Kanas, and Wisconsin have newly elected Democrat governors, and DONT have ACA Medicaid expansion.

Oh, it makes sense to me now. So in the US, the 100 Senate members consist of two from each state, whether it's California with its huge population, or a sparsely populated one like Wyoming?

yeah. states are represented equally in the senate and proportionally in the house.

You're correct about the gerrymandering. A statewide office can't be gerrymandered.

However, voter suppression is an important factor in how Republican Kevin Cramer won North Dakota’s Senate race. Thousands of Native Americans were denied the right to vote because the GOP South Dakota legislature enacted a statute barring votes from anyone who doesn't have an established residential address. This statute was enacted after Democratic Sen. Heidi Heitkamp won the Senate election in 2012 with strong Native American support. As Native Americans on reservations do not have such addresses (they only have P.O. boxes) they were prevented from voting.

This also skews presidential elections in favor of less-populated states.

The actual presidential vote is by the Electoral College. It's composed of a number of electors from each state. The number of electors from each state is equal to the number of senators plus the number of members of the House of Representatives. So Alaska with its population of only 710,231 gets 3 electors (2 senators plus 1 member of the House of Representatives), which is proportionately way out of line. California, New York, Illinois and Texas get only the number of their representatives plus two. Now that adds up to a lot of electors, but it still remains an imbalance in terms of population. So the less populous states have an inordinate influence on the Electoral College and therefore on who gets to be president.

It was set up this way by the founding fathers, the House to be elected by popular vote the Senate as the rural check on populism.

In order to change the constitution has to be changed which is not going to happen because rural states will not vote to strip themselves of power.

ROTFL

Markets liking the midterm results ...

Dow 26,064.49 +429.48 (1.68%)

NASDAQ 7537.83 161.87 (2.19%)

Attorney General Jeff Sessions has just resigned.