Jane Fonda, 81, arrested for protesting climate change at the Capitol after citing Greta Thunberg as her inspiration
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Friday, October 11, 2019
Thursday, October 10, 2019
Wednesday, October 09, 2019
On the Electoral College Map For 2020:
(Musings of your humble servant at Rerum Novarum)
This was compiled from comments posted to social media about three or four weeks ago.
Of the 538 electoral votes out there, 451 are already known. Well, 452 because whatever the polls say right now, Trump is not going to lose the one tossup electoral vote in Nebraska. So it starts off as follows:
Republicans -220 electoral votes
Democrats -232 electoral votes
I am assuming for a moment that the Democrat floor is 232 which is not a given either (as Minnesota and New Hampshire were very close last time and the Republicans have a lot more money to spend this time around). But let us make that presumption from the get-go, ok?
So starting with 220 electoral votes, Trump will follow the pattern of Republicans in 16 of the past 17 elections in the postwar period and retain Arizona and its 11 electoral votes. That puts his total at 231 electoral votes. Then there is Florida. Watch for the Republicans to dump a metric shit ton of money into Florida. Unlike in 2016 where the Democrats outspent the Republicans 3:1 the numbers will be reversed this time and the president will be helped by the lack of a primary contest meaning the Republicans can use all their money in a fashion befitting a general election and not worry about wasting any of it to fight off primary opponents as will be the case with whomever the Democrats nominate.
As has been the case in 13 of the past 17 elections in the postwar period, the Republicans will keep Florida and its 29 electoral votes. That brings the president's total to 260 electoral votes and a mere 10 away from what he would need to win re-election.
From there we have Wisconsin, Michigan, and Pennsylvania representing 10 electoral votes, 16 electoral votes, and 20 electoral votes respectively and all of which Trump won in 2016. The Republicans would only need to grab one of those three to put the president at or over 270 electoral votes. By contrast, the Democrats would need to run the table there and win all three of them and with the lions share of their remaining field, that is not going to happen. Its conceivable that a Biden-Gabbard ticket could do it however but many Democrats seem insistent on nominating someone like Warren, Sanders, or Mayor Pete: none of whom would be successful in running that gauntlet with the radical nonsense they are spouting in these primaries and which the Republicans will tar and feather them with in a general election campaign.
As I said, this path is not a hard one at all. And the real kicker is this: it could be reached even if there was an overall nationwide five million deficit in the popular vote.
#######
Even if the Dems swung MI and PA back in 2020, they would still lose if they did not also swing WI. And as I said before, this assumes for the moment that Dems hold MN: a state they won with a mere 1.5% in 2016. The Republicans are going to dump some coin into that state this time to try and swing it and a few others which were barely contested last time which were a lot closer than many folks figured.
#######
You cannot base what will happen in presidential election years with what happens in midterms. Ask the Republicans who thought their wipeout of the Democrats in 2010 made winning in 2012 a certainty. Ask the Democrats who thought in 1998 that they were on their way to a threepeat in 2000 or who thought after 1986 that they were well positioned to win the presidency in 1988.
The bottom line is the party whose president is in power usually loses seats in midterm elections. The only exceptions to this rule in the past 90 odd years were 1934 and 2002 where the presidents party actually increased their presence in the House and Senate. In that light, what happened in 2018 was not unusual except for the fact that Republicans while losing roughly the average in House seats for a midterm correctional actually gained Senate seats last year. In short, the Republicans showed less overall weakness in 2018 (-41, +2) than the Democrats showed in 2010 (-63, -6).
#######
Ohio is slated as likely Republican in 2020. It has also been roughly twice as likely to go Republican (12 times) than Democrat (7 times) in presidential elections since 1944. Florida has gone Republican in 13 of the past 17 presidential elections and so strongly trends that way that even Obama in bucking that trend struggled to win Florida. (While Obama did win Florida in 2012, he won it by .88% and even in 2008 his margin of win was less than 3%.) You can expect the Republicans who will have a lot more money in 2020 than the Democrats to prioritize campaign spending in Florida and they will carpetbomb that state into submission next year. North Carolina and Georgia are Republican leans even more so than Minnesota and New Hampshire are for the Democrats. Arizona is open at the moment but as I said, when a state goes to one party in 16 of the past 17 elections, it is very rash to presume that trend will be bucked in 2020 -especially since the one time that trend was, the Democrats were running with the power of incumbency: something they will not have next year.
In short, incumbents always have an advantage in re-election and the Republicans have a very strong structural one in the electoral college right now. So much so that Trump could lose the popular vote by up to 5 million next year and still win the EC. None of this means he will win of course but those who rashly consign him to defeat without considering the actual numbers on these matters as well as the partisan voting index of states in play{1} could very easily find themselves come November of 2020 wondering what the hell happened to their supposed concrete certainties on these matters.
Note:
{1} State PVI's of 2020 Swing States:
Arizona: R+5, Colorado: D+1, Florida: R+2, Georgia: R+5, Michigan: D+1, Minnesota: D+1, Nevada: D+1, New Hampshire: EVEN, North Carolina: R+3, Ohio: R+3, Pennsylvania: EVEN, Wisconsin: EVEN
As you can see, the swing state PVI's strongly favour the Republicans and once impenetrable Democrat strongholds like Wisconsin and Pennsylvania are tossups while Colorado, Michigan, Minnesota, and Nevada are a mere D+1 which is not much of a Democrat advantage and one easily wiped out if the GOP gets even a slight turnout advantage in those states next year.
(Musings of your humble servant at Rerum Novarum)
This was compiled from comments posted to social media about three or four weeks ago.
Of the 538 electoral votes out there, 451 are already known. Well, 452 because whatever the polls say right now, Trump is not going to lose the one tossup electoral vote in Nebraska. So it starts off as follows:
Republicans -220 electoral votes
Democrats -232 electoral votes
I am assuming for a moment that the Democrat floor is 232 which is not a given either (as Minnesota and New Hampshire were very close last time and the Republicans have a lot more money to spend this time around). But let us make that presumption from the get-go, ok?
So starting with 220 electoral votes, Trump will follow the pattern of Republicans in 16 of the past 17 elections in the postwar period and retain Arizona and its 11 electoral votes. That puts his total at 231 electoral votes. Then there is Florida. Watch for the Republicans to dump a metric shit ton of money into Florida. Unlike in 2016 where the Democrats outspent the Republicans 3:1 the numbers will be reversed this time and the president will be helped by the lack of a primary contest meaning the Republicans can use all their money in a fashion befitting a general election and not worry about wasting any of it to fight off primary opponents as will be the case with whomever the Democrats nominate.
As has been the case in 13 of the past 17 elections in the postwar period, the Republicans will keep Florida and its 29 electoral votes. That brings the president's total to 260 electoral votes and a mere 10 away from what he would need to win re-election.
From there we have Wisconsin, Michigan, and Pennsylvania representing 10 electoral votes, 16 electoral votes, and 20 electoral votes respectively and all of which Trump won in 2016. The Republicans would only need to grab one of those three to put the president at or over 270 electoral votes. By contrast, the Democrats would need to run the table there and win all three of them and with the lions share of their remaining field, that is not going to happen. Its conceivable that a Biden-Gabbard ticket could do it however but many Democrats seem insistent on nominating someone like Warren, Sanders, or Mayor Pete: none of whom would be successful in running that gauntlet with the radical nonsense they are spouting in these primaries and which the Republicans will tar and feather them with in a general election campaign.
As I said, this path is not a hard one at all. And the real kicker is this: it could be reached even if there was an overall nationwide five million deficit in the popular vote.
#######
Even if the Dems swung MI and PA back in 2020, they would still lose if they did not also swing WI. And as I said before, this assumes for the moment that Dems hold MN: a state they won with a mere 1.5% in 2016. The Republicans are going to dump some coin into that state this time to try and swing it and a few others which were barely contested last time which were a lot closer than many folks figured.
#######
You cannot base what will happen in presidential election years with what happens in midterms. Ask the Republicans who thought their wipeout of the Democrats in 2010 made winning in 2012 a certainty. Ask the Democrats who thought in 1998 that they were on their way to a threepeat in 2000 or who thought after 1986 that they were well positioned to win the presidency in 1988.
The bottom line is the party whose president is in power usually loses seats in midterm elections. The only exceptions to this rule in the past 90 odd years were 1934 and 2002 where the presidents party actually increased their presence in the House and Senate. In that light, what happened in 2018 was not unusual except for the fact that Republicans while losing roughly the average in House seats for a midterm correctional actually gained Senate seats last year. In short, the Republicans showed less overall weakness in 2018 (-41, +2) than the Democrats showed in 2010 (-63, -6).
#######
Ohio is slated as likely Republican in 2020. It has also been roughly twice as likely to go Republican (12 times) than Democrat (7 times) in presidential elections since 1944. Florida has gone Republican in 13 of the past 17 presidential elections and so strongly trends that way that even Obama in bucking that trend struggled to win Florida. (While Obama did win Florida in 2012, he won it by .88% and even in 2008 his margin of win was less than 3%.) You can expect the Republicans who will have a lot more money in 2020 than the Democrats to prioritize campaign spending in Florida and they will carpetbomb that state into submission next year. North Carolina and Georgia are Republican leans even more so than Minnesota and New Hampshire are for the Democrats. Arizona is open at the moment but as I said, when a state goes to one party in 16 of the past 17 elections, it is very rash to presume that trend will be bucked in 2020 -especially since the one time that trend was, the Democrats were running with the power of incumbency: something they will not have next year.
In short, incumbents always have an advantage in re-election and the Republicans have a very strong structural one in the electoral college right now. So much so that Trump could lose the popular vote by up to 5 million next year and still win the EC. None of this means he will win of course but those who rashly consign him to defeat without considering the actual numbers on these matters as well as the partisan voting index of states in play{1} could very easily find themselves come November of 2020 wondering what the hell happened to their supposed concrete certainties on these matters.
Note:
{1} State PVI's of 2020 Swing States:
Arizona: R+5, Colorado: D+1, Florida: R+2, Georgia: R+5, Michigan: D+1, Minnesota: D+1, Nevada: D+1, New Hampshire: EVEN, North Carolina: R+3, Ohio: R+3, Pennsylvania: EVEN, Wisconsin: EVEN
As you can see, the swing state PVI's strongly favour the Republicans and once impenetrable Democrat strongholds like Wisconsin and Pennsylvania are tossups while Colorado, Michigan, Minnesota, and Nevada are a mere D+1 which is not much of a Democrat advantage and one easily wiped out if the GOP gets even a slight turnout advantage in those states next year.
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