2022 Midterm Thread: Red Wave or Blue Wave

[MessiahDecoy123]

Post midterm news and updates here...

 

[MagnarTheGreat]

If Republicans win more new seats than they lose it'll be a typical midterm election (the incumbent party of the president loses seats 93% of the time since at least the 1840s), if the Democrats retain the House with their threadbare majority it will be a historic outlier and aberration. The last time Democrats held onto the House in a midterm with a Democratic President was 1978 - and that was after losing 15 seats from their 1976 supermajority (67%) of 292 seats. They cannot afford to lose 15 seats now in 2022 from 2020, that puts them into the minority.

(click to enlarge)

Pew Research Center - Voter turnout always drops off for midterm elections, but why? (2014)

A recent paper by Brown University researcher Brian Knight seeks to evaluate that surge-and-decline theory, as well as two competing explanations of why the president’s party nearly always loses seats at the midterms: a “presidential penalty,” or general preference among midterm voters for expressing dissatisfaction with the president’s performance or ensuring that his party doesn’t control all the levers of government, and recurring shifts in voter ideology between presidential and midterm elections. Knight concluded that while all three factors contribute to what he calls the “midterm gap,” the presidential penalty has the most impact.

In any event, if 2014 follows the trend Democrats are almost certain to lose seats in the House and Senate this November, and many pollsters predict as much. As Knight notes, since 1842 the President’s party has lost seats in 40 of 43 midterms — the exceptions being 1934, 1998 and 2002. (Whether Republicans will pick up enough Senate seats to take control of that chamber is a much closer question.) And as Campbell concluded in his paper, “For the congressional candidates of the president’s party, the return to normalcy at the midterm represents a loss.”

Since the 1840s, the incumbent White House party has lost Congressional seats (42 times out of 45 midterms) 93% of the time during the midterm elections. There's nothing special or abnormal about it. The abnormal is the very few times where this did not occur unfortunately.

 

[MagnarTheGreat]

Absentee Ballot Numbers in Michigan Show High Voter Turnout - 9 & 10 News

Atlanta Journal-Constitution - Turnout on first day of Georgia early voting breaks midterm record

 

[DJ Kornphlake]

 

[Sithborg]

Let the forkery begin.

 

[squeekness]

Let the ****ery begin.

Just when you think they've stooped low, they find another step down.

 

[MagnarTheGreat]

I'm white, but my vote is already in.

Is yours?

Let's go!

 

[squeekness]

I'm white, but my vote is already in.

Is yours?

Let's go!

Massachusetts starts voting next week. Me and my daughter will go vote on Wednesday.

 

[MagnarTheGreat]

Yeah but if Rs have the same turnout and if independents vote for Rs instead of Ds more unlike in 2018 and 2020 Ds still get swept out in the new tide. What independents do will be the bigger determinant factor.

Also: Democrats did not win the House by 4.5 points, Biden led the popular vote for the presidency by 4.5 points. Democrats led the popular vote for the House in 2020 by 3 points. Biden ran ahead of the party in votes.

2018:
Independents 54D - 42R
Overall 53D - 44R

2014:
Independents 54R - 42D
Overall 51R - 45D

 

[Iceman]

I hope the abortion ruling means a very high Democrat turnout.

 

[MagnarTheGreat]

Vice - The DOJ Is Already Investigating Reports of Midterm Voter Intimidation

NY Times - [Vermont Independent Senator] Bernie Sanders, Fearing Weak Democratic Turnout, Plans Midterms Blitz





Young people are the most unreliable of all voters as well as the smallest voting demographic - especially during midterm elections - so putting faith in them and coping with the idea that polls are wrong is not the best strategy. Bonier's data that the early vote is more elderly than before suggests more a movement in the direction of 2014. The question is how much. 2018 was D+8.6. 2014 was R+5.8. Democrats need >2 points lead to have the best chance of retaining the House with a small majority near or better than a 218/217 split.

 

[Sithborg]

I can't believe I have to vote for a forking Bernstein for MI Supreme Court. The whole family in their law firm ads piss me off so much.

 

[InCali]

In my opinion, it’s pretty much a foregone conclusion that the house leadership flips. From a state by state election projection, I think the Democrats have a reasonably good shot at holding the Senate. This means that anything that needs to get done, has to get done post election.

 

[squeekness]

I hope the abortion ruling means a very high Democrat turnout.

Me, too. This and the Republican promise to slash Social security that so many elderly depend on.

 

[MagnarTheGreat]

 

[squeekness]

I certainly hope so, Joe. But I am not as optimistic as you.

 

[MessiahDecoy123]

That's a weird assumption that the polls will swing back in your favor at the ideal time.

 

[MagnarTheGreat]

 

[MessiahDecoy123]

Should be a federal crime.

I'm tired of treating these people with kid gloves.

 

[samsnee]

Pure intimidation

 

[mclay18]

Here in NC, early in person voting numbers are pretty robust. Like almost Georgia level.

Day 1 = 137,130 votes cast
Day 2 = 130,951 votes cast
Mail/overseas/military = 55,680 votes



If the numbers keep up, we could have a decisive victory on Election Night for these two states -- or a very, very narrow win.

 

[MagnarTheGreat]

 

[Iceman]

That's a weird assumption that the polls will swing back in your favor at the ideal time.

Seems like a dangerous one to make too.

 

[MagnarTheGreat]

According to data out of six states young people are not showing up to vote almost whatsoever. 90% of all early voters so far are over 40.

RPubs - Early Voting 2022 General Election

 

[Iceman]

According to data out of six states young people are not showing up to vote almost whatsoever. 90% of all early voters so far are over 40.

RPubs - Early Voting 2022 General Election

Damn. Bad news.