Ricochet is the best place on the internet to discuss the issues of the day, either through commenting on posts or writing your own for our active and dynamic community in a fully moderated environment. In addition, the Ricochet Audio Network offers over 50 original podcasts with new episodes released every day.
House Call: By the Numbers
What is the real final Democrat count in the House of Representatives? None of the presentations, of election information, make the House situation obvious. They could all use a remedial course in the visual presentation of quantitative information. The RealClearPolitics elections House results page is about the best, but allow me to make the situation really clear, laying out the numbers and then giving the historical context.
Running the Numbers:
As of Wednesday evening, there were several undeclared races. These, not displayed in the data summaries, are the source of confusion. So, here are the House facts, by the numbers, as of the evening of 7 November 2018:
222 Democrats have won,
197 Republicans have won, so
419 races are won, of 435, so
16 are undecided.
The RealClearPolitics House page shows the 16 House races that are not called. The Republicans are ahead in 9 of these, so the best case for Republicans is a loss of 7 more seats. This will make the next Congress:
229 Democrats: 206 Republicans best case
238 Democrats: 197 Republicans worst case
Compare this to the start of the current, 115th Congress:
194 Democrats: 241 Republicans
35 seats, best case, 44 seats, worst case, will be lost by the President’s party in the House of Representatives. [UPDATE, 8 November: the Republicans decreased from 9 to 7 races with small leads. This does not change the upper or lower limits laid out above.]
Additionally, the Senate Republicans have gained one to three seats, depending on the outcome of the Arizona election, and of the projected run-off in Mississippi, which has a 50 percent rule, forcing a runoff between the two top vote-getters if no one initially breaks through the 50 percent plus 1 vote barrier. [UPDATE, 8 November: Broward County, Florida, is back in the news, determined to count until the Democrats win the Senate seat, and possibly the governorship. This has prompted Senator Marco Rubio to come out swinging on social media, one of his Tweets shown below. The 100% reporting claims on websites is simply not accurate.]
#Broward election supervisors ongoing violation of #Florida law requiring timely reporting isn’t just annoying incompetence. It has opened the door for lawyers to come here & try to steal a seat in the U.S. Senate & Florida Cabinet
#Sayfie6/6
— Marco Rubio (@marcorubio) November 8, 2018
Historical Context:
There is much spin around the numbers, driven by support, opposition, or contempt for President Trump. Yet, the relevant facts are readily available. Consider every Presidency, starting with Truman, looking only at the first term midterm Congressional elections. There have some truly dramatic midterm elections before the Truman presidency, but leave them aside, on the initial assumption that the political environment changes over time.
- Presidents losing both House and Senate seats: Truman, Eisenhower, Johnson, Ford, Carter, G.H.W. Bush, Clinton, Obama
- Presidents losing only House seats: Kennedy, Nixon, Reagan, Trump
- Presidents holding or gaining both House and Senate seats: George W. Bush
No president has lost Senate seats, while holding or gaining House seats. The 2002 midterm electorate was driven, in the immediate aftermath of the 11 September 2001 terrorist attacks, by distrust of the Democratic Party, as weak on national defense and law enforcement.
Five other presidents join President Trump in the range of 35 to 44 House seat losses.
- Truman: 45
- Johnson: 47
- Ford: 48
- Clinton: 52
- Obama: 63
President Trump will gain 1 to 3 Senate seats, joining four other presidents. This compares to:
- Kennedy: 3
- Nixon: 2
- Reagan: 1
- G.W. Bush 2
Those are the un-spun numbers, from which I invite you to argue, diagnose, and prognosticate.
Published in Elections
I keep hearing and reading this, but I don’t know what it means. Anyone care to be more specific? I’m inclined to think all it means is all the bad news has been “priced in”. Sticker shock has come and gone.
Or, the frogs have become acclimated to the water temperature.
If the Republican election losses are due to people holding your view of President Trump, then we have a serious problem: a significant portion of the population cut off their own nose to spite their face, because they are counting on the system, as a whole, not being so damaged by the people they helped elect this time, as to deliver real negative consequences to the virtue-signalers.
Rick Scott has won the first legal skirmish.
Meanwhile, the latest chunk of votes in Arizona gave Sinema a 20k lead. But we just don’t know how the other 300k or more are likely to break. So, we’ll wait until next week.
This gives more energy the Democrats cheating in Florida, as this would knock the Republicans back to 51 votes, and the Democrats would then go all out to flip Mississippi in the run-off special election next month, to take away any gain at all in the Senate. If Republicans lose Arizona, and have Florida stolen, then they must win Mississippi to make it a 52 vote majority and a net +1 for the election.
With the change in the Senate membership, even without AZ and FL, we should see the rest of the President’s Administration nominees shoved through confirmation. With a Democrat House, Senate Majority Leader McConnell can save his own office and keep his majority in 2020 by showing they will actually do all they can do with the President of their party.
This would be like the young Manhattan woman, in the financial industry, who said she was so happy that Reagan was a lock for reelection, so she could vote for the Democrat without the consequences.
Step 1: Judges, judges, judges, judges, judges, judges, judges, judges, judges, judges, judges.
Step 2: Repeat Step 1.
Step 3: Repeat Steps 1-2.
Yes, as amended.
A new post on a bold idea: Let’s legalize health insurance in America!