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Seven Thoughts about Election 2020: Not a Good Night For Democrats
Seven observations about the ongoing election.
1) Democrats may win the presidency when all is said and done (remains to be seen), but they have to very disappointed at their failure to run the table, and in fact losing down-ballot races, especially here in PA. The GOP is on track for a net loss of no more than 1 in the US Senate, if that, depending on the Michigan results.
2) About PA: Trump currently leads by more than 640,000 votes, with a reported 1.4 million mail-in ballots to be counted. 275,000 of those are from Philadelphia, another 125,000 or so from Pittsburgh. They would need to break 80-20 for Biden to win. That is highly unlikely since almost 40% of those mail ballots are from Republicans. While the potential for fraud remains high, that margin appears too big for Democrats to cheat their way to a win.
3) House GOP gains. They’re at +4 and are poised for an additional +2 or 3 (the 7th, 8th & 17th Districts) in PA, with author and veteran Sean Parnell winning in suburban Pittsburgh. GOP challengers are also currently leading in other states, including VA (Freitas). I can see the GOP gaining as much as 9 or 10 seats. They began the election needing 17 to capture control. Nancy Pelosi and her caucus took a big hit.
4) And don’t forget gubernatorial and other statewide offices. Republicans gained +1 with a win by Rep. Greg Gianforte (R) in Montana. And watch the down-ballot races! NC elected a terrific black Republican to Lt. Gov. and three statewide offices on the ballot here in PA are all led by the GOP candidates with 400,000 – 700,000 vote leads. We’ll see if all three hold – but I bet the GOP wins at least 2 of them, Tim DeFoor for Auditor General and Stacey Garrity for Treasurer. I so want Heather Heidelbaugh to unseat smarmy partisan Josh Shapiro for Attorney General.
5) It wasn’t just the Democrats who will take a net hit; the polling industry and political prognosticators, like my friends Charlie Cook and Larry Sabato, need to rethink their models, methods, and analyses. They both relied too heavily on flawed polling and projections were mostly off at all levels. Frankly, I did better. Maybe I need to go into the business.
6) If Biden/Harris win, Democrats cannot be excited about their 2022 or 2024 prospects with a GOP Senate, emboldened House GOP, and no serious mandate for their agenda. In that scenario, the GOP would be poised to capture the House in 2022 and gain Senate seats. No court-packing, no new states, no tax increases. And, no anti-Trump vote to drive Democratic turnout.
7) Last note: Congress needs to step up with serious election reform. While Article 1, Sec. 1 gives state legislatures the responsibility for the manner of elections, there are too many states with too many flawed rules and systems. Congress needs to cough up serious money to help states fix bad voter rolls in exchange for national voting standards that are clear and uniform, especially with regard to mail voting and deadlines. This election does not inspire confidence.
8) One bonus point: watch the Supreme Court, especially with pending cases about late-arriving mail ballots in PA and elsewhere. States have had to set aside all mail ballots that arrive after election day but before their deadline (Friday in PA, next week in IA, NC).
“Try” and “Do” are different things. Never underestimate the ambition or ruthlessness of Kamala Harris and her allies on the hard Left, especially if Joe is costing them with poor approval ratings, bad decisions, and certainly a bad mid-term election. Over 50 of Americans polled do not believe Joe will finish his term.
Oh sure, that’s real power and of course, they’ll crow and celebrate. But the longer-term view is less rosy for them with the other branches of government, federal and state. They can do a lot of damage with executive orders and related actions, especially with respect to federal regulations.
Exit polls were basically worthless in this election, as they usually are. I’ll be more interested in post-election surveys.
It’s better to hold the presidency than not. At least you get to run foreign policy and appoint judges.
So, I’m disappointed of course, but I also realize a few things:
The reason Republicans get painted into these types of corners is because the conservative position is that Washington has no legitimate roll in providing health care. But people want “free” stuff, so that doesn’t fly. Rs end up giving ground to stay relevant. “Repeal” gives way to “Repeal and Replace” and soon “We Are All Socialists Now.” Rs did the same thing on the Department of Education, reducing the debt/deficit, and a host of other issues. I wish things were different, but that’s the way of it.
This assumes that Democrat controlled states want to fix bad voter rolls. I don’t see the incentive.
Well, I hope we can get a good candidate for NC. Burr has already said he wasn’t going to run even before his current problems. I need to find out who might be in the pipeline.
BTW, this applies whether Trump leaves office on Jan. 20, 2021 or Jan 20, 2025.
And I quote:
“Stroke of the pen. Law of the Land. Kinda cool.”— Paul Begala
It would require significant intestinal fortitude on the part of Senate Republicans to take the Biden/Harris executive orders to court. I don’t think they are up to it..
Well look at the vigor of cocaine Mitch after the Kavanaugh thing. After being attacked as Nazis who want to eat minority children, RINOs might find some spine.
It’s better to hold the presidency than not. At least you get to run foreign policy and appoint judges.
No disagreement here. But you need to remember that it’s hard to get things done even when you have the Presidency.
I realize that. It’s critical that we hold the Senate,
Spur of the moment for me. In my excitement at some of the initial returns, I didn’t say anything about the bureaucracy (which is weird for me).
Some people on Twitter have said and linked to popular news articles stories suggesting: “Well Biden will run the table with the bureaucracy so looking at the House/Senate/Divided government is a mistake. The real victory is the bureaucracy.” I think it’s a yes and no, slightly leaning towards no. I’m sure if I say the federal bureaucracy is generally responsible to the Congress and public oversight in most domains it will raise eyebrows. I get that. And yes, the FBI, CIA, and recently the ATF, in its rush to crush pistol brace usage, presents problems for me. Biden has access to some staffing tricks (via OIRA). But most agencies tend to be more sensitive to Congress than the President. So what of Congress and the agencies?
Agencies are generally responsive to oversight and oversight is far more frequent and generic than commonly assumed. Republicans are good at it and it do it frequently. Agencies tend to be sensitive to relationship between their relevant Committees and the House floor. The same holds for the Senate committees. A tight House with a Speaker that may have to leave many bills open to more markup than they’d like, plus a Republican Senate? I don’t think Biden can have a field day with agency rule-making. It doesn’t mean he won’t use it. I’m just not quite as sold that the bureaucracy will be Biden’s escape hatch. I think he comes in somewhat hamstrung.
David Harsanyi has some really good analysis here on the Dan Proft Show. Start at 1:25:00.
https://omny.fm/shows/the-dan-proft-show/november-5-2020
It’s outrageous.
There are literally Republicans that don’t think it’s outrageous. These people make me sick.
The issue is, health insurance is too screwed up to keep the government out of it. They should have wiped out employer-based insurance in 1946. It’s both a very technical problem and a political problem. They didn’t do anything to get ready when they had total control. It’s sickening.
There are all kinds of conservative positions that are extremely hard to do* at this point because we have had so much Socialism injected into our system. The big one is the way the Federal Reserve and the financial system is operated. Because of this, I think it’s really better to go in the Trump/Bannon direction until something really bad happens in the economy.