U.S. 2018 mid-term elections thread

So we're about a month away from the mid-term elections in the United States, thought we could have a thread to talk about it a bit.

This one's a bit of a big deal since right now, the Republican party holds a slim majority in both the Senate and the House of Representatives, and there's a lot of seats that are going to be fought over (something like nearly 3 dozen senate seats and nearly all house seats if I'm not mistaken) so the possibility exists that the Democratic party could take control of one or both houses of Congress. And then on top of that, we're right in the middle of the first term of one of the most.....divisive? controversial? presidents in the nation's history, plus there's the whole Brett Kavanaugh thing.

Given that approval ratings for Trump are far from good and that there's been a lot of controversy surrounding the Republicans I wouldn't be surprised to see Democrats coming out of the midterms quite well-off. From what I have heard, the divisive nature of the current government is expected to play a part in a surprisingly larger voter turn out for midterms too, so maybe political apathy won't hurt either side to the extent it did in the Presidential election.

I can't comment much more than that though, the US political system is over-complicated and weird and I don't really understand midterms particularly well. From what I can tell though, they aren't a bad thing at all and may be one of the few things about your system I like.

I feel like it's going to be more or less a given that Dems are going to take control of the house. This seems like arrogant thinking, but the data support this, so...

That said, I feel the question becomes who's going to control the senate, and will it be a narrow win for dems or will Republicans retain control? It's unlikely that the democrats will seize anything super sizeable so I'm only expecting either Rs to retain control or for there to be a narrow win for the Ds.

Kavanaugh and Net Neutrality are going to become very prominent topics for the mid-terms.

I live in america and im just now hearing about this. So i have no words about this.

I'll be voting Republican and Libertarian this election.

gimmepie said:

Given that approval ratings for Trump are far from good

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Rasmussen shows him at 51% of likely voters, which is very high for any sitting President and certainly the highest he's ever polled at himself. There has been a noticeable increase in his approval ratings over the past several weeks. You can see this visually on 538 when you sort by date; notice that you get more and more green the further up you go. That shows an upward trend.

Speaking anecdotally, the Kavanaugh issue has driven me to approve significantly more of the Republicans and less of the Democrats. The numbers I've seen seem to support the hypothesis that the Kavanaugh issue is playing better for Republicans than for Democrats.

Both major parties are disastrous right now and neither deserves any power but the Republicans are genuinely going to ruin the lives of millions and need to be stopped. Their behaviour over Kavanaugh is inexcusable.

twocows said:

Rasmussen shows him at 51% of likely voters, which is very high for any sitting President and certainly the highest he's ever polled at himself.

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Which is why you should look at the averages instead of running with the single most pro-republican pollster in the entire US (538 adds a penalty of -6 R when weighting its polls). This said, since you mentioned it, 538 has him at 42-53 with rounding, tied for second-most unpopular president ever with Clinton just before the 1994 red wave and worse than Carter.

Incidentally, since Kavanaugh got confirmed, Trump's approval has been dropping and the Democrats' advantage in the generic ballot has increased, so it seems that -as expected- the losing side was more likely to be enraged and motivated by it than the winning side. Because obviously card-carrying partisans are going to become more partisan over a partisan battle, but the question is independents and intensity. And the recent data so far shows those going blue in the aftermath of the vote.

(Of course, this may even play well for republicans in some House districts and in the Senate, where most of the seats on play have nothing to do with the national average).

Although my family votes for Republicans, Trump was not our first choice. I voted for Cruz during the Republican primaries since we're Texas residents. I would actually have voted for Gary Johnson in the actual election if he was a much stronger candidate, but I just didn't want Hilary as president, so I vote for the Republican challenger to the Democrat. The whole SCOTUS scenario that played out over the past few weeks has put my chance at voting for a Democrat now to 0%, and I'm now worried about what the Democrats will do next, as protesters have been really aggressive lately.

EDIT: So since I made my last post, I didn't know my family had actually registered. So yeah, I'll be voting for Republicans in 2018, as well as anyone else opposing the Democrats, even Independents.

I thought we were voting on who is going to be the next governor of whatever state people live in

I'll definitely be voting Democratic though

Ivysaur said:

Which is why you should look at the averages instead of running with the single most pro-republican pollster in the entire US (538 adds a penalty of -6 R when weighting its polls). This said, since you mentioned it, 538 has him at 42-53 with rounding, tied for second-most unpopular president ever with Clinton just before the 1994 red wave and worse than Carter.

Incidentally, since Kavanaugh got confirmed, Trump's approval has been dropping and the Democrats' advantage in the generic ballot has increased, so it seems that -as expected- the losing side was more likely to be enraged and motivated by it than the winning side. Because obviously card-carrying partisans are going to become more partisan over a partisan battle, but the question is independents and intensity. And the recent data so far shows those going blue in the aftermath of the vote.

(Of course, this may even play well for republicans in some House districts and in the Senate, where most of the seats on play have nothing to do with the national average).

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Given my own open politics i'd never usually vote democrat. But after the kavanaugh mess and trump's despicable rally I'd vote for Dems in the mid terms. The republicans are going to irreversibly damage millions of American lives.

As many expect the vast majority of gay men to do, I'm voting Dems. I'm just fucking tired y'all. I haven't read the news in a hot minute because every time I try to engage with the latest shit, it's just exhausting. I at least have seen that, unsurprisingly, the LGBTQ+ community is getting screwed over as usual. Who loves that recent ban on unmarried spouses of U.N. legislators that disproportionately hurts gay and lesbian couples from countries where same-sex marriage isn't allowed? Not this bitch.

My political alignment hasn't really changed much over the past ten years; at most, I've become more right-leaning on market issues. I'm still very progressive (as you can see in my 8values in my signature), but I can't abide the current incarnation of the DNC. I voted Libertarian for the first time in 2016 after voting Democrat in every previous election and this will be the first election where I will mix ticket Libertarian/Republican. The DNC and their supporters just don't get it. I'm not some FOX News-watching, conservative talk radio-listening Evangelical Christian neo-Nazi KKK fascist. I listen to NPR on the way to work, I'm atheist, egalitarian, and last I checked, libertarians, who believe that government should be almost non-existent, are about as far away from fascists as you can get. I just don't think what the DNC and their supporters are pushing right now is good for the country and what they're pushing frequently doesn't have anything to do with being a liberal or being progressive.

Ivysaur said:

Which is why you should look at the averages instead of running with the single most pro-republican pollster in the entire US (538 adds a penalty of -6 R when weighting its polls)

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Please re-read my post. My initial figure was from Rasmussen, and I then went on to show both weighted and unweighted averages over the course of the past several weeks using statistics provided by 538 (which is run by Nate Silver, who was pretty anti-Trump as I remember).

Edit: wanted to add some more context

The reason I won't be voting Democrat is really the same as it was last election. I was hoping 2016 would serve as a wake-up call to the DNC that they had lost touch with what most people think is right and fair, but if anything, they've doubled down on the mistakes they made in 2016. They're seeing things entirely through the lens of partisanship and completely ignoring the nuance the situation warrants. It's not about left versus right; it's the general behavior of the DNC and its supporters that apologizes for and at times even empowers its radical elements while stifling and demonizing anyone who dissents with any part of the agenda.

Maybe you don't see things that way. The thing is, this isn't about how party supporters see things. It's about how people who could feasibly be convinced to change their vote see things: independents, undecided voters, moderates, etc. At the very, very best, the DNC has a severe PR problem in that your typical uncommitted voter sees them as enabling unethical behavior. Certain Democratic congresspeople telling their supporters to harass Republicans is exactly the kind of thing that's losing them votes from moderates. It's extremely bad PR for the party and the correct move politically would have been to disavow and strongly rebuke that kind of rhetoric.

Registered to vote, was super excited about voting for Governor... and then I check my options.

Sadly didn't change my address to Uni so I couldn't have a say in primaries, but now I've got my option between the mayor of Tallanasty and a guy who is just a Trump groupie.

Sad days for Florida, but I'm still going to do my research and vote the lesser of two evils. /shrug

Bidoof FTW said:

Sad days for Florida, but I'm still going to do my research and vote the lesser of two evils. /shrug

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I'm curious: as a fellow Floridian, exactly what is so bad about Andrew Gillum? Granted I haven't kept up too much about the gov race in contrast to the Senate race (because that's also going to be a Big Oof to watch), but he didn't seem too bad to me.

Then again, I'd take any half-decent human over our current Voldemort governor, anyway.

I seriously cannot see how Ron DeSantis is good for Florida. He's just merely a puppet of Trump's agenda, and he'll send this state further backwards than Rick Scott already has. To be honest, if it wasn't for Trump's endorsement of DeSantis, I'd imagine our Republican gubernatorial candidate would have been Adam Putnam.

Republicans have been in control of Florida for two decades now, and nothing has happened in terms of growth on issues the state has, such as red tide and education. The Democrats have pledged to work on these issues, and the Republicans are pointing fingers at Democrats for not fixing the issues.

My family and I are going to go ahead and vote Dems (And show up at the polls) this November.

For one, my mother has had sufficient experience with sexual harrassment in her past, so Kavanaugh's confirmation hits home for her among certain other things.

Funny enough, mom and I found vote-by-mail papers in our mailbox recently. We're agreeing not to bother with that because, as it turns out, the Republicans are pretty much the only ones whom we've heard don't get those papers. I'm not one for conspiracy theories, but that detail is an agonizing red flag for me.

Fellow Dems...let's all be responsible enough and go for the Blue Wave.

EDIT: I almost forgot. I'm grateful for Andrew Gillium too, Tsutarja. DeSantis' tendency to indoctrinate his kids with Trump's ideology is out of hand already as it is.

Anvils Alive said:

DeSantis' tendency to indoctrinate his kids with Trump's ideology is out of hand already as it is.

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Don't even get me started on that advertisement where he was telling his little son to "build the wall." I get that it was comedic, but it was poor comedy, and not at all appropriate for a political ad.

colours said:

I'm curious: as a fellow Floridian, exactly what is so bad about Andrew Gillum? Granted I haven't kept up too much about the gov race in contrast to the Senate race (because that's also going to be a Big Oof to watch), but he didn't seem too bad to me.

Then again, I'd take any half-decent human over our current Voldemort governor, anyway.

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Honestly I'm very glad you asked this because I didn't realize how ignorant I was about Gillium until doing research to respond to this. Personally having close friends that live in Tallahassee talk to me about what a bad city it is and how scary it is to walk around campus gave me a bad impression of Gillium (since he is mayor of Tally), but after checking out some statistics crime rate is going down and Tallhassee is growing pretty quickly, so he doesn't seem so bad after all.

And yes, the alternative is so much worse. I had planned on voting Gillium just because of his opponent but now I at least can say I'm happy with the vote.

I'm just glad that RDick Snyder will no longer be in office
Idk anything about the candidates yet though

Looked at the two candidates and already decided who I'm voting for

I hope you guys can stop DeSantis. It isn't my state so I must sit this one out, but I would vote for Gillum though if I could, with the caveat that I would not romanticize him despite showing a lot of promise.

Gillum reminds me of Obama in that while he may be very talented, he is also ambitious. He courted the left in the primaries with Bernie Sanders and Ro Khana endorsements, and is now moving toward the center for the general by tweeting out videos with Cory Booker and hitting the campaign trail with Hillary Clinton.

I think Gillum's platform itself is beautiful on domestic policy from better wages to protecting our environment. Let's just hope he stays true to these policies. The main thing that gives me pause with him is the rhetoric shift on the subject of healthcare. He ran on medicare for all, yet his more recent comments have been about making healthcare more affordable and upholding the AACA, which is different from making sure that everyone has medicare. I personally believe that healthcare is a human right, and support universal care.

Still Gillum was easily the best option available in the democratic primary and I think he is by far the best in the general. He is a smart, young guy who triggers excitement. I think he will make sure the public school system is funded as it has been such a central part of his campaign it will be difficult to distance himself from it. Gillum has been the only candidate to respond appropriately to the disaster of hurricane Michael. He did a very good job as mayor of Talahassee, there was tremendous job and wage growth, new infastructure, reduced crime rates. He is open and very thorough with his plans to pay for everything.

He has proven that he can get not only get the job done, but go above and beyond. Just remember that at the end of the day he is still a politician, and like all of them they can be seduced. It is up to the people of Florida to follow up on him if you can get him in office and keep the pressure on him to fulfill all of his promises to you.