Politics Discussion Thread (Heated Arguing Warning)

[ipecac]

"no u"

You oppose affirmative action because you believe the antiscience that 'race doesn't exist'. Obviously you're not thinking through this.

There are also other obvious examples of you mindlessly chanting leftist tripe, which once led you to quote a source that blew your own argument apart.

[MJW (ya that one)]

Well 538's Classic model now finally gives enough weight to polls that it's good. The only toss-up is NV which I say Tilts D but the model says Tilts R. I would go with the model because there's a lot of breaks against GOP currently on that map and bumping up NV balances that out. It also makes future updates easy (just follow the map and give out tilt ratings to the guy who is over 50%).

Losing GA-06 made the ND Republican join that race which has a high probability of saving the Senate for the GOP. This could be really bad if Ginsberg kicks the bucket soon. But this is actually good for the DEMs because they might have tried to do something stupid if they won the Senate. This will get them an easy ride to 2024. If they win in 2020 they win. If they lose there's no hard DACA deadline anymore, they won't be able to blame Russia/Clinton and they already have to support the mainline GOP to prevent the FC from extracting huge concessions. They will take the easy way and wait for demographics to hand them the win. So they will reach 2024 and win there.

So why is ND Lean R while WV is Likely D when it has a much higher CPVI? I give 3 reasons.

1. GOP candidate is much stronger. The WV GOP candidate is from NJ and just wants stuff from a vulnerable state. ND GOP candidate is from ND.

2. ND is smaller state and the GOP candidate has run a lot of times in it. This made it easy for the GOP to hit saturation and make the DEM candidates 5 vs 1 spending edge far less important.

3. The DEM candidates are about the same strength with one big difference-- Heidi Heitkamp is overtly Pro-Choice. Now in ND people are around 50/50 or even a slight lean to Pro-Choice. The problem is that it allows Kevin Cramer to have his cake and eat it too. Usually you have to choose if you want to run a "bipartisan" or "partisan" campaign. You lose some votes ether way by looking partisan or not getting all your partisans on your side. However, abortion allows you to attack someone viciously without looking partisan because, like T-hawk said, unlike everything else it's the extremists who are correct. Berg couldn't exploit this because Heitkamp didn't have a voting record to attack but Cramer can.

Edit: 538's current ratings

Solid D/R/I: everything else

Likely R: MS-S, TN, TX
Lean R: ND
Tilt R: NV
Tilt D: Nothing
Lean D: FL, AZ, MO
Likely D: MN-S, IN, NJ, MT, WV

[MJW (ya that one)]

Cook put NJ at toss-up . That's pathetic both ways. Cook for putting everything at toss-up to avoid making incorrect prediction and for the incumbent NJ Senator for being at toss-up (even if it's Cook).

Jair wisely refused to debate. I thought about what Ichabod said to me and it doesn't matter--they didn't ditch the government in Venezuela because they didn't want to admit that the left can sometimes be wrong which is an implicit endorsement of the right. Jair would have been stopped if the left cared about the country than about winning.

Edit: I'm mostly talking about the Worker's Party

[MJW (ya that one)]

I call the election for Jair. I really like him refusing to debate. There's no other elections and no-one will care about this next time. He also was able to avoid implicitly endorsing the WP as legit.

[MJW (ya that one)]

Screw the polls and 538. Here's my Senate rankings.

Solid: I call it
Likely: I almost call it
Lean: This team has a clear edge
Toss-up: everything else.

If I had to call everything MO&IN would go GOP and AZ would go DEM.

WV @ Likely is pushing it a little but it would be a very bad sign if GOP wins there. I would have to make all sorts of rating changes.

   

Edit: Not worth own post but here's another map. Safe=I know this team will win. Likely: I'm pretty sure this time will win. 

I'm very tempted to bump down NV but MO, IN and AZ are statistical worse off so I cannot do it. 

   

[MJW (ya that one)]

Final Senate Update. I'm doing this because we are getting early returns (absentee) so going farther is like doing this on election day which is silly. 

Projected: I call it. 
Lean: I would guess this team. 

I gave into temptation and bumped down NV which also freed me up to flip IN. In order for this map to be good every team that is supposed to win the Projected and all the Leans have to avoid being blowouts (<10%). If this map comes to pass the DEMS won everything they could expect TN, ND and MO. TN got bailed out by polarization so can't be separated from DEM success elsewhere because Trump caused both. ND and MO would be lost because the incumbents were weak--trying to be bipartisan and Pro-Choice. They would be lost in 2024 anyway. 

   

[darrelljs]

What about the house...any predictions there?

Darrell

[MJW (ya that one)]

What about the house...any predictions there?

Darrell

Inside Elections is closest to me. I'm a little bit more bullish on the DEMs so just tilt the map a little more to the left. It would be in the middle of Tilt D if I did it and the DEMs would have an 80% chance of winning. 

https://media.cq.com/electionguide/?utm_...ctionguide

[MJW (ya that one)]

Well I gave into temptation, looked at the early vote and the only thing I would change for my latest map is to flip AZ. I'm too cowardly to give the GOP this year 3-0 record on the tossups so IN stays where it is. GOP holding AZ wouldn't challenge me because it would be another gift from the left (the green candidate bleeding off votes and "AZ is the meth lab of democracy").

[MJW (ya that one)]

Well hello Senator Rick Scott.

DEMs win house while GOP does reasonably well in Senate. The map isn't good enough for that to happen with DEMs +8. I think it's also the fact that they won't able to lean on Trump as much on those races because Senators have a lot more power.

Kevin Cramer flat out said that he wouldn't have run if Heitkamp didn't vote for that late-term abortion bill; making it the only topic for his victory speech. ND only has a slight Pro-Life tilt. The real problem is that you cannot be bi-partisan and pro-choice because the GOP is still overwhelming pro-life with cracks just starting to appear. You really want to work together with body-snatchers? It makes it obvious your just saying stuff to get elected.