Democrats Did Better Than It Seems In Senate Races

[Gothmog]

If Hillary Clinton was serving as POTUS (She was selected by the majority of the voters), then the Democrats would have lost a larger number of senate seats this cycle due to the map https://politicalwire.com/2018/11/19/democrats-did-better-than-it-seems-in-the-senate-races/

FiveThirtyEight: “The 2018 election has become a tale of divided government: the House broke for Democrats, but the Senate held for Republicans — and what’s more, Republicans were even able to expand their majority in the Senate. The election has also become a tale of blue waves. But don’t those tales contradict one another? Not really. What the ‘split decision’ narrative sometimes misses is just how well Democrats performed in the Senate despite having to defend more seats than Republicans — and in territory that was largely more favorable to the GOP.”

“Much of this is overshadowed because Democrats did lose Senate seats… But if we look at a state’s partisan lean and the vote share margin in each Senate race, we see Democrats managed to outperform how their states leaned politically in almost every single race — including in the 10 states with a Democratic incumbent that President Trump won in 2016.”

However, First Read notes that Democratic performance in red states might have been their ceiling.
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[Chipper Chat]

1. Donnelly did a good job but was up against the trump tide

Indiana has lost the democratic.party. GOP sweep.

[sarcasmo]

2. New England states will be all blue once Collins is voted out in 2020.

[JCMach1]

14. I remember the MSNBC college campus tour in Indiana

I said to myself, watch this race... There was no entusiasm on campus for Donnelly.

[Gothmog]

3. From Nate

Link to tweet

[pwb]

4. 2020 we will do even better

[apnu]

5. The map sucked for the Democrats. I think we all knew that.

It could have been worse, maybe it should have been worse. But we were defending 7 of 10 seats, most in deep Red America. Trump went crazy with the fear and hate to stir up the base. So Red America got redder. Blue America to Bluer and purple states stayed purple. But where Republicans control Purple states we saw all kinds of dirty tricks. See Georgia, see Florida. In other places we flipped some governor mansions and that's nice, especially for 2020 and the looming Census opportunity that will come. Wisconsin is really odd. The Dems had a wave for the House, but also a super majority of Republicans voted in to Madison? Something doesn't smell right there.

If you thought 2018 was important, hold on to your butts, 2020 is going to be bonkers.

[Just a Weirdo]

7. Colorado stopped being purple

And went blue. We have control of state government. The only thing left to do is kick gardner out in 2020. He is already extremely endangered because he's an idiot.

[apnu]

13. Yay! *High Five* (nt)

[pecosbob]

6. Dems did a bang-up job given the number of seats in play

However, First Read notes that Democratic performance in red states might have been their ceiling. This is my caveat. We should not expect to out perform in red states in the future. I believe this election was more about repudiation of Trump for a variety of reasons by many that voted for him in 2016. The Rs will race-bait as usual in 2020 and we know they'll create a boogeyman to scare voters. Absent Trump as a driver of Democratic turnout, I would predict a return to the old status quo, but it really depends a lot on what insanity he manufactures in the next year.

The repudiation of ALEC and the Kochs in Kansas, Wisconsin and Michigan was encouraging. Would be great to see the midwest blue again.

[Garrett78]

8. With a good 20 states out of reach, we're at a huge disadvantage in terms of Senate control.

[GulfCoast66]

10. Overall I agree. But I think you underestimate the extra folks Trump gets out.

When he is washed up lots of his redneck voters(my family members) will return to apathy. They love them some trump. Republicans not so much.

And I think the suburban vote is gone for good from the republicans. The burbs will continue to get browner and younger.

The republicans are in a demographic trap. It came close to costing them the Senate this time in a year when they should have picked up 5+ seats. It will only get worse.

I predict that in an election 4-12 years from now they will get totally run. It might be in 2020. We just have to get our voters to the polls.

[Chipper Chat]

9. If Puerto Rico and DC become states

That's 4 more democratic senators.

[Garrett78]

11. Yes, please. The Senate disadvantages us significantly. Adding 4 Senators would help a lot.

[Dawson Leery]

12. If we take MS, the GOP would have only a single seat gain.

[dsc]

15. If I discovered oil in my back yard I would be rich

sadly I don't think either of these will happen