What McConnell said about the House is bigger than what he said about the Senate

[edhopper]

McConnell admitted that they might not take the Senate because of their shitty, unqualified, nutjob candidates. But the statement is more telling about the House.

“I think there’s probably a greater likelihood the House flips than the Senate. Senate races are just different — they're statewide, candidate quality has a lot to do with the outcome,”

In other words, they have gerrymandered enough States to take the House, not matter the Statewide popular vote.
The generic plus/minus Democrat/Republican polling is meaningless when they have made sure there are more safe Repug districts and diluted the Democratic vote.

[Walleye]

1. I think this is good, a slip in confidence. Just a few weeks ago they were saying they won already

And a pro like McConnell knows when you start losing the momentum in August, November is not looking good.

[PCIntern]

2. Agreed. And I for one think they're gonna have

a problem with the House. This Dobbs decision is not going away, in fact it is one of those issues which increases in importance over time.

[2naSalit]

4. +1

[Walleye]

7. Yes because these horror stories are gonna just keep coming out. There's no way to make it look good

[Butterflylady]

17. I agree with you about the house.

Roe changed a lot and the idea of them going after contraception is in my mind makes it almost impossible for them to win. Gerrymandering is going to backfire.

[disndat]

23. If Kansas could go blu-ish

there's real hope.

[BadgerMom]

33. +1

[Cheezoholic]

3. Yup, I caught that

Immediately! I even rewound and listened again. Did he really just just say that? Ditch openly scratched the itch lol.

[localroger]

5. Gerrymandering works only up to a point, though

So you engineer a narrow majority of R's in three-fourths of your house districts. R blowout, right? Then for some strange reason a lot more women than men register to vote, and a lot of women who nominally vote R quietly pull the D lever in the privacy of the booth. Now your R blowout just became a D blowout. And at this point it's too late to rearrange things.

[70sEraVet]

9. I hope you are right, and they 'gerrymander' themselves out of power.

[llashram]

14. the republikkkan

men still think of women as weak. That they will 'Stepford wife' zombie do what they say. While maybe that is true in some cases, Dobbs opened a lot of eyes. And the affected will open their eyes as to who is strongest. Just an opinion...

[samsingh]

25. and women across all cultural groups will be voting against the Republican traitors

[sheshe2]

42. Just look at what happened in Denver.

Women aren't going away no matter how hard they wish us to. Wade is a huge voters issue for women and men as well.

I want both houses. We have to do this.

[Lovie777]

6. I think we are going to prevail in the House ......

[certainot]

16. it would be guaranteed if democrats would stop ignoring RW radio, the only unique advantage GOP has

it wouldn't even be close

not only is it their most important weapon - free to them and locally coordinated - it is extremely vulnerable

[JudyM]

19. Good resource link. We absolutely need to address this. And churches proselytizing republicanism.

[Johnny2X2X]

8. Keeping the House is vital

Redistricting didn't help the GOP, the Dems have momentum. It's still tough, but we have a real chance to hold the House.

Dems have played the long game here, they've accomplished a ton and now have 10 weeks to talk about it. Roe is a huge deal. Trump getting indicted is going to help Dems. Dem's strategy of helping extreme GOP candidates beat moderates in the primaries is a winning strategy, in my Congressional District it's virtually guaranteed we flip our House Seat to Dem, and an amazing Dem candidate at that.

My6 district here in West Michigan is pretty symbolic of Dem's efforts. First, a ballot initiative in 2020 led to a bipartisan panel redistricting. My Congressional district went from R+9 to D+3. But Peter Meijer was the Rep here, and he's very well liked and a moderate, he voted to impeach Trump. Meijer is from a well respected family in the area and beat Hillary Scholten in 2020. So the Republicans brought in a candidate who moved to Michigan and is a total Trump wingnut. It was a close primary, but Dems propped up Meijer's opponent who won the primary. Meijer would have beaten Scholten again, this other guy doesn't stand a chance. Hillary Scholten will be our next representative in Washington, she's amazing and has devoted her entire career to civil rights and helping those less fortunate.

She's going to be a great progressive voice.

Hold the house to avoid Republicans spending 2 years harming the country by obstructing everything, and holding joke investigation into Hunter Biden's laptop 8 hours a day for 24 months.

[PatrickforB]

32. Thank you! I know about the politics in my own state, but it is cool to hear about

what it looks like on the ground in other states. Good luck to Scholten!

[Irish_Dem]

10. Exactly. McConnell will do everything he can to maintain control over the Senate.

In each state he knows the specific counties he can rig with no consequences.

[live love laugh]

24. I don't believe that. Republicans want the House.

They’ve learned how things really get done from Pelosi and that the House has real power—especially financial power.

They want to twist things and embark on baseless investigations and impeachments to exact revenge for the prior two impeachments.

[Hortensis]

29. McConnell's famous for his thirst for personal power, though.

For 30 years, as his colleagues knew, his great ambition was to grow his power until he became senate majority leader. He finally achieved it in this crazy corrupt era he helped create -- when his continued behaviors confirmed something else he was already strikingly famous for: lack of any real ideology, significant policy achievements, or plan to create a meaningful conservative legacy that might have guided his decisions.

He needs Republicans to control the house too, of course. But, I've read that he's admitted he actually prefers being the MOST powerful Republican in the country, as when they hold only the senate majority.

He's also famous among his colleagues for such ignorance of most important policy issues that he couldn't participate competently in conversation with them -- but that's because he's not interested in THAT. It's all about getting and wielding power. So, if they don't hold the house, how important are the bills they can't pass to him anyway? (Except as lack of action displeases his and the rest of their donors, of course.)

Not what we imagine, right? Like so many who've risen to power in that party, there's more than a little missing in and wrong with him.

[Irish_Dem]

38. McConnell is one of the most powerful men in the world. What the R's want doesn't mean much to him.

He manipulates everyone to get what he wants.

McConnell is a very ruthless sociopath and control freak.

When he lost Ga he found a way to get de facto senate control.

He always finds a way.

[COL Mustard]

11. Keeping both chambers would be nice

Keeping the Senate is imperative.

[HariSeldon]

12. The thing about gerrymandering is...

The districts are drawn to concentrate Democratic votes into the smallest possible number while spreading the Republican votes into the largest number possible allowing "reasonable" margin of victory. But this is a double-edged sword, because if there is a significant shift toward Democrats (such as the Dobbs decision might cause) or apathy among Republicans (which might occur because of revealed criminality), the "reasonable" margin can be overwhelmed.

[no_hypocrisy]

13. And gerrymandering is ineffective when it comes to Senate races.

Senate races are statewide, not confined to districts that have voters artificially re-distributed.

[Cheezoholic]

15. C'mon, he flat out admitted it

I think hat was the main point of the OP. They deny there's ever any "bias" in their gerrymandering other than giving party line voters equal representation (like that district in NC that looks like the Yangtze river). We're guilty too. We all know partisan gerrymandering is a perversion of the 14th Amendment.

I think more to the point of this thread was the fucker admitted he and his party have their hands firmly squeezing the Dems crown jewels in the house and there's not a damned thing they can do about it. In so many words he flat out admitted they've gerrymandered the states to a nearly impervious level, almost bragging about it. I'm even wondering if he thinks he fucked up. Most Americans dont understand gerrymandering to a very deep level and he may have let his overconfidence speak before his common sense. He's not a stupid man by any means and seldom makes a mistake like this. I was really surprised.

[mnhtnbb]

18. I think McConnell has underestimated the anger of women

which may be enough to overcome even the gerrymandering.

[GoCubsGo]

27. I think he knows, which is why he used weasel words.

"I think there’s probably a greater likelihood the House flips..." Qualify your speculation much there, Mitchy?

[nuxvomica]

20. So he admits the House has poor quality Republican candidates

But the gerrymandering will allow them to win. That's a pretty stinging insult to House Republicans.

[Lonestarblue]

21. Texas gained two House seats and gerrymandered new districts to ensure that they represent

white Republicans, even though the gain in population that got them two more seats came from Latinos. They also gerrymandered out the single black majority district in the state, so Texas alone may have three more Republicans in the House. There are very few House seats that are now considered competitive.

[flying_wahini]

22. I think we will take the House and the Senate.

Yes, I am an Optimistic Dem.

[Hortensis]

37. Leaning optimistic here also.

[The Wizard]

26. Gerrymandering, voter suppression and the filibuster

have nullified representative democracy as envisioned by Aristotle.

[Kaleva]

28. They'd have to have control of the state legislature to do that

[edhopper]

43. They control

30 of the 50.

[DownriverDem]

30. If they take the House

the 1/6 investigation ends and they plan on impeaching Biden. I just don't understand our country.

[PatrickforB]

31. Ordinarily I'd agree with you, Ed, and join you in lamenting GOP corruption and lies, BUT...

We have a definite wildcard in this upcoming election, and that is the Supreme Court's overturning Roe. Women are MAD about that and rightly so - even the right-leaning suburban ones.

A quick vignette (be mindful I live in a pretty blue urban area). I went in to the periodontist for a cleaning, and I was lamenting having to take out a loan to get the dental care I need when we squander so much on stupid tax cuts for billionaires, forever wars and this year's bloated war budget - you know my spiel, I'm sure...

Anyway, my dental hygienist brought up the Roe decision and as a young mother talked about old guys that are so concerned with ramming their narrow religious ideology down the rest of our throats that they have denied exceptions even for ectopic pregnancies. She said, "If you have an ectopic pregnancy, you DIE," and then I talked about that idiot on the Salt Lake City Council that said the uterus, umbilical cord and fetus aren't really 'connected' to the mother - you remember that? Geez.

So, she is a definite to vote and I talked about how I would vote for my snowshoe Siamese cat before I'd ever vote for any Republican. She laughed and said she always votes.

I'm thinking that IF our candidates keep POUNDING on this issue, this murderous misogyny, and keep it in the front of everyone's mind, we might actually WIN some of those gerrymandered House districts.

[Hermit-The-Prog]

41. You summed it up perfectly -- "murderous misogyny"

Roe, Roe, Roe your vote
against theocracy!
Republicans revoke your rights
and kill democracy!

[Hortensis]

34. "Senate races are different...statewide, candidate quality has a lot to do with outcome."

What he's saying here is worth remembering about the senate. Because senate candidates have to get elected by majorities of the voters of whole states, the senate's membership historically tends to be both more moderate and higher quality than the house's overall.

In districts, it's always been possible for groups of enthusiastic wingers to get someone who takes their fancy elected for two years. Over whole states, of course, much larger and more diverse populations and interest groups, as well as big players who want serious people able to tend to their business, tend to eliminate those who can't create broad appeal. And there are not only a lot of voters who are neither crazy nor idiots, but more attention is paid to senate races.

Even with the appalling gerrymandering, house members can be comparatively easily primaried, and with 435 members of all qualities elected every 2 years, the house has a busy revolving door. Not the senate. THOSE guys are powerful just by being there and tend to be hard to get rid of.

[Traildogbob]

35. I wanna be optimistic

I really do. In a straight up fair fight we could slaughter the GQP. But for the house specifically, Gerrymandering, voters suppression, throwing millions off of registration roles, every elimination of Dem voters, and then outright rejecting a Dem win with SOS installing their lunatic, with Denial of any Dem victory, we are in a shitstorm of a battle. And that battle needs to be in full swing right now with no gloves. We are at General Quarters with all hands demanded to be at battle stations with eminent attack of incoming missiles. And we are all in CIC where those missiles will strike directly. We fight like hell or we blow the fuck up. My fellow sailers will understand this scenario. As an Ops Specialist 2nd class petty officer, I knew CIC was ground zero for a Missile strike. We had to react within seconds. I feel that same sense of dire results if we do not react right now. And the EW’s have detected the electronic fingerprints of the locked on missile incoming. The best counter measure we have, is send our own missile straight up the large ASSHOLE of Steve Bannon. End his treasonous mouth right damn now. No amount of shirts layered would save his greasy ass.

[flying_wahini]

39. Yes, Bannon is a daily threat. Wish they had gone ahead and sentenced him

He needs to be out of the Loop.

[samnsara]

36. the house will muddle everything up with senseless hearings..nothing will get done

[Hermit-The-Prog]

40. Get enough voters out to overwhelm the cheat. ROE YOUR VOTE!

Roe, Roe, Roe your vote
against theocracy!
Republicans revoke your rights
and kill democracy!

[ThoughtCriminal]

44. Getting state legislatures away from Republican domination is critical

This is where pro-choice candidates need to make a lot of noise.

[TigressDem]

45. Minnesota has been redistricted as well.

Seems like the BLUE is concentrated in a few districts with huge chunks being moved so the rural areas don't have any balance with cities that tend to vote more DEM.

[mahina]

46. I think he was alluding to Warnock v Hershel Walker. Georgia,

We need you.

I know it’s the summer DU drive but please send Fair Fight and Stacey Abrams some money if you can.

[edhopper]

47. Walker

Oz, Vance, Masters, all buffoons.