Fallout

by Jerome Armstrong, Wed Nov 03, 2010 at 09:46:05 AM EDT

First, among the McCain 49 Democrat seats, that won: Mike Ross AR-4, Gabrielle Giffords AZ-8, Ben Chandler KY-6, Collin Peterson MN-7, Mike McIntyre NC-7, Heath Shuler NC-11, Dan Boren OK-2, Jason Altmire PA-4, Tim Holden PA-17, Jim Matheson UT-2, Nick J. Rahall WV-3. That's it, only 11 out of 49 survived but you know those 11 can survive just about anything.

Most Ironic: Bill Owens holds on in NY-23 because Doug Hoffman pulls in 6 percent.

The Sarah Palin PAC went 18 out of 20 with her initial House 'targets'.  Giffords and Rahall hold on.

California. Now just a simple majority state, Democrats are going to own how things are done. Burt not redistricting. Legalizing marijuana went down 53.7 to 46.3, which is convincing; in fact, it lost in all four states, only close in Arizona.

I've not drilled down to look at the fallout for re-districting, but rest assured that the Republicans dominate the playing field for gerry-mandering, especially since CA has unilaterally done away with gerry-mandering.

The race I'm most surprised by is Reid winning in Nevada. he won by 5.4% with the last 8 polls over the last three weeks showed Angle up, an average of 2.7%. Its pretty odd to see Senate polls off by over 8 percent-- how did that happen?

The Democrats did much better in the Senate than most, including myself, expected, limiting their losses to 6-7 seats. The House came in more than was the consensus, at about 65-67, but right where I thought it would be, and the Governor races the blowout that was expected in the polling. The landscape of Governors, and the result further down-ballot in the state legislatures, remains to be seen. I can't see getting to excited about the Democrats congressional chances of re-taking the majority in the upcoming election.

 

Tags: (all tags)

Comments

9 Comments

Shadow_head_small
Texas was a disaster

GOP +22 seats in state House, one short of 2/3 majority and the Dem leads in the undecided district by 15 votes.  Ugly.

by esconded 2010-11-03 10:08AM | 0 recs
Shadow_head_small
Texas was a disaster

GOP +22 seats in state House, one short of 2/3 majority and the Dem leads in the undecided district by 15 votes.  Ugly.

by esconded 2010-11-03 10:08AM | 0 recs
Shadow_head_small
Reid

that one was easy for me to predict. Pollsters seemingly have a hard time with NV, but more importantly, the Latino vote share has increased, Latinos had something to lose in this race seeing who the GOP candidate was, and being neighbors with AZ must have galvanized them. Plus, Reid had the unions to push him over the edge in case it was a close race.

I'm only surprised that IL didn't come through at the senate level. It's astonishing that Quinn won but Gio lost. Geo would have been one of the most liberal senators in the nation. Instead, we end up with a guy who might give Republicans fits if he doesn't stay in line.

by likespolitics 2010-11-03 12:34PM | 0 recs
Shadow_head_small
Calif did worse than do away with gerrymandering

Prop. 20 didn't just take redisctricting away from the legislature. It also imposed some very pro-GOP requirements on how the districts are drawn.

If, as I expect, the GOP gains CA seats because Prop. 20 concentrates urban minorities into 90% Dem districts, it will spread to every other state where the GOP would benefit from similar changes.

I view Prop. 20 as the second leg (after voter suppression) of the GOP strategy to cope with the rising % of minority voters.

The Democrats aren't even on the playing field opposing the GOP efforts.

Here's some of the Prop. 20 text on how the district lines must be drawn. The pink text is added by Prop. 20:

(4) The geographic integrity of any city, county, city and county, local neighborhood, or local community of interest shall be respected in a manner that minimizes their division to the extent possible without violating the requirements of any of the preceding subdivisions. A community of interest is a contiguous population which shares common social and economic interests that should be included within a single district for purposes of its effective and fair representation. Examples of such shared interests are those common to an urban area, a rural area, an industrial area, or an agricultural area, and those common to areas in which the people share similar living standards, use the same transportation facilities, have similar work opportunities, or have access to the same media of communication relevant to the election process. Communities of interest shall not include relationships with political parties, incumbents, or political candidates.

Note the addition of "local" and the explicit inclusion of "similar living standards" as part of what defines a "community of interest". Those phrases mean that, even within a large metropolitan area, Prop. 20 further concentrates urban poor voters into districts.

by Ottnott 2010-11-03 05:42PM | 1 recs
4a2fab88-ed3b-47a4-8f14-3ec8a24504ac_normal
RE: Calif did worse than do away with gerrymandering

wow, that's one hell of a bait and switch. And the thing is, there's nothing in here that limits the drawing to non-snake-like cd's either (which is exactly what people abhor). I can live with geographic continuity, but this is effective for socio-economic division.

by Jerome Armstrong 2010-11-03 05:51PM | 0 recs
Shadow_head_small
RE: Fallout

I wonder how many Democrats will start to figure out that Barack Obama is killing their party? Kinda hard to win elections without all those bitter clingy voters in fly-over country. The demographic splits in the exit polling are breathtaking.

by hwc 2010-11-04 03:14AM | 0 recs
Shadow_head_small
RE: Fallout

this is where I think Democrats are blind. It isn't so much Obama that is killing their party as much as it's Democrats killing themselves from the inside out.

Obama is but a symptom of a much bigger problem. He certainly doesn't help things, but I'd be hard pressed to find many hard-nosed, progressive Democrats on both social and economic issues in our federal government.

The "Obama is killing the party" mantra comes across as either lazy commentary or not fully wanting to acknowledge the fact that the party isn't willing to fight for many truly progressive policies.

by likespolitics 2010-11-04 04:12PM | 1 recs
Shadow_head_small
RE: Fallout

"...that the party isn't willing to fight for many truly progressive policies." 

Absolutely.  The criticism of Obama's rolling over is well-deserved, but the fact is, Hillary had shown the same propensity (e.g. sending American troops off to die in Iraq to burnish her security credentials).  And certainly, Bill Clinton did it, too with "free" trade and DOMA. 

The Democratic Party has a whole seems so scared shitless of losing ANYTHING that they end up losing EVERYTHING.  We can't fight for gay rights or separation of church and state or we'll be called "anti-Christian."  We can't fight for workers' rights or we'll be called "class warriors."  We can't fight to break up the military-industrial complex or we'll be called "unpatriotic."  So, Democrats sit back as Republicans, corporations, state governments, whoever, regress our country.  Democrats allow the paradigms spouted by the Republicans to go unchallenged.

It's become somehow "pragmatic" to give up the reasons you want to win so you can win.  The notion that it was just social and military issues that were given up is bogus; it's economic issues, too.  No only did we not advance gay rights (like ENDA), but we also didn't get the Employee Free Choice Act, movement on climate change, energy legislation, or a healthcare bill worth a damn.

Too many Democrats have bought into the "big tent" mantra, thinking that we'll somehow get progress by welcoming into our party people who'll stand in the way of progress.  We'll never get a message out there by having our own reinforcing the other side's message and distracting us from ours.

by TheUnknown285 2010-11-07 05:50PM | 0 recs
Shadow_head_small
PLZ UPDATE!

Jerome, you missed Critz, in Murtha's old district. PA4 & PA17 are experiencing demographic shifts towards younger people, imnsho -- ya couldn't get much older...

by RisingTide 2010-11-04 11:26AM | 0 recs

Diaries

Advertise Blogads


----------- myDD - skin -----------