2022 US Midterms

[Red]

Election season is coming up in the US, and it's gonna be another instance of who's going to get off their asses and vote.
This is the forecast according to 538:
https://projects.fivethirtyeight.com/20 ... -forecast/
(For the Senate it favors the Democrats 68 to 32, for the House it favors the Republicans 76 to 24)
It's actually a huge improvement for the Democrats since about June (it was about 50-50 in the Senate, 90-10 in the House), but it's still up in the air.

In recent decades, when the newly elected President comes into power and he has control of both houses of congress, he generally loses support of at least the House of Representatives after the first midterm.

I don't think it's because Americans are fickle and constantly change their minds when they get to the voting booth, I think it's more of a matter of who's bothering to vote. If the Democrats had the votes to take over the house in 2018's midterms and get a trifecta in 2020, why do they all of a sudden not have them? I think I have a plausible answer: It's because when things are going fine for people, they don't have any incentive to do anything.

For instance, looking at this election, after Roe V. Wade has been overturned in many states, the polls have shifted a little to the Democrats. It seems as though things have to start actually affecting people for them to actually start caring and doing something about it (if Roe V. Wade wasn't overturned, Democrats would almost certainly lose).

However, I also have another hypothesis that somewhat contradicts the previous one: Maybe now that people are seeing that their voting is having an effect (given the recent climate bill passed and Biden canceling some student debt), they feel more incentive to vote. I can kind of understand this, where seeing results is what keeps you motivated to do something, but when it comes to politics, especially extremely influential politics like US politics, I think the need to reduce harm by having the less bad person in office should be incentive enough.

It could be some weird mix of the two, if the thing that has a negative impact on people affects a large enough group (which removing reporductive rights does), and since most people who care about things like climate change and education are now seeing results are new to politics and voting, the positive feedback loop is starting.

Anyway, I remain somewhat pessimistic about the midterms, given the high gas prices and inflation (both of which have been lowering in the past month or so), though there's always a chance.

It's funny, since the reason why reproductive rights were overturned, ultimately, is due to voter apathy. 2014 was when the Republicans made unprecetended gains (nine damn seats in the Senate, out of a contested 36), primarily due to the extremely low turnout rate amongst younger voters (20%. Really think about that), which allowed them to not only stall Obama's court appointment, but allowed Trump to place not one, not two, not four, but three justices, which if I'm not mistaken is the most since Reagan (and Trump did it in ONE term), which ultimately led us to the situation we're in now. Do people just overestimate how many years those fuckers in robes got in 'em? We all knew Ginsburg was hanging on by a thread even then.

So I predict the Democrats will clinch the Senate (will be easier with Harris giving them an edge), and will lose the House. There are still two months to go, so we'll see what happens. What do you think?

[Jamie in Chile]

all to play for here

interesting is that according to 538 it´s more likely that one party will win both chambers than the chambers will be split one each

[Red]

interesting is that according to 538 it´s more likely that one party will win both chambers than the chambers will be split one each

Don't ask me about it I don't run the numbers.

If my interpretation is correct, if the Democrats manage to win the house, that pretty much means they'll also win the Senate, if that's what this model is saying.

A 27% chance for the Democrats to maintain both houses is a fair bit higher than usual for a midterm, but that still leaves a 73% chance that they'll lose at least one house so let's not get our hopes up. We still have two months until the election so we'll see what happens.

[Red]

@Jebus are you making any bets this election cycle?

[Red]

Jeez the Democrats had a strong improvement throughout the summer, now it's pretty much back to where it was at the beginning:
https://projects.fivethirtyeight.com/20 ... -forecast/
We'll have to see what happens, but it doesn't look good.

[Jamie in Chile]

There´s an interesting theory that Russia and Saudi Arabia are conspiring to increase the oil price, to increase the petrol price in the US ahead of the midterms, to help the Republicans. Will be interesting to see how soon after the mid terms they increase oil supply and reduce the price.