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Ted Cruz

7 (6.5%)

Rick Santorum

16 (14.8%)

Michelle Bachmann

13 (12%)

Chris Christie

23 (21.3%)

Rand Paul

49 (45.4%)

Total Members Voted: 107

[mainiac]

I dunno...I think the Republicans are going to stall out around 48 seats. Just a gut feeling.


One very interesting note: a number of states have minimum wage hike ballot initiatives in play, and they're all passing. Even in blood-red states like Nebraska, they're passing with about 60-65% approval. Republicans simply can't defend their opposition to a national minimum wage increase when their core states are passing them.

I wish I possessed your gut.

[RedKing]

I dunno...I think the Republicans are going to stall out around 48 seats. Just a gut feeling.


One very interesting note: a number of states have minimum wage hike ballot initiatives in play, and they're all passing. Even in blood-red states like Nebraska, they're passing with about 60-65% approval. Republicans simply can't defend their opposition to a national minimum wage increase when their core states are passing them.

I wish I possessed your gut.

I'm a little less sanguine about the 48 number now that Kansas and NC have started trending red. :-/

BUT...results are starting to come in for Iowa and Braley has a pretty solid 13-point lead with 6.9% reporting. I don't know the full dynamics of Iowa politics, but there's a pretty good chance that the Dems hold on to Iowa. They're set to win NM and lose CO, which I was already counting in my math on the previous post. If they hold IA, then I think the Republicans have to run the table in the other 4 (including the LA runoff) to take control. Which they could do. But at least the Doom That Came to Washington will be delayed by a couple of months. And if Begich pulls out a win in AK or the NC race flips back to Hagan or Orman sneaks ahead of Roberts in KS, then things start to look a bit rosier for the Dems. It's a knife-thin margin, but it's a margin. Credit them pulling out MI and NH for even still having hope at this point.


EDIT: SHIT. Forgot about Virginia. And Gillespie (R) is currently leading Mark Warner (D), although narrowly. That makes the calculus a bit hairier. Add VA to the mix, and GOP needs to win 4 of 6 to take control.

[FearfulJesuit]

FiveThirtyEight currently has the GOP with an 86% chance of taking the Senate. And Colorado has gone GOP.

Edit: Also, Louisiana is officially headed to a runoff.

[smjjames]

Yeah, it's looking like the GOP will take the senate, but a tie COULD still happen.

[RedKing]

I just looked an electoral district map of NC. Seriously, who the hell thinks these districts are not gerrymandered like fuck?

The 12th District is about 10 miles wide and 75 miles long. I think they just said "let's connect all the black neighborhoods in central NC, so they won't interfere with our other elections".

EDIT: NC Senate race is tightening back up, as most of the remaining precincts are in the Charlotte and Greensboro areas, and Hagan has about a 2-1 advantage in votes in those areas. She's also winning Forsyth Co (Winston-Salem) which is a bit of surprise, since Forsyth tends to be the one Republican urban stronghold.

[FearfulJesuit]

Washington Post says the GOP needs one more seat to have a Senate majority. That'll almost certainly be one of Alaska, NC, Iowa or VA. (Probably Alaska.) (Edit: Louisiana's probably going to flip, too- the 14% of Louisianans who voted for the diehard Tea Partier most certainly won't pick Landrieu over Cassidy.)

[smjjames]

I just looked an electoral district map of NC. Seriously, who the hell thinks these districts are not gerrymandered like fuck?

The 12th District is about 10 miles wide and 75 miles long. I think they just said "let's connect all the black neighborhoods in central NC, so they won't interfere with our other elections".

Yeah, although CNN's magicwall thing: http://www.cnnmagicwall.com/#/coverage makes them all angular, you can still see how strung out that district is. Theres also district 1 and district 4.

[misko27]

I don't know about Alaska. They predicted Begich would lose the first time but here he is as the incumbent.

[RedKing]

I think Iowa is safe.
NC is just too close to call. 50,000 vote gap, but still a lot of votes to be counted in urban centers.
VA is razor-close with Warner back on top at the moment by just 4,000 votes.
AK....fuck, who knows what those people will do. They elected Sarah Palin, for God's sake.

[RedKing]

I just looked an electoral district map of NC. Seriously, who the hell thinks these districts are not gerrymandered like fuck?

The 12th District is about 10 miles wide and 75 miles long. I think they just said "let's connect all the black neighborhoods in central NC, so they won't interfere with our other elections".

Yeah, although CNN's magicwall thing: http://www.cnnmagicwall.com/#/coverage makes them all angular, you can still see how strung out that district is. Theres also district 1 and district 4.

The 2013 redistricting was a masterpiece of political thuggery. That's why the truly crucial state-level elections are the decenary ones (2000, 2010, 2020, etc.) Control the legislature, you control the redistricting. Control the redistricting, you essentially get to shape the gameboard. And give your opponents the shit-end of the stick.

EDIT: You'd never know if from that map, but NC actually has more registered Democrats than Republicans. And yet we have 10 Republican House members and only 3 Democrats (2 of which are black and come from gerrymandered "majority-minority" districts).

[FearfulJesuit]

Alaska's weird, because it's got a small and very spread-out population. That means that polls are less accurate (they don't have as much data to work with) and a good ground game can mean a lot- and that's something the Democrats are usually quite good at doing. It'll probably flip, but you never know.

[RedKing]

Ok, 92% of precincts in NC have reported in, and the gap is now 100,000 in favor of Tillis.

I don't quite understand where the hell all those extra GOP votes were coming from given her advantage in Charlotte and Greensboro, but whatever. All Heil Senator Thom Tillis. Now we have a matching pair of corporate shills in cheap suits and absolutely no real Senate representation. (Seriously.....Richard Burr is like the Senate equivalent of Clarence Thomas. I'm not sure if anybody's even *seen* Burr since the last election.)

[smjjames]

Speaking of gerrymandering, the LA (Los Angles for those not familiar with the acronym) area has a crapload of teeny tiny districts. Not even NYC has that many districts.

[FearfulJesuit]

Roberts beating Orman in Kansas by nearly 7 percentage points, though with just under half of precincts reporting in.

[Bauglir]

Dammit, Story County, you unbelievable assholes, swing back to Braley. I busted my ass voting today in order to avoid exactly this situation. It was a surprisingly annoying ordeal!