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[Frumple]

There's pretty strong signs that's going to change pretty wildly in the next decade or so, for what it's worth. The party lean of younger millennials/zoomers that are coming into voting range or aging into regular voting demographics is... not small (the youngest cohort this election voted against the GOP at a 3:1 rate, as near as we can tell at this point), and despite horseshit about people getting more conservative as they age, the reality is that the party you start voting for tends to be the party you keep voting for. Demographics aren't destiny, but the GOP has to all appearances wildly underperformed in a midterm and the political inclinations of the voting population looks a hell of a lot like they're steadily trending against them.

If we don't see a successful coup by the GOP or a major, major realignment in their politics in the next few years, it's about as close to certain as anything gets that they're going to start seeing a hell of a shellacking at the voting booth, not them barely holding ground despite massive structural bias and basically every other advantage they could see in their favor.

[Telgin]

I don't doubt any of that about the demographics, but I feel like I've been hearing that for 10+ years now and it hasn't seemed to materialize yet.  Maybe it really will eventually.

Anyway, I voted here in SC yesterday and wasted 20 minutes, but at least I tried.

Well, actually, looking at the results it seems that the governor race was closer than I expected at 58% voting for McMaster vs. 40% for Cunningham (the Democratic candidate).  The senate election was a 2:1 victory for Tim Scott, the current Republican senator, and is more what I expected everything to look like.

Edit: At least Dr. Oz didn't win in Pennsylvania.  I can die happy now.

[anewaname]

It was Trump's me-be-leader thing that screwed up the red-wave thing, but that my-right-to-dominate-your-body thing isn't going away.

[McTraveller]

SC is definitely one of those states where if you aren't voting with the majority it seems hopeless.  That state is a good example of one that's so polarized it's ridiculous.

I live in one of the swing states: MI.  Some things tend to lean left, but there is a pretty vocal and large stereotypically GOP demographic: if you're outside basically the 4 or 5 urban counties, it's quite conservative.

So it's a micro picture of the nation at large: you've got about a 50-50 split of political leaning, which depending on the weather (almost literally) can result in an election swing one way or the other.  The more interesting thing is the state ballots.  The state population just approved a very liberal state proposition regarding reproductive rights (by a fair margin, to be honest).  But it also approved a measure that allows a person to hold a seat in the state house or senate for 12 years (previously they could hold a seat I think in house for 8, senate for 6, which they could stack for a total of 14; now they can do up to 12 total, any combination of both houses. So lower overall, but much longer tenure in a single seat. Not sure that's good.)  The state is also highly protectionist due to the auto industry; they were a big part of the annoying provisions of the EV tax credit changes.

[nenjin]

Thank God Boebert lost. Can't fucking stand her smug face.

[scriver]

I'll miss seeing that silly name around though

[hector13]

Thank God Boebert lost. Can't fucking stand her smug face.

She hasn’t lost yet. 90% votes counted and she’s only back like 4k votes.

[Great Order]

The conservative subreddit's been weirdly self-reflective for the subreddit.

I mean, some comments going "Well clearly the country's fucked because people are too stupid to vote R" but a lot of people saying that they've fucked up with Roe vs Wade, they need better messaging, Trump's a dead weight, saying the election's stolen is bullshit and turns off voters...

[Enemy post]

Kentucky voted against an abortion ban. Got to say, didn't see that one coming.

[nenjin]

Thank God Boebert lost. Can't fucking stand her smug face.

She hasn’t lost yet. 90% votes counted and she’s only back like 4k votes.

I got up today and checked and figured it was already sorted.

That and the pictures of her election party came out and boy, they sure LOOKED defeated.

[lemon10]

The conservative subreddit's been weirdly self-reflective for the subreddit.

I mean, some comments going "Well clearly the country's fucked because people are too stupid to vote R" but a lot of people saying that they've fucked up with Roe vs Wade, they need better messaging, Trump's a dead weight, saying the election's stolen is bullshit and turns off voters...

It has brief periods of introspection, but give it a few days and anyone with self awareness will all be properly brainwashed or banned.

[hector13]

Apparently they were praying, which rather makes sense with the dude with his hat off and his hands crossed in front of him.

I don’t want her to win, but best not jump the gun ‘til it’s confirmed given her particular brand of madness. Even then, given her particular brand of madness, she’ll claim the vote was rigged and sue everyone probably.

[BurnedToast]

Whilst I am glad that the 'red wave' didn't materialise, one thing that does remain wary is the way that neither red nor blue waves have materialised in the last few elections in the USA. Neither side can dent into the other. Instead it's only increasing geographical digging in, the Blue largely gets Bluer and the Red largely gets Redder and it's only some wiggling at the edges that can ever happen.

That degree of geographical polorization is...not exactly good for the prospects of a country not breaking out into Civil War.

The thing you have to understand is that the GOP is only winning because of... let's say political "tricks", the biggest being gerrymandering. And the thing about gerrymandering is that extremely simplified, it works by carving up your safe districts which are full of wasted votes to make a bunch of districts where you have a strong advantage, but which aren't perfectly safe anymore.  This is an extremely good tradeoff and it makes it a very powerful tool, and as we are seeing right now it can turn what should be losses into ties and victories. But there's downsides to everything, and the downside of gerrymandering is that you don't have any safe districts left. So while it might *look* like it's an unchanging landscape, if there's a big enough shift in demographics then you have nothing left to fall back on and everything collapses all at once. If it shifts enough you might even end up losing harder than if you'd never gerrymandered at all. Furthermore, the stronger the gerrymander, the more susceptible you are to this collapse and the GOP is having to gerrymander increasingly strongly to maintain control.

I'm making no predictions of what will happen, but I am saying if democrats can hold the line long enough and demographics continue to shift, and especially if they can somehow get more people to actually start voting there's a very real possibility we go from a stalemate to a catastrophic defeat for the GOP in a single election cycle.

Thank God Boebert lost. Can't fucking stand her smug face.

She hasn’t lost yet. 90% votes counted and she’s only back like 4k votes.

I want to point out that even if ultimately she ends up winning, this *was* considered an extremely safe seat and she had something like a 97% chance of winning. That it's so close is really bad news for the qanon wing of the party, regardless of who wins.

[LadyBrassroast]

deadass we need to send the feds into Wisconsin they are not abiding by the "states must have a republican form of government" clause in the Constitution

[hector13]

Ron Johnson was re-elected, and they have one Democrat congress-person, all the rest are Republican.

Equally so I’m pretty sure that both parts of the state legislature are Republican lead.