Is Donald Trump gonna drag his party down with himself next year?
With Trump in economic fights with just about every friendly country out there?
Will the US economy tank and Republican Party fortunes in Congress?
The general thinking about the Republican Senate majority is that it has solidified to the point where Democrats are effectively shut out of gaining control of the upper chamber in 2020. But in truth, the GOP majority is in more danger than many analysts believe. Just how much jeopardy depends on how you think about the overall state of the race: If the election is going to be close, as many analysts (including myself) seem to believe, then the Senate probably leans Republican at best. And if President Trump is likely to lose, perhaps badly (as other analysts suggest), then Republicans will have a very difficult time maintaining control of the chamber….
…
…42% job approval is basically the break point for the GOP holding the Senate. At the same time, if Trump were to get his job approval up to around 49 percent, the GOP could hold all of its seats.
Of course, it is still very early, and we don’t have a clear idea where Trump’s job approval will be on Election Day. But if you think he is in serious jeopardy of losing, then the Republican majority is anything but a given….
image…MSNBC
Right now it’s tough to see it. I think Collins and Gardner are goners in Maine abd Colorado. But Doug Jones could be too in Alabama. In that case we’d need AZ, IA and NC. Doable, but a straight flush right now.
If Biden does it?
The Dem’s just need 3 to get a 50/50 tie that Biden’s VP could swing to a majority
True. I forgot that Dems need just 3 for a tie that a Democratic VP would break.
The most vulnerable of all seats is held by Doug Jones in AL.
That is probably going Republican, absent a Roy Moore re-run.
So, Democrats would need to keep everything else and net 4.
I would say McSally in Arizona is probably the most at risk, but as of now, she is narrowly ahead and seems to have learned her lesson from 2018.
Gardner could be at risk in Colorado but there are about 15 Democrats trying to run and that could get very messy.
Nobody of note is running against Collins in Maine or Ernst in Iowa.
Regardless of the Presidential result, it is hard to see Democrats winning the Senate or Republicans winning the House.
Collins looks like an overwhelming favorite to keep her seat in Maine.
The abortion issue is going to haunt Collins with her vote for Kavanaugh.
Somebody has to actually run against Collins up there….
You are thinking like a political junkie.
For one thing, there is nothing to indicate how Kavanaugh may rule on abortion. Everyone knows that Collins is pro-choice and she has won every Senate re-election easily. Of course, there are also many Catholic Pro-Life voters in Maine. It would be hard to defeat her among single issue voters on an issue where they would actually agree with her. Her biggest worry would be if one of them were to become the Dem nominee, but that is almost certainly not going to happen.
We all think like political junkies here.
Indeed, probably 90% of the population ,if they dropped in here, wouldn’t know what the Hell we are even talking about.
We should realize we are not “normal.”
There’s just nothing tangible to suggest that Susan Collins is endangered.
All the political junkies took note when Susan Rice said she would move to Maine to run against her as if that was going to be a big development. Well, of course Susan Rice backed out and from what I can tell so has every other prominent Democrat there.
Perdue in Georgia will probably have a tougher race than Collins in Maine.
True THAT Jake!
I assume everyone here gets asked questions about politics from friends and others who want better explanations then they see on the 6 o’clock news?
My father, who never used to care about politics at all, now has lots of time to watch news being retired, and apparently gets much of it from the OAN cable network, which somehow their suburb gets. The OAN network basically makes Fox News look like Mother Jones.
So, it’s like I have to frequently attempt to de-program him of things he “hears” and “sees.” It’s like the Twilight Zone.
Keep at it!
I wish I didn’t have to. The amount of time I have to take to actually defend Pelosi, Schumer, Biden, Obama, etc in regards to what is factually accurate and what is not is very disconcerting to me.
Then last week, he had some goofy thoughts about John McCain that he must have heard somewhere that nearly caused me to have a fit.
The Supreme’s WILL NOT completely overturn Roe vs Wade…
I also believe I heard not long ago that two current members of the Senate Dem Caucus, Angus King of Maine and Joe Manchin of WV have endorsed Collins for reelection.
I would expect a weaker economy in 2020 as business inventments (a decent predictor of the enonomy in the future) is down.
Actually wouldn’t the fact that 90% of the general population wouldn’t know who we were talking about mean that getting a big name challenger to Susan Collins is immaterial?
Most people who don’t tune into politics won’t know the difference between a top recruit and a lesser known Democrat
*If* there is a Democratic wave it likely won’t matter who is the Senate nominee– in a state like Maine the Republican will be in trouble.
But in Maine, the people know her and like her. That makes it different from people in other states talking about her. She has been an immensely popular politician there for decades and there is no indication that any sort of top-tier opponent is looking to take her on.
Nobody in Maine has been elected to the Senate as a Democrat since I believe 1992. That’s a long time.
Yeah and Louisiana didn’t elect a Republican to the Senate till 2004.
So?
Different electoral system in Louisiana for one thing.
If Susan Collins were not seeking reelection, as was the case in 2004 in Louisiana, when a Democrat retired, then the Democrats would probably be in pretty good shape to pick up the seat.
Soneone in Alabana is trying to make Roy Moore look moderate by comparison.
A Republican mayor there posted on Facebook that the only way to keep from being ” lectured on morality from homosexuals, baby killers and Democrats is to kill the problem out”.
Maybe he’ll jump into the GOP Senate primary rhere
The cry in South Carolina has always been
Thank God for Mississippi!
A reference to the fact that ,in measurements of educational attainment,income levels etc.,the Palmetto State was usually 49th followed by Mississippi.
SC Republicans likely would now say….
Thank God for Alabama!
Think we’re too Right Wing?Taka a look at Bama!
When I lived in Louisana, they also said “Thank God for Mississippi”! some joked that when people moved out of Louisiana, it lowered the intelligence level of both Louisiana and the state they moved to.
Question to CG, why are MS, LA and AL poor states?
One factor would be that they had one party Democrat rule for generations that resisted changes in the economy that moved us further away from a rural economy to that of a professional white collar economy. In Georgia for example, some leaders were more forward thinking and Atlanta was at the forefront of the “New South” both in terms of big business but also with less in the way of racial upheaval.
Also, those states are poor because they have higher percentages of African-Americans, who are most likely to be trapped in multi-generational poverty.
The well-intentioned “War on Poverty” in the ’60s failed and brought about too much government dependency and greatly damaged the concept of intact nuclear families.
Were the Democratic policians that the South elected pre 1980 liberals? You indicate that the high % of blacks is a reason why the south has underperformed, but you site Atlanta as a success story – which it is. Atlanta is a primarily a black city and has greatly outperformed the test of the state in recent years with liberal leadership.
Some were liberals/populists, some were not. They certainly were not Republicans.
The point about Atlanta is that leadership was willing to move to make the city hospitable to growth and business. Of course, the wealthiest people in Georgia would live in the heavily Republican suburbs now. as would be the case for the other states mentione
I looked up the story and where specifically does it say that this small town Mayor is a Republican?
He sounds like a nutcase of course, but was he elected as a Republican? I doubt that his little town has partisan municipal elections. There are nutjobs of all political stripes. For example, the crazy former African-American Sheriff in Milwaukee that Trumpists love is a multi-term elected Democrat. Let’s try to be factual.
The Politicalwire article listed the mayor as Republican. I don’t know if he was elected as one or if like many small towns the election is nom partisan. It doesn’t matter. Anyone who rants about socialists and gays the way this nut did is not supporting Democrats in 2019.
Kim Davis the bigot clerk in Kentucky was officially a Democrat too. Who cares?
Alabama Mayor Calls for Killing Homosexuals, Democrats
June 4, 2019 at 3:22 pm EDT By Taegan Goddard 108 Comments
The mayor of a small Alabama town is apologizing after he recommended “killing” members of the LGBTQ community in a now-deleted Facebook post. WBRC reports.
Said Carbon Hill Mayor Mark Chamber (R): “We live in a society where homosexuals lecture us on morals, transvestites lecture us on human biology, baby killers lecture us on human rights and socialists lecture us on economics!”
He added: “The only way to change it would be to kill the problem out. I know it’s bad to say but without killing them out there’s no way to fix it.”…
Politicalwire…
I wouldn’t consider Taegan Goddard a credible fact-gatherer.
I would very much doubt that the Mayor of Carbon Hill appeared on the ballot as a Republican.
Politicalwire links it’s posts…
And there is nothing in the story that Politicalwire linked to nor in major state newspaper that indicates the Mayor is a Republican. (thankfully this Mayor has now apologized and said he didn’t mean it)
So, by labeling him with an R next to his name, without any direct sourcing, that is irresponsible of Goddard. He should not be confused with a journalist. He clearly is not one.
I am not a professional journalist either, but in a matter of minutes, I was able to locate a multitude of local news stories from 2016 (well before this controversy) that discussed the Mayoral election, run-off, as well as the city council elections in this small town. Nowhere in any of the stories are the candidates identified by political party.
CG you sure are invested in proving somehowvthat this white southern bigot mayor doesn’t belong to the Republican Party.
Not sure why. What he’s sayong is only a couple ticks to the right of what Roy Moore says, and he is undoubtedly a Republican. It would be easier for you to fight the bigots and wackos in your party if you simply acknowledge that they exist beyond Trump and Moore.
I just want fairness and accuracy.
If HHR was talking about some crazy small town politician who said something horrible about conservatives and labeled them with a D without any reasonable attribution, I would be doing the same thing. That is the exact sort of thing that Trump might do on Twitter. He doesn’t care about facts. People on both sides will rush to assign a political party to a mass murderer whenever a shooting happens. That’s part of what is wrong in this country.
The focus should be on the outrage of what the individual said (or did), not what political tribalists assume or wish the other person’s party to be, because they want to smear many, many more people by association.
Shouldn’t said what he said in the first place….
Well I saw some outlets still call that bigot Kim Davis a Democrat after she switched parties. It didn’t matter to me. She was a hateful bigot as a Democrat (or DINO) and she remains one as a Republican. (Though a Republican put of a job as she lost her last election).
Whatever this mayor calls himself he is staunchly against LGBT rights, whatever he thinks is “socialism” and women’s control over their own bodies.
Regardless of what he was elected as or his partyvregistration from 1976 what party do you REALLY think he supports today?
This is a silly distraction CG does to feel better about the party he still supports–whilest hating the President who is more popular in that party than Mr. Republican himself Ronald Reagan was.
True intelligence is being able to make accurate inferences about things we don’t know. We don’t technically know if this Guy is a Republican. But isn’t that like arguing that a black pro-choice lesbian who is an environmentalist might be a Republican?
Your only realistic hope is that guy either does not vote or s membaer of a political party that is more conservative than Republicans..
“black pro-choice lesbian who is an environmentalist might be a Republican?”
Indeed that allegation was hurled at Chicago Mayor Lori Lightfoot during her recent campaign.
Lightfoot is a Democrat that I would have strongly supported if so lived in Chicago.
I would have just called the Carbon Hill mayor a Conservative. But I guess I don’t understand how you can lecture James on calling that bigot a Republican when at the same time time you have lectured us that Trump is actually a Democrat. James has far more reason to believe that Carbon Hill mayor is a Republican than you have that Trump is a Democrat.
It is really easy to justify what we want to believe. We all do it to some extent. But you do it more than the rest of us. Rather than just trying to find an angle in which I am wrong, how about some genuine self reflection? You can’t complain about James calling that guy a Republican, and at the same time you can feel free to call Trump a Democrat. Try to be consistent.
I agree with this;however, I have no doubt that this fellow is aTrump supporter and based on what I’ve read calls himself a “Christian conservative ?”
Accordingly, I would say the odds are about 99% that he is also a Republican.
CGs positions is always that there are bigots in both parties.So why make a big deal when some here label this particular bigot a Republican,which he undoubtedly is?
I have to admit I did not know that Clarke, the Milwaukee County Sheriff who strongly supports Trump, calls Planned Parenthood “Planned Genocide”, spoke at the 2016 Republican convention and spread conspiracy theories about kids supporting gun control being paid by George Soros–was elected as a Democrat.
So he was. Clerical issue if you ask me. Not sure how Clarke kept getting through Democratic primaries in such an urban area, but then again sheriffs of urban counties don’t tend to do much. For 27 years the Sheriff of St. Louis was a former soccer player who never made headlines.
So this mayor is either a Republican or a Kim Davis Democrat–aka a Republican who procrastinated on changing registration.
Alabama ,like many southern states(includingSouth Carolina) ,has no registration by party.
Instead ,a voter can only participate in the nominating process of one party each election cycle.
Accordingly , while you will often hear one claim to be a “registered Republican or Democrat.”It is simply how they identify themselves.aA”registered Democrat “may vote in aRepublican primary or vice versa .He just can’t vote in both.
Yeah Missouri does the same.
You must register for a party in NJ
And in NY
…From Roll Call…
…The Senate now stands at 53 Republicans and 47 in the Democratic Conference. So Democrats need a net gain of three or four seats to win control, depending on who wins the White House (since the vice president, as president of the Senate, casts tie-breaking votes).
Seven of the dozen Democratic seats up this cycle are in strongly Democratic states and not competitive: Delaware, Illinois, Massachusetts, New Jersey, New Mexico, Oregon and Rhode Island. Even Sen. Tom Udall’s retirement does not put New Mexico into play.
Among battleground states with Democratic incumbents, Virginia has been moving toward the Democrats as the Washington, D.C., and Richmond suburbs have grown. And Hillary Clinton’s 5-point victory in the state in 2016, combined with the following year’s gubernatorial result, suggests Trump is likely to be an albatross around the neck of the eventual GOP Senate nominee in the Old Dominion.
Minnesota and New Hampshire are competitive states that Democrats cannot afford to lose. (Clinton carried each narrowly.) Both states bear watching, though Democratic incumbents Tina Smith of Minnesota and Jeanne Shaheen of New Hampshire start off with clear advantages.
In Michigan, a state surprisingly carried by Trump in 2016, freshman Democrat Gary Peters starts off with the advantage but must also prove his mettle. Again, his seat is a “must hold” for Democrats.
On the GOP side, 15 of the party’s 22 seats up next year are in states Trump won handily in 2016….
More…
I don’t call Trump a Democrat, although he previously was registered as one and publicly claimed to be one.
Scott was the person I was questioning on this Mayor thing, and he got it from a questionable partisan blogger source. I see also that Ron G., whom I think does a great job of gathering information, said the same thing on Twitter. If one wants to call this Mayor a crazy right-winger, that’s fine, but I just do not believe it is appropriate to label him as a specific member of a political party unless there is evidence he was elected as one. All the evidence would seem to indicate otherwise. If some local left-wing nutcase was in the news and was being called a “Democrat” , I would have the same position. Last week, I fact checked Scott on a debunked claim about the new abortion law in Georgia. He probably got that from a similar partisan source that made a claim that was easily proven as false.
Back during the Roy Moore scandal, Scott tried to say that every Republican should be publicly labeled a child molester by association. Again, the outrage should be limited to the individual, and there should be no reason for anyone to create a cudgel to try to associate his sins with many, many more people.
The Trump is or was a Democrat is long gone….
His party is actually HIMSELF….
Well Glad you now consider Trump a Republican. But isn’t that obvious given how united the GOP is in support of him?
Somehow I very much doubt that Scott called every Republican a child molester, and I personally haven’t seen too any instances over the many years we have communicated where you came to the defense of Democrats. More likely you will criticize Democrats for some ridiculous reason that you would never apply to Republicans (example: Biden should apologize to Romney over comments he made about Russia).
I never said that all Republicans were child molesters by association.
I simply pointed out how most Republicans failed to distance themselves from Moore the way GHW Bush did from David Duke in the 1991 Louisiana governor’s race.
I stand by my claim that their failure to completely condemn him meant they were fine with having a child molester in their caucus as long as ut was an R vote.
While trying to find the 30-odd Senate seats that will be up for election in 2020, I also found (or confirmed) something else about how sharp the regional differences between Senatorial delegations have become.
Today, if you break them up geographically in my arbitrary but defensible six regions, you only find the Greater Lakes (Ohio, Ind, Ill, Mich, Wisc, Minn & Iowa: 8 D & 6 R) and the Southwest (Nev, Utah, Colo, N.M. & Ariz: 6 D & 4 R) to have a rough balance between the parties.
The other four of my arbitrary regions have such huge majorities for one party that it’s easy to name the couple of Senators from the other party:
Northeast (New England + NY, Pa, NJ, Del, Md & Va):
22 D & 2 R (Susan Collins, R-Maine & Pat Toomey R-Pa)
Pacific (Wash, Ore, Calif & Hawaii): 8 Democrats & no (0) Republicans
Northwest & Western Plains (Alaska, Idaho, Mont., Wyo., ND, SD, Neb. & Kansas):
15 Republicans & 1 Democrat (Jon Tester, D-Mont.)
South & Border (NC, Ga, Fla, Alab, Miss, La, Ark, Texas, Okla, Mo, Tenn, Ky & W. Va)
26 Republicans & 2 Democrats (Doug Jones, D-Alab., & Joe Manchin, D-W.Va)
¶ But in another Senate with 53 Republicans & 47 Democrats, in 1985-86, they were much more evenly distributed geographically, with only the Southwest having a greater imbalance than now (7-3 R in 1985; 6-4 D today)
Northeast (now 22-2 D) — 13-11 R in 1985-7
Greater Lakes: (now 8-6 D) — 8-6 R
Northwest & Plains (now 15-1 R) — 11-5 R
Pacific (now 8-0 D) — 5-3 R
Southwest (now 6-4 D) — 7-3 R
South & Border (now 26-2 R) — 17-11 D
Left S. Carolina out of the South (how could I?)
North Carolina, South Carolina, Georgia, Florida, Alabama, Louisiana, Texas,
Oklahoma, Missouri, Tennessee, Kentucky & West Virginia
I did a post back on the old site about American being six cultural regions DSD….
Your breakdown probably fits with that…
The piece was about culture more than geography….
I made my divisions (e.g excluding Va from the South and Alaska from the Pacific) based very largely on past and present voting behaviour.
But it’s nice to know that those arbitrary divisions have at least some parallel in social and cultural contrasts.