Mid-term election are notorious for not drawing a large voter population. Count that with the fat ass-ed lazy fucks who just skip voting, the voters who want to prove a point by write-in voting for Mickey Mouse, et al., and just a lack of effort on the part of our party to reach out to the disenfranchised GOP supporters, shows ME (IMO) a major loss for us in 2018, and I think this will put the Senate of 60 votes for the right wingers....if that happens, kiss everything meaningful to democrats goodbye. If this happens,its going to be a long time before this changes. The only way, I see change is in this new generation of young adults coming to the realization that these oldfucks in congress now are hard liner bigots and racists from a bygone era

Only one midterm in recent history did not go to the party out of power in the White House, and the circumstances surrounding the 2002 midterms were unique in that we had just suffered a major terrorist attack on US soil, were in a war in Afghanistan, and a steady march to war with Iraq was happening.

Im talking downturn in voting. not silly.... lets see how silly it is, when the senate stays right wing, or at a 60 seat margin.... we can get silly.


PSB Newshour November 10, 2014

Today in the Morning Line:

Just 36.4 percent of eligible voters turned out in 2014
Turnout increased in some places, but decreased in most, including populous states like California, New York and New Jersey
The top 10 best and worst voter participation states of 2014

Lowest turnout since WW2: Final numbers are still being tallied, but at this point it looks pretty clear that turnout in these midterms was the lowest overall in 70 years. Turnout of the voting-eligible population was just 36.4 percent, according to the projection from the United States Elections Project, run by Dr. Michael McDonald at the University of Florida. That’s down from the 41 percent that turned out in 2010. You have to go all the way back to 1942 for lower numbers when turnout in that midterm was just 33.9 percent. They had a pretty good excuse back then — many adult-age Americans were preoccupied with fighting in a world war.

In 10 of the 14, there were competitive to potentially competitive Senate races. In nine of the 14, there were governors’ races. Here’s where turnout increased, ranked by biggest increase:

1. Louisiana: +12.9% (38.9%-43.9%)
2. Nebraska: +10.1% (37.5%-41.3%)
3. Arkansas: +9.9% (37.5%-41.2%)
4. Wisconsin: +9.4% (52.0%-56.9%)
5. Maine: +7.4% (55.2%-59.3%)
6. New Hampshire: +6.8% (45.7%-48.8%)
7. Alaska: +6.6% (51.9%-55.3%)
8. Washington, D.C.: +4.8% (28.9%-30.3%)
9. Colorado: +4.7% (50.6%-53.0%)
10. Kentucky: +4.2% (42.4%-44.2%)
11. North Carolina: +3.8% (39.2%-40.7%)
12. Florida: +3.4% (41.7%-43.1%)
13. Kansas: +2.6% (41.7%-42.8%)
14. Iowa: +1.4% (49.9%-50.6%)
15. Oregon: +0.2% (52.6%-52.7%)

It was down, though — and by a lot in many places — in 36 others. Here are the top 10 biggest decreases:

1. Missouri: -27.4% (44.5%-32.3%)
2. Washington state: -27.3% (53.1%-38.6%)
3. Delaware: -27% (47.5%- 34.5%)
4. California: -25.5% (44%-32.8%)
5. Indiana: -24.5% (37.1%-28.0%)
6. Oklahoma: -23.2 (38.8%-29.8%)
7. Nevada: -23% (41.3%-31.8%)
8. Alabama: -22.1% (43%-33.5%)
9. Utah: -20.7% (36.3%-28.8%)
10. Mississippi: -19.7% (37%-29.7%)

Moreso for the party that holds the white house than for the party out of power.

Here's hoping that tRumputin doesn't "invite" his buddies the ruskies to interfere AGAIN in our elections. It's bad enough that the GOP will be crosschecking, voter-purging and voter-disenfranchising Dems on steroids in 2018, and beauguard won't give a damn if shown evidence of this. But, to have the ruskies being "invited" to once again put their tRump-loving thumbs on our election scales?

Paper ballots and 3 officials, 1 from each party and an independent poll worker counting... sounds tedious,but seems to be able to work. Must be able to have total transparency in vote counting, and no politically related ownership of the voting machines...as we have seen in the past.

but, the challenges to democrats having a big "wave" are far more difficult today:

1) We have the most effectively gerrymandered house districts in our history by far, in favor of republicans. This alone means the dynamics have to be even more significant to get a real shot at getting the House.

2) The slate of races in the senate are the worst for Ds of the 6 year cycle. They have to defend FAR more seats than they have a shot a picking up.

3) Money in politics only gets more pervasive each election, and that money isn't pouring in on average to help democrats.

4) We now are in a era when Russians are the reigning champs at tipping elections of other countries, and once again, they aren't tipping the scales in favor of democrats here in America.

Last point - there is SO much time, and this country is THAT flat fin stupid, there is some event that could somehow be spun to the democrats favor. IF 9-11 had happened under a President Gore - make more mistake, he would have been run out of office in 2004 and we would not have seen another democratic president for decades. BUT, because it was a republican asleep at the wheel at the time, they were were allowed to hammer the country over the heads with it to maintain power for the next 5 years.

The districts must be drawn in a way so that the minority party holds ~55% control of their districts while the majority party holds ~65% control in their districts. This was how the gerrymandered mess resulted in GOP control of Congress.

But it's that 85% approval in the GOP that's so important. The Dems can take out some of those 55% GOP controlled districts if GOP voters are demoralized while Dem voters are fired up to put some control over the madman in the white house.

This is the risk in heavily gerrymandering to gain control while your party is a major minority. It can all come crashing down in one election.

No retirements when Dear Leader is expected to nominate Ted Cruz next time around.

Right now I'm most concerned about a Reichstag fire. People scare very easily and right now Тяцмр looks an awful lot like early W.

Don't corner a rat if you can help it.

If the Russians stole 2016, you can bet they're already working on 2018.

due to some "threat" to the country.