These state elections could change the balance of power in Congress for a decade
20 replies, posted
https://www.washingtonpost.com/graphics/2018/politics/governors-redistricting/?utm_term=.182359d3563d
The stakes are too damn high
Hopefully Illinois get's a good governor and the infamous 4th congressional district is redrawn to not be fucking earmuffs
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Illinois%27s_4th_congressional_district#/media/File:Illinois_US_Congressional_District_4_(since_2013).tif
Has the "blue wave" translated any to the state level? I know it did in Virginia since the GOP had to do one of the worst electoral travesties in the last decade to stay in power there.
Huh, looks like Oregon will likely be gaining one more representative. And considering that 4/5 districts here are already blue it's likely to be blue itself too since the redistricting is most likely to happen in the northwest portion of the state which is already heavily blue.
Do you know what people's feelings are on the potential of the Democrats taking the Senate and House? I've heard mutterings that the Democrats are unlikely to take the Senate, but I found that surprising due to them already having 49 Senators.
Senators serve six year terms and the group is divided into three classes staggered so there's 1/3 of the Senate is up for reelection every two years. Dems are defending 24 seats this year compared to the GOP's 9.
Many of the GOP seats are in heavily red states, so it will be incredibly hard for Dems to make gains. Several Dems in red states like Missouri and Indiana are part of the class up for reelection, pretty much the only statesthat could flip from GOP to Dem are Nevada and Arizona. If the blue wave is extremely strong maybe Texas and Tennessee. Worst case it probably goes to around 55-45 GOP, best case 53-47 Dem.
Aw, that sucks. Seems weird for a country to create Midterm elections and then implement the Senate in that way, as I thought the Midterms were supposed to be about encouraging Democratic upheaval under bad regimes.
The House was the one meant to really represent the common people, which is why it is larger and the entire body is up for reelection every two years. The Senate was originally meant to represent each state
as they were not elected by the people until 1912, before then the state legislature chose each senator.
But the House representing the changing attitude of the people sort of stopped with how incumbents win so often now, like how John Dingell was a Michigan representative from 1955 to 2015.
Also no two senators from a state can be of the same class so they literally do a coin flip when a new state is admitted.
Sorry for all the questions, but what do you mean by 'of the same class?' My first thought is that it was talking about wealth, but looking at the Senate as it currently exists, that seems pretty unlikely.
From wikipedia
When the Founding Fathers agreed to give six-year terms to senators, they also decided to stagger the elections, so that a third of the Senate was up for election every two years. With this staggered turnover, the
Founding Fathers wanted to ensure stability in the Senate, and encourage senators to deliberate measures over time, rather than risk a rapid turnover of the entire chamber every six years. At the same time, they
wanted more frequent elections, as opposed to waiting every six years, to prevent senators from permanently combining for "sinister purposes".
No state can have two senators of the same class, for example California has a class one and a class three senator in their delegation. Since 100 isn't evenly divisible by three class one and two have 33 senators
while class three has 34, class one is the one up for reelection this year. And they really did a coin flip when Alaska and Hawaii were admitted in 1959 apparently.
Class has no affect on what a senator can do or anything.
I can't really speak for anywhere else but Oregon's fairly likely to stay static. We already have two Democratic senators who are quite well-liked and 4/5 representatives are Democrats as well and none of them are particularly disliked. The fifth rep is a Republican, and a fairly trash one at that from what I've read, but that district is the biggest one, making up about the entirety of the eastern half of the state which is very sparsely populated and rural.
The only likely shakeups here would be from stuff like this redistricting opportunity since it's most likely to be a district split from the other blue districts, and thus will be blue itself.
I'll be contributing to trying to flip TN. Our democratic candidate is actually pretty well loved, former Governor Phil Bredesen, and his voting history isn't too bad.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Phil_Bredesen
He's well loved and WAY more suitable for office than Marsha Blackburn(Who's been endorsed by Trump ).
My presidential vote may not matter, but this one does, so I'll be casting it. I want Bredesen in Corker's old seat.
In April 2018, Corker said that Bredesen was "a very good mayor, a very good governor, a very good business person", that he had "real appeal" and "crossover appeal", and that the two of them had cooperated well
over the years.[27][28] Corker said that he would not campaign against Bredesen.[29] After Corker's praise for Bredesen, Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell warned Corker that such comments could cost the
Republican Party its Senate majority.[28][30] Shortly after Corker's comments, President Donald Trump tweeted an endorsement of Marsha Blackburn, who is running for the Republican nomination in the Senate
race.
Lol get fucked Mitch. Hope you can get some formerly GOP voting peeps to vote for him.
they're defending a lot of senate seats and a few of them are fluke seats like Mcaskill because the GOP can't seem to nominate someone without scandal. they might hold a very slim minority in the senate which would be disheartening given the damage to the judiciary another term for Mitch would do but the house is the flip side with Trump's terrible demographics and the democrat's building momentum in the suburbs and resurgence of the rural democrat.
Adding to what others have said, quite a few local councils here in the UK use 'election by thirds' similar to the US Senate, Manchester is one example.
And about 5 years ago, the coalition government was seriously considering replacing the House of Lords with an elected upper house which would have used that system too.
I'm not ordinarily a fan of the House of Lords, but it's saved us from some of the more ridiculous Brexit stuff as it has quite a few Lib Dems who are normally the most reasonable party, at least when their leader isn't homophobic.
Guess being a sore loser is now a part of the GOP's ideology.
In 2016, I voted for Angie Craig in the MN-2 Congressional District. She lost by about 6,000 votes, in part due to Independence Party/Green Party spoiler Paula Overby raking in 28,000 votes, which allowed absolute piece of human garbage Jason Lewis to get elected. This year, Overby is running for a Senate seat - meaning there's automatically roughly 28,000 votes that will likely go to Craig instead. As of yet, there is no independent candidate running in MN-2, meaning I'm 100% convinced this will be an ace in the hole for Angie Craig. Her donations and campaigning have shot up drastically this year, and she only needs ~5,000 votes to tip the scales. Knowing there's no spoiler, and she's a much more well-known name now, the odds are she'll get Jason Lewis's washed-up bigoted ass out of Congress.
Get involved, you'd be amazed at how much of a difference volunteering/donating can cause.
it's not reported on much but Democrats have been making very good gains in state legislatures and mayorships iirc, just at a cursory glance they've flipped seats in Kentucky and Missouri that went Trump by like +50 points
Make sure you are registered to vote before your states deadline. I checked mine using a website that someone linked here (sadly can't remember it) and found out that I was not actively registered despite voting in 2016 and not having changed any of my information.
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