Blue Wave 2018

[GannonFan]

BTW, in 2016 US House elections 63.17M people voted for the GOP candidate and 61.77M voted for the DEM candidate. The House is as popular vote as you get. The Dems will likely reverse it to an extent in 2018, still remains to see if they do it enough to flip the chamber.

[CID1990]

BTW, in 2016 US House elections 63.17M people voted for the GOP candidate and 61.77M voted for the DEM candidate. The House is as popular vote as you get. The Dems will likely reverse it to an extent in 2018, still remains to see if they do it enough to flip the chamber.

The question will be whether the GOP runs a bunch of flat earthers or the DNC runs a bunch of BLMers in purple districts

(which isn't beyond the realm of possibility)


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[JohnStOnge]

The House is as popular vote as you get.

I don't have a problem with the way the House elections work except for the gerrymandering. But I don't know if it's as popular vote as it gets. Not nationally anyway. You can have a situation where one party narrowly wins a bunch of districts while the other party has overwhelming wins in others then one party controls the House while a substantial majority of people in the country voted for the other party.

To me "as popular vote as it gets" would be looking at the overall percentage of the vote and assigning seats proportional to the overall popular vote.

[JohnStOnge]

Look guys, the bottom line is that our system is one in which most people could rather than one of the two major political parties not be in power yet that party could be in power. Does anybody really disagree with that? I don't see how you can.

I think that's the situation we have right now too. That's not as clear cut as the obvious potential that it could happen. But I think that it HAS happened. We have a President who lost the popular vote. We have a Party that won 22 of 34 Senate seats that were up (I erred earlier when I typed 24 and 10) even though the other Party got more than 11 million more votes in Senate races. The current situation with respect to balance of power between the two major political parties does not reflect the overall national vote sentiment at all.

[GannonFan]

Most people didn't want either of the candidates - neither Trump nor Clinton had 50% of the popular vote. Do you recommend just turning the lights out and locking up the White House for 4 years until we vote again and see if someone wins 50% of the vote?

[houndawg]

I'm a little weary of this poll as it's a) an unscientific online poll and b) it says 11,000 of 16,000 (68%) of millennial respondents were white when millennial demographics are 56% white. It also says the GOP gained 1% point of support while Democrats lost 9%...so if the poll is accurate, it may be that millennials don't like how the DNC is being run (I certainly don't), but aren't necessarily running to the GOP.

I don't know exactly how IPSOS polling works but I think it is "scientific" in at least a sense. 538 gives it an A- rating, which is pretty good, and the bias is very small. Having said all that the bottom line for the last overall generic congressional ballot IPSOS poll posted at the RealClearPolitics site had the Democrats up by 11 percentage points (45% to 35%). It's a little dated in that the polling period was April 20 - 24. But among the polls listed it paints one of the rosier pictures for Democrats.

I do agree with being a little cautious about the IPSOS poll though just based on the fact that there is no effort to get a probability sample. Here is a little discussion on that:

https://www.aapor.org/Publications-Medi ... -it-d.aspx

I'm going to write this down so I can I-told-you-so all of you in the future like I did with Bernie: The Blue Wave will underperform in November and it will again be the DNC's fault, just like '16.

[AZGrizFan]

The House is as popular vote as you get.

I don't have a problem with the way the House elections work except for the gerrymandering. But I don't know if it's as popular vote as it gets. Not nationally anyway. You can have a situation where one party narrowly wins a bunch of districts while the other party has overwhelming wins in others then one party controls the House while a substantial majority of people in the country voted for the other party.

To me "as popular vote as it gets" would be looking at the overall percentage of the vote and assigning seats proportional to the overall popular vote.

That’s called “mob rule”. It was voted down. In 1776.

[Skjellyfetti]

BTW, in 2016 US House elections 63.17M people voted for the GOP candidate and 61.77M voted for the DEM candidate. The House is as popular vote as you get.

Not really.

With that vote breakdown - it should result in Republicans having 220 seats and Democrats having 215.

Republicans have 234 seats and Democrats have 201.

That’s called “mob rule”. It was voted down. In 1776.

lol. you're a little confused, old man.

1776 was mob rule.

[kalm]

The House is as popular vote as you get.

I don't have a problem with the way the House elections work except for the gerrymandering. But I don't know if it's as popular vote as it gets. Not nationally anyway. You can have a situation where one party narrowly wins a bunch of districts while the other party has overwhelming wins in others then one party controls the House while a substantial majority of people in the country voted for the other party.

To me "as popular vote as it gets" would be looking at the overall percentage of the vote and assigning seats proportional to the overall popular vote.

To include more than just two parties?

[kalm]

I don't know exactly how IPSOS polling works but I think it is "scientific" in at least a sense. 538 gives it an A- rating, which is pretty good, and the bias is very small. Having said all that the bottom line for the last overall generic congressional ballot IPSOS poll posted at the RealClearPolitics site had the Democrats up by 11 percentage points (45% to 35%). It's a little dated in that the polling period was April 20 - 24. But among the polls listed it paints one of the rosier pictures for Democrats.

I do agree with being a little cautious about the IPSOS poll though just based on the fact that there is no effort to get a probability sample. Here is a little discussion on that:

https://www.aapor.org/Publications-Medi ... -it-d.aspx

I'm going to write this down so I can I-told-you-so all of you in the future like I did with Bernie: The Blue Wave will underperform in November and it will again be the DNC's fault, just like '16.

Valid concern unless the establishment suffers some primary losses to populists. There seems to be a larger number of teacher/veteran/joe 6 pack types running this year. They might find a little traction and move the DNC closer to an opposition party rather than a Republican Lite party. Although if the GOP is smart they’ll be countering with Justin Amash and Ben Sasse types.

[JohnStOnge]

Most people didn't want either of the candidates - neither Trump nor Clinton had 50% of the popular vote. Do you recommend just turning the lights out and locking up the White House for 4 years until we vote again and see if someone wins 50% of the vote?

As I've written before I would like to see "automatic runoff" voting. That effectively gives you the same thing you'd have if you have a runoff when no candidate gets more than 50%. Then you end up with a final decision where somebody gets more than 50%.

Of course, as noted, the other thing I'd do is get rid of the Electoral College. And I think it highly likely that if the system had been direct popular vote with automatic runoff voting Clinton would've ended up winning with more than 50% of the final vote.

Again: Automatic runoff voting would allow people to vote for third Party candidates that they really like without having to worry about "wasting" their vote. They could have done something like thought, "Ok I really want Stein so she'll be my initial vote but then I'll indicate Clinton as my first runoff vote because that's who I want between the two that have a real chance to win."

In such a scenario Trump would have to have beaten Clinton by 68.4% to 31.6% in the automatic runoff among voters who didn't make one of the major party candidates their first choice in order to win. Very unlikely.

To me automatic runoff voting is something we really need because it would allow third parties to grow by freeing people to vote for who they REALLY want to win with their initial vote. I think it very likely that we'd see third Party candidates get more votes and we might be surprised at the magnitude of the change.

[JohnStOnge]

Kind of off topic but I'm watching the CNN Smerconish show and once again saw an example of someone not knowing how to interpret statistical data. Smerconish said that Nate Silver et. al was saying, when the Stormy Daniels thing was going on behind the scenes, that Trump had no chance to win. That's not so.

About that time. a couple of weeks before the election and just before Comey dropped his bomb, 538's projection was showing about 80% confidence that Clinton would win. In statistics that is no where near sufficient evidence to make a call. In some circumstances one might say there is sufficient evidence to conclude something if it's supported by 90% confidence. But I've never heard of anyone going below that level.

I think there was like a herd mentality going on where people just couldn't believe someone as bad as Trump could win so that they were seeing things in the polling outputs that weren't there. My impression in looking back at the last two Presidential elections is that people went into election day 2012 thinking Romney had a chance while they went into the 2016 election day thinking Clinton winning was a done deal.

Yet the 538 projection for 2012 had 90% confidence that Obama would win while the 538 2016 projection had only 72% confidence that Clinton would win. The difference I believe I recall in perception, where people actually looked at Romney has having more of a chance in 2012 than Trump had in 2016, was not supported by the polling output. There was some basis, though borderline, for being sufficiently confident to make the call that Obama would win in 2012. The 2016 election was very clearly too close to call. That's if you stick to the rules governing such things in statistical practice, that is.

[houndawg]

I'm going to write this down so I can I-told-you-so all of you in the future like I did with Bernie: The Blue Wave will underperform in November and it will again be the DNC's fault, just like '16.

Valid concern unless the establishment suffers some primary losses to populists. There seems to be a larger number of teacher/veteran/joe 6 pack types running this year. They might find a little traction and move the DNC closer to an opposition party rather than a Republican Lite party. Although if the GOP is smart they’ll be countering with Justin Amash and Ben Sasse types.

they'll have two years to beat them into shape for '20 when we'll see another center-right corporatist candidate in favor of bombings and pipelines. I think the current phraseology is "Two horses, one master".

[AZGrizFan]

BTW, in 2016 US House elections 63.17M people voted for the GOP candidate and 61.77M voted for the DEM candidate. The House is as popular vote as you get.

Not really.

With that vote breakdown - it should result in Republicans having 220 seats and Democrats having 215.

Republicans have 234 seats and Democrats have 201.

That’s called “mob rule”. It was voted down. In 1776.

lol. you're a little confused, old man.

1776 was mob rule.

No. It’s a constitutional republic.

[Skjellyfetti]

1776 was the Declaration of Independence.

Show me in that document where "mob rule" was voted down.

That whenever any Form of Government becomes destructive of these ends, it is the Right of the People to alter or to abolish it, and to institute new Government, laying its foundation on such principles and organizing its powers in such form, as to them shall seem most likely to effect their Safety and Happiness.

I think you're thinking of the Constitution.

[Gil Dobie]

Wha?

I get how an uninformed shill could make your first statement, given your limited understanding of our constitutional republic and the purpose of the electoral college, but the SECOND statement? Come on...senators and congressmen are elected by popular vote, thus to say most people do not want republicans in control of congress is just stupid or disingenuous....

I think I generally I understand our constitutional republic and the idea behind the electoral college. I also think understanding those things facilitates understanding how we could have one Party in power when more people actually prefer the other Party. It's obviously very possible to have the majority of the people in the country overall want and even vote for Senators and Congressmen of one Party and have the other Party end up in control of both Houses of Congress.

It's especially easy for that to happen with the Senate because each State gets two Senators regardless of population.

Scenarios in which it could happen with the House are more complicated but obviously there. In fact you can see the potential in those poll results I cited. The Democrats have a fairly solid 8 point edge overall. But their support is concentrated in Districts that Hillary Clinton won by at least 10 points. They have a 36 percentage point edge in those Districts. That's a lot bigger than the edge Republicans have in Districts Trump won by 10 or more points. That edge is 12 percentage points. And the big one is Republicans having a 13 percentage point edge in what the pollsters designate as "swing" districts.

Given those numbers a scenario in which Democrats could have a solid edge in the overall combined vote while Republicans end up with more seats is VERY plausible.

During the 2016 election more people voted for the Democrat Presidential candidate than voted for the Republican candidate and more people voted for Democrat Senate candidates than Republican Senate candidates. But guess which Party controls the Presidency and the Senate. We all know Donald Trump got a lower percentage of the popular vote than Mitt Romney did but he's President. And the Democrats got 51 million votes in Senate races to the Republicans' 40 million but the Republicans won 22 Senate Races to the Democrats' 12.

It didn't quite happen in the House but one can still see how the overall vote results can differ from the "control" results. Republicans had a 1.1 percentage point edge in the overall combined vote but they ended up with a 5.7 percentage point edge in terms of House seats.

Bottom line is that if control of government was proportional to how people voted overall in the 2016 election Hillary Clinton would be President, the Democrats would control the Senate, and the Republican edge in the House would be smaller than it is now. The fact that the Republicans are in control right now should not be construed as meaning that "The People" prefer the Republican Party.

Sounds like my buddy that still complains about his ex-wife and divorce that happened in 1986. It's 2018, time to let it go John, otherwise, I'll give you my buddies phone number, because he hasn't let go yet. Complaining about the 2016 election and Trump isn't going to change the results or get rid of the electoral college. Who you got for 2020?

[Ivytalk]

I think I generally I understand our constitutional republic and the idea behind the electoral college. I also think understanding those things facilitates understanding how we could have one Party in power when more people actually prefer the other Party. It's obviously very possible to have the majority of the people in the country overall want and even vote for Senators and Congressmen of one Party and have the other Party end up in control of both Houses of Congress.

It's especially easy for that to happen with the Senate because each State gets two Senators regardless of population.

Scenarios in which it could happen with the House are more complicated but obviously there. In fact you can see the potential in those poll results I cited. The Democrats have a fairly solid 8 point edge overall. But their support is concentrated in Districts that Hillary Clinton won by at least 10 points. They have a 36 percentage point edge in those Districts. That's a lot bigger than the edge Republicans have in Districts Trump won by 10 or more points. That edge is 12 percentage points. And the big one is Republicans having a 13 percentage point edge in what the pollsters designate as "swing" districts.

Given those numbers a scenario in which Democrats could have a solid edge in the overall combined vote while Republicans end up with more seats is VERY plausible.

During the 2016 election more people voted for the Democrat Presidential candidate than voted for the Republican candidate and more people voted for Democrat Senate candidates than Republican Senate candidates. But guess which Party controls the Presidency and the Senate. We all know Donald Trump got a lower percentage of the popular vote than Mitt Romney did but he's President. And the Democrats got 51 million votes in Senate races to the Republicans' 40 million but the Republicans won 22 Senate Races to the Democrats' 12.

It didn't quite happen in the House but one can still see how the overall vote results can differ from the "control" results. Republicans had a 1.1 percentage point edge in the overall combined vote but they ended up with a 5.7 percentage point edge in terms of House seats.

Bottom line is that if control of government was proportional to how people voted overall in the 2016 election Hillary Clinton would be President, the Democrats would control the Senate, and the Republican edge in the House would be smaller than it is now. The fact that the Republicans are in control right now should not be construed as meaning that "The People" prefer the Republican Party.

Sounds like my buddy that still complains about his ex-wife and divorce that happened in 1986. It's 2018, time to let it go John, otherwise, I'll give you my buddies phone number, because he hasn't let go yet. Complaining about the 2016 election and Trump isn't going to change the results or get rid of the electoral college. Who you got for 2020?

POTY nominee!

[CID1990]

If you took all of JSO's posts and wrote them down in notebooks end to end and gave them to a psychiatrist .....

Who am I kidding

JSO probably has shelves full of them like Kevin Spacey's character in Seven


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[AZGrizFan]

1776 was the Declaration of Independence.

Show me in that document where "mob rule" was voted down.

That whenever any Form of Government becomes destructive of these ends, it is the Right of the People to alter or to abolish it, and to institute new Government, laying its foundation on such principles and organizing its powers in such form, as to them shall seem most likely to effect their Safety and Happiness.

I think you're thinking of the Constitution.

It was voted down with the creation of our country and our form of government. Really not that complicated, bro.

[GannonFan]

Most people didn't want either of the candidates - neither Trump nor Clinton had 50% of the popular vote. Do you recommend just turning the lights out and locking up the White House for 4 years until we vote again and see if someone wins 50% of the vote?

As I've written before I would like to see "automatic runoff" voting. That effectively gives you the same thing you'd have if you have a runoff when no candidate gets more than 50%. Then you end up with a final decision where somebody gets more than 50%.

Of course, as noted, the other thing I'd do is get rid of the Electoral College. And I think it highly likely that if the system had been direct popular vote with automatic runoff voting Clinton would've ended up winning with more than 50% of the final vote.

Again: Automatic runoff voting would allow people to vote for third Party candidates that they really like without having to worry about "wasting" their vote. They could have done something like thought, "Ok I really want Stein so she'll be my initial vote but then I'll indicate Clinton as my first runoff vote because that's who I want between the two that have a real chance to win."

In such a scenario Trump would have to have beaten Clinton by 68.4% to 31.6% in the automatic runoff among voters who didn't make one of the major party candidates their first choice in order to win. Very unlikely.

To me automatic runoff voting is something we really need because it would allow third parties to grow by freeing people to vote for who they REALLY want to win with their initial vote. I think it very likely that we'd see third Party candidates get more votes and we might be surprised at the magnitude of the change.

And just like the last time you brought up "automatic runoffs" to tweak a way to get someone more than 50% it is still just a sleight of hand that forces a number without really getting to the heart of the matter. People aren't going to be any happier with that system than with what we have now and you'll still end up with more than 50% of the voters not initially wanting the eventual winner. So your grand fix does nothing in the end but reinforce and solidify the duopoly that we have and dresses it up to pretend that it's what voters wanted when they clearly have spoken through their votes that they're not happy with the status quo.

[∞∞∞]

The EC is a complete joke of a system. Just because you live in a large city, it doesn't mean you're going to vote Dem. And just because you live in the middle of nowhere, it doesn't mean you're going to vote GOP. Everyone's vote must count equally or everyone is not equal, and equality is our nation's principle.

This idea that small states need protection from large ones is also garbage and just encourages division. The ability for small states to send legislators to Congress and keep the President in-check would still exist. The EC also makes swing states the ones that matter during an election cycle; in practice, all it does is shift which states have the biggest voice.

The only reason today's right oppose a fair system is the fear of losing. And to be fair, the math says they're right. The GOP knows they can't win on their merits and need affirmative action to compete.

[HI54UNI]

The EC is a complete joke of a system. Just because you live in a large city, it doesn't mean you're going to vote Dem. And just because you live in the middle of nowhere, it doesn't mean you're going to vote GOP. Everyone's vote must count equally or everyone is not equal, and equality is our nation's principle.

This idea that small states need protection from large ones is also garbage and just encourages division. The ability for small states to send legislators to Congress and keep the President in-check would still exist. The EC also makes swing states the ones that matter during an election cycle; in practice, all it does is shift which states have the biggest voice.

The only reason today's right oppose a fair system is the fear of losing. And to be fair, the math says they're right. The GOP knows they can't win on their merits and need affirmative action to compete.

Damn. If you had only been alive in 1787 we wouldn't have needed these guys

[93henfan]

The EC is a complete joke of a system. Just because you live in a large city, it doesn't mean you're going to vote Dem. And just because you live in the middle of nowhere, it doesn't mean you're going to vote GOP. Everyone's vote must count equally or everyone is not equal, and equality is our nation's principle.

This idea that small states need protection from large ones is also garbage and just encourages division. The ability for small states to send legislators to Congress and keep the President in-check would still exist. The EC also makes swing states the ones that matter during an election cycle; in practice, all it does is shift which states have the biggest voice.

The only reason today's right oppose a fair system is the fear of losing. And to be fair, the math says they're right. The GOP knows they can't win on their merits and need affirmative action to compete.

Damn. If you had only been alive in 1787 we wouldn't have needed these guys

I encourage California to secede from the Union and test Trip’s popular vote system. It may have merit.

[93henfan]

Just because you live in a large city, it doesn't mean you're going to vote Dem.

That’s true. 1 out of every 25 voters in DC did vote for Trump!

[Ibanez]

Most people didn't want either of the candidates - neither Trump nor Clinton had 50% of the popular vote. Do you recommend just turning the lights out and locking up the White House for 4 years until we vote again and see if someone wins 50% of the vote?

As I've written before I would like to see "automatic runoff" voting. That effectively gives you the same thing you'd have if you have a runoff when no candidate gets more than 50%. Then you end up with a final decision where somebody gets more than 50%.

Of course, as noted, the other thing I'd do is get rid of the Electoral College. And I think it highly likely that if the system had been direct popular vote with automatic runoff voting Clinton would've ended up winning with more than 50% of the final vote.

Again: Automatic runoff voting would allow people to vote for third Party candidates that they really like without having to worry about "wasting" their vote. They could have done something like thought, "Ok I really want Stein so she'll be my initial vote but then I'll indicate Clinton as my first runoff vote because that's who I want between the two that have a real chance to win."

In such a scenario Trump would have to have beaten Clinton by 68.4% to 31.6% in the automatic runoff among voters who didn't make one of the major party candidates their first choice in order to win. Very unlikely.

To me automatic runoff voting is something we really need because it would allow third parties to grow by freeing people to vote for who they REALLY want to win with their initial vote. I think it very likely that we'd see third Party candidates get more votes and we might be surprised at the magnitude of the change.

That's probably one of the dumbest things you've said.

And that is saying a lot.