nav[aria-label="Primary Navigation"] { padding: 0; & ul { list-style: none; width: 100%; display: flex; flex-direction: row; justify-content: start; align-items: start; gap: 30px; padding: 0; & li { margin: 0; } & ul li { list-style: none; } } }

Child Item

Donald Trump Presidency discussion thread II

ancapailldorcha

This thread is for discussing Donald Trumps's presidency in the US and any related matters.

Please ensure that you are familiar with the charter before posting.

Thanks.

Find more posts tagged with

Quick Links

Comments

Akrasia

Billy86 wrote: »

You might be thinking of 2010? In 2014 Sessions ran basically unopposed at 795,000 votes to 22,000 for a write-in candidate.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_States_Senate_election_in_Alabama,_2014
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_States_Senate_election_in_Alabama,_2010

There were still congressional elections in 2014

Anyway, it says an awful lot about the swing in sentiment in Alabama when 3 years ago, the Democrats didn't even bother to field a candidate for the Senate in that election.

PopePalpatine

Akrasia wrote: »

There were still congressional elections in 2014

Anyway, it says an awful lot about the swing in sentiment in Alabama when 3 years ago, the Democrats didn't even bother to field a candidate for the Senate in that election.

That's because Jeff Sessions wasn't banned from local malls.

Professor Moriarty

Billy86 wrote: »

2017 - 671,000 (of 1.3mn)
2016 - 748,000 (but a total of 2mn voting due to presidential election)
2014 - no Dem runner
2012 - no election
2010 - 515,000 (of 1.5mn)
2008 - 752,000 (again over 2mn voters due to presidential election)
2006 - 595,000 (of 1.8mn)
2002 - 538,000 (of 1.3mn)

Certainly looks to be up - it may be down on 2016 and 2008 but that's to be expected for presidential elections and it's actually closer to those numbers than it is to the non-presidential turnout in previous elections

So a back of the envelope calculation based on those figures gives these percentages:

2017 - 52%
2016 - 37%
2010 - 40%
2008 - 38%
2006 - 33%
2002 - 41%

Obviously there were many unusual factors at play in this particular election. Still though, the statistical jump in the Dem vote is heartening.

C14N

Billy86 wrote: »

So that's only a 51-49 majority in the Senate for the Republicans once Jones takes office in a few weeks time which is going to make getting legislation passed tougher again. Apparently the Democrat odds of winning the Senate next year weren't falling kindly to them because of the seats that are up, but estimates have gone from about a 25% chance to about 50%, and with how this Republican congress and they're president have been such a shambles it's going to be hard to see that percentage going any way but up.

I believe those odds are just based off PredictIt, which is sort of like a political stock market, meaning it's just a reflection of what the community of amateur enthusiasts think, rather than based on a more comprehensive model like 538 or the Upshot.

However, it's not without merit. The 2018 senate race is not favourable to Dems. Of the 33 seats going up for election, 25 belong to Democrats or left-leaning independents (i.e. Bernie Sanders and Angus King). So there were only 8 places to take seats back from Republicans to get a majority. Compounding this problem is that most of the the states where Republicans are incumbent are largely very red states, and so are 5 of the states where a Democrat is incumbent.

The number of those that Dems need has just dropped from 3 to 2, which is a big boost, especially because 2 is the number of states Democrats think they have a decent shot in. Dean Heller of Nevada is a fairly unpopular Republican in a state that went safely for Hillary in 2016, and Jeff Flake of Arizona has stepped down, so even though Arizona is light red, Republicans don't have the incumbency advantage. Also, expected to replace him as Republican nominee is crazy person Kelli Ward who is very much in the same posse as Trump, Bannon and Moore.

Of course Democrats will also need to still hold onto all of their own seats, which will be difficult considering they have candidates in West Virginia, North Dakota, Montana, Missouri and Indiana up for election.

spacecoyote

I actually suspect that it may have been the slavery comment ended up having more impact than the underage stuff

frag420

Where the skies are so blue...:D

Water John wrote: »

Great to see Bannon get a kick in the goolies.
Sweet Home Alabama.

Hande hoche!

Now back to our regular programming.

https://twitter.com/realDonaldTrump/status/940904649728708609

Billy86

Buer wrote: »

Fair enough, I'll bow to the superior knowledge and evidence of historical turn outs. I'd still believe there was a certain level of abstention from the Republican support which was the difference given the fine margin.

Regardless, I don't think this really is going to have a significant impact in a wider sense for control of congress. It reduces the defecit to a single seat in the senate but next year's mid-terms have a huge level of exposure for the Democrats relative to the Republicans. Of the 33 seats up for election, only 8 belong to sitting Republican senators and 7 of those 8 were won comfortably in the last election and are located in states that are generally secure Republican strongholds. The landscape has shifted significantly since then but it will need the Democrats to retain all of their existing seats and steal 2 of 8 from the GOP to gain control of the house.

Republican turnout being down was also a factor as 671,000 would not have won it for Jones in any other year - but that's also largely the point. Trumpism is not helping the GOP, their sheer lack of any sort of cohesion or competence as well as their attacks on health care, taxes, net neutrality, etc are making things considerably worse, and some of their candidates are just appalling. They've opened a tinder box where borderline unelectable people like Moore (who just lost a state that Trump won by 28%, where there has not been a single Dem senator for over 30 years, against an opponent who came across as kind of weak and with no real collection to the rural working class who make up a large part of the state) are the ones winning primaries because of how dramatically far to the right that party has raced ever since a black guy got in the White House.

The fact they just lost in Alabama shows that these types of politicians are not likely to do well in general elections for the House and Senate, but their issue is they have created a Frankenstein that will not vote for the more normal politicians (I think Kasich would have won the presidential election by a far larger margin than Trump did, but more importantly would be probably having a very successful presidency at this point had they gone for him. And yet he didn't even finish second...), which is going to make life difficult going forward. This is further compounded by the sheer amount of gerrymandering they've got involved with in the House elections, because the downside to gerrymandering is you want you opponent to win 1-2 seats by HUGE margins as all their voters are grouped together, then you win the other 8-9 seats by smaller margins as you've spread yourself to have a small 5% or so advantage in those areas. They had a 28% advantage going in to this...

---

Now for a long ramble about how the Senate election might look at present.

In terms of the Senate elections next year, it is 25 Dem vs 8 Rep seats up which looks bad, but last nights result is going to cause serious worry for those eight seats. We've definitely learned the last year not to take anything for granted be it Brexit/Trump winning or Moore losing, but it is really hard to see the Democrats losing seats in California, Connecticut, Delaware, Hawaii, Maryland, Massachusetts, Minnesota, New Mexico, New York, Rhode Island, Washington, New Jersey, Virginia, Pennsylvania, Maine*, New York, Vermont*, or Michigan - which accounts for 17 of those 25 seats.

*Angus King and Bernie Sanders are both officially independents, but are essentially Democrats in all but name due to the present day Republicans being borderline impossible to work with.

That leaves 8 seats on on each side...
Dem: Missouri, Montana, Minnesota, North Dakota, Indiana, Ohio, Florida, West Virginia.
Rep: Texas, Mississippi, Nebraska, Utah, Tennessee, Wyoming, Nevada, Arizona.

For the Dems, Minnesota (which would have been a (D) lock if not for Franken resigning), Ohio and Florida are three of the classic 'purple' states in elections, meaning if things continue as they are then getting any of those three states is going to be an absurdly difficult task for the Republicans (though as Roy Moore showed us, you never know when your opponent might sh** the bed... repeatedly). Missouri went heavily for Trump (18%) but on a state level they are far more 'purple' than you might think and have had at least one Democratic senator (usually both) dating all the way back to 1911 and the Senator up for re-election (Jon Tester) has a +20 approval rating at the moment. North Dakota is quite similar - it might surprise some to learn that no Republican held a Senate seat there from 1986-2010, and Heidi Heitkamp has a +23 approval rating. Indiana may be trickier with a lot of Republican dominance typically in their senate seats, though Joe Donnelly got in in 2012 when the Republicans were typically the ones making big gains, and holds +20 approval. The one that really caught me off guard was West Virginia, for one of the deepest red states and the most pro-Trump one after Wyoming in 2016, they've only had one Republican senator since Dwight Eisenhower was president. Joe Manchin's approval rating there is a bit lower on +17 though that is higher than his Republican counterpart on +12.

Meanwhile for the Reps they have an issue, as a number of high profile guys are retiring or resigning - first of all is Jeff Flake of Arizona who happens to be the second least popular person in the entire Senate (after Mitch McConnell), with -22 approval, which is going to hurt whoever takes his place quite a bit from the off, and Arizona only voted in Trump by 3.5% to begin with which was down considerably on the Rep winning margin from every year in 2000-2012. To further compound matters, John McCains health may force a special election there too in the pretty near future for what has for 30 years been one of the very safest seats in the Senate for either party. In Tennessee Bob Corker has decent approval at +18 but a) he's highly critical of Trumpism, and b) he's retiring; if they can't keep the crazies out of winning that primary that seat - this should be a reasonably safe one otherwise, but nowhere near as safe as Alabama was thought to be. Next up you've got Nevada where Dean Heller is not resigning, but is struggling in terms of approval on a +/-0 net ratings... and Nevada rejected Trumpism by going for Clinton while voting in a Democrat in the other senate seat, which is not a good omen for them. Orrin Hatch in Utah may be safer but at just +5 approval is far from in the clear. Apparently there is interest in mobilising minorities and the urban vote to make a push against Ted Cruz (+22 approval) in Texas, though the Reps put huge value in that seat so would really throw the kitchen sink at retaining it. In Nebraska Deb Fischer has +10 approval so she is not necessarily safe but that state has apparently been shifting quite far to the right in the last decade or so, so I would expect them to hold there. The Wyoming seat would take a Roy Moore type incident to make it budge, would be shocked to see that stay anything but (R) with +27 approval; likewise with Roger Wicker in deep red Mississippi at +23 approval.

And of course, all of this is assuming none of the Republicans above get primaried by someone the right kind of crazy for the modern Republicans, which would hurt their chances further.

An awful lot can change in the next 11 months but the outlook above is not great for the Reps given that the Dems only need to gain two seats for a majority, and with every passing week is gets a bit worse... that's why yesterday was a hugely significant potential disaster for them, because gaining +3 next year would have been a hell of a lot more difficult. Expect to see huge, huge investment from the Kochs etc in Nevada and Arizona campaigning to begin probably before New Years on the back of last night.

spacecoyote

C14N wrote: »

Even in that tweet he blamed write-ins and I'd bet this isn't the last we'll hear of him talking about those.

To be fair, he's probably actually correct there. There were enough write ins to swing the election to Moore as far as I know.

538 were saying Moores team will likely challenge. When they get in all of the mail votes, etc... if the margin drops to 1% they can demand a recount. Probably an unlikely scenario but this could drag on in theory?

Rjd2

Trent Houseboat wrote: »

Those running in "safe" Republican seats have to fear being primaried by Bannonites. Last night probably energise the traditional base to come out to defeat whatever Bannon unearths from below Isengard in the primaries to prevent a blue wave in 2018.

Yeah Bannon is a huge concern for the Republicans. Its all about ego now for Steve rather than furthering Trumpism, Strange for example would have voted without question for anything Trump or the GOP wanted. Lat night looking at how certain stronghold republicans bases stayed at home is proof that decency somewhat matters,Moore simply was to disgusting for many of them to vote for even with noses in the air.

The Dems did well to mobilise the black vote and there ground game was superb, but they still would have been beaten comfortably by a non alleged "pedo".

Trump needs to get a grip on Bannon, because looking at others he likes they also be poison when it comes to voting.

rossie1977

While its probably a long shot, the Dems with the majority in the house and senate post November 2018 would be hilarious just to see how Trump would deal with it. He has struggled to agree with a Republican majority senate/house on many issues so I can't imagine his state of mind when the house and senate reject all his proposals.

It is vitally important the Dems control the senate soon because they don't want another conservative lifetime supreme court appointment happening under Trump.

Captain Obvious

rossie1977 wrote: »

While its probably a long shot, the Dems with the majority in the house and senate post November 2018 would be hilarious just to see how Trump would deal with it. He has struggled to agree with a Republican majority senate/house on many issues so I can't imagine his state of mind when the house and senate reject all his proposals.

It is vitally important the Dems control the senate soon because they don't want another conservative lifetime supreme court appointment happening under Trump.

Imagine the West Wing with Sheen's character as the majority leader and Goodman's character as president.

Itssoeasy

Surely this has to be the end of Steve Bannon in being involved in politics. I mean he's won a primary since he left the White House ?

I know it was a perfect storm for Doug jones to win last night but the optics of a dem winning a senate seat in as red as red can be Alabama, must be making sitting GOP congressmen and women's blood run cold for 2018. Trumps endorsement is clearly a kiss of death so I can see republican not touching him and not wanting him to campaign with them.

C14N

spacecoyote wrote: »

To be fair, he's probably actually correct there. There were enough write ins to swing the election to Moore as far as I know.

538 were saying Moores team will likely challenge. When they get in all of the mail votes, etc... if the margin drops to 1% they can demand a recount. Probably an unlikely scenario but this could drag on in theory?

But the issue is in assuming that everyone who wrote in would have voted for Roy Moore. I'd expect that most people doing a write-in knew that it was pointless, they were just doing it as a form of protest and if it were somehow not possible to write someone in, they probably just wouldn't vote. Considering there really wasn't any major campaign for any particular write-in candidate, I think it's quite presumptuous to think they would all have voted for Moore.

Moore will definitely try and challenge it, but 538 also said that the idea that a recount would change anything is a fairytale, and that even if it miraculously dropped to 0.5%, the automatic recount would just be a formality. Moore is just doing it for his ego at this point.

Itssoeasy wrote: »

Surely this has to be the end of Steve Bannon in being involved in politics. I mean he's won a primary since he left the White House ?

Hardly. The guy still runs Breitbart, which is the 53rd highest ranked website in the USA according to Alexa. In terms of news sites, that puts it behind only ESPN, CNN, New York Times and the Washington Post in terms of readership. It's shoulder to shoulder with Buzzfeed and ahead of Huffington Post, FoxNews.com, and the Drudge Report.

everlast75

Does this effectively mean the end of the Tax Bill?
I heard it is 51 seats to Rep and 49 to the Democrats. It will just take one republican to abstain or not vote for it and it will be dead in the water?

Hande hoche!

everlast75 wrote: »

Does this effectively mean the end of the Tax Bill?
I heard it is 51 seats to Rep and 49 to the Democrats. It will just take one republican to abstain or not vote for it and it will be dead in the water?

Think Jones gets sworn in next year.

Blowfish

everlast75 wrote: »

Does this effectively mean the end of the Tax Bill?
I heard it is 51 seats to Rep and 49 to the Democrats. It will just take one republican to abstain or not vote for it and it will be dead in the water?

Jones won't be sworn in until the start of next year, most likely just after the break. McConnell will be pushing, especially after yesterday, to get the Tax Bill through before the end of the year while the interim Senator is still around. If it doesn't get through before he's in, it'd still take 2 Republicans to switch for it to be shot down as, if it's 50 votes apiece, the Vice President gets to cast the deciding vote.

Billy86

Possibly, possibly not - apparently they're trying to shoehorn through a vote before he takes office which is a few weeks off. What I don't get is, have the GOP been able to use Sessions' vote prior to now, and if so do they get to continue to use it until Jones officially becomes Senator?

EDIT: Apparently Luther Strange holds it and will do until Jones officially has his first day in the role.

jobbridge4life

While I am glad that Alabama didn't elect a child molester, predator and am glad that Trump and Bannon have some egg on their faces I can't help but be somewhat disheartened that this was such a close election. Moreover it is appalling that notwithstanding his many failings, white people, men and women still voted overwhelmingly for him.

PropJoe10

It makes Trump look stupid and gives the Dems some momentum so it's fine with me. Jones will likely only be a 3-year Senator but if Moore had won, it'd have been an absolute disaster for everyone concerned. But yeah, its still quite disturbing that the race was so close.

Schorpio

rossie1977 wrote: »

While its probably a long shot, the Dems with the majority in the house and senate post November 2018 would be hilarious just to see how Trump would deal with it. He has struggled to agree with a Republican majority senate/house on many issues so I can't imagine his state of mind when the house and senate reject all his proposals.

It is vitally important the Dems control the senate soon because they don't want another conservative lifetime supreme court appointment happening under Trump.

I think that would actually make life easier for him.

Remember, it's very easy to blame the Dems. You could expect to see tweet after tweet after tweet moaning about he want's to MAGA, but a Dem-controlled house. It's actually the current situation which is causing Trump the most headaches - he should be able to easily legislate, but can't.

Billy86

Schorpio wrote: »

rossie1977 wrote: »

While its probably a long shot, the Dems with the majority in the house and senate post November 2018 would be hilarious just to see how Trump would deal with it. He has struggled to agree with a Republican majority senate/house on many issues so I can't imagine his state of mind when the house and senate reject all his proposals.

It is vitally important the Dems control the senate soon because they don't want another conservative lifetime supreme court appointment happening under Trump.

I think that would actually make life easier for him.

Remember, it's very easy to blame the Dems. You could expect to see tweet after tweet after tweet moaning about he want's to MAGA, but a Dem-controlled house. It's actually the current situation which is causing Trump the most headaches - he should be able to easily legislate, but can't.

Except two democrat majorities would leave Trump with a far, far bigger headache that rhymes with beseechment.

aloyisious

Not being on twitter, I'm waiting for Don to blame Mitch & the GOP leadership yet again [this time for flip-flopping on Roy] though Don did exactly that in regard to his personal support of Roy waxing and waning. Re the make-up of the Jones vote, it look's like the lesson of the "HRC" result has sunk in take nothing for granted. The result must be upsetting to the Alabama Sec of State, given his statement on the voter turnout percentage, if it was actually greater than he reckoned on.

Captain Obvious

Donald has cleared things up. he only supported Strange because he knew the public wouldn't like Moore as much. He was playing chess you see. Counting the moves ahead.

Zascar

Dems will be able to hang this over Trumps' head for years to come. This will the their version of "But Her Emails!"

jooksavage

Zascar wrote: »

Dems will be able to hang this over Trumps' head for years to come. This will the their version of "But Her Emails!"

Moore's candidacy is an indelible stain on the Republicans as a whole. If they had done the principled thing and pull support for him (which is absolute fantasy-land stuff at the moment) they would have conceded a seat and reclaimed some dignity. Now they have neither.

C14N

everlast75 wrote: »

Does this effectively mean the end of the Tax Bill?
I heard it is 51 seats to Rep and 49 to the Democrats. It will just take one republican to abstain or not vote for it and it will be dead in the water?

Probably not. The goal is to pass it before Christmas (and Jones doesn't come in until after Christmas), but even if it doesn't get done by then, the only solid Republican "No" in the Senate is Bob Corker. Jones and Corker alone aren't enough to kill it, because they could only bring it to 50-50 and then Pence would break the tie.

C14N

jooksavage wrote: »

Moore's candidacy is an indelible stain on the Republicans as a whole. If they had done the principled thing and pull support for him (which is absolute fantasy-land stuff at the moment) they would have conceded a seat and reclaimed some dignity. Now they have neither.

And they were so close to doing this too. Instead they panicked and went back to supporting him in the last week. If they hadn't re-opened his campaign funding, they could have had an argument about distance between Moore and the party as a whole. Instead they've tied themselves to him and lost anyway.

StringerBell

Very poor result for the Republicans in that they lost a seat and they were seen to be supporting a man not fit to be in office, then again....they are also supporting another man not fit for office in the highest office they have.

Very poor for The Donald also after he has again endorsed a candidate and encouraged his supporters to get out and vote for a guy who lost.

Very good for the Democrats in that they took a seat that was absolutely ungettable for a long time. (Not exactly great though as Jones doesn't seem to have much about him tbh) For optics and for momentum, for putting fear and doubt into their opponents this was a big win.

Worrying though how close this man came to getting elected though. Further proof if any were needed of how backward some parts of the country are, how entrenched voters are. The fact that he would have won quite handily if the Dems had not managed to mobilize a bigger then usual turnout is a stark reminder that the tide is not yet turned and there will be plenty of hard fights ahead.

Leroy42

It shows that the minorities can have a major impact in races that were once thought of as a given.

Blacks overwhelmingly voted for Jones (90%+ I think) and the DNC and minorities groups need to focus on getting the vote out in higher numbers than the past.

It seems, to me, that the GOP are counting on the same voters as before to carry them and as such a big increase in voter turnout should be enough to turn plenty of Red seats blue.

Sure, the DNC may not be the best alternative you would wish for, but in a two horse race you have to pick or else let others make the choice. Yesterdays vote showed that there is enough white people willing to vote R regardless, so to expect them to deliver change is a waste of time.