RobertKK wrote: » Beto O'Rourke did really badly. I came across this: 2012 Paul Sadler Raised: $705,027 Votes: 3,194,927 $/Vote: $0.22 each Then on to 2018 Beto O'Rourke Raised: $69,240,350+ Votes (11:33pm ET): 3,413,259+ $/Vote: $20.29 each Just an extra 218k votes despite all the hype and spending 98 times as much as the Democrat in 2012 did.
Fr Tod Umptious wrote: » All depends on who the Democrats pick to run. Someone like Warren is popular in liberal Massachusetts but that may not translate well elsewhere. As a poster posted earlier Democratic gains were in places were they ran, for the use of a better word, less 'progressive' candidates. I have no idea who thed Democrats should pick by the way.
8-10 wrote: » Got it. I'm saying I didn't get that from the post I thought it was a more generic silver lining. Would be interesting to see in future elections if there's a correlation among felons on how they vote. I don't think it's going to be significant but I'd be interested to see in relation to college education. In general the more educated the person the more likely to vote Democrat, it even trumps race and gender as an indicator. And felons are in general much less likely to be college educated. So on the surface they should be more inclined to vote Republican but I'm not so sure, we'll see in future
Franz Von Peppercorn wrote: » This phrase “america isn’t a democracy, it’s a republic” is like saying chickens aren’t animals they are birds. A genuine republic is a democracy. I think people mean that it’s a federal republic not a direct democracy.
RobertKK wrote: » I am not making that assumption, it is what the post I quoted implied.
8-10 wrote: » I don't think you can make that assumption. Democrats and Republicans both supported this move and it was a vote on fairness to amend the constitution not because they think felons will vote a certain way, but because they have the right to vote. So I think the sentiment was that it's a silver lining in that "at least Florida is embracing some progressive change" rather than "at least Florida is helping some Democrats" Fair play to both sides with that result, 64% in favour.
RobertKK wrote: » That kind of implies, the Democrats are the party for the criminals, I know that isn't what you mean, but that is how it looks. People with criminal convictions more likely to be Democrat supporters.
Captain Obvious wrote: » i think Dems should forget about Trump for the first few months and focus on trying to pass legislation that will be good for as many people as possible. Make the GOP or Trump the bad guys for blocking them. Make it clear they want to improve the country and not just attack Trump.
hill16bhoy wrote: » There are definitely certain things to read into 2020 from last night. Democrats had a good night in Pennsylvania, Michigan and Wisconsin. That certainly bodes well for 2020 and all will have Democratic governors going forward. Ohio will be harder to get back and losing the Governor's race there was a blow but Sherrod Brown showed the Democrats can still win there. Nevada is turning into a reasonably steady blue state and Rosen's comfortable win there was the brightest spot on the senate map for them. Florida was a massive disappointment, there's no getting away from it, especially Gillum's loss to the scumbag De Santis. However the silver lining was the passing of the proposition to enfranchise up to over a million felons. And in a state where the margins are always tiny, that's a huge deal. It does of course set up the mother of all battles over voter suppression in 2020, but the Republicans will have a huge uphill battle on that front now. North Carolina passed a voter ID law so the odds of Democrats winning there in 2020 are slim. The defeats of Putin's congresssman Dana Rohrabacher in California and Scott Walker in Wisconsin were probably the two biggest individual feel good stories to emerge from individual races.
flazio wrote: » The question I want to know is: Can we read anything into these results in terms of how America would vote if it was for the White House?
Water John wrote: » In fairness Pelosi offered bipartisanship in her speech last night. Will Trump be able to pick up that olive branch whilst another section of the Dems Congress is going after him?
pixelburp wrote: » The results went precisely as many / most predicted: only the media and the hyperbolic spoke of Blue Waves TBH. The Democrats won the House; the Senate stayed in GOP hands; turnout appears to be strong. Some stars failed there's no doubt: Gillum losing out to a dog-whistling Rep. in Florida must sting, while Beto was being touted as a future Presidential candidate yet couldn't unseat Ted Cruz. Beyond that though, everything went as predicted.
Fr Tod Umptious wrote: » And yet there was no blue wave.
everlast75 wrote: » And of course, had he not cheated. Comey played a part too. The idea that Trump won fairly or even won at all is laughable to anyone objective.
Brian? wrote: » The USA isn't really a democracy though, it's a federal Republic. As you say, what people see as flaws are actually designed into the system to provide States with checks and balances on the federal government. It's questionable that the current federal government is anything like that envisioned by the founding fathers. I'm not endorsing the system, just providing context. It may seem odd to Irish people, but this is how the system was designed. To me, the Senate is an undemocratic institution, Alaska and California have equal representation, but that's how it's meant to be to protect state rights.
Peregrinus wrote: » This is actually a feature, not a bug. The dispersal of authority over elections (not only to the states but also, within each state, to municipalities) is supposed to make it more difficult for a tyrant in power to rig elections. Which, in fairness, it has done; the US is one of the longest-surviving democracies on the planet. But, yeah, it does make for pretty crapulous electoral standards, and a political culture which either accepts this as normal and sees nothing wrong with it, or positively benefits from it. US elections are a bit like British plumbing; they get credit for having been early adaptors of the idea, but they get saddled with outdated, dysfunctional, archaic systems that, once installed, are hard to replace.
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