Vermont might also make history by electing the first transgender governor, as a transgender person won the D primary yesterday.
https://www.nytimes.com/2018/08/14/u...t-vermont.html
GOP holds the House
Dems win the House by less than 12 seats
Dems win the House by 12-25 seats
Dems win the House by 25-38 seats
Dems win the House by 38+ seats
GOP gains 1 or more seats in the Senate (52-48 or more)
GOP holds the same number of seats in the Senate (51-49)
GOP loses seats but still holds the Senate (50-50 with Pence breaking tie)
Dems win the Senate (49-51 or more)
I guess you could call Gov Phil Scott a social liberal by NC standards, but certainly not by most standards...social moderate would be the word I'd use.
Sets up a complicated election in which Scott will be the strong favorite, but a few months ago one would have said he was a 100% lock.
Since then, he signed a rather moderate gun control bill (after one of the many school shootings) which got the gun guys (sizeable group) totally up in arms (so to speak).
So ironically, his popularity is reasonably high with Dems, and very iffy with Republicans. Go figure. But no one knows anything much about the politics of Ms. Hallquist...
Add to that the gov has screwed up his budget strategy the last two years (Having essentially no budget proposal of his own, letting the legislature do 80% of their work, then he comes in
at the 10th hour with a strange proposal all his own...not effective).
So I'd say Race Car Phil's chances for reelection have gone from 99% to 80%...Big Blue Wave could affect things, but probably not enough for Hallquist.
Never a dull moment in this state's politics. FWIW, the 14 year old Demo candidate did a pretty solid job, made more sense than two of his opponents...
Vermont might also make history by electing the first transgender governor, as a transgender person won the D primary yesterday.
https://www.nytimes.com/2018/08/14/u...t-vermont.html
Vicente Fox, former president of Mexico and professional Trump provoker, has a video announcing his candidacy for US President in 2020. I would link it here but afraid some would be offended. I think it’s pretty darn funny, and worth searching if you are not offended by anti-Trump humor.
(I can laugh at anything)
Not directly related to any particular midterm race, but certainly this has the potential to affect the midterms generally...
We could be looking at a Michael Cohen guilty plea and a verdict in the first Paul Manafort trial on the same day.
Stay tuned...
"I swear Roy must redeem extra timeouts at McDonald's the day after the game for free hamburgers." --Posted on InsideCarolina, 2/18/2015
Yep, Cohen has reached a plea agreement, and the Manafort jury is reportedly hung up on just 1 of the 18 counts.
But I'm not sure how much this will affect voting. We've been hearing so much about both of these guys for months, I don't think any results will change the vast majority of minds. I think we're particularly baked in this year.
Manafort guilty on 8 counts. From there it gets sketchy. Article doesn't say which counts, which doesn't matter to me since I haven't followed that closely (and am not a lawyer) so don't know which are the most important/damaging. Article also says mistrial on the other 10, but judge wants jury to continue deliberations and is not ready to render a partial verdict. So I can't see how anything was ruled a mistrial.
Am not linking the article due to the above, not much more there.
A friend and I just bet a $20 Bojangles gift card over whether the Dems will pick up at least 50 seats. We'll see how that turns out... does anybody here have any strong opinions on what the appropriate over/under level is for Dem pickups this fall? I really don't. I figure the Republicans will lose some seats, but 50 seemed on the high side to me, so I took the under.
Beto only down four to Cruz?
https://www.nbcnews.com/politics/fir...entage-n902946
That would be a huge shocker for me. 76 days, we find out (more or less).
I think "seats" generally refers to the House. If I was wagering with someone or doing an over/under, I would probably say we are only talking about the House. The shifting nature of which seats are up makes shifts much more difficult to compare from election to election.
All that said, I would probably put the over/under at 30 for the Dems. If you got someone to bet you on 50, then you got a good bet.
Why are you wasting time here when you could be wasting it by listening to the latest episode of the DBR Podcast?
I agree, but I wouldn't be too confident. Two of the last three presidents lost over 50 seats in their first mid-term election. We've only gotten more partisan. And the president just said this morning that cooperating with prosecutors "almost ought to be illegal". He said it at least twice, it wasn't a stumble. Things are going to get very intense over the next 2-1/2 months.
Remember when you could breathe a little easier in non-presidential election years?
Georgians, I'm getting pretty fed up with your attempts to usurp my dear Florida's undisputed status as the looniest election state.
https://www.washingtonpost.com/polit...=.bb9acd682dea
“We do more looney before 9 a.m. than most states do all day”
Archie Bunker thinks we have some competition from California. Warning: it's non-PC, but it's Archie so you knew that.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0XVEL3KnR2w
Florida has nothing to worry about.
Florida candidate for Congress: Alien abduction doesn't define me
IAMI — U.S. House candidate Bettina Rodriguez Aguilera has a long list of accomplishments to bolster her campaign in Florida. But she is perhaps best known for claiming that she was abducted by space aliens as a child.
Rodriguez Aguilera is a longshot in the race for the Miami-area seat being vacated by retiring Republican Rep. Ileana Ros-Lehtinen. Yet last weekend, the Miami Herald endorsed her for the GOP nomination in the Tuesday primary out of a field of nine candidates.
In an interview, Rodriguez Aguilera said she is grateful for the endorsement and that her tale of kidnapping by aliens does not define her.
"It has nothing to do with what I have done. It happened when I was 7 years old," she said. "I am so proud of the Herald and what they did."