Assuming AL is lost, then the dems would need 4 seats to get to 50/50. ME and CO are a most. AZ, NC, GA and holding AL are the next in terms of reachable. TX maybe if Beto runs again. Kansas in a presidential year is very had. Iowa is getting pretty red.
IA is a +3R state and it’s demographics are very “swingy”. TX is +8 this time around. It took a rock star type campaigner vs a DC pol to lose by 2.5 pts in TX. The IA governors race was a 2.5 pt Dem loss with none of those advantages and the full effect of the trade war not hitting agriculture. Dems are going to be all over the state for the caucus too. The only thing I see on the positive side for TX is immigration. On fundamentals alone, IA is probably the best bet for #3. Considering the candidates as well, it’s probably +3R NC and IA. Then +5R AZ. Then +5R GA (AZ has better relative candidate quality than GA IMO) Then +8 TX, which is 99% wishful thinking. Beyond that, forget it. If there’s somebody out there with a statewide reputation and the makings of a great retail politician, ie a Manchin, then they’ve got a shot. I don’t know who those people are though.
So with Roby retiring in addition to Susan Brooks, the small contingent of 13 R congresswomen will lose 2 members. I would love it when they are in the low single digits and the party is represented almost entirely by white dudes.
It might not be a one-off. Roby retiring signals that she doesn't think holding office in Congress is worth it. If she thought she could beat Jones, she would have run for Senate. If she thought GOP would be in the majority, she would have stayed in. If a recession hits, if GOP incumbents keep fleeing en masse, and if Doug Jones gets a lucky break from a challenger like Roy Moore, he could pull it off. I'd say he wins 10-15% of the time. It's not a good thing, because democracy relies on alternation in power to succeed.
True but this current version of the Republican party is toxic to democracy and should burn to the ground.
It’s possible she’s retiring because she doesn’t see a path to power given the hand the GOP will be playing. It’s also possible she’s exhausted from it all or has other priorities at this point. Hard to tell. I know nothing about AL politics. What about Byrne? He’s in the race. I’d think someone who went to a GOP runoff for Gov ahead of Moore and someone with a House seat would be a near lock. He’s not moderate by any means, but he seems to be a mainstream AL federal/statewide office holder. I’m not sure Jones has a prayer against him.
Nah. The man had his shot against one of the most simpering, hatable politicians in the history of the republic and still came up a few points short. He's got no shot against John Cornyn, whose policy choices are still shit but doesn't personally inspire any ire.
So in your opinions, would impeachment reduce or increase the number of Reps jumping ship? or no effect at all.
Probably no effect. Once enough have resigned/retired, their ability to hold the majority collapses and therefore the interest to stay as well.
Agree with that. I think retirements will happen regardless. The writings are on the wall for the R in congress. They may be stuck in the minority for a while.
The impeachment issue is in the Senate. Doesn't matter if no more Reps from the House leave or not. The house is more likely to see Reps jump ship because it is more micro in nature, more populist.
An other one.....That is 5 now. Rep. Mike Conaway (R-TX) announced that he is retiring after 15 years in Congress, Politico reports. This is the fifth GOP retirement in two weeks.
The average Cook PVI of the retirees is R+15.7. But don't let that disguise the true nature of what's going on. The retirees are breaking into two camps: in most districts, the retiree is a safe GOPer who won't be able to chair any committees (in fact, this is the explicit reason stated by Rob Bishop in Utah). In Georgia-7, Indiana-5, and Texas-22, however, the PVI is R+9.33. If you toss in Montana-AL, the PVI gets closer to R+10. Democrats are currently leading in the polls by 6-7 points according to FiveThirtyEight. With the exception of Susan Brooks (who won 56-43), all of these districts were won by less than 5 percentage points in 2018. In 2020, the electorate is probably - not definitely, but probably - going to be larger and more Democratic than 2018. The economy will definitely not be as strong, and probably - again, not definitely - will be in recession or the beginning of one. These retirees did not expect to have to fight for their seats, and are almost certainly not relishing that fight again. So they're taking the easy way out. Cook Political has their 2020 House ratings up. 38 seats are Lean/Likely Dem, 33 seats Lean/Likely GOP. 17 Dem seats are toss-ups, and 5 GOP seats are toss-ups. The more GOP retirees, the more that the 17 Dems will be able to move into the Lean/Likely category, and the more Lean GOP seats become Toss-ups. You're all pretty good at working yourselves into a froth over Trump winning re-election, but let's take the other tack. Let's assume that Trump is at 42% approval on E-Day while his opponent has a healthy 50-55% approval. Let's assume another 15-20 Republican incumbents retire. And let's assume that GDP growth is between -0.5% and 1%. I could easily foresee Democrats winning the following districts: NY-01, NY-27, PA-01, PA-16, OH-01, OH-12, MI-03 (in a three-way race), MI-06, NC-09, GA-07, IL-13, KS-2, TX-10, TX-22, TX-23, MT-AL, CA-50, WA-03, and potentially another 5-10 seats if growth is closer to -1% than not. That would mean a pickup of 18-28 seats. Doing so would almost certainly mean that Democrats had won in the Senate: Maine, Colorado, and North Carolina. It would be down to Alaska, Iowa, Texas, Kansas, Alabama, Florida, Georgia, and an outside-straight shot at Cocaine Mitch. I'm not saying that it's a likely scenario, but don't rule out a rosy scenario with your morning doom and gloom.
I know if he saw the GOP staying in power in 2020, he probably would disregard his original promise, but he did say from the get go that he would run for no more than 20 years. He began in 2002/03. Good riddance. His replacement will likely be worse. Orrin Hatch beat out a popular UT senator (D-Moss) in 1976, largely complaining that the senator had been in place for too long (3 terms) and was out of touch with his constituency. He went on to serve 42years. His last reelection compaign had a smug picture of him with just the word "Clout."
Oh well, check this one for the Democrats. Texas Rep. Will Hurd, the only black Republican in House, says he won’t seek re-electionhttps://t.co/jz52MCMdhE— Sahil Kapur (@sahilkapur) August 2, 2019
Today I learned there was a black Republican in the House. I mean, the United States House of Representatives, not some generic house, probably most black Republicans live in houses even if there aren't very many black Republicans. I knew about the black Republican Senator, and the black Republican woman who isn't in the House any more, but not that there was still a black Republican in the House. And after next fall, there won't be any black Republicans in the House.
He was highly unlikely to win with a 2020 electorate and Trump atop the ballot. I believe that Beto and Hillary both won his district. If Hurd wanted to stay in elected office, he would have been smart to switch to Dem. (or Dem- caucusing independent) at an appropriate moment like the release of the Mueller report. He could eventually have been a formidable statewide candidate for the Democrats, and obviously had nowhere to go in TX GOP. Texas is still more likely than not to go GOP in 2020, but something has changed substantially there. Biden is ahead of Trump in a couple respectable polls, and the Democrats could get close to half of the state's House seats if they perform just a little better than they did in 2018. The impact of demographic changes on a state's political leanings is often slower than people expect, for a few reasons - in part because shifts in the total population can take a while to translate into shifts in the eligible voter population, and in part because people who are more likely to vote tend to be older and with more durable party loyalties. But the demographic impact arrives eventually - and it looks like Trump may have sped things up by a few years in Texas.
******** that. He was a joke unless he had the opportunity to tell people that he was in the CIA and takes intelligence seriously and was even waffling more recently about the reality of the border (which could be the only decent thing about him when he was honest). Nothing about him belongs with the Democrats. His last election was one of the closest in Texas history. I won't comment on principled Libertarians.