mtutiger

Honestly, I believe this is more plausible than is considered at the moment. A lot of attention is focused on the leverage the Freedom Caucus has, but these new NY Reps, the ones who make up a disproportionate amount of the GOP's House gains, all come from Biden districts and probably want to be reelected in future elections. If the GOP were smart, they would want to keep these members happy, well before keeping MTG happy.

I don't know that polls are off on Biden's approval, I just think that the political media had a hard time understanding that those who "somewhat disapprove" may not have been automatic GOP votes in the Midterm. That's a big part of the story as I see it... Softer disapprovers of POTUS, made up a lot by younger voters and suburban voters one presumes, still showed and voted for Dem candidates in higher numbers than the conventional wisdom suggested going into the election

This is spot on. Elite conservative messaging against Trump is a requirement for breaking the fever, but it very well may not be sufficient because of the voters and how their preferences may differ.

Taking this with a grain of salt, but if Frisch somehow does come back and win, Dems may end up slightly favorites to have a majority lol

Arizona is starting to look like a disaster for Rs...

Kelly wins... and Lake is on very thin ice

Masto has it in range

Uhh, game over

One of those seats that seems to be in the R column at the moment

His mantra was "Every County, Every Vote"... and that is what Democratic candidates should be doing in all elections.

Georgia, Michigan and Nevada seem like the sweet spot for first three... it's a nice cross section of voters that the Dems consider important demographically (ie. black, Midwest working class, Hispanic)

Switch out "Pennsylvania and Colorado" with "Nevada and Michigan", and I would agree. The biggest reason is size... PA with 19 EC Votes along with Colorado at 10 EC votes means they combined are probably too big and would likely hurt the competitiveness of the primary by slanting the field to whoever would win both of those. Michigan is borderline too large, but Nevada is still a smaller state and checks all the boxes in terms of competitiveness, diversity, etc.

Another map showing why Wisconsin likely remains competitive going forward... aside from Madison, most of the state lives in the eastern part. And within that, the counties around Milwaukee loom large.

Midland is trending blue, but Bay+Saginaw+Genesee are all trending the other direction and make up more population combined. Overall the region is trending more toward GOP at the moment.

100%. The overarching thing here is that for as much as Michigan and Ohio are compared or considered alongside one another culturally (owing from things such as the Toledo Strip War and having the most legendary college football rivalry in the history of the sport), they are culturally very different places. The state that it compares to the most from my experience is Wisconsin, not Ohio.

The trends favor them in the Tri-Cities and Flint (ie. Dan Kildee's district).... but it's not the most dynamic part of the state population wise either.

A big difference between rurals in the Upper Midwest (ie. WI, MI, MN) and OH/PA rurals is religion.... even growing up in Rural MI, religious faith always tended to be more mainstream/Catholic and less evangelical. One suspects that's part of why the bottom hasn't fallen as far in the Upper Midwest as it has in Ohio.

And don't forget West Michigan.... Whitmer won Kent by 10 points (versus 3 in 2018) and shaved her margins from 2018 in Ottawa County. That's a LOT of vote out there. From my perspective, the thing that should concern the Michigan GOP is that, outside of Macomb (which also isn't a guaranteed basket of votes in every election, as 2022 proved), the parts of the state where they excel in and/or where trends favor them (ie. Tri Cities/Flint) are all areas where population decline is particularly pronounced in the state. After 2016 and this election, I'll never write them off or assume demographics are destiny, but surface level it looks pretty grim at the moment.

The good news about Wisconsin and why it should remain competitive for a while longer in state level races is that the WoW counties really slid in the Governors race. Evers gained something like 8-10% in Ozaukee / Waukesha / Washington Counties.... if that trend continues, that will counter some of the negative trends elsewhere in the state.

Wisconsin: Less Urbanization and an insane amount of Gerrymandering at the Assembly / State Level Ohio: Half of the State is Appalachia, which is blood red at this point. Metro areas not large enough to make up for it.

Unpossible. People are tired of me saying it I'm sure, but I'll never understand why it never regiestered with many media figures that Oz was an incredibly unlikable candidate. It's almost like they assume that his polished TV look was all he needed and the substance didn't matter.

Figured the knife fight for control of the chamber would be a good starting place here. The working assumption seems to be that, assuming the GOP pulls it out, the Freedom Caucus will hold all the cards. But as the piece above suggests, that may not be entirely accurate; really, the "majority makers" when the votes are counted are going to be Republicans elected from Biden districts in New York who will want to be reelected in future cycles. It stands to reason they will want to exert some pressure as well. Either way, this process is going to be a nightmare for Kevin McCarty, particularly if they hold only between 218-220.