Senate Predictions

[Zarathustra]

It's odd that the election is less than two weeks away, and yet there is relatively little discussion of it here.

Actually, it's the same elsewhere, namely, in the mainstream media:

The nation’s Big Three TV networks that breathlessly reported the 2006 anti-Bush election which gave Democrats control of Capitol Hill have practically ignored this year’s anti-Obama midterms that are expected to return full control of the Hill to the GOP.

A new and exhaustive Media Research Center analysis compared the last seven weeks of CBS, NBC and ABC news coverage with the same period in 2006 and found a 6-1 disparity between the Democratic election wave and the current election. The story count: 159-25.


The worst offender is ABC’s newly-renamed “World News Tonight.” The show hasn’t aired a single story. By comparison in 2006, ABC’s “World News” aired 36 stories on the midterms, including a weekly feature that then-anchor Charlie Gibson promised would look at the “critical races.”

...

Said the MRC report provided to Secrets: “Back then, the elections were a major news topic; this year, a regular viewer of ABC’s evening newscast would have no indication that any were even taking place.”

The numbers are jarring. In 2006, “NBC Nightly News” aired 65 stories about the pro-Democratic midterms during the Sept. 1-Oct. 20 period. This year during the study period the network has aired 11. “CBS Evening News” aired 55 election stories in 2006, and just 14 this year.

link

Yep, absolutely no bias there. No wonder Fox is kicking everyone's ass. If you watched ABC, you wouldn't even know there was an election this year. How odd, given the historical and newsworthy significance of Republicans taking control of the legislative branch in a repudiation of woefully inept/corrupt/ineffective Democratic control.

[SoulBiter]

Here is my largest gripe with elections, especially this year. All the candidates are busy telling me why I shouldn't vote for the other person but but I am hearing very little about what they represent and why I should vote for them.

Its like if we were having an election and it was down to me and Z.

Why should we vote for you in the election?
SB - Z is a warmonger who would do away with the Cats meow.
Z - SB is taking all your cookie crumbs and makes Dogs beg for food.

[Cail]

Here is my largest gripe with elections, especially this year. All the candidates are busy telling me why I shouldn't vote for the other person but but I am hearing very little about what they represent and why I should vote for them.

QFT.

[Vraith]

Heh...the link took me to a story about Michael Brown.

It could be a liberal bias issue, I suppose.
I think it's more likely a combination of "crowd pleasing" stories like
Ebola and ISIS and the shift of network news [especially broadcast network, but cable ones, too] toward more entertainment.
And I suspect that entertainment shift is consumer-driven in significant ways...
Partly cuz some folk don't really care about political news...
[and/or are annoyed/frustrated by current political environment]...at least until elections are very close.
Exacerbated by a trend I THINK I see...the people who DO care about
the politics don't get their fix from the networks.
I mean...I have extremely low agreement with or trust in "Fox" or "The Blaze." [everyone is shocked, I know]. But I spend more time at those web pages and similar in a single week than I've spent watching all the broadcast news/politics combined for the last...I don't know...at least six months?
More likely a year or more.

Did broadcast lose political attention because they shifted towards entertaining? Or did they shift towards entertaining cuz political people were abandoning them anyway?

Sometimes I wonder about the bias thing...assume as a fact [which I'm not certain is true..but assume it] that a bias is real. The assumption, AFAICT, leads to the common inference that bias in the "main stream media" causes distrust of that media.
But it seems to me, very often, that isn't really the case. It seems to me a large number of folk distrust FIRST, and look for alternatives, because the "MSM" isn't biased ENOUGH for them.

Anyway...my statistic wars guys predictions are slowly converging [in the overall picture] at this point. 538 has a 65% chance Republicans take the majority. Sam says the Dems+Inds have a 45% plus or minus 15%.
They present the info differently, but those two predicitons are closer together than they were.
At a quick glance, it looks really good for Reps. But really, it's still very close and highly unpredictable.
I can't wait to see the race-by-race comparisons once it's all over.

[Zarathustra]

Sorry, I had multiple tabs open at the time.
Washington Examiner link on media ignoring election

Vraith, the Big Three aren't ignoring this election because people aren't interested in it. Fox News is killing them in the ratings, and they're reporting it. So people are interested. You might have a point regarding Dems--I bet they don't want to hear story after story about how their party sucks and are going to lose. But unless the Big Three only care about Democrat viewers, this argument makes little sense.

However, that's just another way to point out the bias of the mainstream media.

[Vraith]

. Fox News is killing them in the ratings, and they're reporting it. So people are interested.

Fox has a strong relative position...it has for a while now. I'm just wondering about the nature of the relationships, the reasons for various changes.
Last I knew, something like 1/4 of people trust Fox the most. That's good in a relative way, but not a lot in absolute terms, and not quite the same as saying they find it trustworthy.
Dems are more likely to trust the Big 3 than other folk...but all 3 together manage to corral less than 1/3rd.

And a gallup poll I've been using to think about things 538 and Sam Wang are saying doesn't seem to show the interest. It's about a month old now...things may have changed...and they have some caveats in it...
But overall result is while Reps. are more interested than Dems., BOTH are significantly less interested than they were in the last two mid-terms.
www.gallup.com/poll/178130/voter-engage ... um=twitter

[Hashi Lebwohl]

Here is my largest gripe with elections, especially this year. All the candidates are busy telling me why I shouldn't vote for the other person but but I am hearing very little about what they represent and why I should vote for them.

This is why I keep pushing Project Vote Smart--they give you everything you need to know about a candidate so you can decide whether you want to vote for them. Everything they link to/about a candidate is publicly-available, factual information, without any editorial tinkering. It is the Sgt. Joe Friday of politics--just the facts.

The other reason the network news isn't covering the election is because by now most people know how the elections are going to turn out, other than a few too-close-to-call races here and there. My prediction: Republicans will retain the House but they won't fully retake the Senate even though they will narrow the Democrat majority to the point where it really isn't a majority any more--48 to 52 or 49 to 51, something like that.

The most immediate result of this election, if it goes how I think it will, will be that Mr. Obama withdraws farther away than he is now. He won't be able to get Congress to do anything he wants them to do so he'll just give up. He will fill any vacant Cabinet post with recess appointments then let Congress fight about it once they get back. The next two years will wind up being like Ford's interregnum--everyone marking time until a real President gets elected.

[Vraith]

they will narrow the Democrat majority to the point where it really isn't a majority any more--48 to 52 or 49 to 51, something like that.

Emphasis mine, my current best guess...but shaky. Even shakier because, though unlikely, it is POSSIBLE there will be 4 Independents in the next Senate. I'm not sure that's ever happened. And while the 4 may SLIGHTLY favor Dems, they've also shown a willingness to act like actual Independents sometimes, and take a Rep-like position sometimes. [based on incomplete info about the 2 new possible Indies.]
One thing annoying me a lot: several of the tightest and most important [as far as changing the balance] races have very few polls, or most of the polls they do have are from folk with significant house effects, or folk with questionable practices [not calling cell phones, or only calling sell phones, or loose questioning styles, etc.] or all of the above.

[Cail]

So after much ruminating, my call is 52-48 in the Senate, 14 seats in the House, and 1 more governor for the GOP.

What will be interesting is to see what they do with it. If they begin to push a legislative agenda, they're going to force Obama into either working with them or vetoing everything he's sent. If they're smart, they'll co-opt Congressional Democrats to support their legislation, leaving Obama to either sign off, veto, or override via executive order. Obama's legacy isn't good now; it could take a battering over the next two years if he's not careful.

Of course, the GOP can't find their collective asses with a flashlight and a map, so they'll probably just squander the opportunity.

[Hashi Lebwohl]

Of course, the GOP can find their collective asses with a flashlight and a map, so they'll probably just squander the opportunity.

I concur. They'll do more gloating than anything while they try to effectively kill or dismantle the ACA.

They may, however, reopen investigations into Fast & Furious, Benghazi, and IRSgate.

[Zarathustra]

They may, however, reopen investigations into Fast & Furious, Benghazi, and IRSgate.

That's probably the best they can do for now, besides turning Obama into "The President of No" through the veto scenario.

Holder was smart to get out now. I don't envy Obama in his last two years. The best he can hope for is to "surge" like Bush did in his last two years, and defeat ISIS.

[SoulBiter]

Of course, the GOP can't find their collective asses with a flashlight and a map, so they'll probably just squander the opportunity.

Thats my concern as well. Rather than finding ways to get the country heading the right direction, they will spend the next two years trying to discredit Obama, repeal Obamacare, and quite frankly spend two years looking like 4 year olds squabbling over a new toy.

[Hashi Lebwohl]

The New York Times has updated its projections, concluding that there is a 70% likelihood of the Senate falling under Republican control. Scroll about halfway down to the section entitled "How Many Seats Will Each Party Control?" where they note they ran 250,000 simulations and the most likely outcome was 48/52 Dem/Rep. There is a 53% chance of the results being 49/51, 48/52, or 47/53, according to their results.

[ussusimiel]

Watching the results live on ABC, looks like the 'Pubs will get control of the Senate (even if it takes until some run-offs in December/January). Interestingly Mitch McConnell sounded much more placatory about bipartisanship in the Senate. The results seemed to be a strong vote against poor governing, with the Dems losing in the Senate and the GOP losing in the races for governor.

Also a strong indication that an Independent candidate with proper financial backing could be have a real chance at the Presidency in 2016.

u.

[Hashi Lebwohl]

At this time, 0349 UTC, even CNN is stating that the Republican Party is only one confirmed seat away from having a majority in the Senate but it really all depends upon Iowa, Alaska, North Carolina, Virginia, and especially Georgia and Kansas. We should know with more certainty by 0600 UTC.

Everyone is already planning on Republican control of both Houses, though. The DOJ went ahead and released a lot of documents relating to Fast and Furious while the high-level talks in the closed-door, smoke-filled rooms of the DNC are figuring out just who should run in 2016.

[SoulBiter]

Reps needed 6 seats and they picked up at least 12 so far..... the most Rep majority since 1946 I read this morning.

[ussusimiel]

...while the high-level talks in the closed-door, smoke-filled rooms of the DNC are figuring out just who should run in 2016.

There was a lot of talk about this on ABC last night, particularly about potential challengers* not wanting to be seen to be co-operating with Obama in any way. The general consensus was that the likely result will be more deadlock not less

u.

* A new name that came out of the pack last night was Ohio senator, John Kasich, who was reelected comfortably. Ohio is a key state and being guaranteed to win it is a big plus when it comes to election time.

[Zarathustra]

My god, that was a shellacking. Not only historical gains in both Houses, but also in governor races in liberal states. I mostly watched Fox's coverage, but it was interesting flipping over to MSNBC and CNN, too. Chris Matthews was saying some extremely positive things about Rand Paul. In fact, he said that he wished there was a single Democrat who was saying anything as new/interesting as what Paul is saying. As I've been suggesting for weeks now, I think Paul has a real chance to bridge the gap between the parties, definitely the ability to get moderates, but also some Dems, too. He's the only Republican courting the black vote, for instance. I think it's time to see what a Libertarian-ish President can do, especially with a Republican Congress. The Dems had their chance at one-party rule and blew it. Now it's the other side's turn.

[Orlion]

There was a lot of talk about this on ABC last night, particularly about potential challengers* not wanting to be seen to be co-operating with Obama in any way. The general consensus was that the likely result will be more deadlock not less

u.

* A new name that came out of the pack last night was Ohio senator, John Kasich, who was reelected comfortably. Ohio is a key state and being guaranteed to win it is a big plus when it comes to election time.

That's because the only people who would have ever voted for Fitzgerald are those who only vote Democrat no matter what. The Democrats would have had a much better chance at winning the Ohio governor seat if they nominated a soggy piece of toast.

[SoulBiter]

yeah that was HUGE and unexpected.

Harry Reid says

"The message from voters is clear: they want us to work together," Reid said. "I look forward to working with Senator McConnell to get things done for the middle class."

OK so does that mean that the voters knew they(the dems) were trying NOT to work with Reps? If the Reps were really the party of 'No' then wouldnt the outcome of the election be the opposite?

I think he just doesn't get it. But I'm not surprised that he doesn't get it.

As Mitch McConnell said, it will be nice to get some bills off Harry Reids desk and get them to the floor for a vote. The Senate has been obstructing the process for long enough. I don't think a single bill that wasn't originated in the Senate, has been able to pass in the last 6 years. But bills are always supposed to originate in the House.